Daily Devotional – Aug 13, 2020

And looking forward to the Lord's Day and be gathering together Sunday morning and

looking at the next section of Ephesians chapter 6 just beyond what we've been considering through these

devotionals this week.

I've been looking in Ephesians 6 verses 11 and 12 and getting a sense of

the identity of our enemy, knowing our enemy.

We're in a spiritual conflict and we look at our world and we see all that's going

on in the cities of our land and around the world.

I was just reading the other day the number of Christians, I think it's in

Niger, that have been executed by some radical groups and

that's not unfortunately an unusual circumstance.

There's been an awful lot of that on the continent of Africa in the last few years and on and on we can

go around the world.

China, for example, is becoming more and more hostile and controlling,

trying to squelch Christianity as much as it

possibly can.

Well, that's what's happening in the physical realm by people who are

instruments of our enemy, who's a spiritual enemy.

We know this because of what Paul tells us in Ephesians 6 verses 11 and 12.

He says, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against

the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of

evil in the heavenly places.

So we need to stand against the schemes of the devil.

So as we can continue to think about working toward knowing our enemy, one of the things

we need to understand is tactics.

If you're at all familiar with some of the tactics of warfare

around the American Revolution, the British

soldiers, they were dressed in these red outfits.

They would march in uniform columns and all this kind of thing, and it was all very dignified, very British,

if you will, and it was all very much up front.

You pretty much knew what your enemy was doing just by watching.

You could see.

Well, our enemy is not like that.

He employs schemes.

The idea of this word communicates a craftiness, and from

our very first introduction of our enemy as the scripture

reveals him, we find that's exactly what he employed.

Back in the garden, everything's perfect.

Adam and Eve enjoying the Garden of Eden and all of its bounty and blessing, and there was this one tree.

God said, don't eat the fruit of that tree, and he said, the day you eat of it, you're going to die.

Well, along comes our enemy, again, our spiritual foe, masking

himself as a serpent, taking that serpent form, and speaking

through that serpent, and what did he do as he communicates to Eve?

Did he come right out and say, hey, listen, I'll tell you what I'm going to do.

I'm going to try to convince you to eat that fruit that's going to kill you.

It will kill you, but I just want you to see how good it looks, and I want you to know

it tastes really good, but it will kill you.

Is that what he said?

No, that's not what he did at all.

What he did was deceive her.

He employed craft, and he did so quite skillfully, distorting God's

word and undermining confidence in God.

This is the tactic, the primary tactic of the wicked one, and he still employs

that today.

Listen to what we read in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 3.

Paul says to the Corinthians, he says, but I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve

by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and

pure devotion to Christ.

What's Paul recognizing?

Paul understands our foe like we need to understand our foe, that he

is very crafty, and cunning, and deceptive, and he uses

all kinds of crafty schemes to deceive you into thinking

that something that is not acceptable, or appropriate, or right, or

virtuous, is actually something you want and is desirable to have, and he

does this in a variety of ways.

One of the things he does is he imitates.

He imitates that which is good.

It, the way he works is he makes something look appealing and look good on the

outside, but on the inside it's very, very destructive.

Think about that in terms of the abuse of alcohol or drugs.

You know, here's this perfectly good -looking little pill, if

you will, and it'll make you feel so good, and you take it, and what happens?

It ends up ruining and distorting your mind, and on and on we can go with

all of his tactics of imitating something that looks on the surface to be so good,

but it's really going to corrupt you, and ruin you, and destroy you.

The other thing is he distorts and twists the truth, again

using the lie that you, things like, you deserve to be happy.

Your happiness is the most important thing that you can pursue.

Well, is that true?

Is it true that you deserve to be happy as you define happiness?

Well, obviously not if you know anything about the scripture, and so Satan comes and distorts the truth in that way,

and the other thing that Satan does is what he did with Eve, and when you think about this,

Adam and Eve had this incredibly huge and beautiful plush

garden full of anything you could want, and satisfying

thoroughly, but Satan was very clever.

He got them to take their eyes off of all the blessings, and the benefits,

and the good things that God had given to them, and turned their eyes

onto something, the one thing that God said you can't have.

Satan still does that today.

How many marriages have been destroyed because Satan was successful

at getting a man or a woman to turn their eyes away from the blessings, and the benefits that

are available in a Christian marriage, and have them look at

another person outside of that marriage, and they go pursue that because they think that's where their happiness lies,

and in the end, they're going to be sadly, sadly disappointed,

and the other thing that Satan does, and he does incessantly, is he causes us in his schemes,

he tries to get us to question God, to doubt God's word.

Has God really said, does God really mean that if you take this, or if you

do this, that it's going to be destructive to you?

Can you really count on that being the case, that God's going to have that kind of

complication and implication in your life?

Well, you can, but Satan will do his dead level best to get you to doubt it, and

to ignore it, and then you go on pursuing what he wants you to do.

So you need to identify his schemes.

The other thing I want to leave us with today is an understanding of the nature of his kingdom, and the

extent of his kingdom.

As we mentioned, he's a spiritual foe, and he's a king over a spiritual kingdom, if you will, a

ruler over a spiritual kingdom.

Our text says that these are spiritual rulers in high

places, or literally in the heavenly places, in the heavenly places, and

looking at the scope of Scripture, what we understand about his kingdom, the realm of Satan, is

that it encompasses the

totality of unregenerate people.

In Ephesians 2, verse 2, for example, Paul talks about

what you once were when he says, let me pull it up here so I can

find that passage.

Well, I don't have it with me right in front of me, but Paul says that

Satan has corrupted the minds of people, and you once lived

like that.

You were in that realm of darkness, that realm that Satan controls,

and Satan also is over certain aspects of human government, and he has

a certain amount of control, and we don't quite understand this, but remember when Jesus was being

tempted by Satan in the wilderness, one of the temptations that Satan enticed

Jesus with was he wanted him to bow down before Satan,

and Satan said, if you do that, I'll give you all the kingdoms.

Look at all the realms of this world.

I'll give them to you.

I'll give them to you.

So he has some measure of authority even over human government, and

then, of course, he has his whole false religion realm as well.

So Satan has quite a kingdom, but it is not the ultimate kingdom, and it is not God's kingdom, and it is not

superior to God's kingdom.

It's not even on par with God's kingdom.

Remember what we said.

Satan is a defeated foe.

He's a defeated foe who nevertheless employs all kinds of schemes and tactics and cunning

to try to advance his kingdom, which is ultimately doomed to

defeat.

Well, as we close in prayer today, let's pray that God will give us eyes to see

the deceptive tactics of our enemy.

So our Father, we realize that Satan is very crafty and therefore very difficult

sometimes to discern his tactics and his destructive

ploys.

I pray that you would open our eyes to see by your spirits working in our hearts.

Give us grace that we may be alert to those tactics and not fall prey to them,

and we pray this in Jesus' name and for his sake.

Amen.

All right.

Well, have a good rest of your Thursday, and look forward to seeing you tomorrow, the last day of this

week in our devotions.

We'll be looking at the different armies, if you will, that

Satan has at his disposal.

So see you tomorrow at noon, Lord willing.

God bless.