Our Spiritual War

Many years ago, I worked for a radio station. It was required for all those that were working in the marketing and advertising department that they read The Art of War by Sun Tzu. And so we were all given a copy of that book, and we had to read it as part of our training in doing advertising and the marketing and selling ads for the radio station and so forth.

And I remember reading the book, and of course it was very interesting, and over the years I did get rid of the book, although I have a series of books at home called The Bathroom Books. And what they are is they're summations of hundreds of very famous books. There's biographies in it. There's all kinds of information in here, like if you're going to talk to someone who is an architect, these are designed for business people. There's like ten pages of terms to learn, so you can have a conversation with an architect. And so they're interesting books in that you can at least have a little bit of knowledge about something to have a conversation with people.

And there's these summations of all these famous books. So I still have a summation of The Art of War by Sun Tzu. And of course he was a very famous Chinese general. And actually his book today is still studied by military, militaries all over the world.

It is still read, I believe it's in the armies where they train their officers. I think it's still read there. It's required reading because of what this man wrote about war and his principles of war. And it's very interesting. He had these nine different principles that a good general must have. The first one was you have to plan. And that the plan must be workable and you must have great details in your plan.

The second is that you must prepare well to get it over with as quickly as possible. The longer a battle lasts or the longer a war lasts, the more destruction, the more people die, the more people lose heart, and the more just, oh, and there isn't the end, it's just destruction. Third was that the best thing you could do is fight without fighting.

And what you do is you create enough propaganda that the other side either gives up or joins you. So the most successful general never fights his principles. The most successful general never fights a battle. They just convince people to surrender or come join them. That's the best way to do things. He talked about tactics, the energy that's required, knowing the weaknesses and strengths of your enemy and your own weaknesses and strengths.

He talked about the art of maneuvering, understanding the terrain. Some of these battles are lost because a simple not understanding of the terrain that they're being fought, where they're fighting. The use of spies, he was really big into the use of spies. You get spies into the other person's camp. And then he actually had all kinds of situations where he showed situations that here's how you apply these principles. The Bible says you and I are in a warfare, a spiritual warfare every day of our lives. And the master of violence and violent warfare is the general that we're fighting against.

All the techniques of Sun Tzu are used by Satan. And as we grind it out every day and we go through our problems every day and we go through our stresses and the good things, we can have a good job, we go to our job, we come home, we watch television. Sometimes the good times of life too. We can just get into this routine and we forget that we're actually in a war with an enemy who knows us and who is constantly planning his next attack.

He never gives up. As long as you are alive, you have an enemy who wants to destroy you. And that's hard for us to accept the reality of that. There is a being that is the most brilliant angel ever created by God. There is a being who is beautiful if you were to see him the way he was as Lucifer. There is a being who knows you by name and plans ways to destroy you.

But that's the reality. We talk about it, we know about it, we get up and we sing, Onward Christian Soldiers. We read about the armor of God and we must put on the armor of God. Well, why do you wear armor if you're not going in the battle? And of course, throughout Paul's writing specifically, there's all kinds of analogy he uses about how we are in a battle, we are in a fight, and we are fighting Satan.

The spiritual warfare that you and I are involved in has eternal consequences. And it is easy for us to lose sight of that. Because of the temporary uncomfortableness of it, the temporary pain we're going through, the temporary problems we have, we can forget that the spiritual warfare you're involved in has eternal consequences. And you have an enemy that never gets tired and never gives up.

Now, don't become discouraged by that because we can win. But you have to understand the warfare you're in. Let's start with the basic premises we all know. Then I'm going to go through some of the tactics that Satan uses. They're right out of Sun Tzu. I don't think he read Sun Tzu's book. He may have inspired Sun Tzu's book. He didn't learn from him. He may have inspired it. Because he understands how to wage war, and he really understands how to wage spiritual war.

Let's go to Ephesians 6. Some basic premises we all know. Let's go and build off of these premises and look at his tactics and then look at how you and I can defeat those tactics.

You must understand and you must realize, you must believe, you must have faith, that Satan can be defeated in your life. In fact, he is already defeated. All we have to do is fight the battle. I'll show you what I mean in Ephesians 6.

Verse 10. Paul says, Finally, my brother, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Now, there's a very important key. We'll talk about this later. Be strong in what? Be strong in your own abilities. Be strong in your own power. Be strong in your own might. Be strong in your own ideas. No, be strong in the Lord and the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you might be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Wiles is a word we use too much in English. We might say wiling once in a while. It means schemes. The schemes of the devil. He is planning. He is planning his tactics. He's doing the very first of the Sun Tzu's principles, plan. He's looking at his tactics, his maneuverability. He's looking at how to use spies. He's looking at the terrain of your life and where you are and where to ambush you. One of Sun Tzu's main premises was you can always defend yourself, but defeating the enemy depends on the enemy making a mistake. So you look for the enemy's mistake, and that's what you go after. You're patient. You patiently wait for that mistake, and that's where you go. It reminds me of Napoleon. They asked Napoleon, who was a brilliant military tactician, and they asked him what was the key to success. He said, it's very simple. You find the one most important point in the battle, and you show up with the most men. He would study the battle, study the battle, find the one weak spot, and then send in his entire reserves to the one weak spot. So that's it. That's the key to it. That's from Sun Tzu, too. He goes on, he says, for we do not wrestle, once again we're into this sort of combat mode that Paul uses all the time. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. And that applies to your life just as much as it did to the Ephesians. It'd be easier to fight a physical battle, but you're not involved in a physical battle. You and I are involved with hosts in heavenly places, saying that his demons are real, and Satan is actively trying to destroy your life. Paul goes on, he says, therefore take up the whole armor of God that you might be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand. He then goes on and talks about, through the rest of these verses, the armor of God. Here's how you stand. Here's how you win. And how many times have we heard sermons about the armor of God? We must wear this. This isn't just nice poetry. We must actually live this armor. This armor must be put on us, because we are fighting an enemy that is spiritual. And without spiritual weapons and spiritual armor, you and I can't defeat him. So this armor comes from God. See, when you were called by God, and you came to understand that you had a corrupted human nature, and you came to understand that you were a sinner, you know, here we are approaching the Passover, where we're always reminded that we still have sins, we still struggle with sin. When you came to the grips with you were a sinner and you repented and you received God's Spirit, a battle began inside your mind.

