Recently between some friends and I there has been some discussion on the natures of our fears and the ability or lack of ability of the enemy to influence our lives based upon those fears.
On one hand, there is the belief that fear is a response to the realities of life. Those fears being both the realized and the anticipated realities. Things go wrong which may or may not be put upon us by the work of the enemy. Those problems are real, and beyond our control. The remedies range from acts of our own doing (we have a headache, take an aspirin and the headache goes away) and those things which only God can handle by His power. Satan is powerful and capable of fell deeds of destruction.
The opposite thinking, and teaching, is that our fears are totally unfounded in any case and Satan has absolutely no power in the life of a believer. That what appears to be which come in the form of danger, catastrophe, sickness, misfortunes of all sorts, etc., are nothing more than lies of the enemy. We can accept them as fact or we can (by standing on the Word of God and faith) counter them as they are in fact, not real. If we fail to exercise faith and believing the promises of the Word, then we have allowed these things to become reality in our lives.
I think the truth is a little of both and somewhere in between. What happens in our lives is indeed the reality. If your doctor tells you that you have heart disease, there is a mechanical, electrical or pathological problem with that blood pump in your body. It is not an illusion of the devil. You can not will it away by rebuking the enemy. Whether he put it upon you or not, is of no consequence. The fact is, you have heart disease. You live in a temporal body while you live on this earth. From Adam’s time on, it has been cursed to decay and die.
Where Satan has his way in the situation is with the area of the unknown. It is not a lie of Satan that you are sick. It becomes a lie of Satan when the outcome is considered and debated. It becomes a lie of Satan when the root cause of the disease is considered and debated. This is the area where we wage spiritual warfare. Satan puts the fear into your head that you are going to die of this disease. He could not tell you such a lie convincingly were it not for the possibility that you might indeed die of the disease. So you struggle between hope of healing and the morbid fear that this disease is going be the means of your death.
You try to exercise your faith. You pray and you read and try to reassure yourself of the truth in the promises of healing you read in the Word. You struggle and either you are able to overcome those fears – and these are the fears which dwell in illusion – or you succumb to them and accept the enemy’s prognosis on your case. It will be one or the other. Satan has influence, or he does not. It depends on you. You don’t know what the real prognosis is. Only your doctor and God know that, and God with more certainty.
The lie may come in the form of an accusation. You would not have developed this disease if you had been a better Christian. If you had only exercised faith and claimed to God’s promises, He would have protected you and you would still be healthy. This lie, if you think about it, is not too far removed from the temptation Satan put upon Jesus when he suggested that Jesus jump off the roof of the temple. “Surely the angels will protect you. It’s promised in the Bible.”
“If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” (Matt 4:6NIV)
He twists a promise out of context and turns truth into lie. In other words, “you are God’s child and protected and should not suffer hurt. If you do, there is cause to question your relationship to God.”
If you lose your job, it is a reality. Satan is not lying to you telling you that you have lost your job when indeed you have not. As absurd as it sounds, this is not an uncommon belief and teaching. The reality is you no longer have a paycheck. That is as real as it can get. Just like the issue of sickness, it is through the thoughts of the outcome and the cause that Satan works. The “known” he avoids for he can not with any creditability dispute those.
It is through what you don’t know that he works. So when we say that Satan is totally impotent and his work is unreal, that is the area where this is true.
Let us never underestimate the power of the enemy. Were he to be as impotent as claimed by some teachers, and nothing more than a shadow we could simply ignore, the Apostle Paul would not have spent so much time writing on the defense and the battle against this foe. Paul took him seriously. James did so. He told us,
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (James 4:7-8 NIV). Peter took the war against Satan very seriously.
Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. (1 Peter 5:8-9 NIV)
Were Satan simply a cowardly little bluffing shadow whom we could brush off as we would a fly annoying us, the Word would not be so filled with instructions on obtaining and using the weapons God and the Holy Spirit have provided for us and meant for us to use. The armor detailed by Paul in Ephesians:
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. (Eph 6:10-18 NIV)
I think those who teach the underestimating of the devil do so at their own peril. Their seeming lack of fear is really a lack of healthy respect. The same kind we would give to a deadly cobra. You don’t have to be afraid of it if you are exercising proper precautions but a flippant regard lacking respect for the snake’s ability to kill can have deadly consequences.
I am repulsed by the silly, yes it is “silly”, theatrics of some, yes, even some ministers of the Word, who perform antics such as symbolically kicking and punching the devil. “Take that, you old devil!” as if they themselves have the power to physically overcome the devil. We as humans don’t have that power, nor do we have the authority. Were we to meet the devil in physical form, or even one of his demons, without the power of God protecting us, we’re going to be on the losing end of that fight. Look at this example from Acts.
And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so.
And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?
And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. (Acts 19:14-16 KJV)
One demon against seven men. Fair odds?
We would be wise to take a warning from Jude.
In the very same way, these dreamers pollute their own bodies, reject authority and slander celestial beings. But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” Yet these men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand; and what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals-these are the very things that destroy them. (Jude 8-10 NIV)
We operate by the power of the Holy Spirit in the realm of the spiritual. This is not a physical war we wage. It spills over into the physical of course. We need to learn to know what is physical and what is spiritual and use the tools and weapons God has provided us in both realms. It is how we respond to those lies of Satan that will determine our victory or defeat.
© 2006 Dan W. Dooley
Dan W. Dooley
Dooley’s Treasure Chest
