So, God's just giving us a picture in the first five verses of the kind of guy that
Job was.
Look at verse 6.
Now, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord.
And Satan came also among them, and the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou?
Then Satan answered the Lord and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking
up and down in it.
Now, let's stop right there and understand that the devil is not in hell, because people
have this misconception that the devil is down in hell, and many people even have the
misconception that he is ruling and reigning in hell.
Like Porky Pig, you know, when, you remember when people on Looney Tunes used to die and
go to hell?
Who knows what I'm talking about?
Who grew up with Looney Tunes?
On Looney Tunes, you know, let's say the Wile E. Coyote takes a misstep, you know, he's
after Road Runner, and he falls off a cliff, and you know, he just, when his body stops
but his soul just keeps going down.
You know what I'm talking about?
Wile E. Coyote, you know, bam!
And then the body, the body, the soul descends into hell.
And who's there waiting for him down in hell?
Porky Pig.
With a pitchfork, and he's the devil, you know.
But look, that's not biblical, okay?
Because the devil is not in hell, the devil has never even been to hell that there's any
evidence of, okay?
The devil is walking about on the earth.
The Bible says, be sober, be vigilant, for your adversary the devil as a roaring lion
walketh about seeking whom he may devour.
He's walking about.
And here, when God asks Satan where he's been, he says, from going to and fro in the earth
and from walking up and down it.
Satan is on this earth, he goes up and down the earth looking to make trouble for God's
people, looking to pervert that which is righteous, looking to promote false religion, okay?
And he also goes back and forth between earth and heaven.
Because notice, he's walking up and down the earth, then he goes up and presents himself
before the Lord and speaks to the Lord.
Then he goes back down to earth.
In chapter 2, he's going to be back talking to the Lord again in heaven.
Now you say, well, when was the devil cast out of heaven?
The devil has not yet been cast out of heaven.
And to me, it boggles my mind how this goes over people's heads sometimes.
Because people sit there and debate, I remember when I was in Bible college, they're debating
about when was the devil cast out of heaven.
You know, was it before Genesis 1, 1?
Was it, you know, right before the Garden of Eden?
You know, was it when Christ was crucified?
You know, they're going back and forth.
And I raised my hand and said, the devil has not yet been cast out of heaven because the
devil's going to be cast out of heaven in Revelation chapter 12.
And Revelation chapter 12 is where the devil is cast out.
And when he's cast out, you know what it says?
The accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and
night.
Well, in Job 1, what do we see the devil doing?
Accusing Job before God, accusing the brother, accusing a saint before God.
And that's exactly what it says in Revelation 12, when he's cast down in verse 10, talks
about him being cast out of heaven.
He's the accuser of the brethren and it says that when he is cast out, he knows he only
has a short time and he goes to persecute the woman.
He persecutes the woman for a thousand two hundred and three score days, which is three
and a half years.
He persecutes the seed of the woman, you know, for additional time after that.
So what we see is that the devil is cast out at the very beginning of the tribulation.
Okay?
Right at the beginning of the tribulation, the devil will be cast out.
That has not yet happened.
Okay, the Bible often talks about the things which be not as though they were because the
Bible talks about, for example, the crucifixion of Christ in Isaiah 53, seven hundred years
before it happened, in the past tense, despised, rejected, okay, brought as the lamb to the
slaughter.
Why?
Because God calls the things which be not as though they were.
He knows the end from the beginning.
He talks about things that have already, that are going to happen in the future as if they've
already happened because he dwells outside of time.
He dwells in eternity.
He inhabits eternity.
So what I'm saying is that the devil will be cast out in the tribulation.
Until then, he spends time in heaven accusing the brethren and he spends time on this earth.
He's what?
The tempter.
He's our adversary.