We’re freed from Satan’s dominion
By Apostle Frederick K.C. Price

The following is an excerpt from Apostle Price's book, Living in Hostile Territory.

The first thing we need to do if we want to be overcomers in Christ is to know our territory. We need to know where we live, who our enemy is, and what we need to do to keep the enemy from defeating us. Paul tells us in Colossians 1:10-13:

10 that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;

11 strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy;

12 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.

13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.

The word power in verse 13 means "dominion, rulership, domination, authority, or control." The word darkness is being used symbolically here. Of course, the opposite of darkness is light, and the Bible uses the word light when it refers to God and the things related to Him.

Notice, however, that Paul says God has delivered us from the power of darkness. Paul does not say God has delivered us from the presence of darkness. That presence is still around us. Unfortunately, the presence of darkness dominates the lives of too many Christians. They live in darkness, under the dominion of satanic forces.

2 Corinthians 4:1-4:

1 Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart.

2 But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.

3 But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing,

4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.

Notice, Paul does not say "the God of all worlds," "the God of all the ages," or "God Almighty." He says, the god of this age. (The original King James Bible calls him "the god of this world.") The objective of this god is to blind the minds of those who have not yet believed on Jesus. That way, those people cannot come into the knowledge of Jesus Christ by accepting Him as their personal Savior and Lord. That means the god of this age must not be God or Jesus.

The god of this age is the individual we read about in the first chapter of Colossians -- the power of darkness. He is the ruler of the darkness of this world.

Ephesians 2:1-2:

1 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,

2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience.

Notice, Paul does not say, “according to the course of God," but . . . according to the course of this world. Notice also what he calls the spirit that works in the sons of disobedience. He calls that individual the prince of the power of the air.

The word prince is very interesting. In the Greek, it is the word archon, which means "ruler" or "dominator." The air has to do with the atmosphere around the earth. Satan and his demon hordes are in the whole atmosphere around us, and those demonic spirits are the ones causing all the confusion in the world.

All This Authority

Just in case you have any doubts about the devil’s ownership and dominion of the world, take a look at Luke’s Gospel, chapter four.

Luke 4:1-7:

1 Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,

2 being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry.

3 And the devil said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread."

4 But Jesus answered him, saying, "It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’"

5 Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.

6 And the devil said to Him, "All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.

7 "Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours."

Notice the words delivered to me in verse six. The devil did not say, "I crept up on Adam’s blind side and snatched the authority from him." He said someone delivered it to him. When did the devil receive that authority? When Adam sinned.

If the devil could not give Jesus the kingdoms of the world, and the power or authority over them, Satan’s offer would not have been a temptation to Jesus. Jesus never argued about the devil's ability to give Him those things, so he must have had the ability to do it. That would make Satan’s offer a valid temptation, and Jesus could have yielded to it, but He chose not to yield. Instead, He stayed focused on the Word of God.

Jesus came out on top. He stood against the devil in every temptation and defeated him ultimately at Calvary. Through His resurrection, He bought back and redeemed humankind, and gave us back the dominion Satan had received from Adam.

Satan has no real authority over us; we have control over the circumstances in our lives. However, the fact we are in control does not mean the devil will not shoot at us. Satan will throw anything and everything he can against us. We as believers have the option of not accepting what he sends our way. We have the authority of the name of Jesus, and the covenant promises God has outlined for us in His Word. What we have to do is stand on those things and not give the devil so much as an inch.

How Satan Has Run Over Christians

Christians have generally let Satan continue to have dominion over their lives for one of two reasons. The first explanation is that they simply did not know the devil had no legal rights over them. They probably never heard about the authority of the believer, or that they even had any rights in Christ other than salvation. Therefore, they were ignorant of what God said was His best for their lives.

The second reason Christians have let Satan dominate them is that they have deliberately not taken advantage of their rights and authority in Christ. This is something I personally find hard to believe. Why would someone deliberately want to live in poverty, sickness, and misery, particularly when the person knows how to avoid all that mess? It would be like someone handing me $10 million in cash, no strings attached, and I tell the person I do not want the money. Think of how far $10 million would go toward the proclamation of the Gospel. Think of all the lives that money would have an impact on, not to mention meeting all a person’s needs and then some.

