Transcription
Satan is not most threatened by what you think he is threatened by. He is not most concerned about your church attendance, your Bible knowledge, or your Christian title. First Peter 5:8 says he walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. And the word seeking means he is strategic. He is studying you. He knows your weaknesses, your patterns, and your blind spots better than most people in your life do. And what he has discovered after centuries of observing Christians is that his most effective tools are not the obvious ones. They are things that Christians do every single day. Things they have never identified as dangerous. Things they sometimes even believe are signs of spiritual maturity. Today we are naming seven of them, and at least one of them is in your life right now.
The first thing Christians do that Satan actually loves is staying divided, holding on to offenses, maintaining broken relationships with fellow believers, and refusing the reconciliation that the Bible commands. Nothing serves Satan's agenda in the church more efficiently than division among believers. Jesus prayed in John 17:21 that his followers would be one, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me. The unity of believers is directly connected to the world's ability to believe the gospel. When Christians are divided, the gospel is undermined, and Satan knows this better than most believers do. Ephesians 4:27 gives a warning that most Christians read past without realizing how specific it is. Give no opportunity to the devil. The word opportunity is the Greek word topos, meaning a place, a foothold, a territory. Division gives Satan territory inside the church. Every unresolved offense, every maintained bitterness, every faction, and every church split is land that the enemy has been handed, not taken by force, but given voluntarily by believers who decided their grievance was worth more than their unity. Second Corinthians 2:10-11 records Paul urging forgiveness specifically so that we would not be outwitted by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his designs. Not ignorant of his designs. Paul knew that Satan's primary design inside the church was to use unforgiveness and division to create footholds. Every time two Christians choose division over reconciliation, Satan does not have to do any work. They did it for him. Every unresolved offense between believers is a gift to the enemy. He did not create the division, you maintained it, and he is using every day of it.
The second thing Christians do that Satan actually loves is staying too busy to pray. Not too sinful to pray, too busy. Because busyness is Satan's most socially acceptable and most spiritually devastating tool against the believer's prayer life, and it works on the most committed Christians, not the most careless ones. The person who would never openly choose to stop praying is the same person who fills their schedules so completely with good things, ministry commitments, family responsibilities, work obligations, social engagements, that the one thing Jesus said his house should be known for gets crowded to the margins until it disappears entirely. Mark 11:17 records Jesus saying, "The house of God shall be called a house of prayer." Not a house of activity, not a house of programming. Prayer. And a Christian without a genuine prayer life is a soldier in a war without communication with their commander. Luke 22:40 records the instruction Jesus gave his disciples in the garden at the most spiritually intense moment of his earthly ministry, and it was simply this, "Pray that you may not enter into temptation." Pray. Not strategize, not organize. Pray. And verse 45 records what the disciples did instead. He found them sleeping for sorrow. They had a reason for not praying. They were emotionally drained. The reason was real, and the enemy used the gap it created. First Thessalonians 5:17 gives the standard that leaves no room for the busyness excuse. Pray without ceasing. Without ceasing as a lifestyle, as a posture, as the atmosphere in which a genuine believer lives every moment of every day. Satan does not need to tempt a prayerless Christian, he just needs to wait. A believer disconnected from prayer is a believer who has already handed the enemy the advantage. Satan does not need to attack a Christian who is too busy to pray, he just needs them to keep busy. The busyness does his work for him.
