Satan became proud, encouraged other angels to listen to his lies, and was cast out of heaven. On earth he deceived Eve into doing what he did in heaven. Soon he deceived the Watchers into doing the same thing again. He encouraged Cain’s anger until it turned into wrath and murder, leaving Cain to wander around alienated from his family, while Satan went on his way to another victim. Peter says he is like a roaring lion walking back and forth throughout the earth seeking someone to devour.
There are untold billions of people who have succumbed to his lies, believing the ‘fruit’ was going to make them feel better, or make them wiser, or give them something that their God was withholding unjustly from them. Just take a look at Hollywood and you will see popular artists dying a horrible death because they, too, had believed the deceptions that they could have all they ever wanted, if they only sold their souls to the devil.
We are no different, as we have followed life patterns in our own lives that we have seen from our parents, and now as a nation, we are seeing them in the lives of our children and grandchildren. Many of these life patterns started from someone, ourselves, or our parents, drawing away from God and drawing closer to selfish behaviors. Selfish behaviors that soon became attached to demonic spirits who turned that selfish behavior into a bondage of destruction for our own life and for those around us. In this way, we are the same as the Israelites, hot today, cold tomorrow, for our God. We are also the same as the church, soon after the death of the Apostles, one foot in the church and one foot in the world. Man has trouble staying totally dedicated to His God, even with the help of the Holy Spirit, and especially in times of prosperity and blessings.
Let’s look at one more example of a life pattern before we move on to summing this series up. Notice that the cycle or the life pattern for abuse comes from the ancestors.
Spousal Abuse:
Estimates range from 960,000 incidents of violence against a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend to 3 million women who are physically abused by their husband or boyfriend per year.
Women accounted for 85% of the victims of intimate partner violence, men for approximately 15%.
Men learn to be violent toward women from their families and their fathers, and other male role models, especially those on television, in the movies, and in magazines.
Men often keep abusing because no one, not their families, not their friends, not the neighbors, not the police, not the media, not the workplace, not the church, not the courts — no one effectively intervenes.
Batterers inflict the greatest violence and the greatest damage when women try to leave. The strategy of abuse is to keep the woman from escaping.
The abusive partner lashes out with aggressive, belittling, or violent behavior. The abuse is a power play designed to show you “who is boss.”
Notice the cycle, or life pattern, of the victim of the abuse.
Abuse – Your abusive partner lashes out with aggressive, belittling, or violent behavior. The abuse is a power play designed to show you “who is boss.”
Guilt – After abusing you, your partner feels guilt, but not over what he’s done. He’s more worried about the possibility of being caught and facing consequences for his abusive behavior.
Excuses – Your abuser rationalizes what he or she has done. The person may come up with a string of excuses or blame you for the abusive behavior; anything to avoid taking responsibility.
‘Normal’ behavior — The abuser does everything he can to regain control and keep the victim in the relationship. He may act as if nothing has happened, or he may turn on the charm. This peaceful honeymoon phase may give the victim hope that the abuser has really changed this time.
Fantasy and planning – Your abuser begins to fantasize about abusing you again. He spends a lot of time thinking about what you’ve done wrong and how he’ll make you pay. Then he makes a plan for turning the fantasy of abuse into reality.
Set-up – Your abuser sets you up and puts his plan in motion, creating a situation where he can justify abusing you.
Abuse – Your abusive partner lashes out with aggressive, belittling, or violent behavior. The abuse is a power play designed to show you “who is boss.”
Does this sound like the devil? Satan came to destroy, steal and to kill. Jesus came to heal, deliver and set free with Life more abundantly.
Man is born into sin and has a natural tendency to do the wrong thing, even when his conscience is telling him to do the right thing. Jesus came to defeat the darkness and give us light about the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will give us a new mind in agreement with God’s Word and God’s character, and the power to resist the wrong and do the right.
The devil knows this better than we do, so he makes sure that we stay away from church, away from God’s Word, and away from anything to do with the Holy Spirit. He wants us to live by our own carnal strength because he knows we do not have power in our own selves to resist him. When we do wrong, he is right there to encourage it. If we get angry, he is there to make us angrier; his end goal is wrath, and destruction, and death.
Life Patterns are a reality. Whether you want to believe they come from yourself, or whether you can see that there is another spirit world influencing our carnal natures to be evil, the end result is that there are patterns in people’s lives that were influenced by previous generations.
If Jesus attacked sickness, disease, and emotional and physical prisons, by speaking to the demons, maybe we need to take another look beyond the physical into the spiritual, and beyond the natural eyesight into the eyes of the Father.
Jesus is coming back to rid the world of evil men, pain, suffering, abuse, lack, enslavement, sickness, and disease, by casting the devil and his kingdom into the Lake of Fire, so this should tell us that these spirit beings are still around us. It’s not just man making bad choices. It is bad choices of man being hijacked to wreak all manner of evil in the world. The Days of Noah are coming soon.
This concludes this series on Life Patterns.