Avoiding Fear of Satanic Retaliation
You may meet Christians (and maybe you’re one of them) who think that if they’re accomplishing anything significant for the kingdom of God, they need to be looking over their shoulders because Satan is eagerly waiting to get them back for hurting his kingdom.
This shows an ignorance of Luke 10:19. Jesus said the “snakes and scorpions” would by no means hurt you. These Christians expect that Satan’s emissaries WILL hurt them. Will you believe them or Jesus?
Satan has no rights over you as a Christian. He does not acquire new rights to hurt you just because you’re doing something that is putting a dent in his kingdom.
When you take authority over Satan, you don’t need to then engage in special “fear tongues” to stop him from getting back at you, as I’ve seen some Christians do. Just believe what the Bible says. 1 John 4:4 says that you have overcome antichrist spirits. You are seated with Christ (Ephesians 2:6), FAR above all principality and power and every name that is named (Ephesians 1:22). You are delivered from Satan’s kingdom (Colossians 1:13). You have no valid reason to fear counterattacks from Satan.
I’ve seen the kind of fear I’m talking about especially in bogus spiritual warfare circles, where people convince themselves that the troubles they’re having are because Satan and his followers are so afraid of their constant “coming against” ruling territorial spirits that they have special targets on their backs. For some such people, their constant woes are a badge of honor because they supposedly show that Satan is more afraid of them than the people who aren’t getting beaten up all the time because they aren’t such great spiritual warriors.
But their constant problems have nothing to do with Satan being afraid of what they’re doing, since he invented the whole come-against-territorial-spirits doctrine in the first place to get Christians to waste time and “talk up” what the devil is doing. Satan and his spirits love the attention, and they appreciate Christians using their time for their alleged warfare rather than going out and actually getting people saved and healed and set free. They especially love to have people promote the falsehood that they are capable of stopping a move of God if they aren’t run out of town, though they have a legal right to be there but have no ability to stop anything God and His people are doing.
One pastor told me, “We expect these attacks because we’re in spiritual warfare.” I was glad I was not getting beaten up the way he and his family were. What was the difference? I wasn’t opening doors to Satan by engaging in unbiblical practices, and I wasn’t talking about the devil’s dark kingdom all the time. What you focus on and talk about is what you will attract. When you deviate from the Bible, you will get worse results than people who stick with the Bible.
Some well-meaning Christians have gotten into doctrines that are beyond stupid and then they wonder why things are going poorly. For example, the “tormenting the devil” doctrine teaches that you should torment the devil. The “Scripture” for this is that the demons in Gadara asked Jesus if He was there to torment them before the time, and they say that NOW is the time to torment the devil. So they play into his hand and open themselves up to trouble because they’re actually disobeying Scripture by mocking and taunting the devil.
Jude 1:9:
Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.
2 Peter 2:10-11:
But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.
Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord.
Having a mocking, taunting attitude is of the devil anyway (I wish I could force all modern politicians to read that), so you only do the devil favors by getting into such nonsense.
However, if you’re sticking with the Bible, you have no business boxing shadows by fearing what the devil might do to you. Your attitude can be that if he were to try anything, you would use the Word and put a stop to it anyway, so you have nothing to worry about.