How does satan wield authority?
One of the most perplexing questions that I have regarding things of the spirit has to do with how satan acts or moves against the believer. How do we discern his activity? How do we break his attempts to harm, deceive and create confusion among us?
Recently, I head a teaching that has been very helpful in coming to a more through understanding of an answer for this question. Scripture does not go into elaborate detail regarding this matter. What it does tell us should be all that we need to engage in effective spiritual warfare. Pastor Bill Johnson, of Bethel Church in California suggests the following paradigm to help us understand this.
Before Jesus returned to the Father he made this statement: Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and said to them,
If we use the example of the Garden of Eden as a prototype to help us understand this question we would ask another question about that situation. How did the Serpent gain influence over Adam and Eve? Scriptures says this of satan - Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. What is “crafty?” The dictionary defines crafty this way: Skilled in or marked by underhandedness, deviousness, or deception. Isn’t this confirmed by a word which Jesus gives in John regarding the character of satan? Jesus said: When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Satan’s power over Adam and Eve in the garden was the power of getting them to agree with a lie. The serpent said to the woman - “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden‘?” Which is not what God said, since the commend was regarding only one particular tree. Somehow this lie worked on Eve, and Adam as well. What then is the power of satan over the Christian? It is the power of getting us to agree with his lies. Think about it for a moment… what gives a lie its power? Since it isn’t true it has no actual power. It isn’t real. Yet, if it is believed, if it is agreed with, it will act upon us as though it was the truth. The enemy can conceal his presence by simply having his lies sound like our own doubts. We think and act in self-reliance, ignoring prayer and the Word of God, somehow thinking that we have to do it ourselves. What lie is behind such behavior? We are struggling financially and wonder how will we meet our obligations. That struggle turns into fear and that fear tells us that we will be overwhelmed, we will be swept away by the thing we fear. What is the lie which stands behind those thoughts and feelings? We worry our children will turn out badly, or that they won’t follow the Lord so instead of entrusting them to the Lord, we nag and fret and hound them to do this that or the other thing and end up alienated and seperated from them by our anger. What is the lie which stands behind all that drama? I could go on. But I really think there is something to this. The evil one cannot simply come in to our circumstances and begin to take over and turn them against us, or turn us against ourselves or one another. He has no authority or right to do this! What he can do is whisper lies. He can tempt us to trust only what we see in our bank account, or in our children, or whatever the situation. He can tempt us to believe that what is seen is all we can hope in. He can tantalize us to grab for what is seen while we have the chance, rather than trusting in a God who is able to answer prayer, and who loves and cares for us as his very own children.
I don’t know if that explanation provides all the answers regarding how satan wields his power. But it certainly helps me understand a large slice. Since Jesus emphatically said of him - when he lies, he is doing it from his character because he is the father of lies I know that I must cooperate with Jesus to break the power of lies in my life. I must form my agreements with what God says is true, not with my experience, not with my senses but with what the Lord tells me is the truth about reality. Part of the way that we should understand II Corinthians 10:3-5 (3 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ) is that we utilize the truth of the Word of God to tear down the lies which have leaked into our lives. One of the things that is meant by destroying arguments and lofty opinions raised up against the knowledge of God is that we are dismantling lies which we have allowed satan to sell us.
What do you think?
June 5th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
You hit the nail right on the head for me. One of the things that came up for me in the women’s retreat this past weekend was my anger toward my little boy. I hate to say it, but my frustration with his 4-year-old-ness gets the better of my on a daily basis and I can’t believe what I say and do. But what I realized is this EXACT thing that you said above:
“We worry our children will turn out badly, or that they won’t follow the Lord so instead of entrusting them to the Lord, we nag and fret and hound them to do this that or the other thing and end up alienated and seperated from them by our anger.”
I am so freaked out by the possibility that my kids might not follow the Lord (and really, it comes down to pride: that they won’t follow MY way), that it winds up backfiring completely, makes everyone angry, and causes me to rob him of the rightful joy of his childhood.
Father, forgive me–and change me. I ask for grace and mercy, because of what you said: Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. I have to think that it could also be said, “Blessed are the merciful, for those around them will learn how to become merciful, too.”
Thanks, Black Dwarf.
June 11th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
For a long time I gave satan more credit than he is due. If you study the Bible you learn the three “O’s” about God. That is he is omniscient (knows everything), ominipotent (all powerful) and omnipresent (can be everywhere at the same time). Satan has none of these abilites. What he has going for him is he is a spirit being therefore we can’t see him. He also has other fallen angels that do his dirty work. We have to be careful not to attribute attributes of God to satan. He has stealth and deception. He is an excellent observer of human behavior and has a good memory. He will make a note of things that tempt you for future use. He can wisper in your ear to put thoughts in your head, but he can not read your mind. This is a big one to remember. I struggled with that one for years and actually did a good amount of research to find that out. Even in the course of this discussion when I say he can do this…. of he can do that….he is not doing it all at the same time and it may not be him, but his demons that are actually doing the deed and reporting back to him. This is why he is the master of deception! He even has Christians attributing to him powers he doesn’t have!
What we have on our side is the power to “cast him away in the name of Jesus”. Try this but it must be audible because he can’t read your mind. We have power over the evil one we just have to use it!