How Do Satan and His Demons Attack Christians?
On this subject as all subjects, our focus as Christians must be only on what the Bible clearly says. There are many books and seminars being offered on spiritual warfare, some of which are based on experience rather than the clear teaching of Scripture.
It is crucial that we stick to what the Bible clearly says. Whatever we need to know about Satan is contained in the Scriptures.
Summary of article:
How does Satan attack believers?
1. Satan incites our fleshly desires within us through the unbelieving world around us.
2. Satan attempts to deceive us with the lies of worldly wisdom through the unbelieving world around us.
3. Satan can physically afflict us or ones that we love with illness, crimes, disasters, and the like.
4. Satan attacks believers through persecution, pressuring believers to turn away from following Christ.
How do we stand firm against these attacks?
See TI Article entitled “How To Stand Firm Against Satan’s Attacks”
How does Satan actually attack us? What are Satan’s weapons in his attacks on believers?
1. Satan attacks Christians externally through the unbelieving world.
Satan does not implant thoughts in our minds internally. He does it externally through the world.
Satan spreads lies about God through the unbelieving world attacking our beliefs and values - spreading the lies of worldly wisdom.
Satan spreads fleshly temptations through the unbelieving world attacking our mind, emotions, and body - the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the boastful pride of life.
The “desires” that we have to sin is the flesh, not Satan.
Paul says in Eph.6:11 says that Christians are to stand firm against “the devil’s schemes.”
This gives the Devil’s strategy in his war against God and us.
2. The Strategy of Satan in the battle is deception
He attacks through “schemes” or “wiles.” The word “schemes” refers “cunning arts, deceit, craftiness, trickery in a planned way.” Satan’s primary method of attack is deceit. It is well-planned out deceit, strategic lies.
As I mentioned earlier, the devil is a slanderer who is the father of lies. Jn.8:44 as we saw above says,
“You are of your Father, the devil, and you will do the desires of your Father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and did not abide in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar, and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, you do not believe.”
Satan is by nature a liar and his primary method with which he attacks human beings is through lies to deceive them into believing something false about God or God’s plan in order to get them to rebel against God.
He lies about who God is, what God is like, what we are like, what God desires for us to do, how to be saved, etc., etc., etc.
This is how he attacks us – through lies.
And as we shall see the instrument he uses to spread these lies is unbelievers.
These “schemes” or “strategic deception or lies” are ones that will be effective against us if we do not give the proper defense.
In Gen.3:1-6 it says,
“Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?’ And the woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ And the serpent said to the woman, ‘You shall not surely die, for God knows that in the day you eat of it, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”
Satan attacked Adam and Eve by lying to them. By telling them falsehoods about God, and his purpose and plan for them.
Notice also, that Satan tempted Eve externally. He took over the body of a serpent and spoke audibly to her. He did not implant any thoughts in her mind.
This is all Satan can do is attack us through deception. Otherwise, he has no power or control over us as believers.
He cannot spiritually lay hold of us and force us to do anything against our wills. He cannot possess us. Christians cannot be demon-possessed. He cannot influence us in a way that we cannot simply choose resist. He cannot control our minds or our emotions. He can only tempt us by inciting our fleshly desires and trying to deceive us.
He cannot turn us away from Christ and into unbelief and an unbelieving lifestyle that goes with it. He can only deceive us.
How do Satan and his demons attack us as believers?
The Bible shows four ways:
1. Satan incites our fleshly desires within us through the unbelieving world around us.
Because of the fall of Adam every human being has a fleshly nature in him or her. That fleshly nature has fleshly desires. Those desires can result in fleshly sinful actions if we follow them.
In Gal.5:19-20 Paul describes those actions using four categories:
a. Sexual immorality, that is, sexual activities outside of marriage
b. Idolatry, that is, false religious doctrines and practices
1 Tim.4: 5 speaks of “deceiving spirits through hypocritical liars.”
c. Selfishness
d. Destructive addictions
In Gal.5:17 Paul says that our sinful nature, our flesh, desires what is contrary to the Holy Spirit who resides in us.
These desires are from our flesh; they are not from Satan. Satan cannot implant desires in us. These desires are from our flesh. Everyone has fleshy desires.
All these actions mentioned by Paul begin with the desires of the flesh.
