Stupid things religious people say

[Fake Messiah]

Premier Christianity has published an article that finally explains what the devil is and how to get away from him - which is: don't live near shopping malls, don't fill your refrigerator with ice cream, don't look at porn, and sell your stocks.

What Christians get wrong about Satan

Have you noticed how, despite living in an increasingly materialist world, the spiritual realm keeps breaking through?

Firstly, his name is not Lucifer. That word doesn’t appear in the original Hebrew and Greek Bible. It shows up in a much later Latin translation and then disappears from modern translations for good reason. A lucifer – or light-bearer – is obviously not what the devil is. That Latin translation calls Jesus a light-bearer. Creation is a light-bearer. Christians are light-bearers. Technically, it’s you, I and Jesus who are the true lucifers!

His name isn’t Satan or Devil, either. Those are just English names for the Hebrew ha-satan (pronounced ha-sah-tahn) and the Greek diabolos. If we wanted to give the evil one an English name that roughly equates, we’d call him Accuser-Adversary.

Many Christians have a sense that he’s permanently perched on their shoulders, personally tempting and torturing them around the clock. But nothing in the Bible suggests Accuser-Adversary is omnipresent. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Revelation 12:10 says he spends his days darting back and forth between heaven and earth, accusing Christians before the courtroom of heaven. Luckily, Christ our advocate defends us with his very life.

Most Christians have almost certainly never had a face-to-face encounter with the devil. If you do the maths, in a world with 8 billion people, over the course of a century Accuser-Adversary could only spend 0.39 seconds with each of us. In all likelihood, most humans will go their entire lives without ever encountering him at all.

But that is not to say we will not encounter the lies, accusations and life-destroying systems he has been designing and detonating in human hearts since the beginning of time.

You can’t walk ten feet without encountering a dozen of Accuser-Adversary’s schemes in everything from shopping addiction to the promise of viral internet fame.

It helps to know his game plan. Accuser-Adversary, like all free will spirits – including our own – wants to be God. To accomplish his mission, he tries to establish strongholds in people’s lives, virtual pillboxes from which to snipe, “steal…kill and destroy” (John 10:10) and launch further sallies to expand his territory.

The devil only gets a stronghold after first establishing a foothold – getting a foot in the door of your life and then ratcheting it open. We see this foothold-to-stronghold dynamic play out across the Bible and human history. Self-will becomes rebellion. Anger becomes violence. Hatred becomes murder. Distraction becomes idol worship. Unforgiveness becomes bitterness. Lust becomes adultery. Guilt becomes condemnation. Fear becomes paralysis. Conceit becomes pride. False teaching becomes apostasy.

Here are some practical examples. It’s harder to fall into a stronghold of dairy gluttony if you don’t stock your freezer full of Häagen-Dazs. If you struggle with a shopping addiction, do what we did and move an hour away from the nearest shopping centre. It’s difficult to fall into a stronghold of wealth accumulation if you fire your financial advisor. If drugs have a grip on your body, living in a crack house won’t help. It’s significantly easier to not profit off the poor if you sell your stocks, bonds and rental properties. I’ve never encountered porn on a mobile phone for the simple reason that I don’t own one.

https://www.premierchristianity.com/feat...49.article