Why do we address the devil in our worship?
I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion Christians pray to the devil more often than Satanists.
I don’t mean what the anti-Mormons mean by that. They claim when Mormons pray to God they’re actually praying to “the Mormon God” which is a demon playing God. I don’t know what scriptural basis they have for this idea, but the logical conclusion of this teaching is anyone with less-than-orthodox beliefs will wind up crying out to demons when they’re trying to get in contact with God. Therefore the Oneness Pentecostals, or the people who use grape juice for communion, aren’t actually praying to Yahweh but “the Oneness God” or “the Grape Juice God.” Sounds like a load of crap to me.
Side rant aside, I’m talking about the more common practice of interrupting a regular prayer in this way:
“…and Lord God, we just come before you, Lord God, to ask for strength, Lord God, to ask for victory, Lord God, to ask for power, Lord God, against the devil when he comes against us. And we declare to you, Satan…”
Thus a plea to God is interrupted with a prayer to Satan.
More specifically, an invocation to Satan. No foolin’. See, I think Christians forget it isn’t omnipresent. God, who fills the universe, will naturally be everywhere we are when we need to talk to him, but Satan is an angel and therefore limited to one place and point in time.
I suspect Satan’s busy someplace in Washington DC, trying to accuse North Korea of various things in order to get President Bush to invade, and some praying fool in Santa Cruz interrupts it in that process because he’s actually offering it a prayer. So, where we normally wouldn’t be fighting the devil, we are now…
Okay, that’s a worst-case scenario, but does anyone but me see the stupidity in praying to the devil? Especially when, simply following the laws of statistics, it’s not even involved. There’s a whole wide world to tempt, and Satan can only work on one human at a time. If it’s really efficient, maybe a hundred or so. The rest are being tempted by other demons… or their temptations are on autopilot, because they give in so easily that there’s no point in demons being involved at all. Addicts, for instance; whether to drugs or gossip.
Whenever opposition appears against the Christians—whether it’s something apparently significant, like a church plant, or something apparently insignificant, like one’s ability to study for a midterm—people automatically blame the devil, and a lot of foolish Christians actually petition it to stop. What business do we have ordering the devil around anyway? You don’t make the devil run by telling it to go away. You make it run by submitting to God, and by resisting. [Jm 4.7] Christians don’t resist; we ask God to bind the devil and put a hedge of protection around us. And then we wonder why we’re so plagued with temptation. We’ve never built up any resistance!
And half the time it might be God coming against us because we’re selfish or greedy, but we’ve got some stupid idea that any opposition must be coming from the devil. That’s why James tells us to submit to God. That’s the context of James 4.1, 3: “Where do wars come from? What causes fights among you all? Isn’t it from defending your hedonism to the other Christians? You want what you don’t—and can’t—have… You ask and don’t get because you ask for evil things which you waste on your hedonism.” That’s why we submit to God.
Discern first who’s opposing us, then pray rightly: either, “Help me resist temptation” or “I apologize for going against you.” But don’t bother with “Bind the devil.” The devil isn’t getting bound until the End. [Rv 20.2] Pray for binding because you want God’s plan of history to unfold, but don’t expect it early.