The more we are aware of who we are in Jesus, the less we need to fear our enemy, Satan. I like the story I heard about Smith Wigglesworth, one of the greatest evangelists of the beginnings of last century. It's said he once was sleeping in bed at night like usual, when all of a sudden he woke up feeling a strange presence. I guess you know this weird feeling, when someone is watching you but you don't see this person, yet you very strongly feel watched. Wigglesworth was laying with his face toward the wall and had this urging certainty of someone standing at his bedside watching him. So he turned around and saw - Satan in person. Yet he did not get shocked, but simply said, "Oh, it's only you!" and turned back toward the wall. Satan never had any chance on him again.

As bad as the devil is, as many calamities as he causes, as often as he brings death - yet none of this can really harm you if you are a child of God (John 1:12)! Satan is the prince (ruler) of this world, but he has no hold on Jesus (John 14:30)! Jesus has defeated Satan with His death on the cross! And if we stick with Jesus we are living in HIS victory and Satan can't harm us one bit. Jesus himself assures us that people can do all sorts of things to us, but NO-BODY can kill our soul (Matthew 10:28). I know this does not really sound like a pleasant thought - well and it isn't. You know yourself that there is so much in this world you cannot prevent. Then, to me, it is of a real big comfort to know that our soul is NOT to be ultimately harmed!

Okay, Satan can annoy and tease us. And he knows well enough doing this. Yet he has no power on us anymore indeed, although he is able doing all sorts of things to spoil our time here in this life. One subject where er really loves hitting in, are relationships... - marriages, families, friendships, etc. Often we get the impression as if non-Christians would deal better with these things than we do. Well, Satan wispers his destructive words also into our own ears and we fall for it... But it is on us how much we allow him doing so. However we will have to know of his tactics on one hand and on the other hand we have to know God's Word in order to be able dealing with this situation correctly.

It is really so that Satan is having the possibility for a certain time to act freely. Please don't ask me now why this is. God has determined it. Jesus has indeed defeated Satan which means he is definitely the looser and will one day be thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 19:20); but right now he is still free to move. One day, we might understand it all. But maybe we won't be interested in it anymore by then...! Like I sad, I can't tell you why this is. But what I can tell you is that He who created the world is stronger and this is who I trust!

Maybe it is because God loves us so much that He wanted to give people one more chance (John 3:16). Had Jesus already returend or had He stayed here right after His resurrection, then there wouldn't be any time of favour (2 Corinthians 6:2). "Time of favour" is the time people will be getting another chance of finding God. For God is not at all interested in losing one single soul. Although this will be going to happen in due time though, since there are quite a few people not wanting to listen to God. Just look around and hear, "This is all medieval stuff," "We are grown now, we don't need this anymore," "We have to be tolerant; everyone has the right to believe whatever they want," "The church has caused too much damage in the past. We don't need this again," and many more arguements like that.

I don't want to predict gloomy things here, nor do I want to stoke fears. But I don't believe in keeping true information back, either, just because some people don't like to hear about it. Political correctness can be fatal... Wherever Satan is, there you find chaos and ulitmately, death. This is the case wherever Jesus is not Lord. Really, no-one can serve two masters at the same time (Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13). In other words; you cannot run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. Either you belong to Jesus or you don't. Not belonging to Jesus really means belonging to Satan, regardless of how hard this may sound now. Some truths are definitely unpleasant at the beginning. Especially, if you are being trained to be tolerant, modern, not to believe in such "fairytales", then you probably will find this statement impossible. But there simply is no demilitarized zone inbetween - not concerning this issue.

Please read my article The Bridge, in which you will read more explicitly what I'm saying here. It really doesn't have anything at all to do with judging a person, whether they have a good character or not. No, it can be the most kind person you can think of! If this person is standing on the wrong side, then they are on the side where God is not:

Here is God - in the light!

God is not on this side - this here is the kingdom of darkness. Whoever is standing here, regardless if they are having the world's best character, they are standing on the side of which Satan is Lord. If they die here, they stay here. For without the cross there is simply no connection with God and He cannot pull you over. But if you go the way that God Himself has prepared, then you belong to Him, although you are still living on this side of life. You belong to the kingdom of Lights now and cannot be controlled by Satan any longer, for the connection with God is re-established.

I am aware of the fact that there are quite some people out there who don't want to see this point and reproach me of "intolerance". But it is not myself having said this, I am just repeating what I have heard from Him. PRAISE GOD we can still talk freely in this country and as long as we can, I will. 'Cause I know that one day, Satan will have succeeded in talking people into his plans and a general persecution will begin.

God has created this world (Genesis 1). I think most of us agree to this. Yet why is it so difficult for so many to accept what this Creator says? If He has created this world, then He must be more intelligent than His creation, right? No creation can be smarter than its creator! And if He says that something works in a certain way or manner, why do so many people then presume knowing it better? It is the enemy wispering this into their ears. He tells them what they like to hear - not what is best for them to hear.