Between the divine nature that God put in you and the corrupted nature that was already there, that nature had been corrupted by Satan. Somewhere in your and my life, as a baby, Satan got to us and began to corrupt who we are.

So that it's just natural for us. So part of us, the strange thing about it, part of yourself is a traitor to God. So you have this internal battle. Would you accept that that battle exists? Life does get a little easier. That battle will exist as long as we are physical. Because Satan wants to destroy your mind.

That's why we won't go there, but in Ephesians, a little earlier in this same letter, Paul talks about how we were before our calling by nature the children of wrath, the children of Satan. So let's look at some of Satan's tactics then, at this war that you are fighting. He hates you. Here's this great being who knows you by name. We know God knows us. You get underneath and you pray, and you go before the creator of the universe. And there is God the Father, Christ in His right hand, and you go there and you talk to God, and God interacts with you. God knows who you are. God knows everything about you. Well, there's another being. He doesn't know everything about you, but he knows about you. He knows a lot about you. He knows a lot about you. And he has a benevolent purpose to destroy your life. And until we remember that, we will stumble through life wondering all the time, why is this happening to me? Why do we live in an evil world? Why is this going on? We forget Satan is the God of this world. And when he looks out over the world that he's the God of in this darkness, guess what he sees? Pinpoints of light. Now, he wants total darkness. And there's light in this darkness.

And he wants to snuff out every pinpoint of light. Guess who those pinpoints of light are?

They're you.

You don't think he can't see that? The prince of darkness sees light. He hears light. He wants to turn that light out. He says, well, good. Satan's not going to find me. I have the most insignificant Christian on the face of the earth. Satan has no interest in me. But you're a light. Well, I'll hide my light. Oh, good. He really wants you to do that. Why don't you just put your light out? Then he'll be happy. See, you can't hide. I can't hide. If you go hide your light, he wins. So he has to understand his purpose. The first thing he does is he will attack your personal weaknesses. He figures out your weaknesses and he will attack them.

You may hide your weaknesses from everybody else. You may struggle with envy or greed or hatred or lack of forgiveness or lust or gifts. Just list the things that we struggle with. You may struggle with obeying the Sabbath or paying your ties or compromising at work or being dishonest. And nobody else may know. But God knows and Satan knows. And God wants you to overcome and Satan wants you to be destroyed by those weaknesses.

And so he will find a way, just like Sun Tzu said, be patient, defend, move, maneuver, but at some point the enemy has a weakness. So when you do, you hit that weakness just as hard as you can. And so he's going to hit those weaknesses just as hard as he can. James 1.

Verse 13.

Let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he himself tempt anyone. Now we know that God tests us at times. But understand the difference. And I've talked about this before, talking about tests and trials that come into our lives. God tests us to see what we understand, like a teacher gives you a test to see what you understand. So you know how much you understand. Now you ever be at school, do you think you really know a subject? You take the test and you come back and it's a 60. Whoa! And the teacher walks up and says, I thought you knew that better than this. Or the teacher comes up and says, I knew you didn't know this. This is what God does with us. I knew you didn't know this near as much as you thought you did. But the test is for our sake. It is to teach us something. It is to help us be stronger. It is to help us to learn. God never tests you to fail. God doesn't wake up and say, well, I'm going to put this trial on this person so that they fail. No, God tests us to train us, to teach us, to lead us forward so that we grow and get better. Safety has a totally different reason for tempting you, and He will. Because He knows this process. Verse 14, But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. And when desires conceive, it gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death. I gave a whole sermon one time about just that process. Some of you might remember that. That process that we go through. Satan understands that process. He knows where that weakness is, and he knows how to bring each of us along, whatever it is, whatever it is, to bring each one of us along until we get to the point where we give in to the temptation and we sin.

He finds our weaknesses. You had better be aware of your weaknesses, one of the things Thung Su says. You better know your enemy's strengths and weaknesses, but you better know your own strengths and weaknesses. You better know where your weaknesses are. You better not hide them. You better not pretend that they're not there, because a good enemy is going to find them. So, we have to know our weaknesses. You know, we're coming up on the Passover.

We're coming up on the Passover. What is one of the reasons for the Passover every year?