The third thing Christians do that Satan actually loves is spiritual isolation, withdrawing from genuine Christian community, pulling away from accountability relationships, and facing the spiritual battle alone when God designed them to face it together. First Peter chapter 5 verse 8, the verse that warns about Satan as a roaring lion, gives the detail that most people miss. Lions do not attack herds. They study the herd, identify the animal that has wandered from the group, and pursue the isolated one. Satan's strategy against believers follows the exact same pattern. He does not need to attack the believer who is deeply embedded in genuine Christian community, who has people praying for them, speaking truth into their life, and holding them accountable. He needs to wait for them to wander, and wandering always begins with withdrawal. Hebrews chapter 10 verses 24 and 25 gives the command that directly counters Satan's isolation strategy. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Not neglecting to meet together. The writer of Hebrews identifies neglecting Christian community as a habit, a pattern that develops gradually, one missed gathering at a time, until the believer is entirely alone and entirely vulnerable. Ecclesiastes chapter 4 verse 12 gives the picture that describes why isolation is so dangerous. A threefold cord is not quickly broken. The believer who stands alone breaks. The believer embedded in genuine community with other genuine believers is far harder to break because the enemy who comes against one encounters the prayers, the encouragement, and the spiritual covering of many. Satan loves the isolated Christian because an isolated Christian is an easy target. Satan is not afraid of a Christian who attends church occasionally. He is afraid of a Christian who has genuine, accountable, praying community around them every single week.
The fourth thing Christians do that Satan actually loves is using their tongue to destroy through gossip, slander, complaining, criticism, and the kind of careless, destructive speech that tears down rather than builds up, that creates division rather than unity, and that gives the enemy more ammunition against the church than almost any other single behavior. James 3:5-6 gives the most vivid description of the destructive power of the tongue in all of scripture. The tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire. And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness, a world of unrighteousness, set in among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life. The tongue is not a small problem with minor consequences. It is a fire, and fires do not stay contained. Revelation 12:10 identifies Satan specifically as the accuser of our brothers, the one who accuses believers before God day and night. Every time a Christian gossips about another believer, every time they slander a fellow member of the body of Christ, every time they spread a negative report about someone in the church, they are doing Satan's primary job for him. They are accusing the brothers. They are functioning as an instrument of the very strategy that the enemy uses against God's people before the throne of heaven. Ephesians 4:29 gives the standard that permanently closes the door to this satanic tool. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as good for building up as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. Grace to those who hear. Every word out of a Christian's mouth should be building someone up or giving them grace. Everything else is an open door to the enemy and Satan walks through every open door. Every time you gossip about a fellow believer, you are doing Satan's job for him. He is the accuser of the brothers. Do not be his assistant.
The fifth thing Christians do that Satan actually loves is living in chronic fear. Fear of the future, fear of failure, fear of people's opinions, fear of what is coming, fear of not being enough, a pervasive daily anxiety that contradicts every promise of God and keeps the believer paralyzed in the exact place the enemy needs them to stay. 2 Timothy 1:7 gives the definitive biblical statement on the origin of fear in the believer's life. For God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control. Not of fear. Fear is not from God, which means every time lives in chronic fear, they are being governed not by the spirit of God, but by the spirit that the enemy uses to paralyze, to shrink, and to prevent the advancement of everything God placed in their hands to do. Satan cannot stop a Christian who walks in genuine faith, but he can stop one who lives in fear because fear and faith cannot govern the same life simultaneously. 1 John 4:18 gives the complete picture of what genuine love for God produces in response to fear. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. Perfect love casts out fear. Not suppresses it, not manages it, casts it out permanently, completely, as a natural consequence of growing in genuine intimacy with the God who is love. The Christian who lives in chronic fear has not yet been perfected in love and the enemy knows it. He uses fear to keep believers small, silent, inactive, and spiritually ineffective. He uses it to prevent them from speaking when God calls them to speak, from going where God calls them to go, from standing for what God calls them to stand for. Isaiah 41:10 is God's direct response to every fear the enemy plants. Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. The Christian who genuinely believes that has no room left for the fear Satan needs them to carry. Fear is not a personality trait. It is a spirit and it did not come from God. Every day you live in it is a day Satan did not have to fight you. You were already defeated before he arrived.
