The method that the devil uses to encourage you to commit sin
The devil would use different ways to encourage you to fight against God. These are all the deceptive ways he uses to hook many into a life of sin:
The serpent is cunning as he always wants to hide the sting of sin. He will never reveal all you need to know before you commit any sinful act. He will always reveal the false benefits of sin. Sin has no benefit at all. All that seems good about sin is poison wrapped in a beautiful package.
When the devil tempts you to commit sin, he makes an offer that appeals to your needs. This offer might seem too good to be true so that you may fall for it. These are offers that sins will make to you:
False joy and peace. Sin will make you focus your mind on immediate self-gratification. Anyone who commits sin does not consider the consequences of his actions on other people. He does not care who says what, all he is focused on is to get as much pleasure as he could get from his sinful actions. A person who is wedded to sin does not think of any other thing, except the pleasure and the warmth of sin. Sin might taste good and give you a kick, but that kick is the kick of death.
Some other times, you might feel a sense of achievement from committing a certain sin. Clearly, sin is enjoyable to those who commit it, and it gives many a false sense of peace. But sin has come into your life not to play with you, but to give you tonnes of tears. It has come to bury you alive, and you would realise when you are defeated that sin has duped you to believe a lie.
Many people would realise the devastating consequences of sin when they are bound to wheelchairs and when their bodies are bruised and broken. At times, they would realise when they are dead that sin has taken their life.
False sense of prosperity. Many people are rich because of sin. Some people also get employment or contracts because sin has promised them prosperity. Any prosperity that comes from illicit ways will have a sting of death.
If you prosper because of sin, sin will one day ask you to pay back all the favours it has given you, and if you cannot pay, you will be the servant of sin as long as you live. All the people who prosper as a result of sin will be bound to sin for as long as they do not realise the dangerous consequences of their sinful actions.
Once you commit a sin to receive a financial benefit, that sin will always make sure that you are always married to it. You will only get money or contracts when you keep your relationship with it. Once you divorce it, you will start to experience financial problems. In this regard, you will prosper financially as long as sin is still your partner.
What is sad is that as you continue to prosper because of sin, your life will be turned upside down. When you are married to sin, the consequences of sin will follow you. These consequences might not be related to your financial position, but they will be related to all that is around you.
When you make sin your partner, know that you have invited demons to come into your life. Once these demons come into your life, they will scatter everything that is related to you. They will attack your family and your health. When these demons are finished with you, you would experience pain and failure in many areas of your life. You might still have the finances, but money will not protect you from demonic attacks.
Anyone who is married to the devil will also be married to his demon soldiers, who are always in the business of destroying people who are obedient to sin. This is a simple spiritual protocol. All the people who love sin will be contaminated with death and failure. And anyone who loves the righteousness of God will enjoy the protection and favour of Heaven. The devil pays those who are married to him with tears, and Jesus blesses those who thirst for holiness with all the riches that flows from the fountain of righteousness.
False fame. Sin has attracted many people to a false life of stardom. The lure of fame has driven many to do anything possible to get the attention of the public. They are willing to sink to the lowest level to get fame. Many of them live in sorrow because the source of their fame is sin. Depression is the most common sickness among them because many of those who hunger for fame are so in love with sin, but their abusive lover is doing everything possible to destroying them.
Their families are also not immune to the destruction that is happening to them, as their families are so full of emptiness and sorrow. Those who want fame do not care about the implication of their sinful life to their families. They will do whatever it takes to keep their public profile positive by doing what is negative and sinful. Surely, these people are hurting, but they are hiding their pain from the world. Many of them live a lie because they are crying inside, but they do not want people to see their sorrow.
Sin can fool you completely by making you the toast of the public whilst you are suffering inside. It makes you believe that things are good as long as you are in the public’s eye. As a result of this, those who love fame are abusing drugs and alcohol because they are seeking for peace and joy. Unfortunately for them, substance abuse will not give them any peace. Substance abuse is a consequence of loving sin. Undoubtedly substance abuse is another weapon that sin will use to kill you or to break your body.
It is only Jesus who could set people free from the pool of tears. Alcohol and drugs will not relieve their problems, they would multiply them a hundred folds. In fact, alcohol and drugs will hasten their demise. They will die young and broken because their abusive partner has made them live a lie.
The devil will hide all the bitter consequences of sin with the intentions of tripping you to fall into sin. Sin is darkness as it comes from the master of darkness, the devil. Anything that comes from the devil is contaminated with death, failure, tears and sorrow, poverty and a life of spiritual bondage. Death and failure will always follow those who are in love with sin, because sin is an abusive partner who knows only one thing, to destroy people completely.