Jesus mentioned this himself in Mk.7:20-23.
“And he said, “That which comes out of the man is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.”
There is no such thing as the demonic spirit of anger, or the demonic spirit of lust as if Satan has implanted in us a fleshly desire that has become an obsession we are in bondage to. That is not Biblical.
James talks about this as well. He says that a person sins, he or she is responsible.
Jas. 1:13-15 says “but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.”
James is making sure that we understand where the internal source of temptation is; it is our fleshly desires.
This statement is important because James is also the one who talks about resisting the devil and he will flee from you in Jas.5.
There is an internal source of temptation in us – our desires.
They will be there until the day we die or the Lord returns for us.
But there is an external source of temptation in regards to our fleshly desires and that is Satan and his demons.
Their strategy (schemes in v. 11) in regards to our fleshly desires is to incite them, to stir them up in us through the world.
Unbelievers live their lives weaved around fleshly desires. They develop society and culture reflected in the media around their fleshly desires. Satan is behind this.
Satan uses them to stir up our fleshly desires. Wherever we live unbelievers dominate. We will be surrounded by fleshly attitudes and actions, things and activities that stir up our fleshly desires all of our lives.
This is obvious.
In Eph.2:1-3, Paul speaks of our former manner of life as unbelievers.
“And you who were dead in trespasses and sins he has made alive. In which in time past you lived according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience. Among whom also we all had our manner of life in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.”
Unbelievers “live according to the flesh which is according to the course of this world which is according to the prince of the power of the air.”
This is a general statement of the lifestyle of an unbeliever, of their pattern of life, and of their values and life focus. That lifestyle follows the desires of the flesh, which follows the ways of the world, which follows the ways of Satan.
In Jn.12:31 and 14:30 Jesus calls Satan the “ruler of this world.” Satan rules unbelievers who develop the evil ways of the world based upon the lies of Satan and the desires of the flesh. Every person born into the world has the desires of the flesh in them and grows up in an environment where the flesh is incited and the lies of Satan are heralded.
Satan uses the world of unbelievers to do this. That is behind what John says in 1 Jn.
1 Jn.2:15-17
“Do not love the world nor the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.”
John says “Do not love the world or nor the things of the world.” Love means to value something. John is saying that believers are not to value the world, the ways of unbelievers, or the ways of their fleshly desires.
John says that if anyone says he is a Christian and yet has a lifestyle of an unbeliever, where his or her pattern of life, his or her values and life focus are worldly, he or she is not a Christian.
At times Christians will fall into valuing the world, but the love of the father and what he values is in Christians through the Holy Spirit and that dominates our minds and hearts.
Notice in 1 Jn. what the world is full of which incites our fleshly desires.
1. “The lust of the flesh,“ the desires of the flesh for that which God forbids.
2. “The lust of the eyes,” the desires incited by the eyes – by looking – the world is full of things which incites our fleshly desires for the forbidden through sight
3. “The pride of life” – the world is full of pride and selfishness that boasts how one is above all others, deserves more than others based on their abilities and achievements, looks, etc.
Satan uses the world to incite our fleshly desires so when you are tempted by a desire for the forbidden you can be sure of two things. The external source of the temptation is Satan and his demons through the world and the internal source of temptation are the fleshly desires that are in us.
We need to stand firm against Satan and his demons inciting us through the world.
In 1 Cor. 7:5, Paul writes of Satan tempting Christian husbands and wives with sexual temptations. He does not say how he tempts them. As we have seen, it is not internally, but externally. Satan is behind a sexually charged unbelieving world around us and the flesh has desires within us.
In Eph. 4:26-27, Paul says that holding onto anger against someone gives Satan a foothold in one’s life. Again, Satan stirs up anger by developing strife and conflict in the world and spreading lies about the justification of all anger in all circumstances based on the importance of feelings.
2. Satan attempts to deceive us with the lies of worldly wisdom through the unbelieving world around us.
In James 4:7, James tells Christians to “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
This is a major statement about stopping the devil’s work in our lives, but the context is rarely mentioned.
What is the context that speaks of the devil’s work that needs to be resisted?
It is being deceived by the lies of worldly wisdom and embracing worldly beliefs and values.
