Most CHARISMA HOUSE BOOK GROUP products are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchase for sales promotions, premiums, fund-raising, and educational needs. For details, write Charisma House Book Group, 600 Rinehart Road, Lake Mary, Florida 32746, or telephone (407) 333-0600. SATAN’S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET by Steve Foss Published by Charisma House Charisma Media/Charisma House Book Group 600 Rinehart Road Lake Mary, Florida 32746 www.charismahouse.com This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version of the Bible. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked AMP are from the Amplified Bible. Old Testament copyright © 1965, 1987 by the Zondervan Corporation. The Amplified New Testament copyright © 1954, 1958, 1987 by the Lockman Foundation. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible. Cover design by Bill Johnson Copyright © 2012 by Steve Foss All rights reserved Visit the author’s website at www.stevefoss.com. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Foss, Steve. Satan’s dirty little secret / Steve Foss. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ). ISBN 978-1-61638-650-4 (trade paper)—ISBN 978-1-61638-709-9 (ebook) 1. Spiritual warfare. 2. Temptation. 3. Devil. 4. Demonology. I. Title. BV4509.5.F63 2012 241’.3—dc23 2011039350 While the author has made every effort to provide accurate Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors or for changes that occur after publication. Portions of this book were previously published by Creation House, copyright © 2007, ISBN 978-1-59979-204-0. 12 13 14 15 16 — 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS Foreword by Morris Cerullo Introduction 1 Satan’s Strategy Exposed 2 A Setup in the Garden 3 The Sin of Comparison 4 The Advertising Trap 5 The Money Pit 6 Misplaced Identity 7 Caught in the Middle 8 The Trapped Christian 9 The Keys to Successful Warfare 10 True and False Repentance 11 Satan’s Endgame 12 The Judgment Seat 13 Walls of Fear 14 The Power of Agape Love 15 The Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation 16 Eyes to See 17 Walk in Freedom Notes FOREWORD G OD HAS TRULY used Pastor Steve Foss to expose some of the most pernicious strategies used by the devil to sideline God’s people from fulfilling their potential. Steve’s revelations do not come from an ivory tower but from face-to- face ministry with tens of thousands of young people and hundreds of thousands on the foreign field and in revival services all over America. Through Steve’s diligence in applying what I taught him—not to deal with the surface issues but to go into the spirit world to defeat the enemy—Steve has been rewarded with valuable nuggets of truth to share with the body of Christ on the devil’s devices. —DR. MORRIS CERULLO PRESIDENT, MORRIS CERULLO WORLD EVANGELISM INTRODUCTION T HERE ARE TIMES and seasons when God has opened the eyes of a generation into the spirit realm and revealed hidden truths. We are living in one of those seasons. The spirit of wisdom and revelation has been opening the eyes of God’s people like never before. The strategies of Satan are being unmasked, and the church is about to embark on the greatest season of warfare and victory that it has ever known. The prophetic nature of this book may make it a bit difficult to digest. The exposing of hidden strongholds is never an easy thing to experience. We all like to feel we are doing pretty well, but God wants us to be free. Scripture declares that he whom the Son sets free is free indeed (John 8:36). Only as we come into truth will we be free. The truths discussed in this prophetic writing will challenge even the most committed Christian. It is hard-hitting at times and fast-paced. Take time to read and reread the chapters. Let the Spirit of God bring you into the depths of freedom that only come from deep calling unto deep (Ps. 42:7). The purpose of this prophetic writing is not to entertain with cute stories and anecdotes. It’s to break the back of the enemy’s greatest hidden strategy and bring God’s people to new levels of freedom. I pray that the anointing of God will be upon you and that the words of Christ will change you. For we are not ignorant of [Satan’s] devices. —2 CORINTHIANS 2:11 F OR WE ARE not ignorant of [Satan’s] devices” (2 Cor. 2:11, KJV). This was the declaration the apostle Paul made two thousand years ago—a declaration of an awareness of the strategies of the enemy, an awareness that has been lost in our day. The traps that the enemy has set for us today are the same as they were two thousand years ago. Satan is doing nothing new today. He has not yet had an original idea. He is playing the same game he played in the Garden of Eden. If you’re like many Christians, you’ve probably thought that if you had been in that garden, you surely wouldn’t have disobeyed God’s command and eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:17). Yet every day of our lives we are presented with this same temptation. Satan challenges us with the same questions he posed to Eve. And, unfortunately, most days we eat of the tree. The fruit binds us, holds us, and dictates almost every move we make. The war to overcome sin often seems to be an overwhelming task for most. We believe in the finished work of Jesus on the cross, and yet we are bound by this continual cycle of yielding to temptation. Some of you reading this may be feeling a bit smug right now because you think you have a good handle on sin. You may be in a worse condition. The reality is that the church tends to limit sin to the major moral sins—lying, cheating, adultery, fornication, drunkenness, and such like. Yet the stronghold