Why God Allows Satan To Torment You – Part 1 of 4

Hello, and welcome to Social Media Ministries. My name is Spencer Coffman. Thank you so much for being here today. We are kicking off a four-part sermon series about God allowing Satan to attack you and why that would happen. What is the purpose of it and why would God allow that? Today that is what we are talking about, why God allows Satan to torment you.

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So why does God allow Satan to torment you? Well, you may say that it is just that you live a tough life or that you do not know why things are happening. Or you hear that saying of, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

The answer is they do not. You say, “Wait a minute, what?” Why do bad things happen to good people? They do not. What does that mean? It means that there are no good people.

That is true. We are all evil. We are all bad. Everyone has sinned. The Bible says, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” All that is in Romans. For all have sinned. We are all sinners.

We are all bad. We are all evil. We are all born into this world apart from God, and yes we can become a Christian, we can try to be good, but bad things will still happen to all of us. The question is why.

Why does God allow bad things to happen and that is a really huge question that a lot of people ask when they are struggling with their faith or when they say, “I do not believe because God should not allow bad things to happen,” or “If God exists, there should not be evil in the world,” etc. So if you know someone like that, feel free to use some of this content to talk to them.

Why would a good God allow bad things to happen? Now we are not going to get into that specific topic, but we are right on the edges of it. Why would God allow Satan to torment you?

See a good God does not want bad things to happen to you, but remember God’s Kingdom is here. Satan has control of this Earth. Of course, Satan cannot do anything without first consulting God, there are some rules there, but ultimately this is Satan’s domain within reason.

God says, “Hey, you took that from my people, from my creation.” Satan stole it and so what is done is done, Satan has this. God says, “Now what you have done, you have stolen that from my creation,” from us, from humans, Satan stole it from us. “There are going to be some rules. Feel free to do what you like, but here are the rules and he has to abide by them. But anything within that parameter he can do however he wants.”

So if people say, “Why would a good God allow bad things to happen on Earth?” That there is too much evil in the world for me to believe in God. Say, “Hey, the world is not ruled by God, the world is ruled by Satan.” God is in another Kingdom, and He allows things to happen, but then uses them for the good of those who love Him. God uses everything.

Now throughout the Bible even, there are times and instances where God has specifically allowed Satan or demons or evil spirits to lead people to death, to torment people, to torture them, etc. Let’s take a look at a few of them. 1 Kings, if you have your Bible turn with me. I hope you are intrigued into this on why God would allow this to happen.

Let’s first read 1 Kings 22, Verses 20 to 22, “And Yahweh said, ‘Who will entice Ahab into attacking Ramath Gilead and going to his death?’ There one suggested this and another. Finally, a spirit came forward and stood before Yahweh and said, ‘I will entice him.’

“‘By what means?’ Yahweh asked. ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of his prophets.’ ‘You will succeed in enticing him,’ said Yahweh. ‘Go and do it.’ So now Yahweh has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours.”

This is the continuing prophecy, we will not need to continue in that, but read it. Micah is prophesying against Ahab. A different spelling of Micah, it might even be Makaya, but he is prophesying against Ahab.

He is saying, “I saw this, God is producing lying spirits. He is allowing you to be enticed into your death.” He allowed the spirit to do that. Why would God allow that to happen? Well, Ahab was not following where he was supposed to go.

There is another story of a king who for years turned, literally, he became a beast, he lost his mind. He went out and lived in the woods for years as a crazy man because he was not following God. So God said, “All right, I will allow it.” Boom, a demon obviously must have taken him over or suppressed him or something, and out in the wilderness for years. Then later everything was restored to him, but years of separation.

In the New Testament, even Jesus told Peter that Satan asked and received permission to sift him like wheat. Now you might say, “Well sifting is not a big process.” Well, sifting like wheat was a process of grinding it up, crushing it, and then running it through a series of sifting.

I mean, this would have been a process that if a human went through, a human-size sifter, we would come out like hamburger. It would not be pleasant. Satan asked and received permission to sift him like wheat. Luke 22:31, “‘Simon,’ Jesus says, ‘Satan has asked to sift you as wheat.’”

God also allowed the persecution of his people in Jerusalem all throughout the Gospels, specifically Acts 8:1. “On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.”

That is part of it. Why did God allow these things? Why did he allow the persecution? Why did He allow enticing? Why did He allow sifting as wheat?

The reason is because His people were not following Him. That is the bottom line. If you are not following God, God is going to allow something to happen to you to get you back on course. To get people back to Him. It is no secret throughout history people are horrible at following God.

