Christmas - The Day God Outsmarted Satan

Christmas – The Day God Outsmarted Satan

Khen Lim

Image source: John Ankerberg Show

The battle between good and bad takes its ultimate form between God and the fallen angel, Satan. No other battle is as cataclysmic as this. None compare in scale, scope and depth. Just so you know, not even a nuclear war comes close. 

Between God and Satan, there’s no love lost. Satan means it when he says he’d wage the battle of battles to thwart the Lord but history has proven that in the ones that matter, God has and will always outwit him. He’s so good at it that we can all be thankful. 

As we near the day we celebrate the birth of Christ, here’s one of those precious moments that Satan would rather forget but it encourages us to be constantly reminded.

One of the foremost reasons why Satan cannot be a match for God is very obvious. God is the Creator of the Universe. He is also the one who created Satan. He created him as a much favoured angel but he fell from grace and the rest, as they say, is history. 

Being a created being, Satan has none of God’s supremacy. He isn’t omniscient – as we shall see, he clearly lacks the knowledge that God has. He isn’t omnipresence – unlike Him, he cannot be everywhere at the same time. He may despatch his demons but that’s not the same as being there himself. He also isn’t omnipotent – he doesn’t possess the enormity of power, which means it is inevitable that God will eventually destroy him. 

You could say that the Lord is simply biding His time right now but the day will come when Satan will become history. And we all rejoice and look forward to that outcome.

Without the expanse of knowledge, space and power, Satan will always be at least a few steps behind God. He has no clear idea what He plans to do and can only depend on what he knows of Him during his pre-fall tenure as His favoured angel. 

Though apparently he can read, it is doubtful he can unravel details even from Scripture and that’s because, unlike us Christians, the Holy Spirit does not dwell in him and therefore does not guide his understanding. 

Therefore Satan sees things the way the world sees things. He does not have God’s perspective and neither does he think the way He does. Without the divine angle, Satan doesn’t have a hope.

The interesting thing about Satan is that he knew for Jesus to successfully go to the cross would be his undoing and yet that was what he ended up with. He knew what God was up to and yet he could not stop Jesus from being crucified for he knew the power that would be unleashed in such an event. 

As a matter of fact, the big question here is why did Satan drive Judas to do what he did, knowing that death and resurrection would result in his final defeat (Col 2:13-15, Rev 12:11)?

After all, Satan was the one who did his best in turning Jesus away from the path of suffering and sacrifice. He offered him rulership of the world and then tried to tempt him to turn stones into bread (Mt 4:1-11) to justify that He was the Son of God with the right of sovereignty. 

The whole point was to get Jesus away from the cross. And so it was that in the final turn, it was God who outsmarted Satan. And he knew his game was up.

On the first Easter Sunday morning, Satan knew his celebration over Jesus’ death was premature. As the demon revealed that the tomb had emptied and the body gone, he must have understood how he was so cleverly outplayed. Right into the Lord’s hands, he was soundly defeated.

And we see the same familiarity in biblical history where God’s wit was simply too much for Satan. We saw it in the story of Job who turned despair into praise and then Joseph who overcame slavery and became Egypt’s second most powerful man. 

We then see how God used Elijah to upstage Satan at Mount Carmel with the defeat of the prophets of Baal in the summoning of the fire (1 Kgs 18:20-40).

And then there is Christmas, the day God outsmarted Satan in a series of unexpectedly deft moves.

Leave the date out

Image source: kcbi.org

You see, Satan has literary skills. He knew the patriarchal prophecies beginning with Micah who said:

“But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are only a small village among the people of Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel, whose origins are in a distant past, will come from you on my behalf.” (Mic 5:2, NLT)

From that passage alone, he would have known that the Messiah was due. He would be born. In Bethlehem. But Micah did not reveal when. In other words, he had no idea when God was going to usher in the Saviour’s birth. 

And with the timing way open to conjecture, Satan reined in all his minions and had them focused on the Holy Land, principally in the area surrounding Bethlehem, as Micah said, and thus the reason for the abundance of demonic possession documented in the New Testament. 

Practically, demons outnumbered the people, acting as Satan’s eyes, prying out for every godly young married couple who was about to have babies. It was this satanic dragnet that he’d hoped would shore up the Messiah well before He could change the world against his wishes.

Appoint an unlikely couple

Joseph and Mary (Image source: lds.org)

But if he thought it was that easy, he had something else coming because the Lord knew he was lying in wait. What God then chose to do was to find a young Jewish couple who did not reside in Bethlehem but instead, in Nazareth, which was way up north, so far that it would take them five days of travelling to get from one to the other. 