In Jas. 4:1-6, friendship with the world, taking on the ways of the world, is the same thing as loving the world.
In 4:6 James says to submit to God not to the world’s ways and resist the devil. Satan was tempting them through the world’s beliefs and values.
Christians are to resist the devil’s temptation by turning away from the beliefs and values of the world which are based upon Satanic lies and hold fast to faith and obedience in God and His Word.
Earlier in Jas. 3:14, he writes of harboring bitter envy and selfish ambition in their hearts. It is based upon the wisdom, which is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil [of this dark world].
In Jas. “wisdom” refers to a “way of living,” how people live. It refers to the principles of living that people base their lives upon.
How do we resist? We need to submit to God’s wisdom. Who are we listening to, God’s wisdom James 3:17 or the devil’s wisdom 3:14?
We need to stand firm against Satan and his demons inciting us through the world.
When fleshly desires rise up in us, it is our values and our beliefs that cause us to decide whether we will follow those desires.
God gives to us at salvation when the Holy Spirit comes to live within us new desires based on new beliefs and values.
So Satan knows he must strike at our beliefs and values if he is to tempt us and he does this by lies.
So Satan attacks the true and righteous values and beliefs, which God has given to us with false and evil values and beliefs through lies.
Lies about what is right and what is wrong. Lies about what is valuable and what is not. He has enslaved the world with his lies and he attempts to tempt us through his lies.
When we accept those lies in our minds and hearts, we fall into the temptations of Satan.
Remember from the time we are children we receive hundreds and thousands of lies from the world around us into our minds and memories, many of them we do not even notice.
They do not just come from the culture or media, they can come from unbelieving parents and relatives and even from believing parents and relatives because we still sin.
Matt.16: 21-24 “Be Gone Satan” “Get out of my sight Satan!” Jesus addresses Satan as the originator of the lie that Peter just articulated.
The lie Peter articulated is the lie that was the primary one Israel has been deceived by Satan into believing.
The lie is that the messiah was to come and set up his kingdom without any need for a making a sacrifice for sin, that in turn bred another lie, that in order to enter the kingdom of God there is no humbling before God and no recognition of sin needed.
Peter got this lie from the entire nation around him, from the world.
I call this the Satanic information network. It is the compilation of lies that Satan implants in a culture or society.
I don’t believe that Satan put that directly into Peter’s mind, he had implanted it in the nation and culture. Peter was saying what many were saying.
Jesus was emphasizing that Satan is behind this lie and warning Peter and his other disciples about it.
Can Satan implant thoughts in our minds as believers to tempt us?
This is explained in the article, “Can Satan Read Our Minds?” Aside from demon possession, the Bible only shows Satan working externally in the unbelieving world around us.
3. Satan can physically afflict us or ones that we love with illness, crimes, disasters, and the like.
This creates great trials in our lives, which in turn pushes us to question what we believe and how we are living.
There are several very important passages in the Scriptures dealing with this topic.
a. Satan tempts us by inflicting upon us crime or war, natural disasters, or physical illness
Job 1: Satan tells God that Job was only “blameless” because he had no trials or troubles. If God inflicted these on Job, Job would curse God. In other words, Satan says, “Let him squeeze him and he will break.”
In Job 1:15 & 17, Satan is able to bring others to commit crimes and war against Job.
In Job 1:16 & 18 Satan is able to inflict natural disasters upon Job’s family such as lightning (”the fire of God”) and hurricane or tornado (“a mighty wind”).
In Job 2:6-8 Satan is able to inflict physical illness on Job who is a believer.
So Satan has the ability to move unbelievers to action and to cause natural disasters and physical illness.
Notice, several things:
1) God had a hedge around Job – which simply means God’s protective care which in terms of Job God had by his divine sovereignty chosen to protect him from all these things. Job.1: 10
All believers have God’s protection around them, that is his protective care so that only what God allows may affect the believer.
2) Satan had to ask permission to afflict Job. He was limited by God’s sovereign will. Nothing is out of God’s control, not even Satan’s activities.
3) This was allowed by God to show the solid character of Job’s faith and obedience, it was done by Satan to tempt Job to turn away from God. Job, in fact, did honor God. At first, he was unwavering (1:10), then he struggled later in the book, but in the end he held on to his faith and was taught much truth about suffering (Job.1: 20-22).
