Daily Bible Reading Phil Fields: 219: Buckle the Belt of Truth Lesson4: Resist Satan (2024)

Aug 8, 2024

Day 4

THEME: Buckle up the belt of truth about RESISTING SATAN.

All of the Buckling the belt episodes are scattered throughoutthe Bible reading calendar. This episode will be folded in atepisode 219. You can find this and all the other Buckling the beltepisodes by searching for the word ‘buckling’ atdailybiblereading.info. Searching for that word might also work inyour podcast app.

After searching for answers in the Bible and reading a few booksthat talked about the topics we read about in days 1-3, I foundmyself still bothered and worried because I couldn’t seem toexperience the level of victory that others talked about. I willtell the story today about how the Lord gave me the answer to myproblem by showing me how to resist Satan.

Satan is alive and well. Yes, there are demons. No, Satanhimself probably doesn’t have time to bother you or me directly.But he leads an army of evil spirits. They will not want you tolisten to this podcast. Please try to push through theiropposition. The more you feel interference and oppression, thegreater your need is for the information I will share.

Because I am concerned that we get a good start on this topic,and with the hope that you will be able to listen to this podcastto the end, I would like to pray this prayer based on Ephesians6:

How to pray to make sure you are wearing your spiritualarmor:

Lord God, give me strength to stand firm. Help me to wear all ofthe spiritual armor You have given to me, so that I can standagainst Satan and his forces:

Please remind me that I am always wearing the breastplate ofrighteousness, because Jesus died and was raised to life, and Hehas given me right standing in your sight.
Help me to keep on the boots of the Gospel, being ready toshare the good news about Christ whether people are eager to hearit or not.
May I always wear the belt of truth, realizing who I am inunity with You,
and therefore never letting go of my shield, which is fullybelieving in You.
May I always have the helmet of salvation, because I know Youhave saved me.
Help me to know the Word of God and use it as my sword, not tohurt people, but to tell the truth in a spirit of love.
And help me to never forget that my instant connection to Youis prayer.
Make my love grow for my fellow believers, and may Jesus findme among those who are blameless and holy when He comes.

The existence of Satan and his dark forces is something thatthose same forces normally seek to suppress. That’s why many intoday’s Western culture can read the whole Bible and never noticethat we have a living and dangerously powerful enemy. Satan firstappears in Genesis 3, then his work is visible in the OT in thekingdoms of man opposed to God and his people, and in thepersistent, seeming unconquerable desire of humans to worshipidols, which actually represent demons. Take a close look at thethings demon worshippers did in the OT, and you will see the sameevil things in our culture today, including such things as male andfemale prostitution, and the killing of babies. Then in the NT,Satan is more personally revealed, starting with Jesus beingtempted by him and with Jesus directly teaching about him. If youwere to cross out every page in the NT that mentions Satan, evilspirits, or believers somehow struggling against the dark forces,you wouldn’t have very many pages left. The book of Revelationwould be totally missing.

So, we have an enemy, and he’s not nice. As I have said in mypodcast, demon possession in the Bible is not what we now refer toas mental disease. I do not discount that there is real mentaldisease. But I believe that we are unwise to think that there is nospiritual component in such things as depression, suicidalideation, gender disphoria, schitsophrenia, and all the rest. Isuggest that if we don’t deal with the root causes of such things,we will only be able to medicate ourselves in an attempt to dealwith the symptoms.

My topic today comes with a big caution label, which I will readto you now: Many followers of Christ will be able to use theScriptures and books I will suggest without outside help and seeincreasing victory over evil desires and sinful habits of thinking.I suggest you start with my recommended resources, especially theseven Steps for Freedom in Christ by Neil T. Anderson. But if youencounter stiff spiritual opposition, please seek the help of aprofessional Christian counselor or a loving group of believers whowill encourage you, pray with you, and help you stayaccountable.

One basic problem for me was that I thought Christians shouldnot verbally rebuke the Devil, because the archangel Michael didnot do so in the story Jude relates (Jude 1:9). (He told Satan,“May the Lord rebuke you.”) But there are several key ways myhesitancy was wrong.