Yet for all of that, God made sure that Joseph hailed from Bethlehem and was actually genealogically in line with David, son of Jesse. That way, the prophecies would be fulfilled.

God also saw to it that Mary’s purity and morality would be challenged for this would perplex Satan enough to throw him off the scent. Satan of course is aware of the human gestation period, that the three trimesters would obviously work out to be nine months in the wait but even so, he was not privy to God’s plans. He might’ve been His favourite angel before but that counted for very little because the Lord knew how to twist and turn to confuse him.

Angels do the groundwork

The angel Gabriel visits Mary (Image source: lds.org)

To bring into effect the miraculous conception and yet ensure that Mary remained a virgin was an impossibility within the eyes of the world. Since Satan does see things in the same worldly fashion as a fallen man, he himself couldn’t have perceived it any other way. And so God unfurled a masterplan that would beguile him. 

He knew that if Mary were to conceive out of wedlock that would be problematic because Jewish tradition would have evicted and condemned both she and Joseph. To prevent the whole thing from derailing, God despatched his archangel Gabriel to visit Mary to explain a few things (Lk 1:26-38), beginning with her ‘unusual’ pregnancy.

In the discourse, he assured her of favour with the Lord and said that God would give him the throne of His father David and He will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; that ultimately His kingdom will be eternal (vv.32-33). 

When Mary asked how all of this would happen given that she was a virgin, Gabriel explained that the conception would be the result of the Holy Spirit’s work in her and that, “the baby to be born will be holy, and He will be called the Son of God” (v.35). Ultimately it was the archangel who revealed to Mary that the Saviour will be called ‘Jesus’ (v.31).

After that was done, God despatched another angel – we do not know for sure if it was Gabriel or not – to appear in Joseph’s dream (Mt 1:20) to trust Mary and to tell him of the baby’s name. This was necessary because Joseph had every intention of quietly divorcing her after learning that she was with child. 

Having set all of this in place, God was ready to move His plan along, knowing now that even if Satan had ever heard of Joseph and Mary, he would have passed them over. There was simply no way for him to expect God to use this couple because his view was that for such a holy quest, the Lord couldn’t stoop to using sinners.

Orchestrate Rome’s first tax census

Joseph and Mary travels to Bethlehem (Image source: Geeky Ones)

God’s next move was to get them to travel southwards to Bethlehem in accordance to prophecy. However, with Mary being pregnant now, anything to do with travelling would normally be shelved until she had given birth. 

In her condition, that was hardly plausible unless they were compelled to. And so the Lord moved Caesar Augustus to enact Rome’s first tax census in Syria, which covered the province of Judea.

Given his grand ambitions and projects for the Roman Empire, money was necessary and Augustus decreed that the census must be carried out by Quirinius, the Legate of Syria. 

Knowing that it would take five or more years to complete it (considering the vastness of the region covered), the sooner it got started, the better it’d be. Clearly God displayed how He could turn any king’s thoughts however, whenever and wherever He wished to:

“The king’s heart is like a stream of water directed by the Lord; He guides it wherever He pleases.” (Ps 21:1, NLT)

Conducting the census meant that Jews everywhere had to be counted and in the strict Jewish tradition, that meant all of them had to return to their hometowns because birthplace and genealogies are important to them. 

Having been born in Bethlehem himself, Joseph was now compelled to return to his hometown and seeing that Mary was pregnant, he couldn’t possibly leave her behind but to bring her along. Though the journey was long and arduous, it was as inevitable as it was unavoidable. But in accordance to God’s plan, Bethlehem would now be the staging place for the birth to come.

Humility right from the outset

Joseph is spurned by his own people in Bethlehem (Image source: Pinterest)

God’s plans for His Son may all sound grandiose and that was precisely how Satan would have imagined it. For the Creator of the Universe, he expected no less. Everything should be first-class and that included travelling options as well as board and lodging – all of these must be fit for a king or so he thought.

God, on the other hand, had always wanted it to be something people could relate to. The Saviour must also be someone they could trust to understand their issues. Therefore if the Son of God were to arrive with fanfare and trumpets ablazing, that point might not work. Instead, it was humility all the way.

When Joseph and Mary arrived in Bethlehem, accommodation was impossible for them. Given the issue with Mary’s pregnancy (out of wedlock, that is) and their inability to perceive the significance of the birth to come, they were essentially locked out of any proper lodgings, even if it was only for a night. 

