Job 1:6

In the early days of our nation, many men had left their Christianity behind to become Deists. One of their beliefs was that God was little more than a clockmaker who fashioned the world, wound it up, and let it go without further interference. We see their error, but do we sometimes make the same mistake with Satan? Do we ever think of the devil as a "wicked clockmaker"? Do we think the devil and his mischief are working somewhere else, but that he doesn't really touch our lives?

וַיְהִי הַיּוֹם וַיָּבֹאוּ בְּנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים לְהִתְיַצֵּב עַל יְהוָה וַיָּבוֹא גַם הַשָּׂטָן בְּתוֹכָם

6 There was a day when the angels came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.

This verse causes a great many people to wonder what's going on. The angels (the Hebrew says בְּנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים  "sons of God," another term for the angels) came before God, and our author uses the hithpael infinitive לְהִתְיַצֵּב to depict a sort of back-and-forth motion to the way they arrange themselves before God, the way new soldiers line up by looking at each other's shoulders as they snap to attention. The angels are all specially arranged before God, but then here is another one בְּתוֹכָם"in their midst," and after the beauty of the first expression, there is a definite rudeness to the later word, "in their midst" (NIV "with them"). He wasn't part of God's heavenly arrangement. He had abandoned his place, and now he showed up like a bug in the sugar bowl.

Who is this "other one"? He is הַשָּׂטָן ha-Satan, the Satan, or simply Satan as we call him. The Hebrew word satan means "prosecuting attorney," or "opponent." It can simply stand for a human adversary in a courtroom (Psalm 109:6), but usually in the Bible this word is a title for the devil. The devil's two main mischiefs are present in his two names. "Devil" (Greek διαβόλος diabolos) means "liar," and shows us that he will do anything, speak any lie, twist any truth, to get us to sin. Once he has led us astray, off goes the "devil" hat and pop! on goes his "Satan" hat, and he begins to accuse us: How could you? God will never forgive your sin. You aren't worthy of forgiveness. How could God be so cruel as to make rules that make you unhappy?

There is only one way to heaven; one single degree setting on a compass with 359 other degrees that don't lead to eternal life. The devil doesn't care which degree we take, as long as it isn't that one that points to Christ.