While it’s easy to assume that all of our sexual fantasies are simply Satan’s way of attacking us, let’s be real. Sometimes Satan doesn’t need any help! We’re perfectly capable of falling prey to inappropriate fantasies on our own. Jesus said that evil thoughts come not from outside ourselves, but from within our own hearts (Mark 7:21, NLT) But it’s so much easier to pass the buck and blame Satan, isn’t it? That way we don’t have to take responsibility for our own thoughts and actions.
Although Satan is definitely responsible for many sexual distortions, which we’ll discuss in a moment, let’s not be paranoid enough to think that there’s a devil waiting for us behind every bush. I’ve learned that Satan and his band of demons are limited in size and strength. Their population has not grown because demons are not physically capable of reproducing themselves.
Satan and his demons are not omnipresent nor omniscient like God is. In other words, they can’t be everywhere at all times, and although they may be able to see our actions, they can’t read our minds or know our innermost thoughts. We can rest secure in the truth of 1 John 4:4, that “He who is in you [God] is greater than he who is in the world [Satan]” (NKJV).
However, we can’t make the mistake of completely underestimating Satan’s power. Let’s recall how quickly he made his move to mess things up for us . . . and how our sexuality was his prime target.
In Genesis 2:24-25, we see how God gave Adam and Eve the perfectly sublime gift of their sexuality, and He gave them free reign to fully enjoy one another’s bodies without guilt, shame, or inhibition:
So a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one body. The man and his wife were naked, but they were not ashamed. (NCV)
God’s first step toward fulfilling His divine, overall plan was forming the heavens and the earth, providing a place for mankind to dwell. His second step was the actual creation of man and woman, marriage, and sex. This pattern and plan would produce what God longed for most-people He could reveal Himself to and be in relationship with.
But it didn’t take long for Satan to try to build a very different kind of relationship with these same people. In the very next chapter, we see Satan slither into the Garden of Eden with a crafty plan to confuse Eve first, then Adam, about God’s expectation that they should not eat from the tree of knowledge (Gen. 3:1-6).
Scripture tells us that once Adam and Eve disobeyed God, their eyes were opened to their own nakedness, and they were filled with such shame that they felt the need to cover themselves and hide from God (Gen. 3:7-10). This was the first “fallacy” that Satan introduced into the human mind-that our bodies and our sexuality are something we should be ashamed of.
But he didn’t stop there. As the book of Genesis continues to unfold, we see Satan distorting sexuality all the more through the introduction of seven further fallacies:
* Polygamy (Gen. 4:19)
* Homosexuality (Gen.19:5)
* Fornication (Gen. 38:16-18)
* Rape (Gen. 34:2)
* Prostitution (Gen. 38:15)
* Incest (Gen. 19:30-32)
* Evil Seduction (Gen. 39:7)
Having more than one marriage partner, engaging in sex with someone of the same gender, indulging in sex outside of marriage, sex as an act of force, sex as an act of bartering, being intimate with someone young enough to be your child or old enough to be your parent, using sex appeal to lure someone into a forbidden act-aren’t these the very things that most illicit sexual fantasies are made of? It’s time that we woke up to the fact that we play right into Satan’s schemes when we accept these types of fantasies as “normal” or simply as fodder for more intense orgasms.
Some of our sexual fantasies fall directly in line with this distorted thinking simply because we’re fallen sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. However, understanding the deeper meaning behind why these activities would appeal to someone in the first place can be incredibly insightful. Perhaps even freeing, believe it or not.
