Satan's Devices by Pastor Lawrence Oyor: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Your Life Is a Mansion with Many Rooms

Your life is like a mansion with many rooms — and all the areas of your life are represented as rooms. When you get born again, you are given access to the main door. Jesus is now in your heart, in your spirit. But your life has many other rooms.

The reason why believers today seem to succeed in one room and fail in another is because they took the key of one room and left the key of another room. The warfare that will continue until the day we see Jesus is a warfare of wisdom — to ensure that light fills every room in this house. Until our whole body is full of light, we cannot truly say let your light so shine before men. People will look at us and not want our Jesus.

Let us begin with 2 Corinthians 2:1–11.

The Heart of Paul — Balance

Paul understood balance. He knows when to be firm and harsh, and when to be soft and tender. Someone had slept with his father's wife and the church continued like nothing happened — speaking in tongues, dancing in the spirit. Paul came to them with sorrow, with anguish of heart. If you truly love a person, sometimes the bitter truth must be spoken.

The purpose of the punishment was not to destroy this man's life. The purpose was to let him understand that what he did was bad — so that he would repent. Godly sorrow leads to repentance. But if you do not put a gauge on the sorrow, it can graduate from godly sorrow into too much — into destruction, like Judas.

Every single instruction from God is redemptive. Even in His anger, it is redemption. God is always trying to get you better. He is never trying to destroy you. Even when it seems like tough love, the end of that tough love is redemption.

When the community pulled back from the offender, things began to happen in his life. He began to feel remorse. That is how community works. Once the sheep is isolated, the wolves get that sheep. That is why a person saying church hurt me and isolating themselves — that is what Satan uses to punish people. Do not punish yourself.

There are possibilities only available in the house. David said, I was glad when they said: let us go to the house of the Lord. If community pulls back from you, as it pulled back from Uriah when David said take him to where the battle is fiercest then pull back — Uriah died. It does not matter how many suicide spirits lodge in your house: if community is with you, you will not die. Who unto him that falls when he is alone? For he has no one to pick him up. Two are better than one for they have a good reward for their labor.

Satan's Device: Winning on Both Sides

Satan fights in such a way that he wins on both sides. When the man was sinning, he was clapping. They dealt with the man. He is still clapping. That means Satan fights in such a way that he wins on both ends.

It is like tic-tac-toe. No matter where you place your piece, he can maneuver to win. His capacity to position himself is the result of many years of studying human patterns. He has tried with one, he failed. Tried with another, he succeeded. He has done a lot of trial and error until he has mastered your personality. Human beings are predictable. Everyone functions with patterns. Only a person led by the Spirit of God can somehow break the pattern.

We are not ignorant of his devices. With those devices, he can have advantage. In every life, every family, every nation, he has a device.

Three Stages of Satan's Assault Against Destiny

The leading cause of death in the world today is abortion. Imagine the millions of destinies wasted before they even got to meditate in the word of God and defend themselves. That is the first strike — to prevent them from being born at all.

The second strike: the ones who were eventually born. The systems and structures set in place in families and nations are sometimes airtight to the point that those children will not see past two or three years old before there is corruption. Some uncle, some auntie, some housegirl, some cousin must have come into the environment to corrupt that seed.

The third strike is complexes — crafted environments designed to ensure that those on whom God's hand is strongly upon come up with dysfunction. So that every pioneer, every leader, every one likely to cause unity in the body of Christ, is coming from betrayal, from rejection, from broken trust. Every single one of them have experienced betrayal.

You thought your friend betraying you was about you. There is a grander plan. The person you had difficulty forgiving in 100 level was not the problem. The problem was the one you will eventually have difficulty sitting with — the other leader in the body of Christ you will not be able to work with because you have mastered unforgiveness.

Betray after betrayal after betrayal — now you don't let people into your heart anymore. All those persons who lied against you, who took your secret outward, was to the end that by the time you become great, you can die in silence. And when you fall, you fall alone.

Device: Using Good to Prevent Best

Satan's most insidious device is distraction. He uses good to prevent better, and better to prevent best. He can offer you what is good. If it will prevent what is better — he will offer it. What we are praying for on all prayer platforms every morning is exactly what he offered Jesus. Satan literally offered Jesus the riches of this world, fame, honor, everything — all those things that are good that you are praying about. He was ready to give them. If he can give it, it means he is not really worried about you having it.

Your car is not a threat to him. He can give you more. He wants to give you. If they are asking for your body before they give you a job, then something more expensive than the salary is what he wants to take from you. The thief comes not but to steal, kill, and destroy. Nobody comes to steal something that is not valuable. If he came, there is value. When he came to Jesus, he saw value — and he said bow to me.

Every time you see what he offered, realize your value was far more than what he was offering. To be a son of God is more valuable than the entire world put together.

From Retail Ministry to Territorial Impact

We have been casting out demons for the longest — and we will continue casting out demons. But is that all there is? Is there not a way to solve this problem in such a way that we will not even have the operations of certain demons in certain places because there is a presence there?

Imagine you want to clear a forest and you start by plucking the leaves. You will never finish. Before you finish one tree, a couple more trees have already started growing. You can fight in a way that you will never win — and the war continues for decades, and your children come and inherit the warfare. We are not fighting with wisdom.

Elijah was a territorial prophet. How many years did it take to turn Israel back to God? In one day, the evangelism you would have done person by person was achieved — he held the entire nation spellbound. If Baal is God, worship him. If God is God, worship Him. That is territorial impact.

From 2018, something happened to my mind. I said it must be territorial. And from territory to territory, we started seeing territorial results. Only territorial mantles will answer the questions of our day. Because in a generation where they are asking us where is our God, he better not answer the question before you.

I declare over you: I bless you with the blessing of never being able to settle. Always seeing more. Never ever settling. The blessing of always seeing ahead — forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forward. Onto the next. In the name of Jesus.