Hence, Joseph and Mary were denied the comforts of a proper place to give birth and as inhumane as one could imagine, they ended up in a half-cave setting amidst livestock, a feedlot and a manger (or in simpler terms, a feeding trough).

Of the thousands and thousands who returned to their ancestral homes for the census, it is unimaginable that they’d be anyone else who suffered the same indignity and ignominy as these two. 

But at the same time, as Joseph and Mary found themselves in the inhospitable environment of nothing less than a dank and dark stable, Satan couldn’t have conceived anything resembling this. His understanding of what God would do was so far off track.

And so as Mary gave birth to her firstborn son, laying him in a manger (Lk 2:7), Satan’s minions would have been scouring in all the wrong places, completely dismissing this young but odd couple who seemed to prefer to eke out a night right next to livestock. 

As the apostle Paul said, “God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise” (1 Cor 1:27a), he might have had Satan in mind.

But that was how God worked. And Satan was outsmarted again.

Only the lowliest of people knew it

The birth of Christ visited by shepherds (Image source: International Bible Fellowship)

Jesus’ birth was a quiet affair but very likely, this was God’s design. No spectacular fireworks. No live telecasts. No kingly parades. And certainly, as we now know, no regal celebrations as well. Just a family affair in a grotto, no less.

As for those who knew of Jesus’ birth, God ushered the humblest of well-wishers, comprising lowly shepherds rather than town folk, mayors or royalty. The Lord used them to bring assurance to Joseph and Mary that all was well. 

For that matter, Satan hadn’t the foggiest idea that He would send angels to appear before the shepherds on the night of Jesus’ birth, let alone offering clues like:

“And you will recognise Him by this sign: You will find a Baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.” (Lk 2:12, NLT)

As God knew, Satan would never have understood that He saw more value in a bunch of nondescript shepherds paying attention at the most important birth in the history of the world. Just as He knew he’d never relate to a birth in a grotto, 

He expected complete ignorance from the father of lies. So the whole idea of the birth in the grotto and then the Baby wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in the manger was the perfect foil.

God’s bailout scheme

Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus escape to Egypt (Image source: Senior Lifestyle)

At around that time, Satan had decided to send his posse, using Herod’s army of soldiers to flush out all the newborn in Bethlehem. The idea was simple – one of them had to be Jesus and so to kill all meant the Saviour would also be killed (Mt 2:16) and to make sure he got his bases all covered, the command was to kill babies and toddlers, meaning newborns to two-year-olds. This was because Herod had no real idea when Jesus was born and therefore no inkling as to His actual age at that time.

Hence, there was no easy way out of this except that Joseph and Mary – and now with Jesus – had to evacuate with very little time to spare. But how was this possible when this couple wasn’t exactly wealthy? Joseph was basically just a simple carpenter and Mary was not much more than a teenage mother.

In the scheme of things, even as Satan began to drive them to an unassailable corner, God orchestrated a remarkable bailout plan that went under his radar by sending a delegation of foreign emissaries. We call them ‘magi from the east’ but despite commercial wisdom, nowhere is it in the Bible that there were three. 

And so the magi arrived, whom according to Encyclopaedia Britannica comprised Balthasar the King of Arabia (Tarse and Egypt), Melchior the King of Persia and Gaspar the King of India though nowhere in Christian literature or the Scripture no less, referred to them as such. Still, we can acknowledge that they were wise men of great learning.

Their arrival in Jerusalem caused a right stir for they asked, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw His star as it rose, and we have come to worship Him” (Mt 2:2, NLT). This was especially so when none of the magi were Jews. 

Instead, early Christian writers considered them as Zoroastrian priests and it is very likely this connection that brings us to why they were called ‘magi’ in the first place.



An illustration of the magi visiting Jesus the toddler by Armand Serrano (Image source: Armand Serrano)

The word ‘magi’ is derived from the Greek ‘magos’ and from there, we have the English word for ‘magic.’ ‘Magos’ itself is part of an age-old Persian vocabulary, pointing to the word ‘magupati,’ which is a reference to priests that were under the ancient religious sect that practised Zoroastrianism. 

Today, we simply refer to them as astrologers. God used their astrological expertise and revered wealth to track down an unusual new star in the sky and then from there, came the knowledge that it told of a birth of a truly special King. This is the star that we refer to today as the Star of Bethlehem.

So here were the magi. One (apparently, Gaspar) was in possession of the gift of frankincense. Another (Melchior, it seems) was the bringer of gold. And then there was yet another (legends say it was Balthasar) who brought myrrh. 

