can satan tempt us to do good things?

Question

or does he only tempt us to do bad? does he have a choice? or is everything he does naturally evil?

Answer 1

wow... a question from an athiest in the making... he's usually considered the bad guy... can you see a bad guy doing good...

Answer 2

Yes and No.
As said in the bible, everything that Satan does is a lie. However, some actions may seem good on surface but the long term consequence is bad.
For eg, take the example of Hitler. In his initial part of his life he did good things to get into power. Later, when he got intoxicated with the power, his motives changed from just helping others to control and conquering the world!
In some ways, what happens is that when one is tempted by Satan to do good things, he is subtly trying to awaken the ego and make the person think that he is good when in reality the only good and pure person is God!

Answer 3

Well, sometimes he tempts us to do things that we "perceive" to be good but ultimately lead to things that do not benefit us spiritually. It is helpful to remember that Satan does not come at us with a tail and pitchfork. If he did, we would naturally run the other way. So he usually comes at us with seemingly good things. Thus we read at 2 Corinthians 11:13-15 that "Satan himself keeps transforming himself into an angel of light. It is therefore nothing great if his ministers also keep transforming themselves into ministers of righteousness.”

This assists us in recognizing the reality that Satan can very well appear as good and not bad. But that he is thoroughly wicked there is no question. He is never impelled to influence to good because his heart has now become completely corrupted. As for choice, all of God's intelligent creation (humans and angels) have free will - that is, the ability to choose a path or conduct. The angel who made himself Satan the Devil is no different.

I hope that helps you a bit.

Hannah J Paul

Answer 4

Wow ,a lot of responses and opinions to your question. Unfortunately opinions are just that and are not to be trusted. The truth from the Bible however can be trusted., it is a shame that most here do not follow such truth.(shown by their answers) About your specific questions ''How SPECIFICALLY does Satan tempt us?'' Well . consider these two scripture passages. 1 John 5:19 ''We know we originate with God, but the whole world is lying in the [power of the] wicked one.'' Romans 1:28-31- ''And just as they did not approve of holding God in accurate knowledge, God gave them up to a disapproved mental state, to do the things not fitting, filled as they were with all unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, badness, being full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malicious disposition, being whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, insolent, haughty, self-assuming, inventors of injurious things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, false to agreements, having no natural affection, merciless'' Simplifying it , it says that the whole world is in the power of the wicked one. The wicked on is Satan the devil. Satan has set up a world empire of false religion. It doesn't matter what religion a person belongs to , the fact is if it is not in harmony with what is really taught in the Bible then you are actually following Satan. The vast majority of the worlds population are in such a position , and the result ,,is shown in the second passage. Doesn't that description well fit the characteristics of most people today. Because the majority of people alive today do not follow the true God Jehovah , then there is no need for Satan to tempt them - they are already HIS.! So Satan doesn't need to tempt those people , only those relatively few that ARE serving God correctly. Primarily this is done by allowing the corrupting influences from all of Satan's followers to rub off on the good ones. Satan cannot force anyone to do something they don't want to do , he cannot control our minds. For more Bible based information please feel free to email me.

Answer 5

This will probably fly in the face of alot of Christians, but one must understand that Satan is the Great Imitator of God. That's what got him into trouble, so to speak,in the first place because he wanted to be "like the Most High", but in a very wrong way. Satan is often more of a "do-gooder" than alot of people would think, and possesses within himself all the knowledge of creation and how it was done. You must remember that Satan is a very powerful Cherub who was present when God designed, made, and created all of creation-including us. He has knowledge and power over physical laws, too. He is, however, bound by God in his use of them. And his power of persuasion is higher than that of man's. He's not, however, unbeatable. He can tempt you to do evil and good as long as it suits his agenda. the discerning Christian/believer will be clever enough and knowledgeable enough to see the difference, and not fall for his endless mind-games.

Answer 6

Satan doesn't care if you do good things just so long as you don't give glory to God. Sometimes we are tempted to do good things by the devil so that our natural pride and the arrogance of the flesh wil take over and we will fall away from God. When there is a loss of memory and confusion about who it is that we are serving then the devil has snared us.

Answer 7

interesting.. the sermon from this past sunday at my church was about this subject :). it was on Acts 19, and the story is on people who rebuked a spirit in Jesus's name, and Paul's name..and the spirit answered "I know Jesus, i know paul, but who are YOU???" and that we need to 1) Know our enemy, and 2) have Faith that Jesus Christ is all, and not be afraid.

did you know that Jews actually believed that Satan IS an angel. not a Fallen angel, but an angel who's JOB is to tempt us. the thing is, Angels were not created to have Free Will as humans are, so how could an Angel "fall"? also, an angel KNOWS that God is the supreme being...why would he fool himself into thinking that he could become Greater than God?

here is an example that i thought was quite interesting. remember that movie "Willy wonka and the chocolate factory"? the Old one, not the johnny depp one. when each kid got the golden ticket, a creepy guy named Slugsworth said he would give them money in exchange for secrets from the factory. one by one, each child breaks the rules, and when Charlie does as well, Wonka gets quite upset. in the end, charlie ends up giving the candy back to Wonka, even though he is so Poor and would NEED the money the most...and the Slugsworth guy comes out and says he was Working for wonka the whole time!

so if you could think of Satan as the Slugsworth character, employed to do his job of tempting people, in order for us to learn and make a choice of what is Good....it puts things into perspective that Satan is not something to be necessarily AFRAID of. as long as u have Faith in Jesus Christ that we are free from sin (Romans 1-8), then the devil has no power over you.

another thing from the sermon was that the Snake was a TOOL used by the devil to tempt us, and that we as christians need to care about NOT being a "tool" used by the devil to cause Negativity and Unhappiness in this life. the snake was cursed for it...and we don't want to be that kind of person, who accuses and causes someone else to sin.

good luck~

Answer 8

Why would Satan want to tempt us to do good things which would glorify God who is his arch enemy? He only tempts us to do the bad and unwise things and everything he does and tempts us to do is naturally evil and wrong. Good luck and God Bless.

Answer 9

I personally believe that everything he does, is naturally evil.
When You have to tempt someone, You usually do not tempt him to do good!
what is temptation?.

Answer 10

well he had a choice to rebel against GOD, and look where that got him....yeah i guess he can tempt us to do good, but he hates God and God encourages us to do good and if satan tempted us to do good what good will it do him if he's pretty much helping God out by doing that?

satan and God will be at constant war with eachother until Jesus comes back for a thousand year reign. satan hates God......so i guess satan can tempt us, but he wont.

Answer 11

its satan's in nature to tempt the humans to do bad acts.he cant tempt us to perform good deeds.