Recently, at the soup kitchen, I preached a sermon that touched on this subject briefly. This will be a deeper dive.
Have you ever been in a room where you didn’t speak the same language as everyone else? Or perhaps you’ve traveled abroad to places where you only knew enough of the foreign language to understand very basic things. I have. I’ve been in both of those scenarios. It’s an isolating thing. You can be in a roomful of people, but still feel alone and left out. Then, your ear hears someone speaking words that you understand. You look around, identify that person, and make your way over to them. Finally! Someone speaking your language! You heard your native tongue, and you became like the moth heading for the light. We are drawn to our native languages. We have a small group of Spanish speakers who attend our church. Not surprisingly, they hang together along with our members who also speak Spanish.
Satan has a native tongue.
“You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” John 8:44 (NIV)
I don’t often quote from the NIV (no shade, I just prefer ESV), but this particular translation of that verse has always stuck with me. Jesus said that when Satan lies, he speaks his native language. Why? He is a liar and the father of lies.
Satan and his demonic legions are liars. They speak in lies. That’s one reason that if you ever find yourself in a deliverance context, don’t try to engage demons in conversation. Don’t play with ouegie boards. Don’t experiment with seances and contacting spirits. The only legitimate contact with spirits that we’re permitted is with the Holy Spirit. Everything else is illegitimate, unholy, and putting you in contact with demons who cannot be trusted.
So, let’s talk about lies. If lies are their native tongue, then when we believe or speak lies, we are, in essence, speaking their language. It’s an invitation for them to get a little closer. How does this work? Here’s a simple flowchart.
Forgive the crude stick figures, but I find them fun to use for illustrations. Typically, charts and diagrams are useful for describing the general rule, not every specific situation. This one is no different. This is the progression of deception, generally. So let’s break down each step.
First, a wounding event happens.
For some, it’s a bad home life, or bullying, or extended family. But somewhere, someone betrays your trust, says or does hurtful things, and calls your character, choices, or some combination of both, into question. I know my drawing shows them as angry, but in reality, they don’t have to be. This can just as easily happen in the course of a performance review at work, or with friends who love you and are holding you accountable about something. The angry faces in the drawing have more to do with how the hearer is receiving their words than how they are saying them. But for the sake of our discussion, let’s assume the angry faces are indeed acting with malicious intent.
Second, once the wound is inflicted, we ruminate on it.
Rumination is really hard to avoid. We tend to replay the event over and over, letting it drag us farther and farther into the dark. We don’t take our thoughts captive. We don’t remind ourselves of the truth. Instead, we play and rewind over and over. Here is where demons can begin to recognize their native tongue. See in the illustration, they’re gathering around the hurt person, contemplating how they can gain more sway. They are scheming this person’s destruction, and he doesn’t even recognize yet that this is what’s happening. That’s why it’s called deception. If you’re actually deceived, you don’t know it.
Third, demons begin to actively reinforce and affirm the deception.
Clearly, I’m illustrating this in a way that implies hearing voices. But over the years, and in my own experiences, more people than I can recount have made mention of hearing a voice, or at the very least having intrusive thoughts that led them farther into darkness. Those voices and intrusive thoughts that encourage you to believe the lies. This is part of the rumination process, but at this point, it has taken on a demonic component. It’s no longer just you ruminating. Darkness is now tickling your ears with things that affirm what you’ve been contemplating. The longer they tickle your ears, the more entrenched you become.
Fourth, you move from rumination to believing.
This is a big shift. At this point, you’ve moved from hypotheticals to accepting it as reality. In the rumination process, you’re basically testing these new thoughts against what you knew to be true prior. Now you have embraced these new thoughts as reality. I cannot overemphasize how detrimental this shift can be. You are now convinced of a reality that potentially no one else can see. And it is your job to now evangelize others into seeing things your way. Which leads to the last phase.
Finally, you tell others.
This is a kind of evangelism. You are now fully believing the reality that demons have convinced you is true. You are believing lies as truth, and telling others about it, trying to convince them that you’re right and they’re wrong. Then, when others push back and say that you’re believing lies, often the response is that they’re gaslighting you. And, in fairness, the act of gaslighting actually is trying to falsely convince someone that their reality is untrue. So the accusation of gaslighting might feel true to the one who is believing lies. Which is why it is so incredibly difficult to help someone who has gone this far down the path of deception.
Of course, this whole process can take months or even years to walk through. Believing lies doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a slow process of the enemy playing a long con with your mind. If you’ve ever heard someone testify about coming out of a cult, there is a years-long process of deprogramming that they have to endure.
So, that’s how you attract demons: start believing and speaking lies. It’s their native tongue, so it’s naturally attractive to them. But the most important part of this is how to stop. Fortunately, the Bible gives us loads of ammunition for the battle of the mind.
- Arrest the untrue and intrusive thoughts. 2 Corinthians 10:5 instructs us to destroy arguments and opinions that are against the LORD, and take every thought captive. If the thoughts you are having are contrary to what the LORD has said, then it is to be taken out, mercilessly.
- Do not speak falsely. Colossians 3:9-10 plainly tells us to stop lying and speak truthfully to one another. This includes lying to yourself. If it isn’t true, stop ruminating on it.
- Walk in forgiveness and love. Colossians 9:12-14 actually lists several things, but often, forgiveness is difficult once we begin the rumination process. We might even say we’ve forgiven, but the fruit of forgiveness will be peace, not further obsessing over hurtful events.
- Replace your arrested thoughts with righteous ones. Philippians 4:8 offers a considerable list of the kinds of things we should be thinking about. Arresting thoughts is only half of the work. Arrest and replace. Discipline yourself to do this.
- Understand that this is a process. Luke 4:13 tells us that Satan’s failure in the wilderness wasn’t his last attempt. He departed and waited for an opportune time. This is a war. It’s not a playground fight against a bully that happens once and is over. We are at war, and our enemies will not simply retreat forever from a few verses being thrown at them. They are opportunists and know how to catch people in moments of weakness. Keep enduring, keep persevering, keep standing firm.
I could go on and on because the Bible is brimming with help for how to discipline our minds against deception. But the bottom line is this. Jesus wants us to walk in the light with Him. When we walk in the light, whatever is false will become evident. It’s not always a fast process because He is patient, but it is inevitable. I find it helpful to remember what Jesus said to Nicodemus.
“And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.” John 3:19-20
If you’ve been believing lies, the light of Christ is going to be irritating. I can only tell you how this has manifested in my walk. When the light uncovers something, I tend to want to isolate. I gradually step out of fellowship with other believers, busy myself so I don’t have to deal with my discomfort, and give people canned answers when they ask how I’m doing. When I start having those tendencies, that’s a red flag moment for me.
Choosing the light is intentional because walking in it will always result in everything that’s wrong with me coming to the surface. You and I must choose this. This is our worship, to choose Him. Choose Him more than anything or anyone else, no matter the cost, no matter what has to die in my life so that I can live in Him. Herein lies the power to do the disciplines I mentioned earlier.
I hope this helps. I pray that you’ll choose the Light and let Him show you what’s true and what’s false. Choose Him, choose truth, and His peace will bear righteous fruit in your life.
