Introduction
The purpose of the time the Lord grants us is not to accumulate knowledge about God or about the kingdom of heaven, but to expose ourselves to the Word and to the Spirit of God with a single aim: to be corrected. It is that correction, not mere information, that allows us to walk in the path God has traced. That path is one, and it is the same for every man and every woman of faith, young or old, without regard to region or hemisphere. There will be particular circumstances for each one, but the will of God that governs that path is identical for all.
This teaching addresses a delicate and forceful subject, one that a great many would not agree with, but which the Word of the Lord establishes clearly: the reality of the kingdom of darkness, the reach it has over the children of faith, and the causes that permit that reach. There is a reality that many men and women of faith ignore, in large part deliberately, and which has been distorted by being treated as a side issue, of no great consequence. Yet both the Holy Scripture and daily life show that this ignorance is precisely the main reason men and women of faith fail to develop or grow spiritually, remaining stuck in religious activity that is not necessarily spiritual.
The purpose of this chapter is to present two cases — one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament — that illustrate the reality and the reach of the kingdom of darkness over men and women of faith, and then to examine, in the book of Genesis, the main cause that allows that reach.
The Righteous Man Under Siege: The Case of Job
The first case is found in the book of Job, chapter one:
“Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?” So Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But now, stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face!” And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand on his person.” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord” (Job 1:8-12, NKJV).
From verse thirteen onward, the text recounts everything that came upon Job’s life, his children, and his possessions, and the chapter closes with this declaration:
“In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong” (Job 1:22, NKJV).
The first thing to establish is that the kingdom of darkness has authorization and reach over the life of a righteous person — that is, over a man or woman of faith. And it must be understood that Job’s case is not an exceptional or singular one. What Job presents is not that this happened to him alone, but that what happened to Job can happen to any righteous man or woman, regardless of the region or hemisphere in which they live. That is precisely the purpose of this teaching: to understand that the kingdom of darkness has reach over men and women of faith.
One may ask why this teaching speaks specifically of men and women of faith, and the reason is simple: Satan has authority and jurisdiction over all who are not children of faith — men, women, young people, children, infants — who have not confessed Jesus as Lord. These dwell and move within the kingdom of darkness without much controversy. What is singular, what calls for explanation, is that this same kingdom also has reach over those who are men and women of faith. The question this teaching seeks to answer is precisely that: why the kingdom of darkness reaches the children of faith, so as to remove the veil that this same kingdom has imposed and that is causing a very strong bondage over them.
A text that confirms this reality is found in Paul’s first epistle to the Thessalonians, written shortly after the apostle first visited that region:
“Therefore we wanted to come to you—even I, Paul, time and again—but Satan hindered us” (1 Thessalonians 2:18, NKJV).
How is it possible that the apostle Paul, a man who received a direct visitation and revelation from Jesus and who walked according to the ways of the Lord, has to admit that Satan hindered him? This is precisely the part of the knowledge that many men and women of faith lack today: the kingdom of darkness has a real reach over the children of faith.
In the passage from Job, a decisive element is also revealed: God grants permission. Satan himself admits that there is a protective hedge around Job, and the text reveals that this hedge could only be crossed because God authorized it. And it was not a single permission. In chapter two, Satan again presents himself before the Lord:
“So Satan answered the LORD and said, “Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse You to Your face!” And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head” (Job 2:4-7, NKJV).
In Job’s case, at least two permissions granted by God are recorded. This confirms that there is a reach that must not be ignored, and reinforces that Job’s case is not the exception to the rule, but the illustration of a principle that repeats itself.
The Kingdom of Darkness Can Move People
Returning to chapter one of Job, another dimension of the reality of the kingdom of darkness can be observed:
“Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house; and a messenger came to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, when the Sabeans raided them and took them away—indeed they have killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you!” While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them; and I alone have escaped to tell you!” While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “The Chaldeans formed three bands, raided the camels and took them away, yes, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you!”” (Job 1:13-17, NKJV).
