Nearly every young man is no stranger to the desire of having well-developed muscles and a good physique. To a certain extent, this desire is natural and understandable. When it doesn’t go beyond the limits, that can negatively affect one’s health, this is commendable, especially if it’s supported by a healthy lifestyle.
But when, under the influence of advertising or some other factors, a young man gets a strong desire to impress everyone around him with his muscles, a pumped-up and ripped body and he is determined to achieve it at all costs, this man can cross the line and, without knowing it, fall under the influence of demonic traditions, the purpose of which is to lead a person to pride. And pride, as Scripture says, goes before destruction.
Seeing that the seeds of effort, aimed at kindling the desire to stand out with the help of big muscles in the hearts of young people, fall on good soil, the devil offers them his “help”. He goes, why would you spend years of your life training very hard and developing your muscles naturally, when you can achieve the coveted result in an easy way? You just need to regularly take special cocktails, powders and liquids rich in protein and other components that will guarantee muscle growth in record time and without much effort. The use of such substances causes a shift of hormonal processes in a person’s body, which gives impetus to enhanced cell growth and rapid increase in muscle mass. The consequences of such drugs are poorly understood, however, more and more new products are appearing on the market.
I discussed this topic with Andrey M. He is in his early thirties, has a wonderful family: a wife and two kids. For quite a long time, he has been regularly going to a sports club. A few years ago Andrey decided to try widely-advertised recipes for building muscle mass and bought an assortment of powders, recommended for this purpose.
Literally a week later, he started noticing that there was something amiss going on in his mind. It especially impacted his perception of the environment. The invisible lines between good and bad ceased to be distinct. On the one hand, he became indifferent to some important things, on the other hand, he got annoyed by insignificant trifles. As Andrey said himself: “I felt, I was going mad and there was something wrong with me.”
Thank God, Andrey, being an adult, found the strength to say no to these substances, and his inner balance was restored.
We heard testimonies of parents, whose children turned into little “home demons” after they started taking these drugs.
“We can’t recognize our sixteen-year-old son, we completely lost control over him. He became hot-tempered, irritable, and he can get excited and start a scandal over any trivial matter. In his tantrums, he hits the walls in the house with his fists, there’s a hole in the door, made by his foot. He doesn’t understand us anymore. We have already forgotten what obedience means and we feel like he deliberately does the opposite of what we tell him, to spite his parents and the rest of the family. Sometimes, we see that tears of annoyance fill his eyes, because nobody understands him. We can tell that something is happening, but we are not able to figure out the reason for this change. His look became somehow alien and angry, as if he blames us for something. We feel that we are losing our son, but there’s nothing we can do…”
Now we remember that it all started when our son got into weightlifting in school and started going to a 24-hour sports club. He put up posters of people, pumped up beyond all recognition and proudly demonstrating their muscles, on the walls of his room, filled his entire shelf with containers and powders and spends all his free time lifting his iron.
He lost all interest in church, he goes to youth meetings with a great deal of reluctance. He is living in some other world, which causes suffering that he himself and our whole family experience.”
Another young man’s parents repeated this story almost word for word.
I consulted a biologist on this issue. He told me that, first of all, taking growth stimulants internally, we saturate the entire body with them. It leads to enhanced growth of muscles that get exercise, but since the delivery of growth hormone to the muscles is carried out through blood, these hormones are spread throughout the whole body. Thus, any organ, including the brain, can uncontrollably increase in weight.
The consequences can be unpredictable. These powders are most commonly marketed as “food supplements”. Accordingly, they are not subject to the same regulations, required in the production of drugs.
Looking at this problem from the Christian point of view, we can draw some conclusions. Since the purpose of these substances is to develop principles going against the Lord’s teachings, it would be reasonable to say, that the supplements accelerating muscle growth and nurturing human pride, are closely scrutinized by demonic forces. It’s quite obvious that the idea of creating such substances can’t be biblical, because it completely contradicts everything that the Gospel teaches us. This point of view is also supported by the testimonies of eyewitnesses.
Therefore, it’s not surprising that the devil tries to engender pride in people, at all costs and for any reason. Some people are proud of their strength and ripped muscles, other people – of their beauty, or a fashionable car, or good education and culture, or money, or blue blood running in their veins. Some people are proud of the place where they live, or their job, connections, talents, or their position in church, the ability to sing or preach beautiful sermons…The list goes on and on. The devil doesn’t care about the reason for pride, his purpose is to make people proud. God becomes the opposition for such people, because God opposes the proud, which means their downfall is around the corner.
Through the prophet Isaiah, God reveals the most important truth to people: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.” (Isaiah 57:15)
Today, we took a closer look at one of the most ancient of the devil’s tricks, which destroyed a lot of great men of the earth. The Lord warns us of this real danger: “in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.” (2 Corinthians 2:11)
May the Lord save us all from pride, which sooner or later leads to the fall. Finishing this topic, I want to leave you, my dear reader, to the grace of God, praying that what you read would lie in the good soil of your heart and bring you abundant fruit in the eternal life.
As a souvenir, I’ll give you a wonderful verse from the Epistle of Paul to the Philippians. The apostle sums up this great truth from the Gospel: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves” (Philippians 2:3).