1) We are commanded at least three times in the NT to resistSatan. (1Peter 5:8-9; James 4:7; Eph. 6)

1 Peter 5:8‭-‬9 NLT

Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowlsaround like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Standfirm against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that yourfamily of believers all over the world is going through the samekind of suffering you are.

James 4:7 NLT

So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he willflee from you.

2) Resisting the Devil and forbidding his minions speaking toyou is not the same as the prideful ‘insulting’ of spiritual powersthat Jude was speaking against.

3) As we have seen in previous readings, we are now adopted aschildren of God. We are now unified with Jesus. This means that wehave quite a different and better position than angels.

Footnote: There is some kind of legal permission that has beengranted when a demon has established a stronghold in someone.Because of that, (unless the person being harrassed is your ownyoung child) it will not be appropriate for you to command a demonto leave another person. (Yes, I know that the apostle Paul didthat in Acts 16:16-18, and Jesus certainly had that authority inLuke 8:29.) Please don’t try to cast out someone else’s demons.(The response could get ugly.) However YOU do havethe legal authority to resist and forbid demonic influencesharassing you. Because of your unity with Christ, you can rescindpermission that was somehow previously given (by a reaction to someevent or word, perhaps long ago and forgotten by you).

Our authority over Satanic forces operating in our lives comesdirectly from who we are in Christ. It’s so important to know whoyou are! If you see yourself as a weak and sinful person who iscontinually not able to control sinful thoughts, then that is whoyou will be. But if you have done your previous homework to bucklethe belt of truth— believing that you are forgiven, loved byChrist, and joined as one with him— then you are on the road tofinding victory. Who we believe ourselves to be will be shown inour lives. Don’t believe Satan’s lies!

Let me tell you how that worked out for me.

We had been working among the Orya people for 9 years, and I wasin the village of Gwae leading the men working with me intranslating Philippians. Two Orya boys were staying with me atnight, since Gale was not with me. It was at Pentecost time andthere were several extra church meetings. In one of them the pastor(Yakub) led a hymn in the national language, too high, too slow,and sounding like a dirge. I said to him, “There’s no joy in thesehymns.” And in rare candor he replied, “Yeah, you’re right. Thereis no joy in these hymns.” So I suggested, “How about if I writeseveral songs in the Orya language to sing at the Sunday service?”And he agreed.

Starting that night, the boys and I put together three catchylittle songs with melodies you could clap hands with. On Sunday, Icajoled the congregation to clap their hands while singing them.(It wasn’t easy to get them to do it, because clapping was neverdone in that church.) But they finally got into it, and I havepictures of the smiles that resulted. Being a musician, I had triedintroducing Orya worship songs before, but this was my firstsuccess. The boys and I created 8 more songs over the next 10days.

Then one Monday morning, when the translation team came to work,they told me, “Lëberina had a dream and you were in it. She’s gonnacome this afternoon at five to tell you about it.”

That day I could hardly wait for 5 o’clock to finally come! ButI want to admit (and I want you to remember) that there was a tingeof worry in my waiting. I was thinking, “Oh no. What if her dreamreveals something sinful in me.”

Lëberina was the oldest widow in the village. She was alsorespected for her knowledge of traditional Orya songs. She cameright on time and told me,

“It was evening in my dream. It was dark and people were cookingin their kitchens. Then all of a sudden there was a bright light inthe direction of the sunrise. The light was so bright that it putout all the cooking fires and lanterns. We all went outside to seewhat was happening. You were there too, so we asked you, ‘What’sthat?’ And you said, ‘That’s got to be Jesus coming again.’ Andthen you taught us a song, and here it is:

Bian, enho enkam kië gwë’an.
Bian, enho enkam kië gwë’an.
Kwasang, kwasang enkam.”

I didn’t waste any time in writing down the melody and words ofthe song that I had sung in her dream. Later, the boys and I addedtwo more verses, and it became one of our worship songs.

Then I did a stupid and prideful thing: I said to the Lord,“Hey, I’m the missionary here. How about giving me a dream?”

Bad idea! I don’t recommend being flippant with the Lord,especially if your prayer is laced with pride. I think it was thatsame night that the Lord gave me the dream I will never forget.