This passage mentions two peoples, the Sabeans and the Chaldeans, who attacked Job’s servants. Neither was acting on their own account; both were moved by the impulse and influence of the kingdom of darkness. This is consistent with what the apostle Paul would later write: we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. Yet it must not be ignored that flesh and blood — actual people — can be moved by the kingdom of darkness to carry out direct attacks against righteous men and women.
The problem is that, for lack of knowledge about the reality of the kingdom of darkness, many see only the person or persons carrying out the attack, as though the attack were something personal or particular to them, without discerning the demonic forces driving them to attack the man or woman of faith directly. An uprising against a righteous person does not, at its root, come from the person who appears to carry it out, but from the forces operating behind that person within the kingdom of darkness.
Power over Nature and over the Body
The same account reveals that the kingdom of darkness also has power over nature itself. When the messenger announces that “the fire of God fell from heaven” (Job 1:16) and burned up the sheep and the servants, it was actually Satan acting, though the one who brought the news understood the fire to be from God simply because it descended from the sky. This means that the kingdom of darkness has authority over nature and can turn it against a man or woman of faith.
This understanding is of great importance, because men and women of faith often attribute to God certain situations that in reality come from the kingdom of darkness. As a result, many do not dare to rebuke those circumstances, but instead accept them, tolerate them, and live with them, mistakenly believing they come from God. Every man or woman of faith who does not understand the reality of the kingdom of darkness will walk in confusion, in doubt, and in ambiguity, unable to discern whether a circumstance comes from God or from the darkness.
The reach of the kingdom of darkness is not limited to the environment; it also extends to beasts or animals that can attack a person directly, and it reaches even the human body. Job chapter two shows this:
“So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head” (Job 2:7, NKJV).
Many conditions of sickness, external or internal, that people suffer today are intervention of the kingdom of darkness. When that is the case, the condition cannot be resolved by natural means; on the contrary, treating it only naturally complicates it, because, as Jesus Himself taught, that which belongs to Caesar belongs to Caesar, and that which belongs to God belongs to God. If the condition is spiritual in origin, it can only be resolved spiritually.
The apostle Paul offers a similar testimony in his second epistle to the Corinthians:
“And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure” (2 Corinthians 12:7, NKJV).
The word translated “messenger” corresponds, in the original Greek, to the term meaning “angel.” Read that way, the text states that an angel of Satan had permission from God to buffet Paul in his flesh, referring to a condition of health. This testimony, together with Job’s, confirms that Satan has jurisdiction even over the body of a righteous man.
It should be noted that, in Job’s case, his condition cannot be attributed to some hidden or unconfessed sin, as his three friends tried to suggest when they sat with him and proposed that his suffering was due to some fault he had committed. The biblical narrative disproves that assumption: there was no such sin. This case is therefore highly instructive for understanding the reality of the kingdom of darkness without resorting to explanations that Scripture itself does not support.
Neither is it valid to think that this reality belongs exclusively to the Old Testament and no longer applies today. Satan does not announce a change of method simply because we have moved from the Old Testament to the New; his way of operating always remains the same. Job lost his estate, his possessions, his children, and his health: he lost everything. This teaches us that the enemy can touch family, possessions, and health alike, and no spiritual remedy will be effective without first understanding the intervention of the kingdom of darkness, because we cannot rebuke what we have previously distorted.
Peter Sifted Like Wheat
The second case, from the New Testament, is found in the Gospel of Luke, and concerns the three times Peter denied Jesus:
“And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.”” (Luke 22:31-32, NKJV).
This passage reproduces exactly the pattern of the book of Job: Satan asked permission, and God granted it. “Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat” is equivalent to what we read in Job one and two, where Satan asked for Job and God permitted it. And when Jesus adds, “I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail,” He is confirming that, indeed, the permission was granted regarding Peter.
From this a fundamental truth emerges: the kingdom of darkness has reach over men and women of faith, and that reach does not necessarily correspond to a sin or a fault committed. Understanding this is indispensable, because otherwise we will not know how to resolve, confront, or work through a situation of this kind.
The apostle Paul confirms this reality in his epistle to the Ephesians:
“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12, NKJV).
