Did you know that Satan is an artist? Make no mistake, he sits before the easel with palette and brush in hand. His subject? God Himself. No doubt you’ve seen his work, though perhaps at the time you didn’t recognize him as the artist. No doubt you’ve bought a few of his paintings, only to find out later that they were fakes.

He’s had a long time to perfect his craft. He knows what will induce people to buy his artistic renderings. He’s smart, shrewd, and sinister. And he has a very specific agenda: dishonoring God and destroying people.

God is holy, but he paints God as indifferent about sin. God forgives sinners, but he paints God as a chronically angry judge. God is good, but he paints God as cruel and uncaring. God is close to His children, but he paints God as distant. God desires our best, but he paints God as desiring our worst. God gives good gifts, but he paints God as withholding good gifts. God ordains and causes grief and pain, but he paints God as delighting in our pain and motivated by a desire to see us suffer. God is powerful, but he paints God as impotent. God is compassionate, but he paints God as harsh. God’s ways are worth obeying, but he paints God’s ways as foolish and unsatisfying.

Each of us are tempted to gravitate toward certain sketches he offers, based on our life circumstances, our innate strengths and weaknesses, and the particular sins and idolatries in our hearts. He knows what to sell and how to sell it with specificity that is alarming. And without exception, every single one of his paintings is a fake, a fraud, and a fib. As soon as he can get you to define God’s character based on your own opinions, your painful circumstances, or the opinions of the world, he’s got you where he wants you. And friends, that is where none of us want to be.

The Son of God came to destroy the works of Satan. DESTROY them! As Martin Luther wrote, “His rage we can endure, for lo his doom is sure, one little word shall fell him.” And until his final doom occurs on the day of the Lord, he can be felled by the Word of God written and the Word of God incarnate. Only the Word of God has the power to reveal his paintings as the heinous caricatures of God that they truly are. More than that, we not only have God’s Words to enable us to see the true picture of God’s character, but the very face of God and person of God in human form, the God-man Jesus Christ. What is God really like? Look at Jesus. He is the exact representation of God’s nature (Hebrews 1).

Not only must we fight in our own souls not to buy his work, but we must help each other not to buy his work. Or if we have, to get it out of the house of our hearts and throw it in the dumpster. His artwork has no place in our homes, and no place in the homes of our brothers and sisters. May we not be outwitted by him nor ignorant of his designs (2 Corinthians 2:11), but rather, may the pure light of God’s Word utterly expose him and enable us to see God for who He truly is.