I’m not much of a poker player, nor am I a gambling man, but I’m fascinated by the game itself. My friend Daryl was quite a skilled player, and he taught me the basics of Texas Hold’em.

No matter which type of poker you play, it all comes down to not tipping your hand and never letting your opponent know what cards you’re holding or what your strategy is. In simplest terms, you hide what you’re up to until the very end of the hand, when you show your cards and everyone knows the score.

The ancient rebellion, in which the souls of men and women hang in the balance, is a battle Satan wages against God, and it’s completely one-sided. If God is the house (the one who really owns all the chips) and Satan is the player, the house always wins. The player may take a hand here or there, but in the end, God wins. He will always win.

Now, there may be the illusion, at least in the adversary’s eyes, that he’s getting his licks in and winning on some level, but ultimately, he will lose. In fact, he’s already lost!

Why? Because Jesus came and paid the sin debt of humanity in full on the cross, then rose again from the dead, conquering both the power of sin and death. 

Satan is brilliant, much smarter than you or me, but he does not hold all the cards. God does. And because of this, Satan’s greatest apparent victory turned out to be his greatest defeat, sealing his eternal fate in the lake of fire. 

To understand how that happened, we need to see how well God kept His cards hidden.

In the first century, the Jewish people lived under the Roman yoke and longed for deliverance from their military occupiers. Many hoped the Messiah would be a military leader, the conquering King who would overthrow Rome and establish an earthly kingdom, since the Hebrew Scriptures describe Him this way. This is Messiah, Son of David. But the quandary is that the Old Testament also reveals another mission: Messiah, Son of Joseph, the Suffering Servant.

Even today, some rabbis who reject Jesus as Messiah speculate there could be two Messiahs, since the Jewish Bible, the Old Testament, clearly contains two motifs regarding Messiah’s mission. As a Jewish Christian, I believe there is only one Messiah: He came the first time as the Suffering Servant, and He is coming again as the Conquering King. 

If some Jewish people, and even at times the disciples, were confused about Messiah’s mission, so was Satan. The devil obviously didn’t think Jesus’ death was the mission at all. He may have assumed Jesus intended to overthrow Rome and establish an earthly kingdom, which would put the adversary out of business, so to speak.

With this in mind, we can understand why Satan went all out to eliminate Jesus. From Herod’s murderous rage, to the Jewish religious leaders’ various conspiracies to take Him out, to the betrayal of Judas, Satan was raging, roaring, and warring. At the cross, it must have seemed to Satan that victory was finally within his grasp.

Imagine the shock of thinking you had won, only to discover you had sealed your defeat. Such was the cross of Christ to Satan, the hater of all things related to God, especially of His redemptive plan to save mankind. As Paul declared in Colossians 2:15, at the cross Jesus “disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.” 

Then God showed His hand. The tomb is empty. Jesus is risen! He has conquered the power of sin and death. Satan went all in and lost. God has won the victory in Messiah. And because He is victorious, we who know Him also share in His victory. Hallelujah!

“Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.” – 2 Corinthians 2:14

Join Us in Bristol

The war Satan has waged against God did not begin at the cross, and it did not end there for the people God chose. In my new book, Satan’s Long War on Israel, I trace that ancient conflict from the Garden of Eden to today’s headlines, and show why the outcome has never been in doubt.

I’ll be unveiling the book at the Prophecy in the News Live conference in Bristol, Virginia, October 22–24, and teaching from it on Friday, October 23, at 1:30 p.m. Come join us, and stop by the book table to pick up a signed copy. Registration is required, so be sure to sign up here.