All of them presented these gifts to Jesus who by then was anywhere up to two years of age (Mt 2:8,9,11,13,14,20,21). By then too, Jesus and His family were dwelling in a house and no longer in the grotto where He was born (v.11).

Much was made of the significance of the gifts. Many Christians believe that the frankincense is symbolic of the worship of Jesus while myrrh, being a perfume traditionally used on dead bodies then, indicates that the Son of God would suffer and die. Gold, on the other hand, is representative of Jesus being the King of kings. 

And of all these gifts, it was the gold that God had brought to Joseph and Mary as their sole means of financing the escape to Egypt. Seeing the real danger of Herod’s soldiers on their seek-and-murder mission to Bethlehem, this was one journey they could ill-afford to be lax about.

But of course the gold was their passport out and with that, the young family escaped the wrath of Satan once more. Again, he was left fuming at his failure but more likely, he was mad that God was, as always, at least a few steps ahead of him. 

Having, again, lost this opportunity, Joseph, Mary and their son Jesus were well on their way to Egypt by the time the soldiers arrived and they would remain there for a month, that is, until Herod died. Because they wouldn’t have known, God sent an angel to appear in Joseph’s dream to let the family know that it was now safe to return to Israel (Mt 2:19-20).

Cover blown

Joseph and Mary at the Temple in Jerusalem (Image source: lds.org)

And so, the path was clear and they travelled first to Jerusalem. It so happened that Simeon and Anna met the three of them just as they were entering the temple. There, they were to fulfil the requirements of the Law of Moses by presenting the child Jesus on the fortieth day of his birth (Lk 2:25-35). 

Simeon was visited by the Holy Spirit and told that he would meet the Messiah before he died. Holding Jesus in his arms, the Jerusalemite prayed and revealed the prophecy of the Saviour’s death at the cross (vv.29-35).

Never having left the temple as a widow but worshipped, prayed and fasted day and night, Anna could not miss seeing the young family step in to offer their sacrifices. Even as old as she was, she gave thanks to God the moment she saw the young Jesus. There she prophesied about Him to all who had yearned for the redemption of Jerusalem (Lk 2:36-38).

Both these incidents alarmed Joseph and Mary for they then realised that it wasn’t possible anymore to stay under the radar while in the Holy City. Having recognised the baby Jesus as the Messiah, they needed to leave. Staying one more unnecessary day might prove troublesome for them. But where would they now go?

Bethlehem or Nazareth?

A reconstruction of first-century Nazareth (Image source: archaeologyillustrated.com)

Joseph and Mary had two choices beyond Jerusalem. It sounded obvious that they should head for Bethlehem, which was merely five miles south. There, they could do the right thing and inform Joseph’s clan that they were alright and then fill them in on what’s been happening. 

But then while they were talking to other worshippers at the temple, Joseph discovered that following Herod’s death, his son Archelaus had taken the throne not as a king but as an ethnarch of Samaria, Judaea and Idumea.

Knowing that, Joseph and Mary had fears of settling in any of the territories under his rule and with that in mind, they headed back to Galilee where they went to live in Nazareth (Mt 2:22-23). And with that, Satan lost track of Jesus at least long enough for the Son of God to grow into an adult.

Coming of age

A motion picture portrayal of young Jesus as a boy (Image source: osv.com)


In Nazareth, his mother’s hometown, Jesus had His childhood and grew up in the strictest Jewish tradition. Early child development for Him was relatively quiet and uneventful but that was probably intentional because any work of miracle would have caught the imagination of every person in the town and before you knew it, Satan would have come to know about Jesus’ actual whereabouts.

Knowing where He was wasn’t important because eventually it would be revealed but it was not the right time. So throughout his early adolescent years, Jesus did no miracles and taught no one. 

No one was wiser; no one really knew who He truly was. For all intents and purposes, he was just like any other little Jewish boy in the neighbourhood and just about everyone knew him to be Joseph the carpenter’s son.

The baptism at the Jordan River

John the Baptist baptises his cousin, Jesus, in the Jordan River in a movie reenactment (Image source: Wandering & Wondering)

Just around the age of 29 to 30, Jesus went to His cousin John the Baptist at the Jordan River. Wading in the water towards him, John wondered why someone sinless like Him would require baptism. “I am the one who needs to be baptised by You… so why are You coming to me?” (Mt 3:13-14, NLT) he said to Jesus.

As sinless as Jesus is, repentance is as unnecessary as being baptised but then He answered, “It should be done, for we must carry out all that God requires” (v.15, NLT) to which then John agreed to the baptism. 