Those who abuse the grace of God believe that God loves them regardless of their love for sin. They believe a lie that was peddled by the serpent.
God is holy and everything about Him is holy. He is the Lord of the kingdom of righteousness. He loves all the sinners, and because of that, He wants to give them freedom from the abusive sin. Jesus died on the cross so that He could free us from the bondage of sin. We were all saved by His blood so that we may forsake the kingdom of sin and abide in His kingdom of righteousness.
The devil attacks everyone with lies. He is attacking those who have been saved and those who are still living in the world. When he lies to those who have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, he wants them to go back to a life of sin. He encourages them to sin by lying about sin and its consequences.
Once they fall for his lies, they will forsake the righteousness of God for a life of sin. They might still call themselves born again or children of God, but this will be a lie. A person is called a child of God because he wants to be like his Father, who loves righteousness and hates sin. Once a person loves what the devil loves, he is the child of the devil, not Jesus.
The devil lies to them by saying God will not condemn or judge them as they have already been redeemed by the blood of Jesus. This is a lie many have fallen for. As a result of this lie, many people are still clinging to sin.
When Satan peddles this lie to those who have not gone to Calvary, he is blinding them with lies in order to prevent them from realising how spiritually dirty they are.
A person would only want to go to the cross of Calvary when he realise how spiritual dirty he is. If sin is not a problem, then no one would want to be saved by Jesus. When the serpent encourages people not to worry about sin, he knows that he will keep them to himself. They will be spiritual prisoners as long as they do not realise how dangerous sin is.
The devil is the biggest liar and he will always lie about what the cross of Calvary has done for all who believe in the Lamb of God, Jesus.
The cross of freedom has freed us from the power of sin, and it has also given us the spiritual power of God so that we may dominate our human nature. We are the children of God who have the spiritual nature of our Father. We are no longer controlled by the desires of our human nature as we are driven by a desire to please our Master in all things.
“ For it is God who is working in you, enabling you both to desire and to work out His good purpose” (Philippians 2:13).
Anyone who is born again has been given the Holy Spirit so that He could help us to be obedient to the word of God. Indeed, we have the ability to please God because of the help of the Spirit of the Lord, who abide in us. Sin no longer has power over us, because it is no longer attractive to us. Every child of God is no longer impressed by the things that impress the world, as we are only focused on pleasing Jesus.
For this reason, we detest anything that will shame the name of our Father. This is what the cross of Calvary has done for. It has transformed our spiritual mind by giving us the heart of God. This heart is only programmed by God to hunger for His righteousness. It is a heart that wants to be covered by the glorious presence of the Lord all the time. This heart understands that power only comes through obedience to the word of God.
When the devil lies about our salvation, he feeds our minds with poison so that we may not believe in the power of righteousness over sin. The devil will always say to us, ‘It is not possible to please God because we are human, and due to this, we must be driven by the desires of our human nature.’
The serpent will always say, ‘There is no one who can live a holy life.’ This is a lie and the serpent knows about it. He will tell us lies because he always wants us to be wedded to sin for the rest of our lives. He knows the power of the Holy Spirit who abides in us. The Spirit of the Lord will always help us to dominate sin. Sin will always be under our control as long as we still believe in the righteousness of God.
This is the power of the new covenant we have in Jesus. This covenant does not only redeem our sins, it gives us the Holy Spirit so that He may abide in us. His presence gives us the power to act like Jesus. We are able to behave like Jesus because our minds are no longer of this world, as we have the spiritual mind of God.
Anyone who wants to please the Lord would be given the grace to do exactly that. Whoever takes the word of God lightly would always swim in the pool of death. Salvation is more about your attitude than being about your ability to overcome sin. We overcome sin because we have the attitude of desiring to please God in all things. Your attitude to God and His righteousness will determine whether you would live in sin or in the victory that comes through righteousness.
When you have an attitude of thirsting for righteousness, the Lord would fill you with His power so that you could overcome the power of sin. But when you are indifferent to God and His righteousness, you will always be married to sin.
The devil is the author of pain and suffering. He is the source of many afflictions. He could attack any area of our lives. The serpent could afflict our health, finances, joy, peace, jobs, business, and our families. There is no area that is immune to his attacks.
All those who are born again have a Master who would do all to prosper and protect them. When we are afflicted, the Lord has allowed such an afflictions so that He accomplishes something in our lives. At times, when we are afflicted, the Lord is using those afflictions to strength us, and to strengthen our faith in Him.
And some other times, we are afflicted because the Lord wants to reveal His glory. When he takes our affliction away, He shows His ability to do all that we could not do. Our Father will be glorified when He has healed us of our affliction.
