Soft-Spot, Main Area of Attack
By Carlton Foster – November 17, 2017
Recently I noticed that there is a point of attack against Christians, that the Devil is using in the last days of earth’s history, and it seems to have a high degree of success. This point of attack I called the “Soft-Spot”, which is our feelings. As humans, we have emotions, and we will react quickly to any attacks towards hurting our feelings. It is like the “Ad Hominem” fallacy which attacks the persons’ feelings rather than the main point. We will look at how the Devil has used this method in the past with God’s people and will use it in the future on dedicated Christians.
In the book of Job, Satan was dialoguing with God. Satan surveils the inhabitants of the earth, and God asks him a question, “Have you noticed my servant Job? He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless—a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil. And he has maintained his integrity, even though you urged me to harm him without cause.” This is a good description of the true character of a Christian; however, Satan also knows us, and he replied,
“Skin for skin! A man will give up everything he has to save his life, but reach out and take away his health, and he will surely curse you to your face!” Here he is suggesting the Ad Hominem approach, which is to attack Job’s feelings and his character, and by so doing, he believed his character and integrity will collapse.
Satan again tried the same technique with Jesus and tempted him when he was hungry from fasting for forty days in the wilderness. During that time, the devil came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread.” Why would he instigated and questioned Jesus about his status as Son of God? He was trying to hurt his feelings; he thought that by attacking his feelings (which was already at a low state because he was hungry), he could get Jesus to sin. Another time, when Jesus was on the crucifixion cross, the devil used the people to attack Jesus. They said, “Look at you now!” they yelled at him. “You said you were going to destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days. Well then, if you are the Son of God, save yourself and come down from the cross! (Matthew 27:40)” Normally, a human’s pride would respond to such attacks in a negative way. So at this point, when Jesus was hurting from the effect of the crucifixion, the devil was still attacking his feelings – digging away at his human “Soft-Spot” to get him to sin.
Modern scientists believed that emotions are prime organizing methods where awareness, understanding, and memory are established. If the feedback people sense in a situation fails to evoke an emotional reaction, it will also fail to be regarded as significant and will have little likelihood of being selected into long-term memory (“The Biology of Emotions” by Dr. Cheryl A. MacDonald). Investigations are also confirming that for someone to learn new ways of adapting, they must possess a desire for what they are attempting to learn. Dr. MacDonald stated that joy, curiosity, love, greed, surprise, anger, sadness and pride are motivators that nudge people to do the things you want them to do.
Satan understood that hurting the feelings of a Christian person, will nudge him or her to do as Satan pleases. I saw a number of God’s people reacting negatively to the purpose of the Gospel because their feelings were hurt by their Christian’s brother or sisters. They would not show up for meetings, not participate in outreach, not volunteer for benevolent projects, or simply not attending church services. These actions were triggered because of hurt feelings! Think of a moment when you too had the same reaction because your feelings were hurt by someone in the church. How did you react to the work of the Gospel? Did the effect of the hurt became the main focus, and the work of God diminished?
Satan knows that humans are motivated by their emotions, and in the last days of earth’s history, he will use these stimuli to get Christians to do as he wanted. To combat his tactics, you should use the same principle that Jesus and Job used when they were attacked, which is, to focus on the will of God! Why are you a Christian? What is your purpose? What are your characters? What are the goals of preaching the Gospel? Remaining focus and not reacting to hurt feelings will defeat Satan’s fallacies and his attacks on you. Remember that emotions are motivators to get you to respond to desired requests.