“We are not ignorant of his devices,” Paul says of the one variously called in scripture as destroyer, tempter, and adversary (II Corinthians 2:11). We know that one of his favorite tampering grounds is the memories of believers.
Here are eight ways I’ve learned over a lengthy ministry that Satan uses to sabotage Christian influence and poison Christian behavior by messing with the remembering/forgetting mechanism of the Lord’s people… .
One: We remember the “good” from the bad, old life.
In the wilderness, Israel forgot the slavery and cruelties from their Egyptian captors and recalled only the few pleasures. “We remember the fish, the melons, cucumbers, leeks, onions and garlic,” they said in Numbers 11:5.
Vance Havner used to castigate Israel for their bellyaching and shallow cravings. “Melons — they are 95 percent water! Cucumbers — 12 inches of indigestion! And the onions and garlic — well, they speak for themselves!”
After we have come to Christ and been forgiven for the past, then to return to that trash heap and pick through the refuse to savor some choice morsels — not a good thing. “As a dog returns to its own vomit, so a fool repeats his folly” (Proverbs 26:11). That proverb was cited by the Apostle Peter in the New Testament concerning people who drop back into their sinful ways. “It has happened to them according to the true proverb,