Joe McKeever

Satan Messes With Your Mind

"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, ‘a dog returns to its own vomit,' and ‘a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire' (II Peter 2:22)."

Two: We forget the pain of the old life.

How sick that Israel had lost all thoughts of the physical beatings and ruined lives and the loss of all their freedoms and had recalled only the few tiny pleasures they had enjoyed in Egypt. But we repeat that sick behavior when we toy with the idea of returning to old ways, even romanticizing them as far more than they ever were, because we have forgotten the pain.

Forgetting pain is not all bad. It's been said that if women did not forget the pain of childbirth, every person on earth would be an only child.

Some pain, however, should never be forgotten. The misery caused by one's selfish, ungodly behavior should be stored somewhere in the dark recesses of one's mind as a reminder to never again revert to such destructive behavior.

Three: We cannot turn loose of the bad, bad stuff.

Finding the balance between remembering and forgetting is a function of the Holy Spirit. Some stuff we should never forget, some we should turn loose of and banish forever. Some dark memories paralyze us and freeze us in our tracks every time we consider going forward in faith to serve God. "Who am I to think about serving God?" we wonder. "If only I hadn't done that." "I am so unworthy."

This is not to minimize our sins, crimes, or immoral behavior. It is to say, if God forgives that, we may also. "Their sins and iniquities, I will remember no more" (given in Hebrews 10:17, among other places).

Four: We remember those who hurt us.

"He is forever on my blacklist." "I cannot forgive him for what he did to me."

Have you ever wronged someone? Have you ever done something against someone and immediately wished you could take it back? I'll answer that for you: yes, you have. We all have.

And don't you wish the wronged person would slough it off and not be wounded by it and forget what you did? Sure you do.

Then do the same for them. Forget the hurts and restore the hurter. And pray that those you whom you have offended will show you the same mercy, the identical grace.

Bear in mind, the fallen nature of man loves to carry a grudge and suffer a wrong. When we carry the memory of someone's injury to us, we seem to have carte blanche to despise them and repay them in kind in the future. "After all he did to me, I have a right."

Give it up. It's of the devil and will bring you only grief.

Five: We forget those who helped us.

"Well, yes," the old joke goes, "you did bail me out when I was in jail. You brought me groceries when we had nothing. And you forgave the money I owed you. But... .what have you done for me lately?"

I have my own tale of this. One day, perhaps a dozen years ago, my friend and mentor James Richardson was retiring from his longtime ministry at the First Baptist Church of Madison, Mississippi. As one who has been helped along by a vast number of the Lord's faithful servants, I recognized that my greatest debt was to James, an encourager of the first order. So, I made plans to attend his final service at the church just north of Jackson.

Then the Lord jogged my memory. How I had forgotten this is truly baffling. Many years earlier, in late 1970, as my family and I were making plans to move from our small church in Greenville, MS, to Jackson where I would be joining the staff of the First Baptist Church, James called me up from Leland, seven miles to the east where he was in the midst of a quarter-century pastorate. He knew Margaret and I were just barely staying afloat financially -- if that -- and said, "I don't want to insult you, but I want to ask you something... ."

He said, "I have bought some new suits and wonder if you would be interested in receiving my old ones."

He gave me seven of the most beautiful suits you ever saw. If memory is not fooling me -- there is that again! -- they didn't even have to be altered. In Jackson, a secretary told her husband I was the best-dressed person on the staff.

When James retired, the state Baptist weekly ran a small article about his ministry. Knowing how greatly this man was loved and treasured throughout the state, I felt he had been slighted and wrote my own addendum to the article, which the paper ran. I described his ministry in my own life and how he had helped me at a time I needed some help.

As a footnote, a few days later, I received a call from a minister in Texas who had been a teen in a town where I had served 20 years earlier. "Joe, what James Richardson was to you, you were to me." Wow. That was better than money.

Six: We have false memories of things that never happened.

A pastor can tell a story so often that in time it feels like something that happened to him. Among the World War II memoirs in my library is one in which the author tells of the time he flew into Timbuktu. He recalls the way the airfield looked and a number of specifics. Then one day, he found the flying log he had kept all through the war. To his utter amazement, at no time did he fly into Timbuktu or anywhere close to it. What was the explanation? He never found one. It was just a false memory.

In that man's case, the imagined incident mattered little. But for some of us, memories of old hurts and remnants of ancient grudges have a way of polluting the soul and poisoning the reservoir out of which we must relate to others.

As an inveterate story-teller, particularly of events I observed or was a part of, I have learned that at times my facts were wrong, that certain events did not happen in the order in which I remembered them, and that dates were all out of kilter. Nothing administers a good dose of humility to the story-teller like that!

Seven: We forget what God has promised and overlook what He has bestowed.

"Bless the Lord, O my soul... and forget not all His benefits (Psalm 103:2)."

In his second epistle, the Apostle Peter speaks of certain Christlike traits. "If these things be in you," he writes, "you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." However, he continues, "he who lacks these things is short-sighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins (II Peter 1:8-9)."

When the Old Testament prophets stood to preach, their favorite theme was "Remember, O Israel." All through the Psalms, we read accounts of all the Lord did for His people through their exciting history. God gave them holy days and monuments as mnemonic devices to jog their memories in the future.

Eight: We hold on to what God has ended and released.

"Has God forgiven you of that sin?" I asked a woman who was confiding to me of her struggle with guilt over her past. "Yes," she said, "but I can't forgive myself."

I said, "You have higher standards than God, is that it?" She was shocked.

"Why would you say such a thing?"

"By your refusal to forgive yourself, you are saying, ‘O sure, God can forgive me. But I am not going to let myself off that easily.'"

She was quiet and then said, "What do you suggest?"

I said, "Two things. First, start believing in the cross. When the Lord Jesus died there, He paid for your sins. For God to forgive you is no little thing; it cost Him His own Son's life. And second, regardless of how you are feeling, go ahead and say the words: I forgive myself. Then, start believing Him."

As we prayed, she took God at His word. We reminded the Lord that He promised, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us of all iniquity" (I John 1:9).

One of the dearest lines in all the Bible was uttered by a dying thief. "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom (Luke 23:42)."

Jesus said He would.

Aren't we glad His memory isn't as messed up as ours!