I heard a sermon a while back that asked the question “Does God ever grant Satan permission to take us into bondage”? First let me tell you the answer is NO. Now lets study this and let the truth of scripture prove my answer and defeat the false teaching that God does allow for this.
In the teaching, I heard the teacher say that not only do we grant Satan permission to take us bondage, but God grants Satan permission to take us bondage. The premise of the teaching was based on scriptures in Luke 22 and Job 1.
I like these kinds of challenges, because they cause me to dig deeper into the truth of scripture and not simply feed from the edges of the good fruit of the Word.
Right now the plan is to release a teaching entitled “Does God Ever Cause Sickness”. That will be a good follow up to this teaching, unless God changes the plan. As will be proven in this teaching, God does not grant Satan permission to put us in bondage, and we’ll also prove God does not cause sickness in our lives to teach us a lesson.
But for now, let me start with this. If we believe that God grants permission to Satan to take us into bondage, how can we fight that? Better yet, if we do believe that then we better not fight it, because we’d be fighting against the will of God. I have no problem agreeing that we allow Satan to take us into bondage, but at least we can fight that battle….in the victory, not for the victory.
You would get arrested for child abuse if you caused pain and agony on your children the way many preachers/teachers report God treats us. Why would we even think God would abuse us? Philippians 1:6 says “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus”. Well, if He began a GOOD work why would He suddenly change to a BAD work?
God doesn’t allow evil. God’s justice is to show us compassion and grace. Isaiah 30:18 in the Amplified bible reads “And therefore the Lord [earnestly] waits [expecting, looking, and longing] TO BE GRACIOUS to you; and therefore He lifts Himself up, that He may have mercy on you and show loving-kindness to you. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are all those who [earnestly] wait for Him, who expect and look and long for Him [for His victory, His favor, His love, His peace, His joy, and His matchless, unbroken companionship]”!
Are you kidding me? Just look at this. He EARNESTLY waits. Waits because He’s expecting, looking and longing TO BE GRACIOUS TO YOU. Come on. It couldn’t be any clearer than that. It’s as if God can hardly contain himself. He’s sitting on the edge of His great big chair just bouncing his feet and twitching his fingers with huge anticipation of trying to get more grace, favor, love, and kindness to you. What He’s waiting for is for us to receive what He has for us.
Then after He cannot stand it any longer, He lifts Himself up. I just see Him jumping up from His sitting place where He’s been since Genesis on day 7 of the completion of creation. He jumps up to show you mercy and loving-kindness. He is absolutely beside Himself with anticipation and angst to get all of His favor to you.
Then that verse goes on to reveal to us that we can and should expect and look and long for Him [for His victory, His favor, His love, His peace, His joy, and His matchless, unbroken companionship]”! When we do, it is then we are blessed, happy, fortunate, and to be envied. It’s not when we try to perform or keep all the religious rules and regulations.
Gal 5:1 reads “So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law”. Just look at this. If He TRULY set us free and then warned us not to get tied back up in slavery to the law, it’s ludicrous to think God would allow Satan to put us back in bondage. That would be double-minded and a division of His Truth.
In Titus 2:14 we read “He gave his life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us his very own people, totally committed to doing good deeds”.
Give me a break and a brain. Use a little common sense step logic here. Since He gave His life to free us, cleanse us and make us His very own people, why would He give Satan the power to put us back in bondage? Really?? Are we that stupid and willing to listen to this religious double-speak? Here's some more good news. God will still love you stupid.
We live in a better covenant today. The grace of God in Jesus eliminates the fear of sin, it eliminates the fear of what God may do to us, it eliminates the fear of what others may do to us. We are set free from the law and fear of sin and death. God is a God of justice, but His judgment in the Old Testament included death and struggle. However, under the New Covenant of grace His justice now includes grace, mercy, love, and peace. All of God's wrath has been poured out on Jesus at the cross and there is none left.
So, lets look at one of the big ways we could allow Satan to take us into bondage. The number one open door is pride. Pride is trusting in your own strength. So in Luke 22:31 we see that Satan has his designs set on Peter and the other disciples as well.
