God’s Devil - Part 9: Closing the Door when Satan Knocks

Satan has a master plan to deceive the nations of the world but inside that master plan he also has a personal plan for our individual lives. He believes he can get us to follow him for at least part of our life journey. He plants seeds within our lives that will germinate and bear dark fruit later. He then stays out of view waiting for that moment when his evil fruit begins to mature. He knows very well that he himself is unwelcome to us so he comes to us in different disguises under different names.

He has surrounded himself with many lesser spirits (the third of all angels who were expelled from heaven with him) and these do his bidding. While these lesser ones are not able to read our minds, they do observe carefully our actions and their observations allow them their most fruitful areas of temptation. Satan has already put into place plans for the downfall of each life and we ourselves step willingly into the traps he sets.

His principles are known and should be remembered.

He is angry at God for he still wants to be like the Most High. To attack us as believers allows him to think he is getting back at the Lord. We are becoming more conformed to the image of Jesus each day and he sees that change happening, increasing his anger.

He works diligently to make sin look good to us.

He works best through the sins of the flesh. He takes the sins we already struggle with and uses those to strengthen his power toward us. He seeks leverage over us to influence our lives. In this way he can begin to gain his ultimate position over us which is control.

His stages of control are also clearly evident.

His first level of control is temptation. He, or one of his servants, injects thoughts into our mind that we think are our own. In this way, he remains hidden while arranging his lure. Satan can gives us ideas but we cannot escape the fact that when we act on them, we do so willingly. Temptations of the flesh are among his most common efforts. Each of us is a fallen creature and we lean toward sin by our original nature but when we seem accepting of such sin, we grant him the foothold he desires within us.

If we consistently travel downward in such sin, the depth of it can develop into his second area of control, possession. While he cannot remove us from salvation, he can, with our help, make it begin to possess us mentally.

His third level of control is the stronghold built within us from the first two. As our acceptance of such sin builds, we lean away from God and allow Satan to construct his fortress within us. The beauty of his sinful temptation makes us think we ourselves wish it and we fail to hear the hissing of the serpent in the background.

We open the doors of our hearts to these areas of control in several ways.

Our rebellion against obedience to the Lord and swaying to the music from below becomes the door of indifference toward God.

Temper showing anger with the need to resist can overcome us because it is far easier to sin than not to do so. Satan enjoys any crack in that door.

The door of guilt is one that is the easiest to open as we welcome Satan because he reminds us of sins past and how horrid they were. We open this door willingly when we forget that those sins were cast away by God long ago by our repentance and confession. When we find ourselves mindful of these, the reminder is not coming from above but from below. We must remember Satan accuses us of the very sins he enticed us to commit.

The door of fear is flung open for Satan by us when we yield to fear. When we fear to witness to those lost, Satan is overjoyed. The pressure we have upon us as we miss opportunities to witness is magnified daily by Satan. We must recognize the author of this fear and reject it. 

The door of immoral behavior is a sly door that Satan both knocks on and pushes against so that we open it wider to him. We are beset with perverse images everywhere. Products are sold to us using sexual images. We must be aware of this fact and renew our will against it constantly.

Martin Luther warned us that the devil's knocks are unending. He said that no matter how loud the knocks are, we must not open the doors. He reminded us of the whole armor given us in Ephesians 6, and says as we use those weapons, Christ stands ready to answer the knocks for us if we simply ask it. We must learn to say no to the devil just as Christ did. Unfortunately in many moments we seem to replace no with maybe. To Satan maybe means yes as he ramps us the attacks. Our battle is constant and we must be far more willing to pinpoint the source of attack.

The poison of the serpent must be neutralized.