It is to look at ourselves and say, where am I weak?

You know, we will say, well, I have weaknesses I don't deserve to take to Passover. No, the only way you and I will ever overcome weaknesses is through the Passover. That's it. There's no other way to get there. So, what we have to realize is that we're coming up on a time of year where God says, okay, folks, step back and look at your strengths and weaknesses here, because Satan knows them. See, you might as well not hide them. I mean, God knows them. Satan knows them. Who are we going to hide them from? So, look, we need to find our weaknesses, because he's going to attack them. He's going to be patient. He's going to maneuver. He's going to use these tactics until he finds that weakness. And when he does, just like Napoleon, just like, you know, who was an expert in that is Robert E. Lee. Find your weakness. When he did, he found a weakness. You take every reserve and you just punch that weakness just as hard as you can.

Many times in history, people, generals have done that. The other army just crumbles. It's fighting well, but it just crumbles. It just comes apart. That's what Satan was to do in your life. The second tactic is he attacks our hearts. He attacks our motivations, and he attacks our emotions. Nothing can lead us farther, you know, if it's our weaknesses to sin, okay? That probably will get us farther from God as quick as anything. Secondly, is our emotions. It's interesting in Acts chapter 5. Now, here's where we can see Satan's tactics. There's a few places I want to show you in the Bible where we can see Satan's tactics being carried out exactly. Acts chapter 5.

Here we have some people that have a weakness. Their weakness is, in this case, and then, you know, we can find all kinds of different weaknesses. We'll show different ones. This just happens to be one where these two people needed recognition for their own sense of well-being. They needed to be recognized specifically in the church as special people. And Barnabas had just been recognized because he gave money and assets to the church, to the congregation there. There had other people who had given assets to the church. And there was this, you know, economic boom in the church. And people who were giving, of course, people were thanking him for it. They were getting acclaim. Barnabas was mentioned in the book of Acts. People saw him do it, and they saw the attitude of what he did. And these two people said, wow, I would like to get some of that recognition.

But a certain man named Ananias and Sapphira, his wife, sold a possession. He kept back part of the proceeds, his wife also being aware of it, and brought a certain part, brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostle's feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why has, who did this? See, they had a weakness. They had a weakness. They did not guard that weakness. They did not strengthen that weakness. They were tempted. They went through the James process that we just read. They were tempted. They wanted something. They figured out a plan.

They started to use some tactics. They began to maneuver now, so they could get what they wanted, not what God wanted, what they wanted.

Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself. While it remained, was it not your own? He says, you could have given nothing except, you know, you're tithed that no one would have said anything. It was yours to do with what you wanted, but you lied. Why did you lie? Because they had a weakness. Satan saw the weakness. The people didn't guard that weakness, and emotionally he filled their heart. He punched that weakness just as hard as he could, and what he did, their emotions collapsed behind it.

You know, logically, how in the world do you think this through?

How could people do this? Who are members of the church who have God's Spirit?

Overwhelmed with the emotions, they collapsed.

He says, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? But you have not lied to them but to God. How?

You know, we take a lot of things. We take a lot of sins, and we sort of take them for granted. I think it's because, you know, we look at our own sins, and we hope God's being merciful, and we want God to be merciful. But, you know, there's times when we can do things, where we're actually allowing ourselves to be motivated by Satan. What was God's response to this? You read through the rest of the passage, he killed those two people. This is the New Testament. This is the Old Testament. This is the church. This is the church.

Ananias and Sapphira may have been fine, upstanding members of the church. Good people. People everybody loved. But at some point, this emotion, this need took over, and they fell into this weakness. And this, it conceived. And now they developed tactics by which to get what they wanted. And as they did, they end up lying to God. It's a dangerous place to be.

He attacks our hearts. Now, when we talk about our hearts, we usually think, you know, our motivations and our emotions. What I find interesting is that in the New Testament, there are three specific places where Satan is mentioned in relationship to an emotion. So, this must be three places that he excels in. He excels in three tactics.

And there are three ones we need to be aware of. Ephesians 4.

So, he finds our weaknesses number one, and number two, he attacks our hearts.

Our motivations are emotions. We've talked a lot about motivations and emotions over the last year, because that was this year's goal, that we wanted to cover that set of scriptures to talks about our heart in Philippians. And remember, I am working on next year's, you know, we'll come out here the spring holy days, so pray that God will guide us into what we need to cover and go through as our sort of main theme over the next year. But Ephesians 4.25, he says, therefore putting away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are all members of one another. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath. Now, verse 26 is quoted a lot. Don't let your sun go down on your wrath, because why if you let anger sit? We feel anger. What happens if you let that sit? That's what it means when you don't let your sun go down on it. You know, if you just let this stay there and stay there and stay there, what happens? Verse 27, nor give place to the devil. Or opportunity. That's all part of the same sentence.

When we let anger seize inside of us, we eventually give an opportunity to the devil.

We leave a flank open. We leave a flank open. And he simply outflakes us. It's a war we're fighting.

It's a war we're fighting.

Sun Tzu was one of the generals who said, it's best not to have your men filled with anger when they go to the battle. It'll cloud their viewpoint.

He tried to... He literally wanted to create cold killing machines. Now, that's not where we're supposed to be, but we have to understand. Satan likes to use our anger against ourselves.

