Know The Foe Series

A young Christian woman, after only 8 months of marriage came to a counselor complaining that

she was as frigid as a ice burg. She had promised herself as a teenager that she would be a virgin on

her wedding day. But then she fell madly in love, and after he gave her the ring, and the wedding

day was set, she let down her guard, and the result was, she was not a virgin in her wedding gown.

This broken promise so plagued her that she blamed her husband for it, and developed a hostility

toward him that led to depression and to her becoming frigid.

This story could have very well ended in years of unhappiness and then divorce, for here was a

situation where Satan had a foot in the door of her life. Fortunately she got help, and was led to seek

God's forgiveness for her broken promise. Her depression lifted, and she was able to develop a

warm and loving relationship to her husband.

But had she not gone the way that Christ opened up by His atoning death, she could have become

a demonized Christian, who would have ruined her marriage and become a bitter hostile person the

rest of her life. She would not have been lost, but she would have been a prisoner of war. She

would have been in demonic bondage as territory captured by the enemy, and thus, a breeding

ground for the weeds of the wicked one, rather than for the fruit of the Spirit.

Can a Christian become a weed patch rather than a garden of God? This is the question we were

answering last week. The answer this week is the same. It is yes, a Christian can be demonized.

How can this be? It is really quite simple if you believe in the reality of the warfare between light

and darkness, good and evil, Christ and Satan. Satan operates on the principle-take every inch the

Christian leaves open for grabs. If we are ignorant of the enemy and his strategy, we can leave

ourselves wide open for him to invade our lives. The superficial idea that Christians cannot lose in

the battle of Satan is the cause of great harm. It is the war we can't lose, for Christ has already won

the war, but there are many battles, and Satan can win battles every day because Christians are blind

to his schemes.

Peter became a temporary opponent of the plan of God, and Jesus said to him, "Get thee behind

me Satan." At that point, on that specific issue, Peter was a tool of the devil. Satan was in control of

part of his life. Peter won the war, but he lost battles, as all of us can do.

Ignorance is our greatest danger, and that is why we need to learn all we can about demons to be

better soldiers of the faith, and to avoid the extremes of finding demons everywhere, or believing that

they are nowhere. So let's look at more evidence of the reality of the demonic.

Dr. Karefa-Smart, a distinguished physician, teacher, and diplomat, who held the post of Cabinet

Minister in Sierra Leone, and was the Assistant Director of the World Health Organization, and

visiting professor of International Health at Harvard, speaking to the western world said, "No

African that I know doubts the reality of the devil. Living as close to nature as we do, the devil does

not have as many technological devices to mask his presence as he does among you."

He recognizes the distinction between the demonic and disease, but he recognizes there is also a

connection, for both are of the kingdom of evil. He has a point, for Jesus dwelt with both side by side.

They were different, and yet in the same category as evil. Dr. Smart writes, "The bacteria and

viruses of disease may be called little devils; physicians recognize them as powerful foes. The

derangement of normal physiological functioning of the endocrine system, chemical imbalances

which cause disease, are the scientific counterparts of the spirit of the devil working within the

human body."

In other words, all of the things that go wrong in the body, and all of those tiny foes of the body

that make it sick are not part of the kingdom of God. They are part of the kingdom of Satan.

Disease may not be demonic, but it is related, for it is an enemy to man. This African scientific

perspective is easier to combine with New Testament revelation than the western scientific

perspective that says bacteria and viruses are just natural phenomenon. They are not evil forces, but

just forces of nature. It is not that this is not true, it is just questionable that this is the whole truth.