How The Devil Tries To Seperate Us From God...

Guilt, and an inner voice that tells you that somehow you have been fooling yourself into believing you are one of God's children, brings the next feeling - despair.  This is one of the devil's tools.  

His goal is to make us stop praying to the Lord, to break communication with God, to fill us with guilt about our own unworthiness and hypocrisy.  He seeks to make us turn our eyes away from the Lord and towards ourselves and the world.


Some Christians in the modern world, don't believe that the devil is personally involved in our lives.  The devil is not God, he cannot be everywhere at the same time like God.  This is true.  Others, see him as an invention to keep people in fear and in submission to whatever church they belong to. 

CS Lewis

Guilt & Despair Two Great Enemies Of Christians

C.S. Lewis, in his fictional account of letters between Screwtape (a senior demon) and wormwood (his nephew, a novice demon who is being trained to discourage christians) titled, The Screwtape Letters, writing about modern and wiccan views, states: 

Our policy, for the moment, is to conceal ourselves. Of course this has not always been so. We are really faced with a cruel dilemma. When the humans disbelieve in our existence we lose all the pleasing results of direct terrorism and we make no magicians. On the other hand, when they believe in us, we cannot make them materialists and sceptics. At least, not yet. I have great hopes that we shall learn in due time how to emotionalise and mythologise their science to such an extent that what is, in effect, a belief in us, (though not under that name) will creep in while the human mind remains closed to belief in the Enemy. The “Life Force”, the worship of sex, and some aspects of Psychoanalysis, may here prove useful. If once we can produce our perfect work — the Materialist Magician, the man, not using, but veritably worshipping, what he vaguely calls “Forces” while denying the existence of “spirits” — then the end of the war will be in sight. But in the meantime we must obey our orders. I do not think you will have much difficulty in keeping the patient in the dark. The fact that “devils” are predominantly comic figures in the modern imagination will help you. If any faint suspicion of your existence begins to arise in his mind, suggest to him a picture of something in red tights, and persuade him that since he cannot believe in that (it is an old textbook method of confusing them) he therefore cannot believe in you. (Letter 7)

But he does exist. He can use legions of his evil spirits to manipulate us. He also has an old friend working on the inside of us - our old natures. As Paul wrote about himself in Romans 7:14-23:

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For xI do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now zit is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells ain me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, cit is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members fanother law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

Satan As The Accuser Of Christians
Satan is correctly called the accuser of the brethren.  All the word means in Hebrew is "adversary."  The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia states, This word (in the singular or plural) is used in the OT to render different Hebrew words. In thirty-two cases the word corresponds to the noun ‏צָר‎, or the verb ‏צָרַר‎. This noun is the ordinary word for “foe” or “adversary.” In twelve passages the Hebrew word, of which “adversary” is the translation, is ‏שָׂטָן‎ = noun or ‏שָׂטַן = verb. This stem means “to oppose,” or “thwart” anyone in his purpose or claims.

And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers 2 has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. (Revelations 12:1-2)

When God will not listen to him, he will accuse christians in their own minds.

Famous christians like Martin Luther did.  It is said that while he was translating the Bible into German (the first ever translation of the Bible into German), was tormented by the devil many nights and days.  In one instance, it is explained:

The devil sought to discourage [Luther], by making him feel guilty, through rehearsing a list of his sins. When the devil had finished, Luther purportedly said, “Think harder: you must have forgotten some.” And the devil did think, and he listed more sins. When he was done enumerating the sins, Luther said, “Now, with a red pen write over that list, “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin.” “The devil had nothing to say.

Some, believe these were stories, (especially the most famous one where Luther threw an inkwell at the devil), told by one of his former students were fictitious:

It first appeared towards the end of the sixteenth century, and is said to have been told by a former Wittenberg student. In this early version, the Devil in the guise of a monk threw an inkwell at Luther while he was secluded in the Wartburg. By 1650, the story shifted to Luther throwing the inkwell at Satan. Like any bizarre legend, the story morphed, and houses where Luther stayed had spots on the walls, and these were also said to be inkwells that Luther threw at the Devil.

However, it should be remembered that all we have of Socrates' statements are from notes taken by his students Plato and Xenophon.  So, perhaps Luther's students should not be so completely discounted.

Again CS Lewis writing about the transition from guilt to despair in the life of a christian over his sins aptly places himself in the mind of Satan in The Screwtape Letters:

There is, of course, always the chance, not of chloroforming the shame, but of aggravating it and producing Despair. This would be a great triumph. It would show that he had believed in, and accepted, the Enemy’s forgiveness of his other sins only because he himself did not fully feel their sinfulness — that in respect of the one vice which he really understands in its full depth of dishonour he cannot seek, nor credit, the Mercy. But I fear you have already let him get too far in the Enemy’s school, and he knows that Despair is a greater sin than any of the sins which provoke it. (Letter 29)

The two principal goals of the devil are to keep us from prayer and to keep us from reading God's word, the two most essential things a christian needs in his/her life.  What do the scriptures advise us to do when we have committed a sin?

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and rto cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (I John 1:8-9)

Some might say that this promise is only to those who walk in the light as Christ did.  They would be right.  The verb here is to walk indicates a lifestyle.  Walking in the light does not mean that you do not sin, otherwise verse 10 would have no meaning.  All christians have sinned, but they do not want to sin.  They do not enjoy a life of sinning.

Again in scripture:

I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not cover my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,”
and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah (Psalm 32:5)

 Again:

But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me, so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. (Leviticus 26:40-42)

How often shall this be done?  The christian's life is a life of confession for he is constantly sinning.  Therefore, his confessions must be constant.

With the death of Christ there is no guilt left for christians.  We may feel shame at times for the sins we commit, but the guilt of that sin has been already forgiven.  If we find ourselves committing the same sins over and over again, we must remember that Christ has forgiven us for them forever through the precious blood of his son and our brother and Lord Jesus.  Our confessions are not what causes God to forgive us, if this were so, then we would be saved by our own work of asking for forgiveness.  We are saved by grace and that is a gift of God, not through anything we have done or may do.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8)

If God is satisfied with us through the death of His Son then what right do we have to continue to feel guilt and shame.  Are our standards of righteousness higher than God's?  Do we somehow think that if we stopped sinning, we would be worthy of God's love and heaven?  No!  The only thing that makes us loved in God's sight is that ALL our sins (past, present and future) were paid for by the blood of Christ on the cross and now we are covered by His righteousness before the Father's eyes.  When he sees us, he sees Jesus in us the hope of glory. (Colossians 1:27)

Even the prayer that Jesus gave us to model our prayers after, begins with asking for forgiveness for our sins, "...forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us..." (Matthew 6:12).  This would make no sense if we are not sinning on a daily basis.  But if we confess our sins, we are forgiven through the blood of Christ.  This is not a contradiction to what was said before about the blood of Christ covering ALL of our sins.  All believers WILL confess their sins because the Spirit of God will produce that confession.  

Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:33-39)

So guilt should never prevent us from praying.  If you see yourself as a sinner you are never the hypocrite when you pray.  This is what Satan wants you to think so as to prevent you from spending time with the Lord in prayer.

Likewise, we should never feel guilty about reading the word after we have committed a sin.  This is exactly what we need to be exposed to (the words of our Father) and precisely what Satan is trying to prevent.

May the Lord send out this message to all who read it with power.