So there's the motion he'll use against us. So we need to really, really be aware of anger. A second emotion that we find in the Bible that is directly then attached to one of Satan's tactics is in 2 Corinthians 3. 2 Corinthians chapter 3.

I'm sorry, 2 Corinthians 2 verse 3. 2 Corinthians 2 verse 3.

I'm reading a little bit here to get the context.

He says, I wrote, Paul says, this very thing to you, lest when I came, I should have sorrow over those from whom I ought to have joy, having confidence in you that all my joy is the joy of all of you all. And a little bit of Paul's ramblings here, but he's dealing with a situation where, remember in 1 Corinthians, he had... And we covered this scripture a little bit when I talked about church discipline here about six weeks ago. He was telling these people, okay, we told you to put this man out of the church. You need to bring him back now. He's repented. So he talks about the anguish. Verse 5, he says, if anyone has caused grief, he's not grieving to me, but all of you to some extent, not to be too severe. This punishment, which was inflicted by the majority, is sufficient for a man, so that, on the contrary, you ought rather to forgive and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one be swallowed up with too much sorrow.

Therefore, I urge you to reaffirm your love to him. So this is what I read, you know, like I said, about six weeks ago when I went through church discipline, that when someone is disciplined, which happens on occasion, and sometimes occasionally publicly, it is the responsibility of all of us that that person repents to reconfirm that person as a member of the community.

But notice what he says in verse 10. Now, whom you forgive anything I also forgive, or if indeed I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven that one for your sake to the presence of Christ. So he says, look, you forgive, I forgive. Paul says, we all have to learn to forgive. And here's why, verse 11, lest Satan should take advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices. We're not ignorant of his tactics. He says, if we can't learn, if we cannot learn to bear with one another, if we cannot learn to ask forgiveness, and we cannot learn to give forgiveness to each other, he says Satan will succeed in his attack.

You think about that between husband and wife. You think about that in all of our relationships. And think about that in our relationships of the church. He's talking to the church here.

He's not condoning sin. He's talking about how we must relate to each other, especially if we mistreated each other, if we've abused each other. We must ask for forgiveness. We must receive forgiveness. Lest, lest Satan's tactics work. He'll maneuver us somehow.

The offended person may be destroyed. The person who did the offense may be destroyed. Sometimes both are destroyed. Sometimes both are destroyed. And he's not just talking here about when someone has offended you. He's talking about here, someone who committed a grave sin. I mean, this person committed adultery with his stepmother.

That's pretty horrible. And it was public.

And he publicly put him out, but it's interesting. Satan will get to us if we look at another person who's repented and say, your sin so bad you can't be forgiven.

And who would be at one side who thought that God would never accept a homosexual. Therefore, if any homosexual said that they had repented, the man was a liar. And if we ever let anybody into the church who had any background in homosexuality, he would leave. Well, he eventually left. He decided there was a sin God would not forgive, and therefore he would not forgive. And I remember saying, but wait a minute, that person's sin wasn't against you, so why do you have to forgive them? I find it amazing that someone will commit a sin, some sin they committed, and will say, well, boy, I need to forgive you of that. Well, why? Was it against you? I've been down with many people over the years and said, you know, they said, I have a sin and I need to work on it and I don't know who to talk about. And the first thing I tell them is, now remember, this sin you're telling me about doesn't affect our relationship, because you haven't sinned against me, although you're hurting yourself, you haven't sinned against me. So this doesn't affect our relationship. I'm your pastor, I'm still your pastor. But it is affecting your relationship with God, because that's who you're sinning against. So let's try to repair this relationship between you and God. They don't have to ask for my forgiveness. They haven't done anything to me. So we have to understand, this is how Satan gets to us. Well, you did something bad and I can't forgive you of that. The first thing our question is, when is it my responsibility to forgive anyways? In many cases, it's not. Now, there are cases where you do have to forgive, because the sin was against you. See how Satan manipulates this?

Where he can create this self-righteousness, like everybody that sins has to be forgiven by me.

Now, we wouldn't say that, but people can almost take that approach at times.

Now, sometimes if you ever looked at somebody and said, look, you're messed up here. We need to help you get fixed with God. You know, your drinking problem isn't affecting me, but it sure is affecting your marriage and it sure is affecting you and God. So, I need to help you. A third way of Satan's tactics we see here specifically in terms of the heart is in 1 Timothy 3. Here we have instructions on elders or dating elders and the qualifications that a man must have to be ordained an elder. Verse 6 is really interesting.

He says, not a novice, not someone new in the faith, okay? Not someone who hasn't proved himself, not someone who doesn't know all the core doctrines or the core behavior, the morality of what a Christian, the ethics of a Christian. He says, not a novice. Less being puffed up with pride, he fall into the same condemnation as the devil.

What was the condemnation eventually against Satan? His pride.

Eventually, it was his pride that drove everything he did. And he said, don't ordain an elder who is a novice, because if you do, you have a good chance. Instead of becoming a good elder, he'll destroy himself because of his pride.

