Satan's Tactics

There was a book written in the 5th century BC by a Chinese philosopher who became a general, Sun Tzu. He wrote a book called The Art of War. Has anybody here ever read The Art of War? A few of you. I actually had to read it at a company I worked for one time. They wanted to teach us how to be competitive.

I had to read Sun Tzu's Art of War. It is studied by military commanders today throughout the world. It is actually studied by business people as a way of dealing with the competition in business. There's been a whole book written about the principles of Sun Tzu involved in business. It is a fascinating book. He goes through how you should prepare for war, the tactics that you use, maneuvering, how you maneuver your troops around, choosing the right terrain.

There's even a section on how to pick and train spies. One of the things I thought was so interesting about training spies is the best spies are people in the opposing army who are pretty good at what they do, but they can either overlook for promotion or they get mistreated by their officer in charge.

So find those people and they become your best spies. Which, if you've ever studied the history of the United States with Benedict Arnold, that's exactly what happened. He was probably Washington's most capable general and, man, Congress just abused that man. And so finally, the British singled him out and said, this guy, we know he can get him. He's better. And they did. And he became the greatest traitor in the history of the United States, or one of them.

And so this is all part of his book. You know, what's that have to do with what we're going to talk about today? And actually, it has to do a little bit with what Mr. Peravan was talking about. Sort of a lead in what we're going to talk about today.

We didn't know what... In fact, I thought Rob was speaking today. We had no idea what we were going to speak on. The Bible says that Christians are involved in spiritual warfare. Now we read that, and we say, yeah, I have some hard times sometimes. You know, I've had a friend turn against me because of my religion, or I've lost a job because of the Sabbath, or, you know, yeah, it was a warfare. But when Paul specifically uses that analogy numerous times in his writings, he's not just talking about those instances that happen in our lives.

When he says, put on the armor of God, he's talking about a daily activity, a daily mindset, because we're literally involved in a daily spiritual warfare. You and I are involved every day in a war for our minds. And this could be seen as superstitious, okay? It's a super way. Okay, a war for our minds. And now you're going to talk about Satan and demons and God. And, you know, we just sort of this into this sort of cultic silliness.

But we have to understand how real this is. And it applies to every one of us. And it has eternal consequences. Let's go to Ephesians 6. Ephesians 6. Spiritual warfare is almost a cliche, you know? We've heard it talked about so many times. It's part of what we hear in sermons. We sing about it in some of our songs.

Okay, we're in a spiritual warfare. We know Satan exists. We know that there's a being out there called Satan. We don't think about it much. Oh, except when we see the promotion of abortion. All that's Satan. Now, we see it in society. We see it in other people. Well, what about us? Ephesians 6, verse 10. Paul says, Finally, my brother, be strong in the Lord and the power of his might.

And that sentence right there is going to summarize everything I'm going to talk about today. Be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Mr. Per of it talked about how Satan's pride got to him. And it destroyed him. And we're going to talk today, we're going to look at how he tries to affect us. Sun Tzu could have written the book about Satan's tactics. They're exactly the same. They're exactly the same. And we forget we're the object, we're the target of those attacks. The people of God are the target of his attacks.

You think, I'm not that important. I'm the base of the world. Well, welcome. We all are. You and I are here because we're the weak and small. We forget that and we always get in trouble. When you read the first century, when you read the letters that especially Paul wrote or James wrote, Peter wrote, the different congregations that what you find is people that are struggling with.

Boy, we're important. Throughout the history of the church today, we're fighting with. Well, we're important. We forget it is God is important and we are here because God says, let me work on you and I will be glorified. And there is a being that says, it doesn't work this way. Let me tell you how this actually works. And we are in a battle with that being every day. He says, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

It's interesting, wiles, it's translated in some translations, and it is a legitimate translation as the schemes. In other words, these are his plans. You and I have to be able to understand he has plans for your life. Satan has a plan for your life. He knows you by name. In fact, sometimes he knows more about us than we know about ourselves.

