It is so important that we strive to maintain a balance between attributing things to demonic activity and recognizing natural phenomena. A particular instance comes to mind when I think of this subject. It was a time many years ago when I was speaking at a church. After the meeting a lady came up to me and said, “Brother K.P., will you please lay your hand on me and pray for me?” Naturally, I asked what she wanted me to pray for.
She answered, “I have a demon of smoking.”
I replied, “Dear lady, you don’t have a demon. You can cast out demons, but you cannot cast out the flesh.”
For every flare of temper, every weakness, every time you sneeze, you may think, “Oh, there is a demon.” Your car just swerved into the next lane or some madman drove through the red light. “Oh, there’s a demon attacking me.” No. The Devil is bad enough. Don’t attribute every little bad thing that happens to him.
Please don’t look at the events in your life and think demons are after you all the time. There are demons and there are attacks. But we should be careful not to become paranoid of the things that happen in life. If there are demons, the Lord has given us the authority to pray and tell them to leave—and they must go.
The truth is, the Devil is defeated. Therefore, the child of God has no reason to be afraid of Satan and his hordes of demons. Someone who has truly repented of sin and trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ lives a life that has been washed in the blood of the Lamb. When Jesus died on the cross, He placed demons and Satan—the whole evil bunch—under His feet. And we are the Body of Christ, so the whole satanic force is under our feet. The Scripture specifically tells us, “Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4, NASB).
One of the main tactics that Satan uses is causing us to forget who we are in Christ. This deception is very powerful. When we forget that Satan was defeated through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, we also forget the greatness of our God. In Ephesians 1:20–23, we read of the tremendous authority that the Lord Jesus Christ has given to His Body, that is, each one of us who belongs to the Lord:
. . . when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.