"Let us boldly affirm that whatever mischief Satan is allowed to do, it is always appointed by God for the ultimate service of and benefit to the saints." (pg. 13ff)
"Our age believes in a tame devil. He is eager to serve our need to explain the existence of evil and willing to be a symbolic description of the horrors we struggle to understand." (pg. 19)
"We must stand in awe of a God who can use a rebel to glorify His name. We must never see Satan without seeing God." (pg. 22)
"Lucifer's bad judgment is a warning to us. We must never think that our obedience is best for God, but not best for us. When God commands us to obey Him, he no only has His best interests in mind but ours too." (pg. 28)
"If we really knew God, we would always choose righteousness. Satan's opening gambit is always intended to cause us to think wrongly about the Almighty." (pg. 44)
"...The devil is just as much God's servant in his rebellion as he was God's servant in the days of his sweet obedience." (pg. 102)
"A thousand devils cannot keep a soul from believing in Christ if God has chosen to grant such a one the gift of life." (pg. 104)
"Satan never becomes our friend, for he hates us and seeks our destruction, but he can do us good if he is sent by God to purify us. God uses Satan to show us that God's grace can be sufficient even in the thorns of life." (pg. 113)
"The devil does not have absolute power over human beings; he simply takes a bad situation and makes it worse. He tempts us with evil, but at the end of the day it is we who do what we want to do. Let us face up to our own sins, the sins of the flesh." (pg. 153)
"Control - the desire to own, possess, and command - is the fruit of self-will. It is just one more characteristic that we share, at least in some way, with the Evil One." (pg. 159)
"We must get beyond the notion that something has to be pleasant in order for it to be good. We must also get beyond the notion that if it is from Satan it is bad. Of course Satan means it to be bad, but God means it to be good. Satan's attacks can only be bad if we respond to them wrongly." (pg. 164)
"When we are willing to put "to death the deeds of the body" (Romans 8:13), we will no longer tell God what He can and cannot use to refine us. The ownership of our lives will have been transferred, and we will believe that God is greater than our circumstances and the devil, who often is permitted to arrange them." (pg. 164ff)
"Whether our day has been good or bad, our basis for approaching God is always the same, namely, the blood of Christ. And whether our guilt is objective (the guilt that appears before God) or subjective (the feelings of guilt we have within our own consciences), the remedy is always the same: the blood of Christ." (pg. 176ff)
Erwin W. Lutzer, The Serpent of Paradise: The Incredible Story of How Satan's Rebellion Serves God's Purposes (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1996)
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