However, those who live in sin cannot count on the grace of God to help them, for the Lord is only compelled by His word to help those who love His righteousness. When those who live in sin are afflicted, they are reaping the fruits of being in love with sin.
An affliction has different implication for those who love the Lord and those who still fight against His authority. If you love the righteousness of God, and you are obedient to His word, the Lord will in no time lift the burden of affliction you might be experiencing. When the children of God are afflicted, they must continue to be obedient to the word of God regardless of their situation. They must trust in the power of God because they are the children of God who are entitled to the protection of the Father.
But those who still love the world will continue to cry as long as they do not realise the negative consequences of sin in their lives. Once they turn their backs on their sinful ways and decide to run for the cover of Jesus, they would be delivered from their afflictions.
The devil is very shrewd indeed, as he would do all in his power to hook us into his fold. He will not hesitate to use an affliction as a tool he could use to tempt you to run into his dirty arms. The serpent will afflict you so that he may play a saviour.
Once you are afflicted, the serpent will offer his help to heal your afflictions. How does the serpent deliver you from your afflictions? Satan has agents throughout the world, and many of them claim to heal people of their problems. These agents are false healers whom the devil uses to lure people into his corner.
When some people are afflicted, they normally go to the agents of darkness to seek for healing and deliverance from their troubles. Once they got there, they would receive false healing or deliverance from the devil. The serpent will then fool them to believe they have been cured of their afflictions.
The devil does not offer gifts. He will dupe you to believe that you have been healed, only to afflict you more. His agents will not heal you, but they will initiate you into the kingdom of darkness where you will be wedded to all manners of sins.
Satan will never heal you of any affliction. When he heals you, he takes one affliction from one area and puts it somewhere in your life or body. He may take away the headache and give you asthma. Some other times, he may heal your ulcer, but cause you to divorce your partner. You may not have an ulcer, but you would have lost a partner too.
When the serpent heals you, he always takes something from you. You might not realise what he has done as, ‘He heals you,’ but one day you will realise all the damages he has caused in your life. The devil does not heal but rearranges sicknesses in our bodies. You may appeal to be healed in one area only to be afflicted in another area. And when he does this, he afflicts you more than he has done before. In the end, your situation would be worse than it was before.
Assuredly, it is only Jesus who could deliver you from all the troubles of your life. The Lamb of God is the only One who is the light and life. Afflictions are death and darkness, and because of that, they could only be healed by Jesus who is the Light of God.
The serpent will do everything in his power to make sure that you do not understand the word of God. To a child of God, there is nothing that is more potent than the word of God. Our strength is in the knowledge of God’s word, hence the devil will do all he could to hide this powerful spiritual weapon to us.
The first method he uses to hide the word of God is to prevent you from reading the Bible. He will always manipulate you so that you would not study the Bible. These is what he will always do to stop you from reading the Bible: he will destruct you mind so that you may focus your attention away from reading the Bible; he will encourage you to twist the word of God so that you could follow a lie instead of following the truth that is found in the word of God; he would also encourage you not to attend any church; if he could not stop you from attending church, he would encourage you to attend a church that twists the word of God or a church that has a culture of undermining the word of God.
When the serpent destructs your mind, he may make you feel very tired, or he might occupy your mind with something that needs your urgent attention. You would focus your energies on that thing instead of reading the word of God. Sometimes, he might make you procrastinate reading the Bible by making you postpone the time for Bible study.
When you cannot dedicate time for Bible study, know that the serpent is responsible for this. The serpent has the ability to pollute our minds when we lower our spiritual guard. He can take few seconds to pollute our minds. We need to be vigilant to the works of the devil. The serpent will always use our human nature to fight against us or to undermine the work of God in us. When we sense that he is making us not to read the word of God, it is time to rebuke the devil in the name of Jesus. The devil knows the power of the name of Jesus, and when you rebuke him, he will run away from you.
The second method he uses to hide the word of God from us is to make us reject God and to encourage us not to attend church. A church is a place where the Lord teaches us His word. Consequently, a church opens our spiritual eyes so that we may know spiritual issues that the devil wants to hide from us. Satan knows that by encouraging us to reject God, we will not go to church, and when we do not attend any church, we would always be ignorant of spiritual issues that are so important to our existence.
Everyone who rejects God do so not out of choice, but because the devil wants to prevent them from discovering spiritual matters that would make it difficult for him to attack them.
The third method he uses to hide the word of God from you is to make you twist the word of God. When you twist the truth, the truth will always stand firm, but your mind will believe the fake copy of the truth. Any fake copy of the truth will always put spiritual shackles around you.
