“And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown; but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts.” (Mark 4:15)
I want you to be able to see the battle that is raging here in verse 15 between satan and the Word. Did you know that every time the Word is preached that there is an immediate battle that is fought? It's right there in the verse. Pay attention to what it says, “But when they have heard, satan cometh immediately.” Can you imagine that, just as soon as the Word is preached, satan immediately comes to try and destroy it?
This tells me two specific things. First, it lets me know how powerful and how needful the Word of God is. It's so powerful that satan knows if it gets into a person for any time at all, that it is going to change that person. That's the reason satan comes immediately. He doesn't want that Word to have time to sink in. But no matter what he may try to do to stop it, the Word is still marching on. The second thing this shows me is that satan comes to church with us.
Think about this. How does satan come against you immediately to take the Word away from you? How does it happen to you? Allow me to give you some examples. You start paying your tithes on Sunday, and on Monday, you lose your job. Satan is saying to you, “It doesn't work. If it worked, why didn't God give you a raise on your job instead of God taking your job?” God didn't take your job. That's just the enemy trying to steal the Word any way that he can.
Or, how about the times that you give a testimony about how God has healed your body? And then two days later you get sick. Now what do you think that is? That's the enemy immediately stealing the testimony of your faith. So, you start thinking to yourself, “I should have kept my mouth shut on that one. If I hadn't told anybody that God had healed me two days ago, I wouldn't have made a fool out of myself. What am I gonna do now?”
Do you know what is really happening in these cases? It is not an attack on you, it is an attack on the Word of God. It is an attack on the amount of the Word that you have within you. The more Word that you have in you, the more satan has to try to steal. But if you don't have much Word in you, then for the most part he’ll leave you alone. Why is that? It's because the more of the Word that you have, the more you pose a threat to his dark Kingdom.
Have you ever noticed people that say I am born again, but they're never harassed by the devil very much? It is popular in our society today to say, “I am born again.” But who are the nones that get harassed? The people who live in the Word. Every time that satan attacks like this, it is literally an attempt that once you hear the Word, to bring up a situation or circumstance to make you doubt the Word. Your faith in that Word is being tested and tried to see how deep it is laid root within your heart.
Not only will satan use those things, but he also uses something else against you, he uses distractions. He will use distractions in a church service, for instance, so that you will lose your concentration on what the man of God is saying. He can use a variety of things, babies crying, people getting up and down every 5 minutes to go get water or go to the restroom. (I often wonder what these people do on long trips). He'll use microphones and sound systems messing up, and on and on. Anything you can imagine that can go wrong in a service will go wrong. That's just the enemy using distractions. One specific way that he tries to stop the Word from sinking in is to cause you to put all of your attention on one specific thing that the minister says that you disagree with. He knows you’ll then miss the entire context of the man's message.
These are nothing more than your enemy trying to cause distractions to get your mind off of the Word. That is the enemy of your soul, coming immediately to steal the Word. Why would he want to come that quick against the Word? Well, David said in Psalms 1 that if I can be like a tree planted by the rivers of waters, that I will produce fruit, I will get results from my prayers, I will be able to get an answer from God, I will be able to be prosperous and blessed, if I can be like a tree planted by the water.
How does this happen? By taking the Word, implanting it, and then abiding in the Word. Satan knows that the people who hear the Word, and let it get down into their spirit, are going to cause him problems. He knows that the people who get anchored in the Word are going to disturb his kingdom of darkness. He knows that the people who live and abide in the Word are going to start pulling down his strongholds. That's the reason he comes against the Word of God. He's afraid of the power of it.
Not only that, but he's afraid of you knowing the Word. He knows that if you get in the Word, that you'll find out the truth, that he's already been defeated, that the victory has already been won, and that his future has already been predetermined. Satan may come against the Word, but we've already read the last book and the Word wins. When the devil is burning in hell for eternity, the Living Word, Jesus Christ, shall be the light of that heavenly city, and we will dwell with Him. The Word wins!