62. Since the beginning of sin, God has limited Satan's destructive power.
After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree. {Revelation 7:1}
For all the suffering mankind has endured, especially at the hands of Satan, from the beginning, it is nothing compared to the destruction and devastation that Satan wishes he could unleash. So perhaps, instead of asking why we must suffer when we serve a loving God, perhaps we should begin wondering how much more suffering we would have endured if there wasn’t a loving God in the universe.
Since the very beginning, the Bible pictures God as the One who has been limiting Satan’s destructive power. From the very first promise that God would put enmity between the woman and the serpent to the limitations placed on Satan in persecuting Job to the general description of holding back the winds in Revelation, God has been actively at work to minimize the amount of suffering we would endure during the course of the war.
Considering the brief encounters Jesus had with people who were being tortured by the demons who possessed them to the hellish cruelty unleashed against Jesus Himself by Satan, we can only imagine how worse things would be right now if Satan’s destructive power had not been severely curtailed throughout the course of human history. Actually, we might not have to imagine that for much longer.
If you want to dig deeper—
Genesis 3:14-15
Job 1:9-12
Job 2:4-6
Luke 22:31-32
Revelation 7:1-3