of sin goes so much deeper in our lives. Sin affects how we think, what we imagine, what we buy, sell, gather, and give. It affects how we worship, work, and live every aspect of our lives. It leads us into wrong relationships and to wrongly relate to one another. Sin dominates our viewpoints, our work ethics, and, most disturbingly, it dominates how we conduct ministry. The same fruit from that same tree in the garden is being offered to all of us throughout our lives, and we keep eating it, often in the name of God. The focal point of all of our troubles is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This is where it all begins and where it can end. It is what happens here on a daily basis that will determine if the victory Christ has purchased for us will become a living reality in our lives. Once again God is about to open the eyes of a generation to the strategies of Satan. By revelation God is going to destroy Satan’s most powerful advantage: his ability to operate in the midst of ignorance. In this book we are going to uncover Satan’s most diabolic strategy—how it works and how it affects our lives. We are going to expose his devices and start down the path of true freedom. I pray that together we will have an Isaiah experience and say, “Woe is me! for I am undone” (Isa. 6:5, KJV). Oh, that God would give us such an encounter with truth that the strongholds of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil are permanently broken in our lives. THE VISION I was the youth pastor at a church in Georgia. I had only been on the job for two months when I was invited to speak at the local high school’s Christian Bible study. They asked if I would speak two weeks in a row. I readily accepted and began to plan my strategy. You see, this was hard-core Baptist country—Southern Baptist, conservative, don’t-give-me-that-Pentecostal-stuff country. I, on the other hand, was a hard- core Holy Ghost–filled, tongues-talking, hands-laying, miracle-believing, prophecy-preaching fireball. I knew that this Bible study had about seventy in attendance every Wednesday morning. I also knew that all except a handful of them came from noncharismatic/ Pentecostal backgrounds. They gave me about fifteen minutes to speak. My strategy was this. I would preach a basic word on the revelation of Jesus the first week, then hit them with the power of God the second week. The first week went exactly as I had planned. I preached, and they were quite engaged. The revelation anointing flowed strong. By the end of the fifteen minutes they were on the edge of their seats wanting more. I had them right where I wanted them. The next week I was going to blast them. The day before the second meeting I shut myself off for an extended time of prayer. I knew that if I was going to see the power of God break out on this campus, I was going to have to fight some intensive spiritual warfare. I had been trained by my spiritual father, Dr. Morris Cerullo, in how to tear down demonic strongholds over a region. As I went to prayer I had no idea that what was about to transpire was going to forever change the course of my life. During that time of prayer I had two visions. The first vision was of the upcoming meeting itself. I saw a young man whom I had never met. I saw myself calling him to come and stand up front. I then prophesied over him about the call of God on his life. Then I simply spoke the word of the Lord over him, and he fell under the power of the Spirit. In the vision I saw his face and exactly where he would be sitting. When I stood up to speak the next day at the meeting, there he was. And he was sitting exactly where I had seen him in the vision. I preached for a few minutes on experiencing the power of God. Then I called this young man out. He came and stood before me. He was from a non-Spirit-filled background and had no idea what was about to transpire. I had no helpers with me, so I asked for somebody to come and stand behind him. The volunteer didn’t know what was going to happen. I then proceeded to prophesy over this young man about the call of God on his life to preach. He began to weep. He said that the previous night he told his mother for the first time that he felt God was calling him to be a preacher. I then looked him in the eyes, standing five feet away from him, and said, “Jesus fill him with Your power right now!” As soon as I spoke, a wave of God’s power swept through that room and hit this young man. He immediately flew backward under God’s power. He landed in the arms of the volunteer, who was in total shock. I turned just in time to see seventy mouths drop open and all heads turn as this young man was being blasted by the power of God. It was all I could do to keep from laughing when I saw the sheer look of shock on their faces. All together they looked at the young man, then looked at me, and then back at the young man. You could hear gasps all over the room. I opened the Word to share a couple of scriptures on what just happened. Then the bell rang, and they slowly, in shock, filed out of the room. Needless to say, I was the talk of the school by the end of the day. Much transpired at that school over the next several months, but that will have to wait for another book. As awesome as this was, it was the second vision that changed my life. After I had this first vision about the young man, I began to go into spiritual warfare prayer. I began to bind specific demon spirits, the ones you would expect to be operating at a high school. I bound lust, drugs, hate, unforgiveness, fornication, pornography, violence, drunkenness, and such like. I had a fair amount of experience in spiritual warfare and had gained a great