Because, just like Sun Tzu would say, you study your enemy. And if we're his enemy, he studies us. You are under a microscope with a very powerful being who is studying you. Now, I'm not saying that so we should be filled with fear because verse 10 becomes the basis of how we look at this. But we do need to understand this enemy. We need to understand his tactics. For we do not wrestle, verse 12, against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts and wickedness in heavenly places.

Oh, wow! That sounds like something out of Harry Potter, right? That's the reality of what you and I have entered into, and we can't forget it. You and I have actually entered into a spiritual warfare in which there is a being with armies who knows you personally and is trying to manipulate your life.

He's trying to manipulate your life. And in our scientific world, that seems almost... Oh, come on! Actually, it's very interesting. I read a recent study, and I can't remember what exactly the demographic was or whether it was in the US or Europe, but in this study, more people in this specific demographic believed in Satan than God. I can't forget that one out. Because usually, many more people believe in God than Satan. We believe in God. The devil is somewhat some guy with a pitchfork and a red tail and, you know, funny ears. Oh, we may say that Satan influenced Hitler, but we can't see his influence in our lives. He said, therefore, verse 13, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done so, to stand. In other words, when the battles come, you're left standing. When the battles come, we're left standing. To understand his hatred for us, we have to go back just a few pages. Now, another set of verses here we've read so many times. Ephesians 2. Ephesians 2.

Because here, in this whole letter to the Ephesians, the Ephesians is a fascinating church. The Ephesians had to go through a lot of things. The Ephesus church was started by Paul, and when we get to Revelation, it still exists. And we actually have more about the church and emphasis of the Bible than any of the other churches. It's talked about in Acts, it's talked about in Revelation, and we have an entire letter that he wrote to them. And so we can put together an awful lot of information about this church. It was one of the larger churches. Some churches met in people's houses. The Ephesians church actually had to rent a large auditorium for people to meet him. And here he tells them, and you, the members of the church, so we can go back to Revelation, we can say this, this is written to us too, and you, he, made alive, God is made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, which he once walked according to the courts of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience. The spirit of the world you and I live in is motivated and influenced by a real spirit, a real being. And Paul reminds us, you and I used to be like that. You can grow up in the church and say, wow, people like that used to be like that. I mean, other people are like that. I grew up in the church, no. All of us have a corrupt indubination, every single one. It doesn't matter if you grew up in the church or came out from the worst background you could have been. We all have corrupt nature. Satan influenced all of us. He changed who we were. God did not create us good and evil. Adam and Eve weren't created good and evil. They were neutral. As long as good influenced them, they were good. Evil came along, and they liked that too.

That one-minute old baby is neither good nor evil. It doesn't take long, does it? It doesn't take long. There's a spirit that influences the development of every human being. So even if you've grown up in the church, your nature is corrupt. You've just had the privilege, through the grace of God, to be exposed to a lot of good. We all still have corrupt nature. He says, Who now works in the sons of disobedience, verse 3, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath just as the others.

He goes on and talks about it was the mercy of God that pulled us out of that. We were here by the mercy of God. We didn't figure out we had corrupt human nature. He had to come tell us we had corrupt human nature. And then we had to accept it. So this is our starting point. We have to understand our nature has been corrupted by Satan. So we automatically have an affinity towards him.

You and I have an attraction, not to Satan the being, but to the propaganda that he feeds to us. Because we've already been influenced by it. We've already been influenced. So we find it attractive. So many times if we're not careful, even as Christians, we don't recognize what he's doing. We don't understand these tactics. So we've influenced our lives and we don't even know it.

Because, well, it seems natural to us. It seems natural to me because that's part of what my nature is because it's been influenced by. You also have to realize the absolute hatred Satan has for you. He despises the fact that God has given you his spirit. He despises the fact that you have an eternity that God is preparing for you. He despises that. So you can say, well, I don't have any bones to pick with Satan. He's not going to mess with me. I don't know, buddy. In his mind, you are a being that must be destroyed and he's going to wage war on you whether you admit it or not.

