mortsmune said:
That remark is made in ignorance. Personally I do not enjoy talking about the devil more than I do Jesus. I have heard that same accusation put forth many times by people. It is an unfounded accusation.
No, mortsmune, the statement is not made in ignorance,
nor was it made toward you. It was made toward all the devil-freaks and deliverance-freaks who like talking about Satan, in the context of this discussion.
I get so tired of hearing about "What Demons Can Do To Christians". Nowhere in the Bible do any of the Scriptures obsess about demonic damage to the believer. Many modern deliverance ministries are like the seven sons of Sceva, not that they don't believe, but they wouldn't know a real demon if it hit them in the face. If they ever encountered a real one, they would pee in their pants and run out the door.
They love to obsess about What Demons Can Do To Christians, but rejoice less in the power of the cross than in the limited authority of Satan. They spend 95% of the time talking about 5% of reality. The fact is, we don't really face demons in every situation. Sometimes the copying machine broke down because it needs to be repaired. Sometimes a person is sick because they neglected their health. Sometimes people act weird because they have mental deficiencies.
Jesus and the disciples did not go around looking for demons like today's deliverance believers do. They claim victory over major demons, but produce little real change. They don't even fast, and the disciples [who did not fast on one occasion] could not cast out a demon from the little boy. Now how could today's believers cast out real devils, if they are not fasting, if the disciples of old did not fast and could not cast them out?
There has been way too much emphasis put on Satan and demons. Yes, we are to talk about them and acknowledge their existence, but to obsess on them, like many Charismatics and Pentecostals do, is foolish, and gives the enemy more credit and more foothold [through fear] than he would have ordinarily.
The greater one lives in me, and there is no demon anywhere who can stop what God wants to do in my life.
Too often, Christians resign themselves to defeat, when they have failed again and again, to "having a demonic oppression", when the fact is that they have not walked in the ways of victory. This takes applying God's word, and walking in faith, something that many people do not want to do. They would rather poke along in a lazy Christianity, and think that God will cover their back for their own personal lack of diligence, when in fact our own spiritual condition has been left in our hands.
If the devil is so powerful to stop someone, he would have stopped them from choosing to be saved. In my mind, although Satan might try to hinder, there is no way he can stop God or God's people.
Almost every scripture I read in the Bible where Satan stopped the believers, there was some failure on the believer's part to obey God.
This is not to say that every problem is our fault. Sometimes, God is testing us from His own hand, but when it comes from Satan himself, I believe for the most part that there was more we could have done to bring the blessing of God and not be stopped by the enemy.
Then you have these people who resist and say that everything is Satan's fault, and we are just powerless against his opposition, that every time he wants to come against us, we can't do anything, and that Satan is just oppressing us.
Oh, poor little me, the body of Christ.
That was not the original intent in Smith Wigglesworth and others who taught us about the spiritual world. Their intent was to show us the victory, not the war. War is hell; victory is awesome. Their intent in teaching us was to tell us that Jesus is Lord over all.
If this life is so terrible, and we are on the losing side, then we should just lay down and let Satan kill us, or maybe go ahead and do it for him!!!!
Or will we stand up and walk in the authority given us? WE are not defeated. We are not stoppable. We are not on the losing side. If you believe you are on the losing side, and it is you who are oppressed, rather than Satan being oppressed and tormented, then you need to switch sides.
If God is God, serve Him; if Baal is God, then serve Him.