Derek Prince - Man's Desire to Control Things
And when your eyes are opened, it is so much easier to deal with it. One of the most common tricks of witchcraft is to make you feel guilty. “Why didn’t you come to see me when I was sick? There I was all alone!” They never regard the fact that the other person had a lot to do. I have learned this: If ever I found a person is making me feel guilty, I stop and ask myself, “What is working through them?”
You see, as I understand Scripture, the Holy Spirit does not make people feel guilty. He convicts of sin, righteousness and judgment. He will put His finger on specific things and say: “You did that wrong. This is what you have to do. You have to repent and make it right.” But guilt is something you never finish with. “Did I really do enough, or ought I to have done more? What did I say wrong? Why does she not talk to me in church any longer?”
Another operation of witchcraft is trying to make you feel that the person’s opinion and approval is very important. “If you don’t do this I won’t approve you.” They don’t say that, but that’s the implication. Again, I’ve learned to ask myself when I’m confronted with that: “Is that person’s approval really so important to me that I’m going to allow myself to be manipulated by him?” And generally it my conclusion is, It does not matter so much!
All right, now we are going to move on. Let me point out a connecting link in James 1:14 You see, this desire for power, for control and also for knowledge is a strong feature of every human being. And Satan exploits this desire to get power over us. This is what James says in his epistle, chapter 1:14 Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desire or lust, and enticed. So there is in you this desire for power, for control, for appreciation, for knowledge. It is in all of us, it’s born in us. But if Satan can begin to use that, he’ll get us under his control.
See, you could not count the number of people in this nation today who are involved in the occult. I’m sure it must be at least 75% of people in this nation who are today involved in the occult. What is the motive that Satan uses? The desire for power, the desire for control, and the desire for knowledge. What was the desire that first got the human race into trouble? Have you ever stopped to think? What was Adam desiring, in one word? Knowledge, that’s right. And when he reached out for knowledge in an illegitimate way, he became a captive of Satan. Uncounted millions of people are lured into the occult by the desire for knowledge. “Where did my son go when he died?” What do they end up by doing? Going to a séance. “Am I going to have a happy marriage?” So what do people do? They go to whom? A fortune-teller. That's right. That’s the motivation. And that’s what Satan exploits.