The sixth thing Christians do that Satan actually loves is operating in pride. The kind of spiritual pride that makes a believer unteachable, uncorrectable, and entirely convinced that their current level of understanding is sufficient and their current way of living requires no adjustment. Pride is not just a sin in the Bible, it is the sin that made Satan who he is. Isaiah 14:13 through 14 records the five I will statements that turned the most glorious angel in heaven into the enemy of God. Every single one of them an expression of pride that refused to remain in submission to God. And James 4:6 establishes the principle that governs God's relationship with every proud heart. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Opposes, not overlooks, not gently corrects, actively opposes. A proud Christian has God working against them and that is precisely the condition Satan needs to do his most effective work. The specific form of pride that Satan loves most in Christians is spiritual pride. The pride of someone who has been in church long enough to believe they have heard it all, know it all, and no longer need to be challenged, corrected, or taught anything genuinely new. Proverbs 16:18 gives the consequence of this pride with a simplicity that should end every comfortable self-sufficiency. Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. Before destruction, before the fall. The proud Christian is not in a position of strength, they are in the position that immediately precedes their most significant defeat and Satan does not have to push them. He just has to wait for the pride to do what Proverbs says it always does. 1 Corinthians 10:12 gives the warning that every long-standing, experienced, confident Christian must take seriously. Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. The moment you believe you are beyond the enemy's reach is the moment you have given him exactly the opening he was looking for. The Christian Satan fears most is not the most knowledgeable one, it is the most humble one because humility keeps you close to God and close to God is the one place Satan cannot reach.
The seventh thing Christians do that Satan actually loves is doubting the word of God and this is the oldest strategy in his entire playbook. Genesis 3:1 records the very first words Satan ever spoke to a human being. And they were a question designed to introduce doubt about what God had said. Did God actually say? Did God actually say? Not a direct denial, not an open attack, a question, a seed of uncertainty planted in a mind that had no reason to doubt until the question was asked and the strategy has not changed in thousands of years because it has never stopped working. The Christian who begins to doubt the clarity, the authority, and the reliability of God's word has removed the primary weapon that God gave them for spiritual warfare and Satan knows it. Ephesians 6:17 identifies the word of God as the sword of the spirit, the only offensive weapon in the entire armor of God. Every other piece of armor is defensive. The word is what you fight with. In Matthew 4:1 through 11 records the most vivid demonstration of how that weapon works. Jesus in the wilderness facing Satan's three temptations responding to every single one with the same four words, "It is written." Not a theological argument, not a lengthy rebuttal, "It is written." The word of God spoken with conviction and authority ended every attack. Satan left. And Luke 4:13 gives the detail that explains why the word must be trusted completely. When the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time. He departed until an opportune time. He is always looking for the opportune moment and a Christian who has begun to doubt, question, or water down the word of God has just handed him one. Hold the word, trust the word, speak the word. It is the one weapon Satan has never found an answer to.
Here is what I need you to understand before this video ends. Satan does not need dramatic strategies to defeat most Christians. He does not need to send a major temptation or orchestrate a catastrophic crisis. He just needs you to stay divided from your brothers and sisters. He just needs you to stay too busy to pray. He just needs you to isolate yourself from genuine community. He just needs your tongue to keep doing his accusation work for him. He just needs fear to keep you paralyzed. He just needs pride to keep you unteachable and he just needs one well-placed question about whether God really said what he said. None of those things require a supernatural attack. They require only your passive cooperation and that is what makes them so effective and so dangerous.
1 Peter 5:8 to 9 gives the complete biblical response to everything we have discussed today. Be sober-minded, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith. Resist him, not flee from him in terror, not be paralyzed by his presence. Resist actively, deliberately, firmly in the power of a faith that knows who the enemy is, knows what he is doing, and knows that the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 1 John 4:4 is the promise that stands beneath every strategy the enemy has ever deployed against a believer. He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. Greater, not equal, not comparable. Greater. Satan is not your match. He is not your peer. He is a defeated enemy operating on borrowed time and the Christian who knows that, believes that, and lives accordingly is the one thing he genuinely cannot stand.
Subscribe to Faith the Blaze Network right now and hit that notification bell. We release teachings like this one every single week. Share this video with every Christian in your life who needs to understand how the enemy actually works because the most dangerous attacks are the ones you never see coming. And leave a comment below. Tell me honestly which of these seven things you recognized in your own life today. Your honesty in those comments ministers to thousands of people reading them right now. God bless you and I will see you in the next message.