So what are Satan's greatest tactics? But then we understand, we will look at through here, why these three things of the heart are mentioned specifically in the Bible. Because Satan is a being filled with anger, Satan is a being that won't forgive anything, and Satan is a being who's filled with pride. The reason he hit us with those ones so well is because he knows those tactics so well. It's who he is. That's his first nature. We will say, well, that's second nature to someone. This is first nature to him. This is who he is. And so he hits us. He finds our weaknesses, and then he hits our hearts. A third tactic is he attacks our faith.

I thought through this in times in my life where I have really struggled, and it's where Satan has usually found a way to attack my faith. He finds a way to make me say, I don't know, maybe God doesn't care. I think, wait a minute, who's leaving me down that path? Right? Who's taking me down that path?

He attacks our faith. You know, when you go to Job and you read about there that first chapter of Job, remember, Satan appears before God, and Satan says, you give that man to me, and he will curse you. I'll destroy his faith. It won't take much.

It was one of his tactics. I will destroy that person's faith. I will bring into that person's life an unsolvable problem. That's one of the ways he gets to us. He'll bring into our lives unsolvable problems. Well, actually, he doesn't have to do that much. He's created the world. The world's filled with unsolvable problems, isn't it? The whole world is unsolvable problems.

So, he doesn't have to do much to bring unsolvable problems into your life. Just leave you alone. Because he's created the world that does this.

See, Satan doesn't... A lot of times he just has to leave us alone.

That's the propaganda to do it. Remember his third point of Sun Tzu? You don't have to fight a battle. The best gentleman doesn't have to fight a battle. He just marches his army up there and scares them long enough, which was the tactic of Goliath. The Philistine general said, we won't have to fight these people. What does it lie about every day? Sooner or later, they'll either run away or they'll come over and say, can we join you? It's interesting. There's a shock of Zulu in the 1700s, a huge Zulu army that conquered a whole part of Africa. And one of the reasons why, when he conquered a village, he would go in and tell all the warriors, you have two choices here. You can either become part of my army or I'll kill all of you, which you want to do.

Zulu's army kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I'll join you. He kept on wasting his march up to a village and say, they'd all march out and he'd say, what's your choice? They'd say, we surrender. Good. Get in line. He didn't have to fight battles after a while. Zulu will do that. I just let the world is so big, it's so strong, it's so oppressive, and I just wait. You'll cave in sooner or later, anyways. I don't have to do anything.

I'll just keep propagandizing you. If you just, you know, just go ahead and work on the Sabbath and your financial difficulties will disappear. Just don't get out of bed in the morning. Then you won't have to face the world. Just, you know, and fill in the mic.

He'll convince us. He'll convince us not to fight.

To the propaganda. It's better. You won't have a more fun part of the world, anyways. You'll have a lot more fun.

In 1 Chronicles 21, here we have another, you know, here we see Job, let him have it, and I'll destroy his faith. 1 Chronicles 21, what we find here is really an issue of faith. Because verse 1 says, now Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to number Israel. Now you read through this whole passage, David doubled Israel, not because he wanted to have a census to know how many people he had to serve and take care of. He wanted to know how many fighting men he had. I have an army. I can oppose my will on whoever I want. And he had a huge army for the day. He had a huge army for today. But for that day and age, he had a huge army, possibly the biggest army in the world at the time. Surely it was surely the biggest army in the Middle East at the time. Satan moved him. Now he found his weakness, right? He found his weakness. He moved him. He dealt with his emotions. He destroyed his faith. Because God basically punishes him because you were supposed to trust in me, not in the size of your army. See the tactics? Weakness. We move around. We have his weakness. We know what he's doing. We move around.

After we attack his weaknesses, then we begin to attack his emotions, his fears, his vanity, his pride. Now he destroyed his faith. At this point, David's losing the battle.

David's losing the battle. The fourth thing he does, his tactics, is that he gets us involved in meaningless arguments that eat up all of our mental energy. Meaningless spiritual arguments. So what we're doing is we're constantly thinking and involved in what we think is spiritually important with things that aren't spiritually important at all. Now this can take a lot of forms. It can take into a form of Bible study that deals with such minor points that the person is just so wrapped up in minor points so much that they're missing the bigger points. Now I've seen people that literally isolate themselves, isolate themselves, isolate themselves because they know the Bible, they know the Bible, they know the Bible. So it's just me sitting at home because nobody else knows the Bible as good as I do. So really, nobody else is worth fellowshiping with. At that point, you've missed the whole point. You've missed the point. Who's one, by the way? Isolating people, by the way, is one of the things that Satan does. You isolate people. One soldier is easier to kill than 100 fighting as a unit. So the more you get them picked off, the better. Second Timothy 2. Another way this can happen is through gossip, by the way.

You could start taking apart other people to where you're not looking at God, you're not looking at your own spirituality, you're not looking at what's really important in life, you're just picking apart other people's spiritual lives. And so you're into meaningless arguments, meaningless points. Second Timothy 2, verse 14. Second Timothy chapter 2, verse 14.

Remind them of these things, charging them before the Lord, not to strive about words to no prophet, to the ruin of the hearers. Now, Peter Sock in the Timothy says, now remember to tell people not to just spend their time and energy arguing over things, discussing things that really end up ruining those who are talking and those who are listening. It produces nothing of what God wants in our lives. Be diligent to present yourselves, approve to God a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But shun profane and idle babblings, for they will increase to more ungodliness. There is a point where talk is nothing more than vanity and babbling.