I was in bed at night. Laying on my side, I could see out of thewindow with a lacy curtain that was directly across from me, andthe moon was full. I could see an Orya man with an Afro haircutwalking across the yard coming toward my house. He turned hisflashlight on sparingly. His batteries were almost spent and itgave a very orange glow. I wondered if any of the ladies in thevillage were due to give birth. Maybe he was going to call me tosome medical emergency. He stepped up on my porch, and because thehouse was built on stilts, the floor shook. There was an exercisebike on the porch in front of the window, and he got on and peddleda few turns. Turning the wheel activated a light on the front ofthe bike that shone in my window. As he lazily turned the wheel afew times more, I was beginning to not like this guy.

He dismounted and came right up to the window, pointed hisflashlight inside and turned it on. At that distance I knew that hecould see me through the curtain. I was overcome with irrationalfear and with great effort yanked my pillow from under my head andcovered my face.

I was drenched in sweat. And only then did I realize, “Hey, Idon’t have a glass window in my bedroom! There is no lace curtain,and there definitely is no exercise bike with a generator light onthe front anywhere in the province!”

Now, I often have unmemorable nightmares. If I am about to beeaten by a large cat or crocodile, the interpretation is that Ineed to get up and go to the bathroom. Recently I was eventhreatened by three turkeys.

The nightmare I just related held two important lessons for me.I will tell only the first one in this lesson, and save the secondone for the next Buckling the Belt episode.

I somehow knew that the man with the flashlight was evil. Couldhe represent an evil spirit? That same night, before going back tosleep, I humbly asked the Lord if He would show me if my dreamindicated that there was an evil spirit somehow involved withme.

The Lord did not keep me waiting very long for his answer. Rightaway He allowed me to hear my tempter’s voice. The demon onlyneeded to whisper two words, and my mind went off on an evil trip,one that I had traveled thousands of times before. It is tooshameful for me to tell you what that trip led to. Just imaginethat it is like your own worst sinful lusts.

Only a couple of weeks later, while that experience was stillfresh in my mind, I was back with our family in the provincialcapital of Jayapura. At the English-speaking worship service(attended by most missionaries with children in the school there),the sermon was given by a retired missionary who had come back fora visit (Jim Sunda). Jim told how the Lord had unexpectedly given aministry of deliverance to him and his wife in their home church inthe States. He told stories of people being freed from demonicoppression, and ended by saying that on Monday he would have timefor anyone who wanted to talk with him. I was the first one toapproach him at the end of the service.

On Monday morning when I met with Jim, we sat across a smalldining room table, and he asked several questions. I told himexactly why I thought I was being tempted by a demon. We gave thedemon a title, ‘Demon of X’. (I’ll probably tell you the actualtitle we gave that demon in the next lesson. Footnote: Never ask ademon to speak or to tell you his name.) Jim explained the legalsituation I explained above. He would not rebuke the demondirectly, but he would suggest the words for me to pray to God, andthen to speak directly to ‘Demon of X’, to forbid the evil spiritfrom doing anything with me. The prayer of confession andrepentance that Jim led me through was relatively easy, but when wegot to the step of forbidding the demon, he told me to look himdirectly in the eyes. With some effort, I focussed my eyes on his,but then quickly looked away. I objected that the archangel Michaeldidn’t rebuke the devil. He answered me like what I said above:Scripture explicitly commands us to resist Satan. OK, I had toadmit that he was right, so we proceeded through that next step.Looking in Jim’s eyes I followed his suggestions, forbidding DemonX to come to me to harass, tempt, whisper, or bother me inany way. We also forbid him from bothering other members of ourfamilies. And we commanded him, “You go where Jesus sends you.”

Immediately afterward, I didn’t feel like anything had happenedto me. But when I got into my jeep to go home, a voice whispered,“That was a real good thing you just did.” Here’s the tricky thing:It was a good thing for me to do, but I recognized this message asa temptation to pride. “Oh no,” I thought, “now another voice istempting me.” Jim already had a couple with him. So, using therearview mirror, I looked myself in the eyes and resisted thatdemon of pride.