He just is. This is the spiritual truth that will seem foolish to non-Christians. It will seem foolish to those who don't understand the Scripture or what's actually happening in the spirit world. Well, I want to talk about some of Satan's tactics and then we're going to cover some things you and I can do to recognize those tactics and deal with them. What's interesting is, if you took Sun Tzu and read it, then you go through the Scripture. I mean, he understood warfare and this being is fighting warfare. The first.

Now, remember, Satan is always on the offense. When it seems like he's on the defense, it's because he's running from God. He never runs from us. When he's on the defense, it's because he's running from God. You and I never intimidate him. We're not that smart. He sees this as hairless apes. But he can't figure out why God sees value in us. So you have to understand, he never is afraid of us. He is afraid of God. He has a fear of God.

So, he's always attacking us. Those attacks happen all the time. When you're not being attacked by Satan, it's only because God's giving you a little rest between battles. God's just saying, leave him alone for a little bit. But the attacks are going to come. And the first way he attacks us, and this goes back to what was being covered in the sermonette.

He knows your personal weaknesses. Satan attacks our personal weaknesses. He's going to attack one person differently than another. You know, you hear someone say, well, I don't understand why that person has a problem with alcohol. I never had a problem with alcohol. Why can't they just have more willpower? Well, different weakness. Different method of attack. In fact, one of the lessons of Sun Tzu is to attack the enemy where they are the weakest. Napoleon used the same tactics. Find the weakest spot and overwhelm them with numbers, and you'll win almost every battle. Find the weakest spot, overwhelm it with numbers, and you'll win almost every battle if you have disciplined troops.

So find the enemy's greatest weakness, and hit the enemy there just as hard as you can. And pick the terrain. Make him think you're retreating. Do whatever you have to do to maneuver your enemy until you're fighting on your ground. So Satan's got to find your weakness and maneuver you to his ground if we're not careful. And he knows your weaknesses. He knows my weaknesses. And he plays to them all the time. He's not going to come at your strengths when you're close to God. He's going to come at you when you're not. Let's look at James 1. Think about what James says here. He's talking about our nature. So we've got to remember, where does our nature come from? Why are we a mixture of good and evil when God is not a mixture of good and evil? Because we've been influenced by Satan.

James 1, verse 13. We're thinking about the enemy here. We shouldn't be spending a lot of time thinking about Satan. But we do need to know the tactics, so we understand the tactics that are happening. So we understand the tactics when we see them being carried out in our lives. And remember, it has to do with our weaknesses. If we have so much pride, we're not aware of our own weaknesses, we're automatic in trouble. Pride is the core of his...it's the core of who he is. It's the core of his character. Self-pride. So if we are careful, he's going to hit us right there. James 1, verse 13. He says, Let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt himself, tempt anyone. Now, you will see other places where it says, well, God tempted somebody. What we have to understand is the difference here in motivation. If I give a child a test to see how much they've progressed, that's different than setting up a situation to make them fail. God will test our progress, or God will give us a situation that actually makes us grow. Children don't like sometimes, you know, I don't want to do my homework. Why? It will make you grow. No, it's just I would rather do something else. Children, you know, think of ourselves as children. God's always gives, say, no, you've got to do your homework. No, I don't. I want to play. So it's a test. And we say, well, he's making me angry. He's not making you angry. He's saying to do your homework. He's saying, pick up your stuff. He's saying, okay, but think of how those are such trials for children. To tell a child sometimes to do something that's obviously good, and they'll be so upset, angry, frustrated, because, well, that's not what I want to do. And the adult says, well, you just have to do it. Every other adult says, yeah, that's what you have to do. But think about this. That's the way God is. God tells us to do things. And we say, well, I don't want to do that. I have something else I want to do. Why are you putting this trial on me? You say, well, this isn't, you know, in what God's answer is, because this is what you have to do. This is how people grow. So God's motivation for putting a test on us is to produce good in us.

