8 Ways Satan Tries to Stop You from Worshiping

General Faith
1
2 Likes
2

Loved this article. So much information in there for people to take to heart and remember. If you know the truth, you can see the lies.
Peter

2 Likes
3

#8 was the best one.

4

Friends

I do not intend to be a “debbie-downer”, nor do I appreciate being thought of as a “devils advocate”, but I guess I personally did not find this article as helpful, or as edifying as some of you did. Here’s my difficulty; maybe one of you can help me out a bit.

I understand the sentiment behind these so-called “8 Ways Satan Tries to Stop You from Worshiping”, (as if he could) and I surely understand how the author may find these eight troubling oppositions in his own life, and so he naturally would like to attribute them to the clever work of “the great dragon, that serpent of old called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world” with “his angels” (Revelation 12:9). But, can we honestly and biblically attribute these occurrences we run up against in our own lives to the work of spiritual opposition? Do we have some shred of recorded scriptural truth to substantiate these pacifying claims? I don’t mean to say that these things don’t happen, or that good men and women don’t experience them, but how do we know Satan is the wizard pushing the buttons and pulling the levers behind the curtain? Maybe someone can offer some scriptural backing for some, or even one of these claims. The author Tim Challies surely did not.

According to Tim Challies, these are the “8 Ways Satan Tries to Stop You from Worshiping”,

  1. He makes the world look beautiful, attractive and desirable.
  2. He makes you aware of the fact that those who worship the Lord have often faced danger, loss and suffering.
  3. He gives you an awareness of the difficulty of worshipping well.
  4. He leads you to wrongly understand the implications of the gospel.
  5. He shows you how many of those who follow Christ with obedience are poor and despised.
  6. He shows you that the majority of the people in the world, along with the great and mighty of the world, do not worship the Lord.
  7. He fills your mind with unimportant and distracting thoughts while you are attempting to worship.
  8. He encourages you to take comfort in past performances of your religious duties and in that way he convinces you to stop trying.

I am familiar enough with the Satanic experience of Job, and also with the Satanic temptation of Jesus in the desert. But nowhere does the scripture tell us either of these two types of experiences will be common to all believers, or even to any other believers. I think if the mind of Tim Challies is filled with unimportant and distracting thoughts while he is trying to worship, there are many things that could be causing those thoughts that do not involve supernatural satanic influence (IMHO).

"Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. (James 4:7-8)

Your Thoughts?

KP

1 Like
5

Great work on your assessment of the article, “8 Ways Satan Tries to Stop You from Worshiping.”

Your observations were poignant, powerful, and firmly grounded in Scripture.

J.

1 Like
6

The Context of Spiritual Warfare
In His High Priestly Prayer, our Lord Jesus prays for us as ones who are in the world (John 17:11) but not of the world (John 17:14). As such, He asks not that the Father would take us out of the world, but that He would keep us from the Evil One (John 17:15). The prayer He taught us to pray as His disciples mobilizes us to seek the kingdom of God into which we have been established and to serve His will, taking into account the opposition of a spiritual enemy (Matt. 6:10, 13).

The redemption God promised in Eden is framed in terms of conflict (Gen. 3:15). That Promised One would come in the fullness of time (Gal. 4:4–5) to do battle with him who is identified as “ruler of this world” (John 12:31) and “god of this age” (2 Cor. 4:4). Christ Jesus, the eternal Son of God, took on true and full humanity so that He might wage war for our deliverance and destroy the works of the devil (Heb. 2:14–18; 1 John 3:8).

Key to our engaging in spiritual warfare is recognition that the victory is Christ’s and is ours in Christ. We do not fight for victory but in victory. The prelude to Jesus sending us out to make disciples is the declaration of His accomplished mission: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” (Matt. 28:18; see Eph. 1:20–23).

When Jesus tells us that He is with us always, even unto the end of the age, He is assuring us of His presence, power, and promise as we serve Him and seek His kingdom. Doing so will necessarily involve spiritual warfare, both for our spiritual growth (Matt. 28:20; Eph. 5:1–14) and in our kingdom service (1 Thess. 2:18; 2 Thess. 3:1–3).

We do not fight for victory but in victory.
We tend to think of spiritual warfare as something extraordinary to the Christian life, but it is part and parcel of living under the lordship of Jesus and seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness. We daily contend with a spiritual foe who appeals to our wayward desires through the philosophy and values of this fallen world in which we labor (James 1:14).

