So you are saying that Satan is just as powerful as God and can throw Gods plans into chaos? Does God allow Satan to thwart his plans or is Satan part of God’s plan? If Satan is part of Gods plan, then the God of the Bible is a bad god and shouldn’t be worshiped or loved. This is what the Hebrews and later Jews adopted from Persia when they were taken by Nebuchadnezzar. The main religion of Persia at the time was Zoroastrianism and taught about the dualism of Good verses Evil. The good was Ahura Mazda and the evil was Angra Mainyu.
The article does not say that “Satan is just as powerful as God”. Satan is a creature who used his free will to rebel against God, as do so many other creatures.
The article is rather precise in this distinction:
“PRETERNATURAL is that which is beyond the natural but is not strictly supernatural. It is preternatural either because natural forces are used by God to produce effects beyond their native capacity, or because above human forces, angelic or demonic, are active in the world of space and time (Etym. Latin praeter, beyond + natura, nature.).”
We too as humans have been given great power from God. Years ago I was amazed to think that God gave us even the capabilities to create an Atom Bomb!
God always takes the back seat, and then in the end defeats Satan in his pride. In this way it is much more humiliating to Satan, full of pride, to believe that he is victorious and then to be crushed in his pride in the end (Gen 3:15).
Also as pointed out in the article:
“Jesus came into the world 2000 years ago in great humility and poverty at Bethlehem and died naked on a cross to draw all those willing to follow Him in poverty and suffering.”
If Jesus came the first time in power and glory, most would follow him because there is something in this for me, rather than following Christ in true love. This would be like a husband keeping the wife as long as she offers what the husband wants, and later gets rid of her. Jesus wants to know if we love him in true love, and if so, then we will see Him in all of his glory and power!
I might also add that many scholars believe that the angels at the beginning of creation were given a certain amount of knowledge about what we read in Rev. 12. Lucifer was not willing to bow down to the “future” God-man Christ, nor to honor the Mother of God, the “woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars”! So too many human beings will not enter heaven due to this lack of true humility.
Humility is simply the truth of who we are and who God is.
As written in the article:
“In heaven there is room for one God, not two.”