And it produces ungodliness. It doesn't help fulfill the two great commandments, the love God with all your heart and all your might and all your soul, love your neighbors, and it doesn't fulfill the ten commandments, and it doesn't fulfill the fruits of the Spirit, and it doesn't fulfill the Sermon on the Mount, and it doesn't fulfill 1 Corinthians 13. I mean, we have the criteria. It's not like we're ignorant of the criteria. It doesn't fulfill those things.

It actually goes against those things. But it can feel and seem to be very, very religious and very spiritual to the people involved. And here he tells Timothy to avoid those things, and then he does something interesting. There's things you see in the Bible. Wow, what if we did that today?

And their message will spread like a cancer. Chymideas and Phyletus are of this sort. I'm going to write down in the letter for everybody to read the very people I'm talking about.

It's pretty tough. Who have strayed concerning the truth, saying that the resurrection has already passed and they overthrow the faith of some. So here they have a false heresy, a false doctrine. Probably something tied into the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's what the resurrection is. So when you die now, you go to heaven. That's probably what it was. It had to do with an argument about the resurrection. And they would have probably tied it in. In other words, you have to make sense to overthrow people's faith. It probably has to go in with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The resurrection has already passed and it's been fulfilled. And now, you know, at depth, you go to heaven. Whatever. Nevertheless, the solid foundation of God stands having this seal. The Lord knows those who are His, and that everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity. But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also wood and clay. Some are honored, some are dishonored. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel of for honor, sanctified, and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work.

So He tells him to flee your lusts, flee your weaknesses. First of all, He tells him there are certain people you're just going to have to not spend a lot of time with, even though they're in the church, by the way, in this case, because they just have vain babblings. They don't ever produce anything. And then He says, protect your own weaknesses. Verse 23 says, but avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife. And as a servant of the Lord, a stock quarrel, be a gentle and able to teach and patient. He says, in humility, correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses. Now, here's, I read all this passage. You think, well, what does that have to do with what we're talking about?

Well, one of the things He uses is to get our minds so wrapped up in meaningless arguments, meaningless points, meaningless plans, meaningless strife. And He says to Timothy, you have to correct those people, because if you don't, here's what will happen.

So 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. That's a scary statement, because he's not talking about the world, folks. Second Timothy wasn't written to the world. Second Timothy was written to a minister about the people in his congregations. And he said, one of the stares of the devil, one of his maneuvers, his tactics, is to create meaningless strife. Are you, argue, argue, with this point, that point, the other point? To where the core true message of Christianity is lost in the meaningless strife.

And at that point, he says that we have to escape. That is Satan's snare. That is his tactic.

You know, every one of the tactics we've read about, I want you to think about something. Every tactic we've read about, and every example I've given, had to do with someone who was a person of God or has written two people of God. I have not yet read one passage or shown one example that was someone outside of the people of God. Even the Old Testament examples I used of Job and David were what? Men of God. So he's always, what we're using here, all these descriptions are tactics that Satan's winning inside his own, God's people. And so we have to see them. We have to be aware of them.

Same thing is said by Paul in 2 Corinthians 10, verses 3 through 5. We won't talk about that.

But he uses it, he makes the same point he does here in 2 Timothy. 2 Corinthians 10, 3 through 5. Read that. He talks the same thing. Satan uses these things to create, to stop the church from knowing what it's supposed to be and stop us from growing into what we're supposed to be. The children of God. And to mask God's purpose. And eventually we move away from the two great commandments. We move away from the ten commandments. We move away from the Sermon on the Mount. We move away from the fruits of the Spirit. And we move away from the qualities of Agape. Which is that, those things summarize what God's doing. We move away from those things.

And then the last point, his last tactic, and then I'm going to talk a little bit, just a little bit about what you and I could do to fight, to win. Okay, we've got to understand these tactics. But what do we do to win here? First, that's only his 218. I find this interesting. Just verse in the middle of a... where Paul is talking about something totally different, but he makes a statement here that really opens up an understanding of Satan. He's talking about how he wanted to come to the people of Thessalonica and help them.

That Paul wanted to come there and teach them and help them with the Word of God.

Verse 18 says of 1 Thessalonians 2. 1 Thessalonians 2.18.

Therefore, we wanted to come to you, even I, Paul, time and again, but Satan hindered us. Satan is always active in trying to stop true biblical teaching. Always. He's always attempting to stop true biblical teaching in the church. He's always hindering the attempt to do that in one way or another. He's always trying to hinder the preaching of the gospel to the world.

He will try that so hard that if you look through the history of the church over the last 2,000 years, there are always God's people who come to a conclusion along the way. We shouldn't even preach the gospel anymore. How do they come to that conclusion when we're commanded to do so?

Because Satan is hindering. It's one of his tactics. It's one of his tactics. Take away the purpose. Why would an army march when it has no purpose?

It's a brilliant tactic. That's the fifth thing he does. He hinders the teaching of the truth in any way that he can. Paul recognized, time and time again, he said, more than once.

Many times he tried to go to Thessalonica, and many times he could not go. He wanted to go. He believed that God wanted him to go. But Satan stopped it. Now, remember, Satan is only allowed to go so far. He is on a leash.

And that brings us into the concept of how do we defeat Satan. How do we defeat Satan?