For the next three days, I made repeated trips to the bathroom,in order to use the mirror there to look myself in the eyes. Itseemed that the old demon was gone, but that he left his folder onme in the hands of others. Once or twice I had to smile, becausethe new ones knew the right words to tempt me, but their timing wasterrible. (By the way, rebuke and resist demons verbally.They can’t hear silent rebukes, as far as anyone knows.)

I was rejoicing because at last I felt free. Of course Iimmediately confessed everything to Gale. On the third day, shecame to me. My total honesty moved her to confess things that shehad held back from ever telling me before. We at last were trulyunified in our marriage and in forgiveness toward each other.

For years I had been praying that our work among the Orya peoplewould not just be a wasted effort. There were lots of ways the Oryapeople were clearly enslaved to demons, including miracle-workingshamans and a perverted cult that did shameful things. Now that Iwas free, the Lord allowed me to help set others free among theOrya people, doing the same steps I will recommend to you.

One of the things Jim encouraged me to do daily was to praythrough putting on the armor of God in Ephesians 6. I followed hisadvice for a few weeks. It may have helped. But I began to realizethat putting the armor on had just become one of my morningrituals. Christians are not given magic words to repeat. Somewhereafter that I saw that the pieces of armor are actually pillars ofour belief in God. These pieces of armor reveal who we are inChrist, and therefore a Christian can never take off his/herarmor.

I also began searching for how we actually put on our spiritualarmor. I like the way our Indonesian translation helps readers tounderstand how the various parts of the armor are actually appliedor ‘picked up’ and ‘worn’. An English translation that shows howour Plain Indonesian Translation conveys those concepts is found atthe bottom of the episode notes. And, it is basically the same wayI led us in prayer at the start of this episode.

Resources:

Now I want to give resources to help you in resisting Satan andhis dark forces. I recommend two books by Neil T. Anderson. Thefoundational best-sellers are

Victory Over the Darkness

and

The Bondage Breaker.

Get your hands on the newest revised versions. They are alsoavailable as ebooks.

The subtitle for Victory Over theDarknessis Realizing the power of your identity inChrist. I would characterize this book as way better andmore complete than the things I have shared in my first threelessons for buckling the belt of truth.

The Bondage Breakerhas the subtitle ofOvercoming negative thoughts,irrational feelings, and habitual sins. If you are new tothe whole topic I am sharing today, and if you agree that you arestruggling against sinful thoughts or irrational feelings, if youare ashamed of habitual sins (as I was), or if you know that somesudden impulses seem to come from someone other than you, in thepages of this book you will find that you are not alone, and youare not crazy. Somewhere in the twelve chapters of The BondageBreaker you’ll find someone like you that was set free fromspiritual bondage.

The seven Steps to Freedom in ChristI have mentioned arefound in the appendix of The Bondage Breaker. They are also easilyfound on the Internet, and I am placing a link to them here in theepisode notes. Each step will ask targeted questions and will leadyou through some written prayers. It took me a little over an hourthe other day to pray through all seven steps. If you don’t havetime to read either of the two books suggested above, I urge you towork through the Steps to Freedom in Christ.

https://philiphowarth.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/steps-to-freedom-in-christ-downloaded.pdf
https://storage.snappages.site/7STCWP/assets/files/The-steps-to-freedom-in-Christ3.pdf
https://www.ficm.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Steps9-12yrs.pdf
Afterlooking over the download options, I feel that the very best copyis the Kindle ebook which is 80 pages and costs $4.49.

As I prepared for this podcast (in the summer of 2023), I read afollowup book: The Bondage Breaker, the NextStep,copyright 1991/2011. This bookshares research findings about the success of Anderson’s counselingmethod, plus each chapter shares the testimony of someone who hasbeen released from spiritual bondage. The end of the book givesinformation about the international scope of Freedom in ChristMinistries. There is a wealth of teaching materials available,training seminars, and many other books available at their website,www.ficm.org.

If you want to contact me, please use the contact button in thetop menu bar of dailybiblereading.info ordailygntbiblereading.info.

I will be praying for you, dear listener!

May the Lord bless you ‘real good’.