3 Signs Satan Might Be Trying to Keep Two People Apart

1 Peter 5:8

Satan’s primary goal is not to keep you single. According to 1 Peter 5:8, the devil’s main goal is to destroy you.

Satan wants to prevent people from becoming Christians (2 Corinthians 4:4). If he can’t keep you from becoming a Christian, his next goal is to keep you from becoming an effective Christian who truly glorifies God (John 10:10).

With that said, if Satan’s goal is to keep a Christian from glorifying God, it’s clear that he will try to ruin things that help us to glorify God. Throughout the Bible, a Christian marriage is consistently seen as a pleasing union to God that should be held in high honor according to passages like Hebrews 13:4, Ephesians 5:32, and Proverbs 18:22. Therefore it should be no surprise that one of Satan’s favorite targets to attack is a Christian marriage.

And as we all know, the best way to ruin a Christian marriage is to prevent it from starting at all. So here are 3 signs that Satan might be trying to keep two people apart. These signs are meant to help you obey what 1 Peter 5:8 states, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”

1. Satan might be trying to keep two people apart if the sin of pride is causing division in the relationship.

One of Satan’s favorite weapons of warfare is pride. In 1 Timothy 3 we learn of the requirements for an elder in the church. 1 Timothy 3:6 states, “He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil.”

The devil himself fell because of his own pride. He wanted to be like God and this caused God to cast him out of heaven. Therefore the devil knows that if pride caused him to fall, it is a very powerful tool that can ruin the lives of people as well.

If a man and woman fight all the time because they both need to be right, if they fight because they both want to be worshiped by the other person rather than serve the other person, or if petty sins are held onto because pride is preventing forgiveness from occurring – this could be a sign that Satan is trying to prevent a godly marriage from forming.

2. Satan might be trying to keep two people apart if someone is trapped in bondage to sexual sin.

Satan can use sexual sin to prevent two people from coming together in marriage in at least two ways. The first way sexual sin keeps people apart is when someone is isolated in an addictive sexual sin they do on their own. When someone is addicted to porn or masturbation, they are not ready for marriage and this sin will keep them single.

The second way sexual sin can be used by Satan to keep people apart is that it poisons a relationship. When a man and woman commit sexual sin together before marriage, it weakens rather than strengthens their bond with each other because it takes the focus away from glorifying God and emphasize the enjoyment of the other person’s body.

As Ephesians 2:1-3 explains, when people follow Satan they give into gratifying their fleshly desires. So one sign that Satan is working against a relationship is when sexual sin is present.

3. Satan may be trying to keep two people apart through tempting them with lies.

One of the fastest ways to identify the devil’s presence in something is to look for lies. In John 8:44 Jesus said, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

If two people are tempted to lie to each other, if people are believing lies about themselves, if people are believing lies about God – all of this can factor into the demise of a relationship. So one sign that Satan could be trying to keep two people from glorifying God in marriage is if he is trying to ruin their relationship through lies.