There’s an traditional African folk song called “What a Mighty God We Serve.” If you grew up Christian, maybe you heard it in Sunday school. Sometimes adults sing it too. Goes like so.
- ♫ What a mighty God we serve
- ♫ What a mighty God we serve
- ♫ Angels bow before him
- ♫ Heaven and earth adore him
- ♫ What a mighty God we serve
Years later I found out it has more lyrics—words my children’s and youth pastors never bothered to teach us. You might be able to guess why.
- ♫ I command you Satan in the name of the Lord
- ♫ To take up your weapons and flee
- ♫ For the Lord has given me authority
- ♫ To walk all over thee
There are variations. I often hear “put down your weapons” in the second line, which makes way more sense than “take up your weapons.” There’s also “stomp all over thee” in the fourth—which comes with stomping movements, which are always fun.
Anyway. Lots of Sunday schools skip these lines, so lots of Christians aren’t aware of ’em. I hadn’t heard them in years; then they came up again in summer youth camp. The pastor got all the kids to sing along with the first part, but when she broke into the second part, the kids sat there confused: “Why’s she singing to the devil?” Anyway, because they didn’t sing along, she concluded, “I guess you don’t know that part,” and went right back to the “What a mighty God we serve” bit they did know.
As to why churches don’t teach it: Well you are singing to the devil! And shouldn’t. Don’t do that.
Likewise there are a number of Christians who pray to the devil. You may have seen it happen. Someone gets up to pray. Then, in the middle of all their other praises and petitions to God, they put the Lord on pause, and dial Satan in on our conference call.
“And Satan, we rebuke you. We bind you. We cast you out. You have no authority here. You have no business in this place. You get out of here, Satan. You’re under our feet.”
And so on. You get the idea.
Again: Don’t do that!
I know; I know. You’ve seen pastors and prayer leaders do it. You’ve seen Christians whom you greatly respect doing it. Loads of people do it. But they shouldn’t do it either.
As if the devil merits any such level of attention.
Some years ago the good folks at Radio Free Babylon posted this particular “Coffee with Jesus” strip on the subject. The ambidextrous suited guy is meant to be Jesus. (Jesus in a suit? Why not; it’s no more historically accurate than the toga people usually put him in.) And the mustached man is meant to be Satan.
“Talk to ME.” Facebook, 7 August 2016
That bit the coffee-drinking “Jesus” said about the archangel Michael? Comes
Jude 1.9 KJV - Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.
Michael had a great deal more sense than your average Christian, who figures we alone have the power to tackle the devil. We forget defeating the devil is a miracle. One which requires the Holy Spirit’s power, done
True, when Christians pray to the devil, we usually remember to invoke Jesus’s name. “What a Mighty God We Serve” does command Satan in the name of the Lord. But not every Christian is so careful!
Why’s this? Well, whenever we start shouting at Satan in mid-prayer, we’re riled up. Sometimes we were already riled up; sometimes we rile ourselves up when we start talking to the devil, but in both situations we’re angry. Outraged at what the devil’s tricked people into doing. Irritated at the devil’s temptations. Fearful of encroaching wickedness.
Wild emotion means we’ve lost control. We’ve let go of
So when someone starts praying to Satan, that’s our cue they’ve ditched gentleness in favor of
True, it’s not always fear. Sometimes it’s hypocrisy.
I’m certainly not saying we Christians shouldn’t
But when your average prayer leader interrupts the group’s prayers to God, and starts railing at the devil: Are they, at that moment, seeing obvious devilish activity which needs to be exorcised? Has the Holy Spirit given them a glimpse into the spiritual atmosphere, and shown them the spiritual battles invisibly going on around us?
Nah. They’re just frothing at Satan to show off how devout they are.
It’s not really done to drive the devil away. It’s done for cheers and applause and approval. “Yeah, the devil is under our feet! You tell ’im, preacher!” It’s like a political rally, when you verbally slap your opponent around a little. It’s done for show. Or as Jesus called such behavior,
Of course, when a politician’s opponent is on the stage with them, like in a debate, usually the atmosphere’s a lot different! It’s no longer cheerful, vengeful fun: Their opponents can actually defend themselves now, and counter-attack, and the battle is on. Same as when there’s a legitimate evil spirit which needs throwing out. At this point, the prayer leader (unless they’re a fool) had better not give this devil any attitude: There’s a real live critter in the room, and it sure doesn’t act like it knows it’s defeated. The would-be exorcist has lost all their braggadocio, and is now calling upon God for a whole lot of help.
’Cause I’ve seen what happens when real evil spirits get in the room. This isn’t a game. It’s war. Take war seriously.
Either way, it’s bad theology. And bad fruit.
You do realize Satan isn’t omnipresent, right? God’s the infinite being. Satan’s a mere evil spirit, limited to one place and time. Not all-powerful. Certainly better at lying, and manipulating people, than we are:
So when Christians start praying to Satan, it likely has no clue about any of these prayers. Because Satan usually isn’t the devil currently tempting you. Your tempter is some other devil. Or a human—like the political pundits trying to get you to get angry, or the advertisers preying on your vices. Or you’re tempting yourself, because you suck at resisting temptation, and you’ve undermined yourself by leaving a bunch of temptations around. As for Satan, it’s likely somewhere else, tempting someone else. It may not even be in this hemisphere!
We tend to generically call our tempters “Satan,” and it’s a lot like calling every angel “Michael.” I can’t claim to know who Satan’s specifically working on. (I tend to have a certain ex-president in mind, but he has so little impulse control, Satan can easily leave him to be evil on his own, and go after plenty of other influential people. But I digress.)
Sometimes I joke: “Y’know, Satan was probably off in Sun Valley, tempting John MacArthur to
Well, let’s hope not.
Christians have no business talking smack to anyone. Including the devil. Yes, including the devil. When Jesus ordered us to love our enemies,
So wait: Am I saying Jesus wants us to love the devil? Well, I’m not saying Jesus wants us to have affection for the devil—which is immediately the idea we jump to whenever the word “love” comes up, ’cause that’s how our culture most often defines love. Jesus certainly doesn’t want us to snuggle up to Satan and make it our bestest friend ever. But look again at
Because to do otherwise, means we’re giving in to our evil impulses, and corrupting ourselves. Spreading more evil within—and of course the evil within has a way of overflowing and corrupting other people.
The devil knows this. It’s why Satan is perfectly fine with being the object of our fury, mockery, hostility, hatred, fear, disquiet, impatience, and other out-of-control emotions. Hey, whatever destroys us with the least amount of effort on its part! All it has to do is turn us into screaming rage-monkeys, embrace all the behaviors the Holy Spirit is trying to eliminate… and drive away any potential Christian converts with our crazed anti-Satan tantrums.
And disrupt our prayers. As we’re trying to focus our attention on God, asking him to help us calm down and gain control of our emotions, asking him to point us towards love, patience, and holy peace… the devil is pleased as punch to monkey-wrench all that progress, and replace it with Two Minutes’ Hate.
Don’t do it.
