Regarding Spiritual oppression:
The Christian's Adversary - Charles Leiter
People can worship all kinds of things and be praised by the world for doing so. You can spend twelve hours a day practicing swimming or piano or something else and that's wonderful, but if you get to worshiping God as your God they will say you are crazy. When every thought turns back to God, when all your life centers around God, that's what it means to become a Christian.
According to the Bible all Christians are in a warfare. If you are a Christian, you are involved in a war, whether you want to be or not, you are. It's not a physical warfare but a spiritual warfare against unseen spiritual enemies. And it's a life and death warfare. Jesus said the thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. Satan is not out just to make you miserable a little bit, he's trying to destroy you.Â
According to Psalm 119:98, the Word of God makes us wiser than our enemies. It's possible to go too far in these things but if we stick to the Word of God and don't go off into a bunch of wild imaginations, just study the Word, we know there is going to be help in the Word. If we neglect the Word we are going to suffer for it.
There is mighty opposition to Christian living from the outside, as Martyn Lloyd Jones said. If you had no sin in you at all, you would still face mighty opposition. Jesus had no sin and he faced the mightiest opposition anyone has ever faced.
Here is Peter walking along with Jesus and Jesus is telling him He is going to suffer and be crucified and what does Peter say? Far be it from You Lord, that isn't going to happen to You. Here is a person speaking and Jesus realizes, that's more than just Peter, that's the adversary. Get thee behind me, Satan.
You are going to have things coming to you as a Christian, little suggestions, statements that people make, where really behind it is Satan. And especially a lot of the times from lost people, it’s almost like they are a mouthpiece for Satan.
And then there is the denial of Peter. What is the explanation of the denial of Peter. The devil wanted to bring down the most prominent disciple at the start. He wanted to take him out. Jesus says, Satan has desired to have you. Isn't that something. What a statement that is.
Many a new Christian--they have never had a problem with foul language in their life and they become a Christian and all of a sudden they have blasphemous words shoved through their minds over and over. And the devil tries to get them to think, that's you, and it's not, they are being assaulted by the adversary. I am telling you something that has happened repeatedly throughout church history. If you ever run into anybody that experiences this you can say look, this is not you, it is the adversary, you've become a Christian. You take a stand against it and command it to leave you alone.
Many an immature Christian has found himself attacked in various ways. If you've ever read the biography of James O. Fraser, godly young man that went over to China and he just felt like his heart and mind were under this cloud of oppression all the time. And he began thinking, maybe it’s the food, the climate and then he began to realize no, this is spiritual. And he would go outside by himself and begin to pray outloud and quote Scripture and all of a sudden the clouds of oppression began to come off him.