Peter was considered the spokesman for them, so that’s who Satan targeted, but Satan really wanted to see them all fail. They were, after all, followers of Jesus and they were the voice of the good news at that time. Satan had a right to attack Peter, because of Peter’s decision to be prideful.
Where do we see that? In Mark 14:29. To me it’s apparent that Peter was being groomed for leadership, that made him a special mark for Satan. Peter had many strong points, but he lacked refinement in the use of the gifts he had. He would say things without calculation of the results, burst into the open tomb of Jesus, and he lost his temper in the garden and cut off the ear of one of the household slaves of the high priest. He was a little rough around the edges.
God has no problem using good and bad things to help us find right believing and right alignment with Him, but he doesn’t cause them or allow them to happen. The only place Satan gets authority is if we give it to him. The only way Satan can speak negatively is out of our mouths.
Now Matt 16:21–23 is another scripture that gets quoted and incorrectly taught. People will say that Jesus called Peter Satan. Really? You mean right after he called him Rock and changed his name to Peter.
Of course we know that the rock Jesus was talking about was Peter’s revelation of the truth of who Jesus was and his faith to believe. So, Jesus didn’t call Peter Satan, he spoke to the satanic spirit that got on Peter. He addressed the spirit, not Peter. This was a strong rebuke from Jesus, but it was appropriate.
Moments before this, Peter spoke as a messenger of God (Matt 16:16), but when he said “this will never happen to you”, Peter was speaking as a messenger of Satan. Peter was not aware that he spoke for Satan, just as he probably was not aware he spoke for God moments earlier.
We can see the same thing happen in Acts 16:18 where Paul spoke to the spirit. Paul was a student of all that Jesus was and did. Paul had a revelation of John 14:12 where Jesus said the things He did we would do also. So Paul just followed our greatest example, Jesus, and spoke to the spirit. Just like Jesus did when He spoke to the spirit on Peter.
It’s highly likely that Jesus was saying, “Peter, your place is behind me, not in front of me. Your place is to follow me, not lead me in the way you would like me to go”. How true that is today. In most prayer today, people try to convince God to bow to their will, rather than finding God’s will and joining Him there. Prayer is not designed to convince God to change your circumstances. It’s designed to prepare you to be involved in God’s activity. It is seeing the finished work of Christ and resting there.
In Luke 22:31,32 – Jesus was predicting Peter’s denial, and then, rather than giving permission to Satan, Jesus goes into intercession for Peter. Here it is in the The Voice version.
31 Simon, Simon, how Satan has pursued you, that he might make you part of his harvest.
32 But I have prayed for you. I have prayed that your faith will hold firm and that you will recover from your failure and become a source of strength for your brothers here”.
How cool is that to have Jesus interceding for you. Well, He’s doing it today for all of us. Romans 8:26,27,34. Just study those three scriptures. You’ll find they say that the Spirit prays for us in the perfect will of God, because we don’t know how to sometimes. That’s intercession.
Pay close attention to these two verses. They say that "Satan has pursued you", not that Satan has asked for permission and been granted permission to make you part of his harvest. Also vs 32 says "But I have prayed for you", not that I have given Satan permission.
Did you also notice in that verse 32 that Jesus said "I have prayed that YOUR FAITH will hold firm and that YOU WILL recover from YOUR failure and become a source of strength for your brothers here”. Even from this verse alone we can see that it's not God's failure, it's our failure. It's not God who allows Satan to put us into bondage, it's our doing. So, it's also not God's responsibility to fix it, it's ours.
However, He will intercede for us in all matters. Remember we discussed how the Spirit intercedes for us? (Romans 8:26 and 34). "But wait a minute! This verse says Jesus will intercede". Read the whole bible in context. Of course Jesus said that at this time, because He was still on earth. Have you forgotten when He told His disciples that it was expedient that He go away so that the Father could send another comforter? Come on. Study your bible and don't get tripped up by the false teachings of the naysayers. Make sure you always ask what I call the five (5) W's. Who, What, When, Where, and Why. That will always ensure you have the right dispensation of time, the right audience, the right speaker, and the proper context for Truth.
It's difficult to find a good break point for this study, but we'll stop here and pick back up in part 2 with Romans 8:34. Grace and Peace.
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