“You must not add anything to what I command you or take anything away from it, so that you may keep the commands of the LORD your God I am giving you” (Deuteronomy 4:2).
When you follow a fake copy of the truth, you are following the devil, because the devil is the greatest counterfeiter. Anyone who twists the word of God is fooling himself. The spiritual protocols are permanent and because they are permanent, the truth will always be the truth and a lie will always be a lie despite your best effort to mask or change it.
You may decide to follow a lie but that would not help you in any way. Anyone who believes in the twisted gospel does not follow Jesus, they follow the devil. If you decide to follow a lie, you will always be in harm’s way, for the presence of the Lord would depart from you. When the presence of the Lord moves away from you, all kinds of dangers would be your inheritance. The Lord’s presence covers all who are following the truth, and there is nothing that could prevail against them.
The last method he uses to hide the word of God from you is to make you attend a church that is lost in lies and confusion. Many churches are places that subtract something from us instead of adding spiritual riches in us. The reason for this is that these churches are teaching error and what is so false that you would never believe they are places of worship. The leaders of these churches do not know anything about God, and for that reason, they are leading many people to hell. A church that does not preach the pure word of God does not come from God, it comes straight from the kingdom of darkness.
These churches teach false doctrines or teachings, and due to this, those who are subjected to these teachings would be lost. When you follow wrong teachings of the word of God, your faith would be misplaced, and when your faith is misplaced, it means you would not be able to please God as you would do what He does not want you to do. You would be lost without realising this, as you might wrongfully think you are following what is true when the opposite is true.
Not only are these churches preaching a false gospel, they are not teaching people to tremble at the word of God. The teachers or preachers who lead these churches are living sinful lives, and owing to that, they would also teach their followers to live in sin, instead of treasuring the righteousness of God.
The sad part is those who attend these churches take comfort in what these churches are doing? Salvation is not the salvation of the church, but of the people. To be saved is an individual choice, hence the Lord will not judge us as the church, but He will judge people individually.
The Lord will not entertain excuses during the judgment day. You can never hide behind a church or a preacher. Our Judge will only ask you about you, and what you have done or omitted to do when you were still alive. It is for this reason that all the people must be vigilant about the churches they attend, as they might influence them positively or negatively.
When a church preaches the pure gospel of salvation, it will help you to understand the expectations of the Lord, but when it teaches poison, it will condemn you into a false sense of salvation which will only give you a one-way ticket to hell.
Why does the devil encourage people to attend churches that are lost in deceit? The devil will fool many people so that they may believe that they are worshiping God in truth and in spirit, whereas the opposite is true. One can only please God when he attends a church that preaches the pure word of God.
Any church that is steeped in the truth of the gospel will help you to understand God better, but a church that is lost in deceit will only damage your mind, and it might condemn you permanently into hell. We could only receive the promise of eternal life when we have an obedient relationship with Jesus. Eternal life will only be enjoyed by those who have bowed their lives to the authority of the word of God.
We could only submit our lives to the word of God when we have been exposed to the pure gospel of salvation. A church or the teachers of the word of God must teach the gospel properly if it is to profit us. When they do not teach the proper gospel of salvation, they will mislead us to follow a gospel that does not have the power to save us.
Assuredly, when we follow the false gospel, we are not following Jesus. And when we do not follow Jesus, we will never meet with Him one day. Our portion will be in hell with the father of lies, Satan. This is exactly where the devil wants us to be. If he could not stop us from attending church, he will dupe us to attend churches that are lost in deceit. When he has succeeded to persuade us to follow lies, we would follow him without knowing it. We might preach that twisted gospel, but we would remain his servants, because what we preach are lies.
The devil is the father of lies and anyone who lives a lie will be wedded to him for as long as they do not realise their wrong ways. Beyond any shadow of doubt, anyone who attends a church that preaches a twisted gospel will inevitably follow the passion of his body, sin will be his second nature.
You cannot please God and please your body at the same time. If your mind is focused on pleasing the Lord, your mind is focused on the spiritual treasures of heaven. But when your mind is focused on pleasing the desires of your body, you would be worshipping the devil. Anyone who has chosen to please the evil desires of his body have chosen Satan over Jesus.
One’s verbal pronouncements mean nothing if the body is saying the opposite. What we do reveals who is in control of our lives. And when we incline our ears to the leading of the word of God, then God is our Lord. But when our behaviour is controlled by what our bodies want, we have chosen to align our lives with sin. In this regard, sin would be our lover whether we acknowledge this or not.
“Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God”
(3 John 1:11).