05/25/2026
SATAN IS BOUND BY THE LAWS OF GOD.
He can bring no trial to you that you cannot overcome with God’s Word. He has no weapon that is not subject to the Word of God. God has given Satan an ultimatum where tempting you is concerned.
Satan is already bound by the laws of God. God will not allow (suffer) Satan to go beyond the limit he has in the earth to try your faith. Satan would not dare go beyond what God has decreed, nor does he have the power within his reach to do so. You are able to overcome and be victorious over every temptation and trial. In God’s Word, you have already been given the authority to overcome every temptation and trial that Satan can bring against you (2 Pet. 1:4).
God has already provided you that way of
escape.
That ye may be able to bear it means that, with the steadfast patience admonished in Hebrews 10:36, you can bear (endure) Satan’s pressure to yield to circumstances without surrendering to that pressure—performing and fully accomplishing the will of God, and thus receive and carry away what is promised. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation... he shall receive... (James 1:12).
“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) casting down imaginations, and every high thing that
exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:3-5).
Our weapons are not carnal! Our weapons are not limited to what is common to man. Satan is limited and can bring no temptation or trial against you that is not common to man. The weapons of Satan’s arsenal are limited, but we are not limited to what is common to man. The weapons of our warfare are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. We have God’s power behind us. Whose strongholds are these that our weapons are so powerful in pulling down? Satan’s! While Satan is limited in his attack against you, you are backed by the power of God; and all that Satan can do does not begin to tax God’s ability and power.
The same Greek word peirasmos is translated “temptations, tests, and trials.”
When Satan tempts (pressures) you to back off God’s Word, he is trying your faith (James 1:3). Because of Satan, you have the opportunity to prove (also the same Greek word) that you believe God’s Word is true. Satan can challenge God’s Word, but James 1:14 says that every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. When James said every man, he did not leave you out. You are tempted when you are drawn away from God’s Word. Lust is desire inconsistent with the will of God, which is the Word of God; lust is of the mind (W. E. Vine).
Satan attempts to lure (entice) you away from what God’s Word says. For Satan to get
anywhere with you in temptation, he has to first draw you away from God’s Word.
“Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering” (James 1:6).
If you refuse to give place in your mind and in your words to that which is contrary to God’s Word, Satan’s temptations, tests, and trials cannot influence your affairs.
Satan cannot work in your life apart from fear any more than God can work without faith. If you refuse to fear that God’s Word will not work, you give Satan nothing to work with. He has to have your cooperation, your consent. If you are faithful and steadfast in God’s Word, you can count it all joy when you fall into different temptations (James 1:2). They will not affect you.
We do not war after flesh. If the war is not in the flesh, then where is it? Where are the imaginations? Where are the thoughts?
IN THE MIND. The mind is scripturally
called “the soul.” The soul of man is his mind, his will, and his emotions. Satan’s warfare against us is in this soulish realm. Through the mind, the will, and the emotions, Satan attacks the other areas of life. The mind is where the door to Satan is opened or shut. It is like the entry hall of a house where admission to the rest of thenhouse is granted or refused.
Man is a spirit. He has a soul. He lives in a body (1 Thess. 5:23). When you made
Jesus the Lord of your life, you—the spirit—were recreated and made a new creature
(2 Cor. 5:17). Your soul and body remained the same. The spirit of man is made to have dominion over the mind and body. The Bible tells us that the mind is to be renewed by the Word of God and the body is to be brought under subjection to God’s Word. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of yourbmind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God (Rom. 12:1, 2). This says brethren. It is written to believers. We are to present our bodies a living sacrifice. We are not to be conformed to this world, but we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
Christians who do not know what God’s Word says about them are unable to live and enjoy privileges that already belong to them. Their minds have never been renewed to walk in the spirit; therefore, they continue to walk after the dictates of their flesh, or body (Gal. 5:16, 17). But when the mind is renewed to God’s Word, the outerlife is transformed.
Satan attacks in the soulish realm: The mind that has not been renewed to the Word of God does not know it has a choice but to receive what Satan is offering it. The unrenewed mind does not know that there is an alternative. A believer has at his disposal all of the spiritual weapons in heaven’s arsenal, but if his mind has never been renewed, he does not know that there is an arsenal—much less how to use the weapons. He is at Satan’s mercy, and Satan has no mercy. What a pitiful position for a
believer who has already been given all authority and power!
“Why did that happen to Sister Smith? She was such a sweet Christian.” The answer to Why? is always unbelief. The Bible tells us why God’s people are sick, broke, tormented by fear,
oppressed, and why they die young. “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hos. 4:6).
Satan works on you the same way he worked on Eve. He tries to discredit God’s Word in your mind. He has no authority. First Peter 5:8 says that Satan goes around as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. He talks big, but bluff is all he has going for him. Notice, it says he walks about as a roaring lion. It doesn’t say he is one. Jesus is the Lion of the tribe of Judah! He is our Lord. Jesus called Satan a liar and said thar there is no truth in him... “because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44). Satan
conceived lies and he is a master at it. Deception is all he has to use against the Body
of Christ.
This is one place where the old phrase, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” does not apply. Satan is ALL smoke. Today we use the phrase “blowing smoke.”
That’s what Satan is doing! He is “blowing smoke” at you to make you believe that God’s
Word is not true. He has to trick you into using your own authority against yourself.
- Gloria Copeland (God's Will Is Prosperity)
- Spiritual Notes