The terms Paul uses — principalities, powers, hosts — are not meant to alarm anyone; they describe the spiritual might of the kingdom of darkness. That might is precisely what many men and women of faith have distorted today, and this distortion is, perhaps, the main reason why many do not grow spiritually or in faith, and in some cases fail even to develop a ministry.
The word “sift” does not describe a gentle motion, but an impact, a forceful intervention. What the enemy seeks in sifting is simply to harm and to unsettle. And when Jesus responds, “I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail” (Luke 22:32), it becomes clear what the true target of the attack is: faith itself. A man of faith without faith is like sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal: there is no force, no power, no savor in his words. This explains why, speaking of His second coming, Jesus asked whether, when the Son of Man comes, He will really find faith on the earth (cf. Luke 18:8). Many men and women will have been subjected to Job’s case, and many will have been subjected to Peter’s case, such that their faith has been stripped from them.
This stripping away of faith is also illustrated in the parable of the sower:
“But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful” (Matthew 13:20-22, NKJV).
This parable ought to alarm us, because today’s man and woman of faith are not preparing for the evil day: they are not preparing for the cares of this age nor for persecution or trial. It is this lack of preparation that explains why, today, so many men and women fail to grow according to faith or according to grace. To ask why a God so good permits these things is, in reality, a question driven by pride, since it amounts to assuming that God is obligated to attend to every one of our complaints, when the present condition of man and woman is nothing but the result of the disobedience of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, repeated every day in our own lives.
The same chapter of Luke recounts Peter’s three denials:
“Now when they had kindled a fire in the midst of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat among them. And a certain servant girl, seeing him as he sat by the fire, looked intently at him and said, “This man was also with Him.” But he denied Him, saying, “Woman, I do not know Him.” And after a little while another saw him and said, “You also are of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not!” Then after about an hour had passed, another confidently affirmed, saying, “Surely this fellow also was with Him, for he is a Galilean.” But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are saying!” Immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed” (Luke 22:55-60, NKJV).
As in Job’s case, we see here how the kingdom of darkness has the ability to move specific people to harass or attack a man or woman of faith. Neither the servant girl nor the two men who afterward pointed at Peter were acting on their own initiative; someone was moving them. The Sabeans and the Chaldeans in Job’s case, and these three people in Peter’s case, illustrate how men and women of faith are sometimes attacked, tempted, or led by other people whom Satan has used to steer, distort, and induce that man or woman of faith to depart from the path, often without even perceiving it.
These two cases, Job’s in the Old Testament and Peter’s in the New Testament, are enough to show that there is a reality of the kingdom of darkness that must not be distorted, because in distorting it, the enemy will gain access, and we will have no eyes to see it.
The Cause: “Who Told You That You Were Naked?”
Having established the reality and the reach of the kingdom of darkness, it remains to examine its main cause, though not the only one. It is found in the book of Genesis:
“And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?” Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” And the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” So the LORD God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, You are cursed more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you shall go, And you shall eat dust All the days of your life”” (Genesis 3:11-14, NKJV).
The central question is: why can a man or woman of faith come within reach of the kingdom of darkness? The usual answer — that Christ Jesus already defeated it on the cross, that the devil is defeated, that he is a toothless lion who roars but does nothing — is itself part of the problem, because it leaves us with no eyes to see how the enemy approaches.
The question God asked Adam, “Who told you that you were naked?” (Genesis 3:11), was not exclusively for him; it has reach to this very day. Adam and Eve had been naked since their formation, without that being any problem; God did not clothe them, He formed them naked. What changed was not their condition, but the teaching they received. The question we ought to ask ourselves today is: who is teaching us? Whom are we obeying? Whom are we heeding? From whom are we deriving our teaching? How many hours are spent scrolling through social media, and how many people, through their teachings, are being heeded there?
There are ministers and preachers who, through their words, spread more contamination than freedom and life, and yet many people follow them. There are those who instill metaphysics in their teaching, and there are those who instill rebellion, and in both cases multitudes attend to them. This happens because the kingdom of darkness has been distorted, and that suits Satan well: if he is not identified as an enemy, he approaches without much obstacle. In the garden of Eden, the serpent approached Eve first; had she identified it as an enemy, she would not have allowed it. The problem, then and now, is the failure to identify that reality.