In other words, in His case, it wasn’t about sin but more about “fulfilling all righteousness,” meaning that Jesus flawlessly met all the legalistic requirements in a way that is exemplary for all believers to follow and obey.

Following His baptism, Jesus emerged from the water of the Jordan and right that moment, “the heavens were opened and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on Him” (v.16, NLT). Just then, the Father from heaven said, “This is My dearly loved Son, who brings Me great joy” (v.17, NLT).

Other than John the Baptist, his disciples were also present to witness Jesus’ baptism. At that point, there was no question that between the two of them, it was John who had more disciples. 

Mark in his Gospel said, “All of Judea, including all the people of Jerusalem, went out to see and hear John. And when they confessed their sins, he baptised them in the Jordan River” (Mk 1:5, NLT). 

Taking that passage as it is, we can estimate that there could well be thousands who thronged the Jordan when Jesus was baptised including many other spectators who watched from a distance who may not be his followers. 

Let’s not forget the religious Jewish leaders who were present, the ones who questioned John’s authority in baptising people (Mt 3:1-11) especially when he wasn’t Elijah or the Prophet or the Christ (Jn 1:25-26).

With so many who bore witness to Jesus’ baptism, inevitably word got around as to who this Jesus was. Satan might not be the first to hear of this but it wouldn’t have taken him long to discover Jesus’ identity by now. 

The moment He stepped into the waters of the Jordan, His cover was forever blown especially once John, empowered by the Holy Spirit, declared, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (Jn 1:29, NKJV) Without a doubt then, everyone knew the Messiah was Jesus from Nazareth.

But that’s okay. After all, this was God’s plan right from the beginning. He chose the time and the moment of His own liking as to when and how the Son would be revealed. And when that time was right, it meant that Jesus was fully ready to take on the burden of the world. 

So when John made his declaration (ibid), it was akin to an invitation to Satan to bring it on. It’s not difficult to imagine the Father in Heaven saying, ‘Here’s My Son. Take your best shot, devil. We’re ready for you.’

Though the battle in the heavenly realm had begun the moment Lucifer and his fallen angels rebelled against God, this one was different because this is the battle for our hearts and minds and it has endured till today and it will persist until the end of time. 

That battle pitched the Son of God against the father of lies and three years later on Mount Calvary just on the fringe of Jerusalem, Satan laughed victoriously, believing that he had finally broken God’s covenant with His people. 

But three days later, he realised, again and again and again, how God outsmarted him.

Lesson for today

God will always outsmart Satan no matter what, when and how (Image source: National Catholic Register)

It’s no different today. Satan still believes he has the upper hand. After all, look around us and it’s easy to see how busy he’s been, rousing up hatred, corruption and crime. 

Check out the rampant liberalism and socialism that’s rocking a once-sensible world through political governance, policy-making, climatology, change in education priorities including a clear distortion of cultural values and divergent lifestyles.

Take a look at how Christianity is being attacked from all fronts. Countries that are supposedly founded on Judeo-Christian principles are now attacking evangelicals. Christians are also denied freedom of speech and the right to openly practise their faith. 

At the same time, Islam gets a notable free pass virtually everywhere in the free world with its deadly agenda that has cost the lives of tens of thousands of Christians and even fellow Muslims.

Let’s not forget the abundant immoral practices all around us. So many of these are now commonplace with governments institutionalising – and legalising – them. 

Same-sex marriages, evolution, abortion, euthanasia, cryogenics, transgenderism and gender-neutralism are all taking centre stage…and widely celebrated as victory for the minorities but all are aimed at undermining God’s influence on life.

Even so-called social-ethical movements have nefarious and destructive agendas even if their names sound deceptively innocent. Try looking at Women’s March, Black Lives Matter, iMatter, People’s Climate and lately, Me Too. All of them seethe with political intonations. 

Even the almost four-decades-old Woodstock was nothing more than an uncontrollable hippie drug-fest although on the outset it was supposedly a music festival.

As we close out the second decade of the new millennium, it all looks like Satan is a firm grip on the whole world. But time and again, God has proven that He has the upper hand. Just when we think that we’re doomed by the devil’s pervasiveness, God always have something up His sleeves. 

In writing this, I hope we can look at Christmas and realise that no matter how bleak the outlook may appear, the birth of Jesus proves that in God, we truly trust.

What’s more, we shall prevail.  

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I’ll take this quick opportunity to thank all my readers for their readership and to wish you all a Merry Christmas. May you find time to cherish your families, take every opportunity to find Christ in one another’s heart and to seize the moment to love and be loved.