POWER PERVERTED - Kenneth Copeland

It was not until Satan entered the picture that the power of words was perverted to bring death and destruction.

Satan is not a god. He is a fallen angel. He is not in the God class. Consequently, there is no creative power in him. As an angel of God, Satan (or Lucifer) was forbidden to act by his own will; but he chose to exalt himself over God. He tried to use the power of words against God when he said, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High (Is. 14:13, 14).

By choosing his own words, Satan broke a cardinal law in the spirit world. He violated the limits of His authority and chose to stand against God. He said, “I will be like the Most High. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God!” But God would not stand for it. He answered, Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit (Is. 14:15).

At that point, their words clashed and God’s Word—the Word of a free Spirit, a Spirit with authority—reigned victoriously over the word of an angelic power. Immediately, Satan was expelled from heaven. By using cunning and deception, Satan approached Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. In Genesis, chapter 3, we see how he very subtly used the words God had spoken to them as a challenge to their faith and obedience. God had said, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die (Gen. 2:16,17). But Satan came in the form of a serpent and said to them, Yea, hath God said…? The Amplified Bible translates it: Can it really be that God has said…?

First Timothy 2:14 says the woman was deceived, but the man was not. Adam had his eyes wide open. He knew what he was doing when he disobeyed God’s command and took the forbidden fruit. Through that disobedience, Satan was able to obtain authority in the earth. He became man’s god, or as 2 Corinthians 4:4 calls him, the god of this world.

Though he has no creative power of his own, Satan uses the creative power in man’s words to manipulate the circumstances of the world. Everything he produces is only a counterfeit of the real. He takes what God has already created and perverts it to his own use.

James 3:6 tells us that the tongue is set on fire of hell. Satan desires the use of men’s tongues. Tongues of creatures in the God class are much more powerful. Man was created in God’s image.

-The Power of the Tongue

POWER PERVERTED - Kenneth Copeland