For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. –Ephesians 6:12

Yesterday “Unknowable” urged me, “Think about the atrocious matters which you report on daily.” I’m thinking, I’m thinking…

The question is, Does Satan truly rule this world? Well, first look again at that “Let’s all worship Satan” T-shirt. I’ve been kind of concentrating, in my reporting, on spiritual wickedness in low places. I can’t get at the rulers of darkness, but all this other stuff is right out in the open where we can all see it: the lust for power over others, the denial of God’s absolute authority, the cruelty, the wickedness, and the sheer stupidity of it all. To me it always looks like the jerks who want to rule the world are just–well, jerks.

As Christians we try to extend Christ’s Kingdom, wherever we happen to be–at home, at work, in the public square. At the same time, the jerks labor feverishly to extend the Kingdom of Man, the state. Some of you think they do it because they’re satanists. I think most of them have no idea they’re satanists: they think they’re doing it for themselves. Some of them even think they’re doing it for us, and it infuriates them when we don’t seem to appreciate their efforts.

From whence come those atrocious matters which I report on daily? I think they sprout from the seed of Original Sin. And from the seed of moral idiocy. From a culture that grows more depraved by the day. It gets that way because people work to make it so.

They’re proud of it. They think they’re the bee’s knees. R.J. Rushdoony cites a European Union poster that says, “This time we will make it work.” Uh-huh. Yeah. This time their insane follies, which have failed abjectly again and again and again, will work. Because they’re so smart, it’s all bound to work.

I don’t think Satan needs people to worship him consciously. I think he gets a bigger kick out of them thinking it’s all their own brilliant ideas. The Kingdom of Man can be satanic without a lot of black masses and yahoos in black robes dancing around a fire. In fact, it probably is a lot more effective when it’s coming from smart-sounding people sitting in offices and claiming to be guided by Science.

It’ll be up to Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God and King of Kings, to toss the powers, principalities, and rulers of darkness into the lake of fire where they belong. Meanwhile, here on earth, God has not given Satan the power to compel us to worship him.

The Lord commands us, “Occupy until I come” (Luke 19:13). That’s what we’re to do, in as many different ways as we can think of. All we can do, as the old hymn puts it, is “Trust and Obey.”

When you think of it, that’s really quite a lot for us to do.