Generally, those in addiction have chosen to believe the lie rather than the truth. In succumbing to the Tempter to do evil the will is weakened. It is weakened by giving place to sin. The believers in Ephesians are doing the will of God by coming to Christ. “In Him, you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation…” (Ephesians 2:13) They were born conceived in sin at birth. In Psalm 51 King David acknowledged his sin after being confronted by Nathan the prophet about his adultery with Bathsheba. David confessed the root of sin. “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.”(Psalm 51:5) We are full of sinful lusts until God in His mercy brought us to Christ where sin is subdued. “We know that we (believers in Christ) are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.” (I John 5:19)
Those who are under the sway of the wicked one have a will of carnality, wired for minding the flesh. “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” (Romans 8:5-6)
Those who are living according to the flesh set their minds on the flesh. They are in captivity willingly fulfilling the desires of the devil to do evil, to believe the lie. The only thing that can rescue them from opposition to the truth of the gospel is Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul writes to his beloved gospel son in his second epistle to Timothy the truth of men in captivity. “—in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.” (II Timothy 2:25-26)
All who are in captivity to do the devil’s will are in his Vanity Fair to fulfill their lusts. Consider all of the sincere attempts to help the helpless victims who are taken captive to do his will. Many have given their lives for the mental aberrations of troubled souls. Biblically the shelves are lined with the lusts of the flesh. The shelf of drugs displaying many kinds of death that are coming. The shelf of alcohol displaying your favorite to delight in. The shelf of sexual pleasures for one’s preference. The shelf of worldly delights; possessions, wealth, power, the praise of men, and other idolatries. Having abandoned the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the world is in the grip of the devil taking them captive to do his will. He is propagating rebellion against the gospel to love the world in opposition to the Word of God. “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him; —but he who does the will of God abides forever.” (I John 2:15)
The soul that has been taken captive to do the devil’s will is indwelt with an unclean antichrist spirit who makes for a spiritual blindness of the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. “Little children, it is the last hour, as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour.” (I John 2:18)
The resistance against Christ is no new thing. Peter standing before the Sanhedrin filled with rulers, elders, and scribes defending the gospel and the healing of the lame man. “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.” The Sanhedrin’s response. “But so that it spreads no further among the people, let us severely threaten them; that from now on they speak to no man in this name. So they called them and commanded them not to speak at all or teach in the name of Jesus.” This is the spirit of the antichrist.
The power of the gospel leads to Jesus Christ. He will set you free from the captivity of the devil. “Therefore if the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed.” (John 8:36)