The worst form of punishment in our prison system is solitary confinement. On the inside they call it “time in the hole.” The enemy has their own version of it. It has always been their objective: Isolate us from God; cut us off from others; punish us with “You’re on your own”; then after the damage is done, blame it all on us. Separate, isolate, wound, then accuse—that’s their strategy in a nutshell.
Unless you learn the art of war and take your place on the front lines of the king- dom conflict, you’re vulnerable to their tactics. You must learn how to protect your heart (Proverbs 4:23) and then the hearts of those given you to love. Otherwise you, and certainly they, will come under the subtle control of the kingdom of darkness, whose favorite way to fight is covert.
In his book Defeating Dark Angels, Dr. Charles Kraft writes:
Our churches are full of people in bondage, many of whom do not even know that believers are called by Jesus to set captives free. . . .
One way or the other, many Christians remain ignorant of the enemy, his helpers and their schemes (2 Corinthians 2:11). . . . Demons cannot create something from nothing. They can only take advantage of what already exists. Emotional or spiritual problems provide the “garbage” that attracts the spiritual rats.
In concept, overcoming is pretty simple: Get rid of the garbage—the lies that support the false-self system—and the “rats” starve.