Well, let's start with Hebrews 2. I'm just going to go through two passages here, and then we'll wrap this up. Hebrews 2. I wanted to go through these tactics. As we get closer to the Passover, we'll start to really talk about what God is doing through Jesus Christ.

And as the Passover is the first step in that, he is bringing about victory. Victory is going to happen. It is going to happen to those who follow the victorious general, our Passover. Hebrews 2.14. Hebrews 2.14. Inasmuch then, as the children have forsaken a flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared in the same, that through death he might destroy him who had the power of death. That is the devil.

He came. Christ came as the Passover. Christ came as the Savior. He came as the Messiah the first time so that he can beat Satan. He defeated Satan. He defeated Satan in everything that he did. He defeated Satan when Satan tried to tempt him. He defeated Satan when Satan tried to discourage him. He defeated Satan when Satan tried to turn Judas against him. He defeated Satan when he took his last breath and died. Satan thought he would. Satan actually thought he would because if he understood the death and resurrection of Jesus, he would have never killed him. He thought he would.

He defeated him in everything he did. And this is the encouragement. Because you and I sometimes try to fight this battle by ourselves because we know we have to fight. We know we can't afford to lose so we fight it by ourselves. By yourself, by myself against Satan, we're overmatched.

You and I try to take Satan all by ourselves. We're overmatched. We have to understand that.

You will lose that battle by yourself.

So we've got to have somebody fighting for us and with us, beside us, in us. Verse 15, and release those...he came to defeat Satan and released those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. So how do we do this? I mean, I can give three more sermons now on how to defeat Satan. But let's just...where do we start? What can we do? What can we do today that helps us remember, yes, I am in a spiritual warfare. Yes, I am in a mortal combat with an enemy that hates me. Hates you more than you can imagine. Oh, why would he hate me? I'm just a poor widow that lives alone by myself.

I have quietly obeyed God all my life. I have no importance. You are light. You have enormous importance to God. You are His child. And He hates you with a passion you can't even imagine, that He's angry.

So you have to realize we're in this battle. We're all in it together. James chapter 4.

So let's look at where you and I can start. Christ is going to win.

You have been called to win.

Now, that doesn't mean between now and the end, you're not going to get beat up. Satan is a master tactician, but he is horrible at strategy. There's a difference. Satan can win lots of battles, but he will lose the war. God is a master strategist. He wins the war. Now, you and I, because of our weakness, you know, the army of God is a pretty weak group of people. We'll lose some battles along the way. We may lose a few battles, but we'll win the war, because God will lead us to the victory. Satan doesn't understand that. He thinks because he wins a few battles, he wins the war. It is possible. I've used some military examples here. One of the greatest military examples in history was in World War II, the German-Africa Corps. A great tactician who won most of the battles could never win the war.

Eventually, between the United States, there's a small German army of 30,000 men, and they're taking on the United States, Britain, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and India, and France. Because the French ended up bringing in divisions. Who could win?

Oh, they won almost every battle. Lost the war. Africa Corps could not win in North Africa. He did all of Sun Tzu's principles on the battlefield, but they could not have a strategy that would win. That's the way Satan is. He may win some battles along the way, but he can't win this war. You and I have to remember that. You and I might get beat up sometimes. We may lose sometimes, but because we know that God has set Jesus Christ up as the head of the church, and God your father is your father, you can and will win. The only way you don't win is to give up. Go surrender to the enemy and you'll lose, but as long as you keep fighting, you will win. You say, but I've lost a bunch of battles, but Christ will win the war.

He's a strategist. Satan's a tactician. He does not know he cannot win this war.

James 4, verse 1. Why do... Where do wars and fights come from among you? Now, he's talking about a specific problem within the church, but I want to talk about this in a greater sense. So, you know, this isn't just about strife in the church. There's a greater point here also being made. Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that warn your own members? So, this comes down to everything we do. Why is it that you sin? Why is it you struggle with certain problems? Why is it that you have problems within your family or marriage? Why is it that you have problems with lying? Or why is it you have problems with obeying the two commandments? Or why is it you compromise with God's Word and God's way? Why is it? Well, because there's something inside you. There's weaknesses, and he knows those weaknesses, and he's hitting them hard.

You lust you do not have. You murder your covenant cannot obtain. You fight a war, yet you do not have because you do not ask. And you ask and do not receive because you ask a miss that you may spend it on your own pleasures. In other words, even when we ask God, we're just selfish. We're not doing anything outward. Adulters and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? That is very important. I've wondered if that maybe should be part of what we cover over the next year is what is it to be the friend of the world?

Come out of her, my people. Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says, "...a vain the Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously." In other words, God is jealous for us. God wants us to win. God has all the power of the world to help us win.

We just don't have to surrender to the enemy. For the first army that doesn't have to defeat the enemy in a way, we just don't have to surrender to the enemy.

We just don't surrender. We just keep fighting.

Because, strategically, God wins.

Verse 6 says, "...but he gives more grace therefore he says, God resists the proud of it, gives grace to the humble, therefore submit to God." Okay. Submit to God. But there's another point he makes here. You know, a lot of times when we read this passage, we're making a point about maybe conflict with brethren or something, and we sort of stop here in verse 6. But notice what he says in verse 7. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Here's the problem. Chapter 4, verses 1-6, describe the church, by the way. James is not writing to the world. He's just to the church. He's describing church brethren whose lives are out of control, and they're controlled by Satan.