Jesus says that Satan is deceiving us wherever he can. He calls him "father of lies" (John 8:44), who even appears as the angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). Do you know what this is all about? In my article "The Bridge" I have explained it more explicitly: Satan was an angel of light before and he carried the light of God... His name was Lucifer. He was a high ranked, beautiful angel in God's Kingdom. But he began rebelling, wanting to be like God himself. He even made several other angels follow his example (here you can clearly see that God gave a free will to ALL of His creatures!!). Yet before his hatred could have grown to the extent of destroying the Kingdom, God had to expel him and the other angels, the demons. He also had to give up his name Lucifer as he no longer was carrying God's light and become Satan, the adversary.

Nowadays there is a real angel boom out there. But it is mainly under wrong wrappings. Of course, they do exist, the angels of God! And they sometimes do come down to earth. But they never do this out of their own discretion or because we "cause them to come" through some mysterious prayers, but they come exclusively by order of God alone. They have no names, apart from the two great angels Gabriel and Michael. They don't take praise for themselves, for what they do is not their work, they only accomplish instructions.

In several New Age teachings, we often hear talk about the light angel where he is being described in the most brilliant colors. I can still remember my times in New Age realms, where I often read about him, how great he is and the miracles he supposedly performs. I do hope you can think of what I am aiming at right now: the light angel is no-one else but Satan himself, who mascarades as such (2 Corinthians 11:14), which means, he imitates himself the way he once was, but he does not exist in that form anymore! Can you relate to it - and people fall for it by the millions, because it all sounds so beautiful ...

Satan lies, distorts, deceives, imitates, instigates, kills. He is not at all stupid. He knows God's Word perfectly well, afterall he had lived long enough in the closest connection with God. This is why he always achieves lying at people even with the Word of God, by telling them half truths for example. Half truths are complete lies since they don't the hit truth at all! Thus he is sowing doubts, unsecurities. If you do know God's Word and know what it says, then Satan cannot humbug you! Jesus has proven it to us when He was being tempted by Satan in the desert, (Luke 4,1-13).

This becomes particularly clear when Satan tempts Jesus for a third time, telling Him to jump down from a high wall in Jerusalem. He does it with a real existing Bible Scripture, "He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone." Rightly so! This is truly written in the Bible, you can read it in Psalm 91:11-12! But is Satan right with how he says it? No, not at all! And thus, Jesus counters coherently: "It says, 'Do not put the Lord, your God, to the test.'" Whereupon Satan leaves Him.

Can you see how important it is to know the Bible?

As cunning and smart that he is, he is also very stupid... Job was a hard nut for him to crack and even more so Jesus. How weird that he had tried it at all with these two men, for one was the strongest believer in the Bible and the other one was God's Son Himself! And by this Son, by Jesus, he was being conquered once and forever. Conquered here means, he cannot pull anybody into the ultimate death anymyore, something that is his real concern. For whoever is ultimately dead is also lost for God. But Jesus has created a way for us of how to avoid this ultimate death; by trusting on Him and grabbing His hand, we'll be reaching eternal life! Thus, we will be lost for Satan.

Til today he cannot stand this; just the contrary, it has increased his hatred toward God. And like an abductor, who doesn't care one bit for his hostage, because he only wants to achieve his own goal, Satan uses us to achieve his goal - to keep people from God or to make life with Him as unpleasant as possible. This is outstandingly blatant in countries where Christians are being persecuted. He wants to harm God. And like this abductor, also Satan assaults those that God loves most - us people. If we don't watch out he will get away with it. Yet who then is losing indeed?

I can't but indicate to you how much God loves you and does not want anything bad happening to you, let alone you to perish. So if He tells us things He does not want us to do or how He wants us to do them, then it's not in order to just annoy us or kill our joy, but it happens out of His great love for us. It happens because He knows what He is talking about. We often don't, yet we still talk...

This article is entitled "Know the enemy - but don't fear him". It is important for you to know who the enemy is, what his purposes and tactics are - and then put the thoughts of it away onto to the highest shelve, don't ponder these thoughts again! For the more you think about the enemy, the more "glory" you give to him. We don't want that to happen, now do we?! Abyde by Jesus, because it is all about Him - about no-one and nothing else! And as a Christian you are standing right in His victory!

Know also the weapons of God! When talking here of weapons, it sounds worse than it is, really! The Christian Faith is not at all militant - it is a Faith of Love. Have a look at those weapons (Ephesians 6:14-17): truth (belt), righteousness (breatplate), proclamation (good shoes), faith (shield), salvation (helmet), the Word of God (sword).

Further weapons are mentioned in Galatians 5:22; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Whether you believe it or not, these are weapons indeed! At least they can have an effect as such. Believe me: Satan hates every single one of them! And if we use them without pretending, then we can drive Satan back in every situation.

I know that it is not at all always easy to use these kinds of weapons in really every situation. Also I have situations where I think I have no strengths anymore. But also here, God has created solutions: we can draw to Him first of all, but we can also draw to brothers and sisters to pray with us or even solely for us, if we really have no strengths in certain moments. God really knows that we are still in this flesh, as it it called - meaning in this limited life. So we are vulnerable. Although it is true what the Bible says that God is string in the weak, there are moments we need true help. And like it is with worldly wars, also in spiritual wars we have sick bays: for example in counseling.