Jesus Himself taught that the thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy (cf. John 10:10); therefore, tolerating what proceeds from the kingdom of darkness brings destruction and death, never anything good. Whoever teaches us may, instead of clothing us, be stripping us; instead of giving us provision, may be taking it away; instead of giving us health, may be communicating sickness and death. When Adam answered, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself” (Genesis 3:10), the Lord immediately identified the cause: fear does not come from the kingdom of God.
Spiritual Warfare and the Need for Deliverance
In that same chapter three of Genesis, the Lord establishes the outcome of this enmity:
“And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel” (Genesis 3:15, NKJV).
The order of this pronouncement is fundamental: the seed of the woman will bruise the serpent’s head, while the serpent’s seed can only bruise the heel. That the serpent manages to bruise the heel of a man or woman of faith is only possible because that man or woman did not first crush its head; the initiative belongs to the man and woman of faith.
There are men and women of faith who do not believe in spiritual warfare, and there are those who do not believe in the need for deliverance. Yet there are many, more than one might imagine, men and women of faith who remain bound, blindfolded, neutralized by the enemy, with bonds on their hands, their feet, and their waists, precisely because they deny spiritual warfare and deny the need to be set free. To say, “I accepted Jesus, Jesus already defeated him at Calvary,” is true according to the Word of the Lord, but to live denying the effects and the provision of the cross amounts to not activating that provision in one’s own life. Faith does not consist merely in saying “I believe”; faith consists in activating the provision of God in each of our lives.
The apostle sums it up this way: “Submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (cf. James 4:7). There is a war, a struggle, a battle; but whoever is bound will not perceive the need to wage it. That is why the Lord established that it would be the seed of the woman who would bruise the serpent’s head: a serpent with a crushed head cannot bite the heel. If the serpent manages to bite, it is because the man or woman of faith did not choose to crush its head first.
Many bonds explain our present condition: bonds on the eyes that prevent seeing, bonds on the ears that prevent hearing, bonds on the neck that prevent bowing down and humbling oneself before the Lord, bonds on the hands and feet that prevent acting and advancing according to the Word of the Lord. Christ Jesus defeated it at the cross of Calvary; that is the message of the gospel, the foolishness of the cross. But it is necessary to activate that provision for one’s own life. Whoever refuses spiritual warfare and deliverance will remain where they are, with the enemy not allowing them to move or to reach where God wants to take them.
Conclusion
The reality of the kingdom of darkness is, indeed, a reality, and it has reach over men and women of faith. That reach comes, precisely, because, as the prophet said, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge (cf. Hosea 4:6); and on top of that, much of the knowledge received today produces contamination, sickness, death, and apostasy. That is why the question remains current: who told us that we were naked?
Presenting ourselves before the Word of the Lord matters because it is the Word that confronts us and reveals to us the condition we are in. But deliverance does not arrive automatically from having heard the Word; it comes when we move in search of it. No one else can seek our deliverance in our place: not a father’s, not a mother’s, not a son’s. If we do not move to seek it and to ask for it, we will spend the rest of our lives hiding, like Adam, out of fear, and, on top of that, deflecting responsibility onto others: “the woman You gave me,” “the serpent deceived me,” “I am a victim of circumstances.” But, in reality, we are responsible for the decisions we make, and of that we must never lose sight. That is why the Lord presents today a word of truth, so that we may attain deliverance, to the eternal God, the Almighty, the Creator of heaven and of glory, who brings life and breath; to Him, and to Him alone, be the glory.
Review Questions
1. Why does the teaching state that Job’s case is not an exceptional one, but a reality that can reach any man or woman of faith?
2. According to the cases of Job and Peter, in what ways can the kingdom of darkness move through people, through nature, or through the body to attack a child of faith, and why is it so important to identify this reality instead of distorting it?
3. What does the question “Who told you that you were naked?” mean in your own life, and what influences might you need to examine in light of that question?
4. Why does the chapter state that faith does not consist merely in saying “I believe,” but in activating God’s provision? What practical difference does this make in facing spiritual warfare?
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