One notion that the enemy has used to brainwash Christians into being dominated has been what the Church has taught about suffering. Traditionally, when we think of suffering, we usually think of pain, sickness, or poverty. In other words, we equate suffering with bad news in a physical sense, with being deprived in some way. There are some people who think they are supposed to suffer in the ways I have just mentioned. They think that through suffering, they will merit or earn the right to be in the Kingdom of God.

This idea of suffering has proven to be one of the biggest stumbling blocks in all Christianity. It is really a satanic doctrine. The enemy infiltrated it into the Church through the pulpit to make Christians feel a sense of guilt if they did not go through some sort of deprivation. Basically, it follows the idea that surely God is not going to simply give Christians all the things He talks about in the Bible; we have to pay something for it. So people have thought of the suffering they have gone through as a way of "balancing the scales" or "evening the score" between themselves and God.

All we have to do to prove how wrong this idea of suffering has been is check out the example God has given us. We have a role model, a pattern, a blueprint as to how we should live -- and that pattern is Jesus. Paul writes in Romans 8:16-17:

16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,

17 and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.

The word with is the pivotal word in this verse. Paul does not say that we suffer for the Lord. Many Christians will say they are "suffering for the Lord," but the reason they are suffering is that they are acting foolishly and contrary to the Word of God.

The word with implies that whatever Jesus has gone through, we go through. If I go to the store for my wife, that means my wife did not go to the store. I went on her behalf. If I go to the store with my wife, that means we went together. Likewise, if Paul had said that we are to suffer for the Lord, that would mean the Lord stayed home and we did the suffering. But Paul did not say suffer for. He said suffer with. In other words, Jesus is right there with us.

To the best of my knowledge, there is no passage in the Bible that says Jesus was ever sick, afraid, or did not have His needs met. Since Jesus did not suffer by accepting any of those things into His life, we do not have to accept any of those things into our lives either.

The only thing Jesus suffered when He walked the earth was persecution. That is something we cannot escape as long as we interface with humanity. We can live like hermits on top of Mount Everest, away from everyone, and the devil will never waste a shot on us because we will not be a threat to his dominion. But if we are going to live with and around other people, we will suffer persecution.

The persecution Jesus faced was mainly verbal. There were several instances where the people wanted to kill Jesus before He offered Himself up as the Lamb of God on behalf of mankind. Every time the people tried to kill Him, He escaped. Jesus avoided any physical persecution that would do Him bodily harm before He could complete His mission.

Many Christians through the ages have not realized this fact and have accepted death. During the Inquisition, in the Dark Ages, if a person expressed a belief in any church doctrine except Catholicism, the authorities put the person on the rack. They would peel the skin off that person’s body just as you would peel an apple. We cannot even imagine the inhumanity that one person would put upon another person "in the name of God." Many Christians placed in these circumstances thought God wanted them to die for Him, so they allowed the authorities to torture and kill them.

There is no place in the Bible that tells us to bow to the devil and let him kill us. We have records all through the New Testament where the apostles escaped death. In one instance, Paul was let down through the city wall in a large basket to escape the authorities (Acts 9:25). So we have to use enough wisdom to know when to stay in a particular situation and when to leave. When we are dealing with people whom we know want to kill us, we had better get away from them unless the Holy Spirit tells us otherwise. Running away from this kind of situation does not mean we are afraid. It means we are smart, because we are dealing with a ruthless enemy, Satan, who wants us dead.

Now, some situations may arise from which we cannot escape, and we may end up dying as a result. Some situations we put ourselves in may place us in harm’s way, so we should go into those situations knowing the risk. In this case, we must use our faith to believe God for preservation. God will protect us to the point that our faith can maintain itself. But when we put ourselves into a dangerous situation, we should not think it is strange that someone is shooting at us. It is going to happen.

No matter what situation may manifest, Paul reminds us in Romans 8:18:

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

It does not matter what circumstances the devil may throw at us, or the persecutions he sends our way. People can talk about us, lie about us, and make false accusations. Whatever happens is nothing compared to the glory we will receive by being faithful to the Word of God.

     
Back to Newsletter