We talked yesterday about how Satan has launched a large-scale attack by using unclean spirits. You don’t have to look far to see how he is succeeding in this area. You can hardly watch TV without some kind of sexual innuendo being thrown in your face within the first five minutes or standing at the checkout line at the local grocery store with young teens barely dressed on the cover of magazines. What about e-porn available just a click away delivered right into your home? Look at all the people suffering with addictions to porn. My pastor recently said in one of his sermons

that there are more porn sites available online than there are McDonalds in the United States. That is alarming! One reason I personally believe that seduction is real, is because I have fallen victim to it. When I became a Christian I was on fire for the Lord. I couldn’t have even imagined falling into some of the sins that I fell into. The problem was I was all heart for God with little knowledge of His Word. I had huge childhood wounds that were not healed. Those things were what I believe left me more vulnerable to Satan’s attacks. I had no idea about spiritual warfare and was walking in very little truth. I always made decisions based on my feelings rather than God’s truth. To be honest, I believed my feelings were truth. I did not know otherwise.

After I was saved (as a young adult) I had a heart to know the Lord. I wanted so badly to be a woman of integrity, but I had no idea how to do so. All I knew was that I had a passion to know God but had little knowledge of the things of the spiritual world. I thought since I was saved I wasn’t capable of falling into old habits and sins. Unfortunately, that was just another lie I believed!

Within a few months of being saved, our family moved to a new city. This was the first time I had ever moved. I went through a depressing time after we moved. I had no friends and my husband was working all the time. Because of the stresses from the move and a new job, I was lonely. I took everything my husband was venting verbally from his own stress personally which tapped into old wounds. I began to believe lies such as “he doesn’t love me” and “he wishes he were not with me”.

If you have ever experienced such lies like these, how did you react to them? Did you listen to them or ignore them?

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Because I listened and believed lies such as those and had little knowledge of God’s word, I became a prime target for seduction. Looking back, it’s obvious I had a victim mentality as well. If I had allowed God to heal my past wounds sooner and not played to role of a “victim”, I may have made better choices. If I had known God’s Word and was walking in truth and not following my feelings, I could have avoided many traps the enemy had set for me.

What about you? What kinds of choices have you made based on your feelings and not truth?

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I know I have made many poor choices based on my feelings instead of truth. My feelings and I were best companions! I took them everywhere I went and based all decisions on what they told me. I believe if I had known about spiritual warfare and the enemy’s attacks, I could have recognized seduction in my life more clearly. After I was saved I did not realize I would still be tempted by things, much less fall into any kind of sin. I had such little knowledge of God’s Word and had no idea that I had an enemy that wanted to destroy me. After I was baptized as a young adult, I believe I was led into the “desert” to be tempted by the enemy in many ways. To be honest, I was so blinded and so caught off guard I did not even know I was in a desert much less falling for the enemy’s seductive schemes. Within a matter of months, I was seduced and found myself at the bottom of a pit being devoured by the roaring lion! My rumble with the enemy was not a pretty one. A few Pharisees in the church were ready to push me back down in my pit the moment I tried to climb out.

Alone in my pit, desperate for help, I cried out to God. He was faithful to pull me out. I had so many questions for him and so many things I wanted to tell him. After I fell on my knees crying out for His forgiveness, He came to me and held me in his arms. The question I desired to ask the most was, “How did that happen?!” He was faithful to show me several reasons why I ended up at the bottom of my pit. One of the first things he shared with me was Beth Moore’s book, When Godly People Do Ungodly Things. After I read it, I was stunned to find what I did. I realized that I, like many others had fallen for the enemy’s schemes. Her book brought such clarity to me. It brought understanding that a Christian purely devoted to Christ can be caught off guard and seduced by the evil one. Please understand there have been many sinful choices in my life that were purely done out of rebellion. This particular one was something that happened so fast that I was caught in a sticky web of seduction and did not know I had a way out. I want to thank Beth Moore for shedding light on this subject. I have learned so much through her teachings and I don’t know if I would have gained such an understanding of it if it had not been with the help of her book and her obedience to God.

I am so passionate about conveying these things to you, because if I can help just one of you not walk down a similar path and face the horrendous ramifications from seduction, the pain I faced will have been worth it. I don’t want women to be unfamiliar with the evil one and his schemes through seduction. If I can encourage one of you that flirting with seduction is not worth the amount of pain and destruction you will face afterwards, then every amount of suffering I have walked through in my life will have been worth the fight I fought to survive. Every scar I received from my rumbles with the evil one will have made it okay if this study encourages just one of you to turn from your sin.

Can you back up and think about a time when perhaps you did something totally out of character? Do you think there was any level of seduction involved? Why or why not? (Remember, seduction does not just include sexual temptations.)

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When I think back to the last rumble with the enemy, I can clearly see where the seduction began. The thoughts I entertained provoked ungodly feelings internally and it led me to fantasize about ungodly relationships. As the old saying goes, “If I had known then what I know now” I would not have made the same mistakes! May my testimony be an example to you to use it as a warning against even flirting with seduction. It is not worth the costs!

Satan wants to try to get us to feel unclean. How can he do that successfully? I believe he does so by tempting us into sexual sin. Do you think he likes to use my past sexual sins against me? You bet! I hear things like, “How could you have sinned against God like that? You were a Christian for goodness sake! You will never feel pure again after doing that!”

What do you think the difference is between being seduced into sexual sin verses acting out in rebellion through a sexual relationship?

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Have you ever felt like you will never feel clean from a sexually sinful relationship?

Well, the good news is that you can feel clean again and God can cleanse you from it so that you can walk free from the shame and condemnation from the evil one. We are going to talk about how to walk in that freedom in a later session. I want to stress that although I believe we can be seduced by unclean or seducing spirits, I don’t think that all sin occurs because we follow seducing spirits. We have a flesh nature and the nature of it is corrupt. But when we learn to walk in the spirit, we can battle any temptation without falling into it. When we allow God into our inmost places and heal every wound and fill every hole, we can have a stronger guard up. There is so much to say about this particular topic of sexual sin and the seduction of it that I would encourage you to get a copy of Beth’s book, When Godly People Do Ungodly Things. You won’t be disappointed! Her entire book is about the topic of seduction.

Although there are spirits out there tempting us to fall into many types of seduction, particularly sexual sin, we can resist them and live victoriously in this area. How do I know that? We have the life-changing power of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us!

It is also my belief that although we may have already fallen into sexual sin in the past, God can fully redeem us and restore us.

Tomorrow we will begin to look at ways we become vulnerable to the seduction of sexual sin through our thought lives. Take a breather! The information ahead can get heavy at times. I want to thank you for allowing me an opportunity to share with you my failures and God’s redeeming love. If God was not faithful to redeem our failures, I would not have been able to write this study. This is proof of His faithfulness. He is so faithful to pull us out of any web we have been caught in when we call upon His name!