4) Satan’s goal was not for Job to struggle with his faith. It was for Job to completely and utterly turn away from God by cursing God (Job.1:9-10, Job.2:4-5). This is Satan’s goal for us.
His wife broke down spiritually under the pressure and succumbed to Satan’s temptation. This shows the true nature of her lack of true saving faith, to curse God is far more than to struggle with your faith. There may be others around you who are buckling under the pressure of the trials; they can become instruments of Satan in tempting you.
5) Notice Job does not focus on the attack of Satan he focuses on wearing the armor of God – faith and obedience (Job.1:20-22, Job.2: 10).
Job does not spend time identifying the attacker, “Was this just a natural occurrence or from Satan or what?”
He understands that all things are under God’s sovereign control, and focuses on God.
There is no binding of Satan anywhere in Job. There is only faith and obedience.
In fact, after these two events, for the rest of the 40 chapters there is not mention or focus on Satan.
We see this same pattern in 2 Cor.12.
In 2 Cor.12:7-10, Paul realizes his physical illness which was probably some kind of eye disease (Gal. 4: 13-16) was God allowing Satan to attack.
He says this to show that he recognizes that Satan has an evil purpose behind it, but his focus is not on Satan at all.
He does not bind Satan or work some spiritual warfare formula. He simply prays to God about it asking God to remove it if it would be his will.
The Lord said no because he wanted it to show Paul just how powerful the Lord is in his life through his work in the midst of Paul’s weakness.
Jesus healed people that were inflicted by Satan with an illness, but that were not demon-possessed.
In Lu.13:10-13, Jesus encounters a woman in a synagogue who was crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. It says,
“And he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And, behold, there was a woman, which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over, and could in no way lift herself up. And when Jesus saw her, he called her to himself and said to her, ‘Woman, you are released from your infirmity.’ And he laid his hands on her and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.”
There is no indication in the text that the woman was demon-possessed nor that Jesus cast out a demon. Luke only mentions that Jesus healed her of her infirmity just as he healed others where there is no mention of a spirit.
The Gospels only records this instance where Jesus healed a person where a spirit had inflicted an illness. All other times, there is only the mention of illness and the healing Jesus did. It is possible that Satan or a demon may have inflicted others Jesus healed, but there is no mention of it.
How do we tell the difference between an illness from Satan and one that is not? We don’t. Job never asked the Lord to deal with Satan in his illness. Job only trusted and obeyed.
Jesus did not mention Satan or the demon when he healed the woman in the synagogue. She is healed and immediately glorifies God.
When we become ill, we are not to question whether the source of the illness is demonic or not, but we are to trust and obey the Lord and seek him.
There is a situation where it seems that Paul speaks of allowing Satan to afflict the physical body of a believer who was engaged in serious unrepentant sin.
In 1 Cor.5:1-5
“It is reported commonly that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles, that one has his father’s wife. And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that has done this deed might be taken away from among you. For I truly, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that has so done this deed. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”
In the Corinthian church, a Christian was living with his father’s wife. It was on-going. There was no repentance. Paul tells the Corinthians to institute the Biblical discipline process, which was to put the Christian out of the congregation. He expresses this in four ways.
They were to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh (body, can’t be fleshly nature because its destruction can only happen at death), purge out the old leaven, do not keep company with the sinning Christian, judge him, and put away from yourselves the evil person.
They were to judge the believer for his sin and put him out of the congregation, which meant no longer associate with him. When that took place, apparently Satan is given the opportunity to afflict him physically even up to and including physical death of he doesn’t repent.
Paul then gives the reason for this action. It was so that the sinning person will have his spirit saved in the day of Christ Jesus. When a Christian is in serious unrepentant sin, apparently God will allow Satan to afflict the physical body in order to cause the person to turn to God in his suffering and repent. If the person does not repent, God will allow Satan to take his physical life that the Christian might go into the presence of the Lord.
4. Satan attacks believers through persecution, pressuring believers to turn away from following Christ.
In Lu.22:31-34, it says,
“And the Lord said, ‘Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail. When you have turned back, strengthen your brethren.’ And he said to him, ‘Lord, I am ready to go with you, both into prison, and to death.’ And he said, ‘I tell you, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day, before that you shall three times deny that you know me.’”
