All woes afflicting humans—wholly or partially can be traced to satanic machinations. Whether we understand it or not doesn’t change the fact, or the effects. I am sure the declaration above sounds ridiculous to many folks, even among those who consider themselves spiritually astute. But to an enemy—any enemy—a war is halfway won if he can get his opponent to underrate his ability. If satan can make those against whom he wages war oblivious to his presence or strategies, then he has much higher chances of defeating them. When you are unaware of danger, you don’t do anything to protect yourself. You are caught off-guard.
Ignorance is not a defense mechanism. Can you convince a robber to let you free since he appeared unannounced? Criminals don’t play fair games, and neither does satan, their chief!
Paul’s second letter to the church of Corinth points this out. Corinth was a problematic place in many respects, but that’s not the focus of this message. Immaturity among believers paved the way for rampant expressions of sensual indulgence, carnality and outright sin. There was infighting, sharp dissention even on doctrinal issues, greed and a host of other uncouth tendencies. For instance, a Christian man—a church member—was cohabiting with his father’s wife, who, for all intents and purposes, was his stepmother!
Obliged to straighten holy conduct for the Corinthian church, Paul sent a severe letter that resulted in great sorrow, not only to the guilty party but to the entire church body. It became necessary to write a follow-up epistle to clear things out. Says he, “we don’t want to unwittingly give Satan an opening for yet more mischief—we’re not oblivious to his sly ways!” (ii Cor 2:11 ~Message) The KJV puts it this way, “Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.” In other words, to outwit satan, we need to know how he carries out his devious schemes.
Taken Advantage of by Satan
Until Paul addressed consequent side effects of his first epistle, satan found an opportunity to hinder an apostolic assignment. Slyly taking advantage of a well-intentioned epistle, satan generated unintended outcomes, contrary to Paul’s design. Corinthian Christians heaped guilt and condemnation upon a humiliated brother as he sunk deeper into sorrow and despair. The joy of the Lord dissipated from the community. In its place, gloom prevailed, plunging the entire church into a morbid state too burdensome to the apostle. It was extremely difficult to produce godly fruit in that quagmire. Thankfully, Paul had the maturity, humility and grace to tackle the problem, even by owning part of the blame.
Today, satan is still at it. If you haven’t faced a catch-22 situation in your spiritual journey, you’ve not been a Christian for long. Don’t fret; it’s coming! Satan isn’t merely interested in causing despondency; it’s only a vehicle to specific destinations. For instance, unresolved gloom paves way to depression, despair, lost faith, sin, and backsliding. Melancholy is the perfect seedbed upon which an obsessed mind questions God’s faithfulness.
Two Locations, Three Modules!
Satan operates from two alternate locations—internally and externally. The location determines what module he deploys and the spiritual condition of target a person. Please pay attention; these are very important lessons.
Satan and demons doesn’t have to be inside a person they’re attacking. In majority of cases attacks are launched from without. In a latter lesson, we’ll discuss how a human being is a created trinity in order to explore what satan can and cannot do to a born again Christian. For now, we’ll just focus on satanic attacks, which mainly are:-
- OPPRESSION (External)
- OBSESSION (External)
- POSSESSION (Internal)
As you can see, oppression and obsession are external spiritual modules deployed by evil spirits to harass human beings. Possession is the only spiritual module that is deployed from within. Demon possessed goes beyond harassment; it’s a state where demons take over a person’s spirit and rule over him/her in the same way internal operating system software rules over a computerized gadget. It is the deepest state of satanic influence on a human being. In this state, a person has absolutely no control over their will, and cannot decide what s/he wants or doesn’t want to think, say or do. A demon possessed person is driven by devils to do whatever they demand. Scripture has an example of such a case. It’s the demoniac who lived at a cemetery by the country of the Gadarenes (See Matthew 8, Mark 5 and Luke 8).
Having worked in deliverance ministry in different places, I could share personal accounts, but this is not the forum. Beside theological education on the matter, I have practical experience that enables me to be helpful in this regard. Let me assure you that devils are real, very dangerous and persistently exploit any chance they can find to gain access to a human being, regardless of a person’s religious conception. Christians are main targets of demonic activity! But so also are married couples, children and youth! If you ever watch news broadcasts or scan the worldwide internet web, you will not be able to count events occasioned by folks who tap into extrasensory influence.
Oppression and obsession are similar in that they are external modules deployed to harass people. Please note that I make no religious distinction when I say “people.” Contrary to what some would like to believe, my experience is that devils are enemies of human beings, not just Christians, and they seek to gain deepest levels of influence over mankind. Thankfully, God has placed a protective hedge over EVERY HUMAN BEING that satan and evil spirits cannot cross UNLESS a person opens the door by one or more specific involvements. We will discuss that in a latter article
Beware, that a father or mother can break God’s hedge effectively exposing his/her child to satanic activity. There are activities that folks are getting into nowadays that swiftly usher children, youth and whole families into satan’s realm where it becomes extremely difficult and often impossible to escape from.
Heaven is eternal. Hell is eternal too. Do not squander God’s mercy. Do not make mockery of eternal things! God does not want you to get into satan’s grip. “…is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?” (Isa 14: 16,17)