They're controlled by Satan in their fears or their anxieties or their sins or their relationships. But they're losing this battle. They're losing it a lot. He says, you're losing this, and the reason why is you're not resisting the devil and he will flee from you. We must learn to say no. We just keep surrendering. No, you can't have me today, but I did yesterday. You can hear it. You know what he says. You didn't God cares. You lost the battle yesterday. So, you know, why fight today? Go ahead and drink. I know you've got a month. One month. Big deal. Go ahead and drink.

Okay. See, you failed yesterday. See, you might as well drink again today.

The game. But we have to say no. We have to get on our knees, and we have to say, God, help me resist the devil. There are times we have to get on our knees and say, God, this is coming from Satan. These are not my thoughts. My mind is being flooded. I must resist. Please drive this away from me.

And how long do you have to pray before that happens? As long as you have to.

How long do I have to pray until Satan leaves me alone? How long do I have to resist until he runs away? As long as you have to. Because I guarantee you, when you get close enough to God, he runs away. Because God wins every time. Satan hasn't defeated God once, and he never will.

But you and I, he can beat up on us all day long. He's a bully.

The beating up on you and me all day long makes him feel good about himself.

Satan's just a narcissist. He's not that hard to figure out. He's just a narcissist.

He loves himself. He loves anybody who loves him. He hates anybody who doesn't. So he likes beating up on everybody because he's bigger than everybody. Well, not everybody. You resist until he goes away.

And how do you do that, verse 8? Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. God, I have attempted. God, I lost the battle. God, I failed. God, I gossiped one more time. God, I told another lie. God, I stole something again. God, I was dishonest. God, I yelled and was mean to my husband. God, I fell in the blank. Today, I failed. I lost the battle. I lost the war. And God says, draw near to me, and let's patch up the wounds, and let's get you out to fight again. He's all good. Now I don't want us to fight anymore. That's not the way it goes. Let me clean out your wounds. Let me patch you up and put you back in the battle. And he said, I can't win. And God's answer is, well, no, by yourself, you can't.

By yourself, you can't. This is the great hope. This is what the Passover reminds us of.

By myself, I can't. But God can.

God has already predicted his victory. He's already won.

He goes on, he says, draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Clange your hands, you sinners, and purify your heart, you double-minded. Yet we can't keep surrendering to the enemy and fighting the enemy. We can't do both. So cleanse our hearts between now and the Passover. Our prayers, our fasting, our Bible study is to be cleansed again, washed again.

Renew the covenant with the bread and the wine.

And Satan is reminded, the few battles you won this year don't matter at all. You see, we have an ice-sitting this year. Stop. When?

At the Passover, we're reminded, when we stay with God, we win. That sin eventually is not as cleansed, it's removed from us. We have to keep fighting it. You surrender long enough, and you will become the enemy. There's the great danger. We surrender long enough, and we become Satan. We become the enemy of God. That's why there is a lake of fire.

But, you know, preaching about the lake of fire can only motivate us so long.

Preaching about defeat can only motivate us so long. There's a point we have to believe we can win.

And the whole point of Jesus Christ coming and resurrection and work He's doing right now as High Priest and the head of the church and as your personal Savior is to show you you will win if you don't surrender. You will.

But boy, do we get beat up along the way. It's an ugly fight. Satan doesn't play by any rules.

He'll play by any rules. There's no rules in spiritual warfare. There's no Geneva Convention, you know. There's no rules to this. It's pure hatred.

He says in verse 9, lament and mourn and weep. Sounds like an Old Testament prophet here, doesn't it? Let your laugh if you turn to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up. We must remember that. There's times we have to go to God and say, you promised to lift me up. I don't know how to be humble here. Help me be humble. Satan's beating me up here. Lift me up. I'm resisting. Draw me near to you as I try to draw near to you.

We go ask, we go pray. We win. We win because God wins.

God wins.

And we're with Him. And that power becomes in us through pouring out of His Spirit. And we win. And we conquer. And sin is removed from us, peace at a time.

Sin is removed from us, one battle at a time.

And we're changed.

Of all the wars being waged on the earth right now, the most important one is being waged with you.

Boy, I'm glad I'm a conscientious objector and I don't have to fight in war.

It can be easier to carry a gun in Afghanistan than it is to fight the war you're fighting every day.

At least you can see that enemy. It's clearly defined, right?

This enemy doesn't have any limitations in some ways except the ones God puts on him.

It's a lot harder. And of all those wars, all those battles, all those things of history that we look back through, all the reasons human beings have killed each other and died for, there's none that hold a candle to the importance that the war you're fighting right now, every day of your life.

And as you run away from it, it's there. Your enemy isn't going to let you run away.

He doesn't give any quarter.

If you surrender, you just become his slave. You and I fight a daily fight with an enemy who wants to destroy you. But as we approach the Passover seas that don't get discouraged, sometimes we start looking at our sins. We start thinking about how much we need to grow. We start thinking about our failures over the last year, but remember something. Your generals already won.

Christ is already defeated. You say, all you have to do, I say all because it's the hardest thing we'll ever do in our lives, but all we have to do is follow and you will win.