Satan asked and received permission from God to subject all the disciples to a severe test through the fear that would come from the serious danger they were in from the Roman and Israeli authorities after the death of Christ.
Satan particularly chose Peter of the twelve for a special temptation because Peter was the leader of the twelve.
Just as in Job’s case, God allowed Satan this liberty, but always within bounds – the Evil One has no free and unlimited right to act against the faithful, but must always submit to the overruling and permissive authority of the Lord.
In the impending events (His arrest and crucifixion) Satan made a last desperate attempt to break up the circle of Jesus’ disciples and to cast out its members like chaff scattered by the wind. Satan desired that in the sifting process “no wheat shall remain”, but that all (like Judas) will be blown away like chaff. That is, no one will remain with faith in Christ.
The Lord prayed for all his faithful disciples and especially for Peter, who played and still had to play such a leading part, that God should preserve him from utter shipwreck of his faith.
Jesus said that Peter’s faith in Christ would not fail, and it didn’t, but he still succumbed to temptation. Jesus says that when he turns back, he should strengthen his brothers.
While Satan thus acts as the cunning adversary, Jesus acts as the intercessor, the advocate of his disciples and especially of that particular one whom he had previously pointed out as the leader amongst them.
The temptation that Peter was to receive was the fear of persecution and death at the hands of the Jewish and Roman authorities. The instrument Satan used was the attention and questions about his relationship with Jesus that the unbelievers in the courtyard of the high priest would thrust upon him in the context of the great physical danger he was in if he were to claim to be Christ’s disciple.
There is no internal temptation of Peter by Satan stated. It is the fear of punishment and death that Satan uses to tempt Peter to turn away from Christ.
All believers are susceptible to Satanic persecution. Satan uses unbelievers to persecute the church. His goal is not to kill off Christians, but to cause Christians to turn away from Christ.
True Christians won’t do this, but that does not stop Satan from trying. Persecution is the context of Peter’s statement about Satan being a roaring lion who attempts to devour Christians.
In 1 Pet.5:8-9
“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.”
The context of the devil’s temptation as a roaring lion is the suffering of persecution. Standing firm is holding onto your faith.
Although at this point in America, we are not running for our lives in persecution, there are still many forms of it in our lives. Satan will attempt to put us in many situations where we will be pressured and criticized for holding onto our convictions.
Peer pressure to follow worldly practices. Satan will tempt you to give up your convictions by the peer pressure of unbelievers around you.
They will ridicule you. Be assured that it is Satan behind them.
He will do it through unbelieving people around us, family and co-workers, fellow-students, and the like. His goal is to squeeze us so that we will give in and compromise our convictions and ruin our testimony.
Be alert! Stand firm in your faith, in what you know to be true about God and what His Word says is right and good.
Though Satan uses this for evil, God allows it in our lives to test us to show our faith is genuine.
In 1 Pet.1:6-9, Peter writes,
“In which you greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, you are burdened by various temptations, that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes though it be tried with fire, might be found to the praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. Whom having not seen, you love; in whom, though now you do not see him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the goal of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.”
In the previous verses Peter wrote about the hope that these believers had that they would be in heaven for eternity with the Lord. Then he says, in v.6, that they greatly rejoiced in this even though they were going through various temptations. What were the temptations? They were the tempting situations that persecution brings. They are circumstances that cause us to fear the consequences of persecution, which tempt us to turn away from the Lord. We know this because the context of the whole letter is encouraging persecuted believers.
Satan uses unbelievers to afflict and harass persecute believers, to pressure believers to turn away from Christ.
This persecution can take many forms. It can be ridicule or social ostracism by unbelievers for doing the right thing. It can be pressure from worldly companies run by unbelievers to neglect our families and focus too many hours on work. It can be pressure for financial rewards based on neglecting our Biblical priorities.
Some ways Satan is persecuting believers in America:
1. Public or personal ridicule of our belief in Christ or our moral stance on homosexuality, abortion and other such moral issues.
2. Social unacceptance at the work place when we take a moral stand on an issue.
3. Pressure from worldly companies to focus too many hours on work, which causes us to neglect our Biblical priorities.
How do we stand firm against these attacks?
See TI Article How To Stand Firm Against Satan’s Attacks