Answer: From the time that our first parents listened to the voice of the tempter, and fell, the whole race, apart from the delivering grace of God, has been under his mastery. He led mankind on to fill the earth with corruption and violence before the flood, and after it, to worship idols, behind which were demons. Romans 1 gives us the declivity of idol worship; it began with images of men, then birds, then quadrupeds, and finally creeping things. Men might not have accepted worship of creeping things if that had been advanced first, but the descent was easy and natural to a heart estranged from God. In tree worship of creeping things Satan was showing himself more clearly.
The enemy of God and man was not called the prince of this world until the cross, for there his mastery of the race was fully exposed. He led the whole world on to cast God out of the scene when He had come into it in grace (John 14:30). He is also called the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4). As the former he has subjects; as the latter he has worshipers, or at least controls their worship.
In Luke 11 he is called "the strong man," who guards his palace and keeps his goods in peace. His goods are people, and he serves many and various opiates to keep their consciences quiet so they will remain peaceful on the brink of hell. The Lord Jesus was the "stronger" Man who came upon him and overcame him (Luke 11:22). He entered into the strong man's house (the world), and bound the strong man in the wilderness (Matt. 12:29), with "It is written" as we read in Luke 4; then immediately He began to spoil his goods by casting out demons and healing the sick. He overcame the strong man by dying (Luke 11:22), and coming forth in resurrection He wrested from him the power wherein he trusted (Heb. 2:14, 15), and then "divideth his spoils" (Luke 11:22) by setting his captives free.
We need to remember that when man fell, he fell spirit, soul, and body, and as fallen he became an easy prey to the wiles of the devil. Satan controls the unsaved, and so the world in general, through the "lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life." With great cleverness he knows how to appeal to man's fallen nature, and these three principles govern the whole world. "The wicked one" not only deludes the unsaved with these lusts which find their answer in the evil heart of man, but he presents the same things to the Christians; hence we are warned against loving the world, for "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." 1 John 2:15.
In John 8:44, the Lord addresses some thus: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do." This refers to the Jews of Jerusalem who had rejected Him and were bent on His destruction—it is a certain class. 2 Cor. 4:4 indicates a special class who had rejected the gospel and were blinded to it by the god of this world-Satan.