The World or the Satanic System

It is appropriate to consider the nature of the world that constitutes his kingdom. What a web is to a spider, what bait is to the angler, what a lure is to the fowler, so is the world to Satan a means of capturing men.

What is the world of which Satan is god?

To differenti ate this word-kosmos-from other words translated "world," it might be helpful to adopt the term "world system," for that is its connotation. The world, as Paul and John used it, is human society organized in such a way as to exclude God, to make Him superfluous. It refers to the great evil system over which Satan exercises despotic power.

Its master principles are not love and self-sacrifice, but selfishness, greed, ambition, pleasure, and force (Matthew 4:8-9; John 12:31; 18:36; Ephesians 2:2; 1 John 2:15-17)

"We know," wrote John,". . . the whole world lies in the power of the evil one" (1 John 5:19). As its presid ing genius, Satan enunciates its objectives and plots its policies. The world embraces all unregenerated men whether amiable or unlovable, because they are united in a common desire and purpose to be independent of God. It is called "this evil world," and it hates the Christ who testified of it "that its deeds are evil" (John 7:7).

Concerning the satanic world-system, C. I. Scofield writes: doms of the world" used by Satan in the temptation was in common use to describe the Roman Empire, which grasped most of the known world in its tentacles. The control of the world was surrendered to Satan by the first man, who yielded his God-given sovereignty over the earth and creation to the usurper. Even after Calvary's victory, when Christ won back man's forfeited inheri tance, Satan's control of this world-system has been per mitted to continue for reasons that God deems wise.

It is not difficult to recognize the hallmark of satanic control of the world-system in the corruption, deceit, and pollution that characterizes its policies and politics.