Seven Ways Christians Can Fall Victim to the Devil and Demons
In my studies for my message this week I came across seven ways the New Testament says believers can fall victim to the devil and to demons.
- Remaining angry with someone. (Ephesians 4:27)
- Not forgiving someone. (2 Corinthians 2:10-11)
- Being prideful. (Thinking more highly of yourself than you should.) (1 Timothy 3:6,
- Being put in a public ministry when you have a bad reputation with outsiders. (1 Timothy 3:7)
- Not resisting the devil’s lies and temptations. (Ephesians 6:11, James 4:7)
- Not being sober-minded and watchful. (1 Peter 5:8)
- Married couples: depriving each other of physical intimacy. (1 Corinthians 7:5)
What about non-believers? The sad truth is that, without God, they are without hope. They don’t have a chance, and in fact, are already slaves to the devil. They may not know this, they may not think this, sometimes, they might not even act like it, but Ephesians 2 is very clear that this is the case.
I would say that there are few things that inherently give you trouble with demons (in other words, that list isn’t necessarily everything). Most are a matter of doing something of conscious… where you know God would be disapproving of it and yet you continue. Eventually you’ll have to hate God or the thing or change your conception of God (a false idol) and that can give a demon a huge opening to influence and corrupt you.
I guess we could speculate on stuff like that, these are just the clear ones I found in scripture. I may have missed a few, and these are very broad indeed.
The matter of CONSCIENCE you bring up I would say falls under #5, which I think I worded poorly.
so, how does 2 corinthians 12:7-9 fit into what you talked about on friday?