if they can appeal to our mind and emotions, then soon our will gives its consenting vote. We then go out and buy whatever they want us to buy. This is just like how it all started back in the Garden of Eden. Satan came along and he appealed to Eve’s mind, and he said, “You will be like God” (Genesis 3:5). Then he appealed to her emotions and showed her that the fruit was good and desirable. And very quickly, the will capitulated, the couple made a disobedient move, and human sin entered the universe. Paul calls Satan “the god of this age” in 2 Corinthians 4:4. Jesus called him the “prince of this world” (John 12:31). Satan took Jesus to a high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of this world in Matthew 4:8–9. Satan said, “All this I will give you if you will bow down and worship me.” The only reason that was a temptation was because Satan could have delivered the goods. We are absolutely living in futility and folly when we think that the world is in God’s corner. We know that it is not. It lies in the hands of the enemy. So, the “god of this age,” Paul said, “has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4). There’s the problem. Satan has blinded the eyes of the natural man.
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