Even devout Christians are capable of believing in lies. This is not to be unexpected: we are bombarded daily with lies by the demons and it doesn’t take much weakness to accept falsehood as truth. When you come to believe a lie, you fall under a spell and become incapable of making correct decisions within a specific domain in your life. Once Satan’s foot is in the door with one spell, it is easy to fall for many more.
I know of a Christian family who fell under the spell of Anthony Fauci. They wore masks all the time and were likely first in line to get the vaccine. From my observation, they were able to make sound decisions in other areas of life, but when it came to coronavirus, they did not know the truth from a lie. In church they may sing the “Christ is Risen” hymn during Pascha, the ultimate truth of our reality, and believe that Christ defeated death on the cross, but because of the spell, they were willing to take a new vaccine that could damage their health in both the short- and long-term.
In 2019, I fell under the “cabin in the woods” spell, where I believed it would be a great idea as a neophyte Christian to live as a semi-hermit in a location far away from family, friends, and church. I made a blunder that could have been spiritually fatal, since isolating yourself is the worst thing you can do when it comes to maintaining the faith, but I thoroughly convinced myself it had the ability to increase my faith. Of course it did not, and I’m thankful that God kicked me out of the mountains within two months.
There are many other spells someone can fall under. There is the spell of heresy, where you come to believe in an ancient lie that was refuted many centuries ago by God-bearing saints. There is the spell of passion, where you are blind to the lack of faith of a potential spouse because of their physical attractiveness. Middle-aged men may fall for thrill-seeking temptations, where they justify the purchase of something materially-pleasing like a sportbike because it gets “good gas mileage.” There is no limit to the number of spells that Satan can conjure.
The further you are from God, the more likely you will be under multiple spells that build a high wall around God’s truth. In my old days, I was under the common but severe spell of pre-marital sex. I thought that it was right and normal for a heterosexual man to sleep with whichever woman he wanted before marriage, and it took nearly two decades to break out of it. Even as a Christian, I’m not immune to falling under smaller but still deadly spells, and I have needed the guidance of those more spiritually advanced than me to identify ways that Satan can trick me. I imagine he will keep trying to trick me as I grow into Christian life.
What spell are you currently under? We’re not yet in Paradise so Satan still has a level of control over our minds that we don’t want to admit, usually in an area of life where we want to serve our own will instead of God’s. The only way to snap out of it is to humble ourselves before our spiritual elders and not trust our fallen instincts and judgments. If you have no elders, or at least no Christian that you can talk to about your decisions, you’re in danger. It’s only when we are part of a Christian community, an active member of the Body of Christ, can we steer clear of the many traps that Satan lays out for us.
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