Look at the books of Judges and Kings. People would follow as long as they have a leader and then they go back being worse than they were before. Ahab did not follow God, so God allowed a spirit to entice him to his death. Peter, what did he do? He became proud, he became arrogant believing that he could tell Jesus what to do.

You say, “Wait a minute, what?” Yes, Matthew 16 Verses 22 and 23, “Peter took Him aside and said”—well first he took Him aside, who is Him? He took Jesus aside, so Jesus is talking to the group, Peter says, “Come on, come here Lord”—“took him aside and he began to rebuke him. “Never Lord,’ he said, ‘This shall never happen to you!’”

Let’s continue. What did Jesus do? “Jesus turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” He said that to Peter. Peter, the same guy that Jesus said “Peter on you I will build my church.”

He is now saying to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan.” Now of course Satan, adversary, get behind me you adversary, you are a stumbling block. He took it, even you are a stumbling block to me. You do not have in mind things of God but the things of this world. Pretty harsh, but later on we find out he is going to be sifted as wheat. God allows it.

God also allowed the persecution of Jerusalem. We read about that, we read about that in Acts. The persecution of Jerusalem. Why? Because they did not listen to Him. What did they say? Jerusalem was a megachurch, huge at this time.

I mean like a coliseum of people praising and worshiping God and having the apostles preach to them and minister, and the whole time they were talking about the great commission, other topics as well, but they were told to go out and preach and baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. To make disciples of all nations.

Yet here, they are in a megachurch in Jerusalem. So God says, “Persecute them,” and then what happened? What happened in each of these instances, something happened that God wanted to happen. Ahab is enticed into his death. Boom done. He was not following God. He was not going to listen. Entice him to his death. Correct.

Then what happened with Peter? Peter became proud, arrogant, he was trying to tell Jesus what to do. Satan comes in, sifts him as wheat. But then what happened? Jesus says, “But I have prayed for you Peter. I have prayed for you that it will not happen to you. I have prayed for you that it will be fine.” Jesus knows that no matter what Peter is going to go through this, but He has prayed that your faith may not fail.

“And when you have turned back.” Wait a minute, “When you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” Basically, Jesus says, “Satan is going to come and sift you as wheat. He has received permission for it to be done, so I have prayed for you that it will not fail, that your faith will not fail.” Meaning, “When Satan is done putting you through the wringer, I am praying that you are still going to hold on to the faith and that you come back and strengthen everyone else.”

What happened to Jerusalem? Well, they were scattered. all the Apostles were scattered. So this megachurch got persecuted. The entire congregation scattered throughout all the regions, Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. They were all scattered. Why? Well God told them, get out there, preach to all nations. They were not doing it. Persecute them. Boom. They are all scattered now.

What are they doing now? They are all out there telling other people about God. If you do not listen to God, bad things are going to happen because He is going to course correct you, to get you on the right path. Those people stayed comfortably in Jerusalem. They were within their comfort zone. Get out, get out of your comfort zone.

God allows persecution for your benefit. We have talked about this before. God puts you through trouble. He does. He will put you through trouble. If you are being tormented, seek the Lord and find out if He is trying to teach you something. He probably is. God is always trying to teach you something. It is just whether or not you are willing to learn and listen or listen and learn why.

God allows Satan to torment you. Why? Most of the time it is because you are going in the wrong direction. He is going to put a stumbling block here. He is going to put persecution here. He is going to put something in your way that is going to cause you to say, “No, this is not working. I need a new direction,” and there you go back on the path.

Oftentimes, when Satan torments us or persecution happens, we are starting to veer off of our narrow path and we are starting to go on the wide path. We say, “Wow, this looks nice and wide, let me walk this way and you are like man this is great, this is a nice paved road, everything is good.”

Then all of a sudden bandits come along the road. Why? Because they know it is a well-traveled road. You get beat up, you get broken down, “All right get me off this road, let me get back onto my little narrow deer trail in the woods with briars and the thorns and cobwebs in my face and all kinds of stuff.” Why? That is where you are supposed to be, the narrow road.

God wants you there. Every time you get off that path, boom, back on. Somehow God will bring you back, so if you are being tormented, seek the Lord. If you are in a time of torment, of trial, of persecution, of struggle, seek the Lord. Find out if He is trying to teach you something.

Ask Him. How do you just ask Him? Find out. He will tell you to read the Bible. Seek the Lord. How do you seek the Lord? Read the Bible, pray, talk to others, comment, get in some discussion, talk to your pastor, send us a message, do something, seek God, pray to Him and He will talk to you.

