Exposing Satan's Playbook The Perry Stone

person finds himself in a mental battle. For example, men are sight oriented when it relates to the opposite sex. Pornographic images create emotionally charged feelings that impact the brain and imprint pictures on the mind. Eventually, viewing such images builds a personal bondage, or a stronghold. All thoughts come on two levels: the conscious and the subconscious. The conscious temptation is rooted in things you can see and hear, but the subconscious temptation operates upon a mental fantasy of imagination you make up in your own mind. The enemy has the ability to send images into the thinking process, manipulating the emotions by using mental images. We think this only occurs to sinners and unbelievers or to believers who are living carnal lives. However, there are three examples from Scripture of individuals whose thinking was directly influenced by Satan. S ATAN C AN I NFLUENCE THE T HOUGHTS OF B ELIEVERS Christ questioned His disciples as to who men said that He was. After several responses Simon Peter finally spoke up, saying, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16). Christ responded that Peter was speaking a revelation directly from the heavenly Father. Immediately Christ began speaking of His future sufferings, but Peter began rebuking the Lord and telling Him that such suffering would not occur. Jesus responded, “Get behind Me, Satan . . . ” (v. 23). By rebuking Christ, Peter was really saying that Christ’s words