Week 7 - The Kingdom of Darkness

The Good News of the Bible is a Story of 2 Kingdoms—and a Rescuer King. This Good News is briefly explained in 2 Kingdoms. In this 4-part Bible study, we’ll take a deep dive into:

Let’s start with the kingdom of darkness. This kingdom is ruled by Satan and marked by sin and slavery. This is the bad news of the Good News.

The kingdom of darkness started way back in the Beginning.

In the Beginning, God created the heavens and the earth “good” (see Genesis 1-2). Both the visible part of creation (the physical world) and the invisible part of creation (the spiritual world or heavenly realms) were good.

Part of God’s good creation was the creation of our First Parents Adam and Eve. God created them to have a loving relationship with Him and a caretaking relationship with the world. In other words, God gave them authority to rule the world on His behalf.

However, there was rebellion in this spiritual world against God’s authority. The timing and details of this heavenly rebellion aren’t all that clear. But it’s clear that this heavenly revolt preceded and provoked an earthly revolt when Satan showed up in the Garden of Eden as a serpent (see Genesis 3 and Revelation 12:7-9).

Satan tempted Adam and Eve to rebel against God’s authority. And when they fell for Satan’s lie and disobeyed God’s command, humanity’s rebellion opened the door for Satan to exercise authority over the world. This is when the world became the kingdom of darkness.

This dark kingdom is based on this demonic lie. 

Genesis 3:4-5 (NIV)

4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Believing this lie has led to all the brokenness (broken relationships, promises, desires, dreams, bodies and institutions, along with the brokenness of division, racism, murder and wars) and all the death (physical and eternal) we experience. Our personal participation in this darkness is our own sinful rebellion. We desire to be our own gods rather than let God be God. We desire to be our own kings and queens rather than follow God’s Kingship. And all of this ultimately leads to slavery to Satan. 

The point is, if we’re not going to follow God’s will, we end up following Satan’s will. So Satan now has authority over the people, the structures and the systems of our world. In fact, Jesus goes so far as to say that Satan is the ruler of this world (John 12:31).

While some embrace the darkness through dark spirituality and living, most try to escape the darkness. But there is no escape. We are slaves of Satan’s dark kingdom.

Jesus, however, came to reclaim the world as His Kingdom and rescue the lost as His people. Satan tried his best to deflect Jesus from His mission of bringing God’s Kingdom and setting captives free. For example, during Satan’s temptation of Jesus, we read:

Luke 4:5-8 (NIV)

5 The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. 7 If you worship me, it will all be yours.”

8 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”

• To whom do the kingdoms of the world belong?

• Why was this a temptation for Jesus?

Once again, Jesus came to reestablish God’s Kingdom on earth. Or as the Apostle John put it, The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work (1 John 3:8). The way Jesus would bring God’s Kingdom and destroy the devil’s work, though, would be through dying on the cross for our sins and rising from the dead to new life. 

Satan, however, offers Jesus a shortcut. “Since the kingdoms of the world belong to me, if you bow down to me, I’ll just give them to you. How easy is that?!” That, of course, would have given the kingdoms of the world back to Jesus, but then Satan would still be in charge and we would still be his captives. Praise God, Jesus said, “No deal! I’m going to worship the Lord God and do things His way.”

The following passage gives a comprehensive description of what “life” is like in the kingdom of darkness.

Ephesians 2:1-3 (CSB)

1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins 2 in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. 3 We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also.

That is a sobering description of what life is like in the kingdom of darkness. 

• How would you put this passage in your own words?

• How have you seen the kingdom of darkness around you? In you?

And the kingdom of darkness isn’t just out there; it’s in here—in our hearts. Once again, our personal participation in the kingdom of darkness is our sin. Like Satan, we are in sinful rebellion against God’s authority. So Satan isn’t just at work out there in the world; he’s at work in us.

John 3:19 (NIV)

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.

Though the Light has come through the person and ministry of Jesus, we naturally recoil from His light because of the darkness in ourselves called sin.

The question, then, is Who’s in the kingdom of darkness? 

The Apostle John puts it this way.

1 John 5:19 (GNT)

We know that we belong to God even though the whole world is under the rule of the Evil One.

• Who’s under the rule of the Evil One or Satan?

We would like to think that even though we haven’t committed our lives fully to God and so we don’t really belong to Him yet, at least we’re not under the rule of Satan. Or even though we’re not in the Kingdom of Light, at least we’re not in the kingdom of darkness. We see ourselves as somewhere in between. We’re just doing our own thing. But according to this passage, to do our own thing or to be our own king actually means Satan is our ruler and we are captives of his kingdom. And this is everyone’s default. Everyone is born into the kingdom of darkness because everyone is a sinner by nature and by choice. As the Apostle John says, The whole world is under the rule of the Evil One.

• In light of what you have discovered through the Bible readings and your personal reflections, how will you respond? Finish this sentence: “I will …”

That’s the bad news of the kingdom of darkness. In Day 2, we’ll look at the Good News of the Kingdom of Light.