Is That All You Got, Satan?!

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the might of His strength. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH, and HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, and having shod YOUR FEET WITH THE PREPARATION OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE. In addition to all, having taken up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one, also receive THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God …

- Ephesians 6:10-17 (LSB)

We have true authority over the demonic, as Jesus tells us in Luke 10:19.

Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you.

- Luke 10:19 (LSB)

I believe that, in the spiritual realms, when you have authority, it’s true, unassailable authority, not like human authority. For example, even though I have authority over my children, they can still disobey. I don’t believe the same is true for the demonic. Humans have free will. The spiritual realms are under spiritual authority. When I command demons to obey, they must heed my command.

Case in point: we have a woman, Ildiko, who is part of our daily prayer group. She lives in California, but is originally from Slovakia. Every summer, she returns home with her kids for vacation and a slower, simpler pace of life. Anyways, last summer (2023), she had a widowed neighbor approach her in Slovakia, saying, “You have to meet this witch I’ve been talking to. She helps me talk to my [dead] husband.” My friend Ildiko said, “I don’t think that’s your husband. That’s a demon.” The woman protested, “No, she knows conversations and things I shared only with my husband.” My friend: “Yes, demons study us and know our past, including all our secrets.”

So, I decided, in that prayer, to bind the demon, command him to come before us and obey our every command. Specifically, I told him to speak his native tongue (deceit) and reveal himself to this widow, not as her husband, but as a lying demon. I knew his native tongue was lying because his father is Satan, who is the father of all lies, according to Jesus …

You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

- John 8:44 (LSB)

Two days later, the woman came back to Ildiko and said, “You were right. That witch woman called me and said, ‘Come down here, your husband is talking to me.’ I said, ‘What is he saying?’ The witch said, ‘He said, “You’d better get your ass down here because I have something to tell you.” ’ Then I said, ‘That’s not my husband. My husband loved me. He would never talk to me like that.’ You were right, Ildiko: that was a demon, not my husband!”

The following summer (2024), the woman (widow) was delivered from a spirit by a local Slovakian pastor.

Fear Not …

The number one commandment in the Bible is to “fear not” or some variation of it. In fact, it is said to occur 365 times throughout the Old and New Testaments. So, avoiding fear is a big deal to God.

The Lord taught me to not fear the enemy by reading 3 different books on exorcisms. I believe the 3 books were: Hostage to the Devil by Malachi Martin, Placebo by Howard Pittman, and Deliver Us From Evil by Ralph Sarchie.

Of note, other books that were definitive in my understanding of the spiritual world were: The Final Quest by Rick Joyner and A Divine Revelation of Hell by Mary Baxter.

Satan is constantly accusing us in Heaven before the Father …

And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war, and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying,

“Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their witness, and they did not love their life even to death.

- Revelation 12:7-11 (LSB)

Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of Yahweh,** and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And Yahweh said to Satan, “Yahweh rebuke you, Satan! Indeed, Yahweh who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand delivered from the fire?” Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and standing before the angel. And he answered and spoke to those who were standing before him, saying, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” Again he said to him, “See, I have made your iniquity pass away from you and will clothe you with festal robes.”

- Zechariah 3:1-4 (LSB)

**Whenever you see “the angel of YHWH” or “the angel of the Lord,” in the Old Testament, you know it is an appearance of Jesus Christ (aka, a Christophany).

I bring up Zechariah 3:1-4 and Revelation 12:7-11 to show you that the enemy is constantly trying to bring up your past against you. But Jesus paid too high a price for you to believe that you are still in your sin.

Or do you not know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.

- 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (LSB)

You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men.

- 1 Corinthians 7:23 (LSB)

In fact, according to Romans 8:1, “therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Not “a little bit of condemnation.” Not “mostly no condemnation.” No. It says that, if you are a Christian, you have “NO condemnation.” Period.

God wants to forget your past. In fact, He paid a high price to be able to see you as sinless, to be able to completely forget your past

He will again have compassion on us;

He will subdue our iniquities.

And You will cast all their sins

Into the depths of the sea.

- Micah 7:19 (LSB)

… declares Yahweh, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

- Jeremiah 31:34 (LSB)

And He is calling you away from your past …

Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

- Philippians 3:13-14 (NIV)

… into a glorious future. It’s like He’s standing in your future and saying, “Forget about your past. I have. Now I bid you, come to me in this glorious future I have for you.”

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

- Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

Your past does not belong to you. It doesn’t even belong to Satan. It belongs to Jesus. And Jesus bought it at a high price (a very high price), so that He could throw it into the sea of forgetfulness and remember it no more. Notice the bold imagery God uses in these verses. Does it seem like He’s trying to get our attention? You bet it does! This is very important to Him: that you know you are completely free from your sins. It is His great privilege to see you (a believer in Christ) as sinless. You and your sins can never be in the same room or even on the same planet again. If you are a true believer in Christ, your sins are as far away from you as east is from west (ie, eternity).

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

so great is his love for those who fear him;

as far as the east is from the west,

so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

As a father has compassion on his children,

so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;

- Psalm 103:11-13 (NIV)

God wants you to be brought to sorrow over your sins. That sorrow is to last only long enough to bring you to repentance. That, in turn, leads you immediately to salvation …

For godly sorrow produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world brings about death.
- 2 Corinthians 7:10 (LSB)

One Final Note …

Yes, the demonic can be scary. They operate in a realm that is less readily accessible to us (Notice how I didn’t say “completely inaccessible” to us?). They can move objects, make sounds, etc. But think about this: in hearing the details of an exorcism, when you hear about objects flying around and supernatural things happening, it’s just a temper tantrum. The demon does not want to go. I would say to the demon, “Big deal! My 3 year-old can throw a book across the room. What is that? Am I supposed to be afraid of you? Don’t you know that I have authority over you? Don’t you know that your Creator lives in me? You may be in the world, but Jesus is in me. And He commands you to leave! So get out now!”¹

You are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.

- 1 John 4:4

If you are in despair, know that it is an assignment from the enemy. A spirit of depression which has been sent to attack you. Pray to God and speak to your soul. King David spoke to his soul as if it were a third person. His remedy for depression? To praise God.

Why are you cast down, O my soul?

And why are you disquieted within me?

Hope in God;

For I shall yet praise Him,

The help of my countenance and my God.

- Psalm 42:11 (NKJV)

Just as Isaiah said, in Isaiah 61, that we are to put on a garment of praise (worship) for a spirit of heaviness (depression) …

To console those who mourn in Zion,

To give them beauty for ashes,

The oil of joy for mourning,

The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;

That they may be called trees of righteousness,

The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.”

- Isaiah 61:3 (NKJV)

For we are saved by hope …

- Romans 8:24 (KJV)

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1. Jesus prayed to the Father in John 17:15, “My prayer is not that You take them out of the world but that You protect them from the evil one.”