The Conduct of Spiritual Warfare
What is involved in waging spiritual battle? Where do we encounter our invisible foe? Peter issues this directive: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith” (1 Peter 5:8–9). Peter is alerting us to the reality that our enemy is everywhere, not in the way of God in His omnipresence, but by legions of fallen angels called demons.

Just as Peter addresses the subject of spiritual opposition, so does every New Testament writer. We are given intelligence about our enemy’s character, intentions, schemes, and tactics, equipping us for battle, and bolstering our morale through the sure hope of the gospel of the kingdom.

Foundational to our conduct of spiritual warfare is standing firm in Christ against the schemes of the devil (Eph. 6:10–16). Against Satan’s accusations, we must stand firm in Christ’s payment of the debt of our sin on the cross and satisfaction of the wrath of God due us (Col. 2:13–15). Against Satan’s deceptions, we must stand firm in the revealed truth of God’s Word, the Bible (2 Cor. 10:1–5; Eph. 6:17; Col. 2:6–8. Against Satan’s temptations, we must stand firm in the power of the risen Christ, through whom we can resist the devil and walk worthy of the Lord (Eph. 6:10; Col. 1:9–12). Whatever we learn of our enemy’s efforts in the pages of God’s Word, we must look to Christ to counter them.

Knowing we have a spiritual enemy who opposes us should enrich our prayer lives, causing us to seek the sufficiency of our Lord that we desperately need. A basic tenet of spiritual warfare is that it is conducted in wisdom (James 3:15) and weakness (2 Cor. 12:9–10), driving us to Christ for all things, at all times, in every way (Eph. 6:18–20).

Finally, we want to remember that we are not isolated but are enfolded by the Spirit of God into Christian community for our protection, direction, and provision. We are to pray for one another (Col. 4:3), rouse one another (Heb. 10:23–25), exhort one another (Heb. 3:12–14), and care for one another (James 5:16, 19–20), for together we serve our Lord who is building His church, against which the gates of hell will not prevail: “And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen” (Rom. 16:20).

My contribution, from


J.

7

Well?

  1. He makes the world look beautiful, attractive, and desirable.
    The Temptation of Jesus. In Matthew 4:8-9, Satan takes Jesus to a very high mountain and shows Him “all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor,” offering them all if Jesus will just bow down.
    Eve in the Garden. In Genesis 3:6, the first thing that trips Eve up after listening to the serpent is looking at the forbidden fruit and seeing that it was “good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom.”

  2. He makes you aware that those who worship the Lord often face danger, loss, and suffering.
    The Book of Job. Satan explicitly uses suffering and loss to try to break Job’s faith. He tells God in Job 1:11, “Stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”
    Peter’s Warning. 1 Peter 5:8 warns believers that the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour, specifically using the “fiery trials” of persecution to make believers shrink back out of fear.

  3. He gives you an awareness of the difficulty of worshipping well.
    The Unfaithful Servant. In the Parable of the Talents, Matthew 25:24-25, the servant who hid his talent excused his inaction by focusing on how demanding and difficult his master was: “I knew that you are a hard man
 So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground.” The enemy loves to frame God’s standards as a heavy, impossible burden rather than a joy.

  4. He leads you to wrongly understand the implications of the gospel.
    The Judaizers and Legalism. In the book of Galatians, false teachers crept into the church, convincing people that Christ’s sacrifice wasn’t enough and that they still needed to strictly follow the old Mosaic law to be saved. Paul calls this a “different gospel” and attributes such confusion to spiritual deception Galatians 1:6-9, 3:1.
    The Temptation in the Desert. Satan literally quotes Scripture to Jesus (Psalm 91) in Matthew 4:6, but twists its meaning to try to get Jesus to recklessly test God.

  5. He shows you how many of those who follow Christ with obedience are poor and despised.
    The Disciples’ Reputation. In 1 Corinthians 4:11-13, Paul describes the apostles’ lives plain as day: “We go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated
 We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world.” The enemy points to this lack of worldly status to make believers think, “If this is what obedience gets you, why bother?”

  6. He shows you that the majority of the people, along with the great and mighty, do not worship the Lord.
    Elijah’s Despair. After his showdown on Mount Carmel, Elijah flees into the wilderness and sinks into a deep depression, crying out to God, "The Israelites have rejected your covenant
 I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too. " 1 Kings 19:10. The illusion of being completely outnumbered is a massive tool for discouragement.