Whether maybe it is through this message, maybe you are sitting there thinking, “What do I need to do? Should I seek you?” Boom, I am telling you, seek God. Maybe it is something like that.

Maybe you will get a phone call, maybe you will have a dream, maybe you will read the Bible by randomly flipping it open and reading the exact verse God is trying to communicate to you. Seek Him. You cannot learn if you do not seek.

Find out, He is probably trying to correct something. Of course, you may be being persecuted, not because there is something off. In history, of course through this, yes it has been a course correction, but it might not be because of you.

Seriously you may be being persecuted for no other earthly reason, no other reason at all, other than it is God and Satan fighting it out and God is proving to Satan that you are worthy and that no matter what Satan does to you, you will still follow God. Therefore make God proud. Follow Him.

Look at Job. Job went through hell. He did. He had everything taken from him. He was upright, holy. God was even kind of bragging about him to Satan, saying, “Look at this guy, he is awesome.” Satan says, “Take everything away. He will not be so awesome.” “Fine, go ahead.” Boom, Satan wipes it all out. Then God says, “I told you, he is awesome despite what you have done.”

Satan says, “Attack him, rather than all his stuff. You make him miserable, health, everything, take it all away, he is not going to be awesome.” God says, “All right, do it.” Satan just terribly terribly ruins Job. Still, he follows God and Job even says, “Though He slay me”—Who? He is not talking about Satan, he is talking about God. “Though God slays me, I still hope in Him.”

In the end, it was a battle between Satan and God. Job had no idea, yet he still hoped in God and was richly blessed and someday when he died and gets to Heaven he will say, “God what was the meaning of all that?”

God will say, “I was just making sure Satan remembered his place and you were part of it. You were part of a Heavenly battle” and Job will probably say, “How awesome was that?” He will not say, “Wow I wish he would not have done that to me.” He probably will say something like, “Praise you, thank you for using me in that Heavenly battle.” That is how awesome Job was.

So if you are being persecuted or tormented or something is going on, two things: first of all, seek God. Figure out if there is something in your life that you gotta change. Something could be happening. There could be a course correction happening. You might need to make a change.

Look at the scenarios we have had, if there is some type of persecution you might need to make a change. You have done something, God is trying to correct it. Seek Him, find out if that is the case.

If you are not getting anything, if you keep seeking God like Job did and his friends came and his wife even, and he is like, “I do not know, I have examined everything, I do not know why this is happening, I have not done anything wrong, everything is in order.”

Even as his friends are saying, “No you had to have, there has got to be a course correction here,” and he is like, “No, no it is not.” His wife is like, “Curse God and die.” “No, I will not.”

So if there is not a course correction going on, if you have examined it all, just sit down and think about it. You got to examine it, you gotta do what Job did. You got to seek counsel, talk to your pastors, talk to your leaders, if you want to talk to us go ahead, you got to talk to people, read the Bible, talk to God, take a look at all your available options.

Then if at the end of all that, you have said, “There is nothing, I do not know.” Then start praising God, because you bear the name of a Christian and also God must be using you to remind Satan of his place. To say, “Hey, you can go through this, you are worthy of this and it is a Heavenly battle happening that you know nothing about. But guess what, you are a key part in that fight.”

Do not give up. Trust God. He will see you through. His grace is all you need. Remember that His power shines in your weakness. Think of the power that was brought to God through Job’s weakness during that time.

2 Corinthians 12:9, “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”

Boast in your weakness, God’s power is coming through you. If you are going through something, look at the course correction. If that is not it, praise God because you are part of something bigger. In either way, praise God, because He is correcting your course.

We have three more weeks left of this sermon series on why God allows Satan to attack you, torment you, so stay tuned for this. It is going to be great. It is going to provide you with some awesome insight as well.

Let’s pray. Lord, thank You so much for bringing these people here this week. I ask that if anyone is going through some type of a trial or a persecution, that in Jesus’ name, they would be set free from that.

That if it is a course correction as in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, that You would have them see that and that they would immediately correct course and get back on the narrow path.

Lord, if it is something else, if it is something great or something bigger, if it is some Heavenly battle that we know nothing about, then please help them to keep the faith. Help them to hope in You.

Though You continually persecute and slay, though You allow bad things to happen, Lord, I ask that their hope and their faith in You would become even stronger and they would rejoice that they bear the name of a Christian and that they have the opportunity to be part of something bigger. To be part of this Heavenly battle that is going on. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Thanks again for being here. Please come back for the next three weeks, they are going to be great. If you cannot, then do not worry, they will be all posted in a playlist. You can check them out in this card here and come back and watch them at any time. God bless.