  7. He fills your mind with unimportant and distracting thoughts while you are attempting to worship.

The Parable of the Sower. In Matthew 13:22, Jesus explains that some people hear the word of God, but “the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful.”

Martha’s Distraction. While Mary sits at Jesus’ feet, Martha is “distracted by all the preparations” Luke 10:40. While her chores weren’t evil, the timing was a distraction from true worship.

8 He encourages you to take comfort in past performances of your religious duties to convince you to stop trying.

In Revelation 3, Jesus confronts churches that are coasting on their history. To Sardis, He says, “You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead” Revelation 3:1. To Laodicea, He calls out their self-satisfaction: “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked” Revelation 3:17. They let past success blind them to their current spiritual stagnation.

Remember, 1 Corinthians 10:13 “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”

Also, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 1:9

Satan cannot create. He can recycle. He can whisper. He can lead. And He does do all these things. I do agree with you, though. I’m sure he gets blamed for things we create in our own minds due to our fallen nature, but make no mistake, the devil is very real.
Peter

8

Bro @PeterC

You make some good points, and I sincerely appreciate the time and thought you put into your response. You surely know the Word of God, and apply it to your own life. Rather than subject our readers to another point-by-point analysis, let me first remind them of what I said in my previous post.

I understand that the English word we read as “satan” is the same word in Greek, ( ÎŁÎ±Ï„Î±ÎœáŸ¶Ï‚ = Satanas or ÎŁÎ±Ï„áŸ¶Îœ = Satan). It is one of the few words the English translators just carried over nearly in the original pronounciation. In Greek, the word carries the idea of “opponent”, or “opposition”. Like the English word, the Greek word is also a near copy (transliteration) of the Hebrew word ƛāáč­Än, meaning “adversary”.

I humbly receive your reminder: “make no mistake, the devil is very real”, and wholeheartedly agree with you. The character of “the ultimate adversary” is referred to over 80 times in our Holy Scriptures, and he goes by a variety of cognomens. That he has an important role in the redemptive plan of God is not obscure. I hope you were not under the illusion that I was suggesting that “the great dragon, that serpent of old called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world” with “his angels” (Revelation 12:9) is fantasy. I surely was not. I was only suggesting that our Scriptures do not give undue credit to this personage; scripture does not teach us that the various failures, difficulties, and temptations we face every day are an acute and personal attack from this ne’er-do-well opposer of Truth.

I am not unaware that James, in his letter to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, also admonishes you and I to place the blame for our ungodly failures squarely on ourselves. He warns us against lust, covetousness, and destructive friendship with the world, all of which we must own up to and accept the blame as our own.

Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”? But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:1-6)

But, as you might pastorally remind us, James goes on to suggest that The Devil must be resisted as God is to be pursued and submitted to:

Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. (James 4:7-8)

I believe, as Joseph said to his brothers, what the world intends for evil, God intends for our good. So, as witnessed in the life of Job, the clever wiles of the accuser can have as much leash in our personal lives as God allows him. Therefore you and I pray in accordance with the stated promise of God, and in agreement with the prayer of Jesus, that God not “take us out of the world, but that He should keep us from the evil one.” (John 17:15) Our Father has said it, Jesus prayed it, I believe it.

Because of these strong statements of God’s intention, coupled with His sealing me with His Holy Spirit, I do not underestimate The Devil, “lest he should take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices” (2 Corinthians 2:11), I do resist his attempts at deception, and I remain sober and vigilant against the schemes of our opponent, (1 Peter 5:8), but I do not regularly attribute success on his part for any failure on my own. When I fail, I own it. I do not blame the Devil lest I disbelieve the promise of God and testify that God is not keeping His promise. In my thinking, to blame the devil is to give him credit he does not deserve, and to besmirch the name of the Good Shepherd who keeps His sheep safely from all dangers.

I hope this clarifies my position, at this point in my growth.

Blessings on you pastor.

KP

1 Like
9

Absolutely. Ultimately, where human accountability is held high and trust in God’s protective sovereignty outweighs a hyper-focus on the enemy’s daily influence. I really do think he gets blamed for things that would make him blush. Man’s heart is evil continuously. It is a joyful thing that God’s grace is more than sufficient.

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” 2 Corinthians 12:9

As to you. “And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” 2 Corinthians 9:8
Peter