Satan's motivation for putting a test on us is to create failure. They're two totally different results. At the time it may feel the same, by the way. The experience at the time may feel the same for us. But they're two totally different results. So this doesn't contradict other places that say, God tests us or God tempts us. No, what he's talking about there is, God will give us certain, what we consider trials. There are growth opportunities. There are times to help us grow into what we have to be to receive eternal life. We don't get to go into eternal life the way we are. We have to be changed, prepared for eternal life. But here, he says, look, God's never going to set you up for failure. God's not trying to make you sin. Can you imagine if God's going around trying to make us sin? He wants us to fail? Well, that's nothing how God is revealed in the Scripture. So then he goes on, but each one is tempted when he's drawn away by his own desires and enticed. The part of us that has been influenced by Satan, this seems so natural to us, is drawn towards things. And Satan uses things that are in us that are actually not evil. I mean, when Eve looked at the fruit, and she was curious, curiosity of itself isn't evil. But she said, wow, that looks like it probably tastes really good. It's good for food? That wasn't evil. But you can see where he's manipulating it. I mean, if you really want to study Satan, just study how he dealt with Eve. And it was like, if I get her, that stupid guy will just fall in line.

But you watch how he manipulated her. And it's a brilliant game he played. And he took these things that weren't evil and made them evil. So it's us that's pulled towards doing evil. Verse 15 says, then what desire has conceived, it's now actually formed inside you. The desire is formed. It's now what you want. It motivates your actions. It gives birth to sin. And sin, what it is full road brings forth death.

Many times what happens is we try to fight sin after it's already formed. We'll talk about that in a little bit. You know, Sun Tzu had no problem retreating. Now, this isn't good. I'll lose this battle. I'll retreat. Retreat wasn't... you know, you see some military commanders who stand and never retreat. Now, this is a bad situation. I'm going to see my Ermian movement. So retreat meant nothing to him.

What we try to do sometimes is we fight after it's conceived. He just keeps pulling the sin and pulling it to the end. So our desires have now... he manipulated us. So our desires are already now conceived and we want the sin, or in the middle of the sin and we say, Oh, it's time for me to resist. Too late. You're in the trap. You're already in the trap. So he attacks us through our own weaknesses. Now, that's a whole subject in itself. So as I give these points, you know, write down, this is a tactic, and how is this being carried out in my life? Do a Bible study on each of these... things we're talking about, these tactics. You'll find lots of Scriptures on these subjects. And then say, how is he doing this in my life? Ask God to reveal it to you. How is St. manipulating me? I don't even realize it. Second thing he does is he attacks us in our emotions. And this is maybe... Our weaknesses, of course, that's the way to get us to sin. By attacking us in our emotions, he forms in us attitudes that may actually look like righteousness. That's what's so scary about our own emotions. Look at Acts 5. Acts 5. You know the story here, but I want you to notice a couple of the words. Because Satan's directly involved with what happens here, and these are people in the Church. Acts 5 verse 1. But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession. Now what had happened just before this is that Barnabas had sold something and gave the money to the Church. And it was such a huge amount of money, plus Barnabas was just one of these people that just encouraged everybody. We all like these people when we meet them. He just had this positive effect in drawing people to God. So they changed his name. They called it the Son of Encouragement. That was his nickname. What a great nickname. He's the Son of Encouragement. So these people see all this acclaim that Barnabas is getting. So they sold a possession. Verse 2 says, and he kept back part of the proceeds. His wife also being aware of it, and they brought a certain part and laid it at the Apostle's fee. So here's what they do. I'm not going to read the whole story, but they bring this money, and they say, look, we did what Barnabas did. Expecting the church to hold them up in great acclaim. We sold this possession, and we're giving it all to the church. Now, they didn't have to give it all to the church. They didn't have to give any of it. Except maybe their tithes, if there was profit or free will offering. But the point is, they bring all of it with this pretense that we're giving it everything. And it's not all of it, but that's the pretense. But Peter said, Ananias, why has the lotus, 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? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men, but to God. Now, the sin of lying here, we see the open sin of lying. But we have to go back through what got him there. Satan manipulated his emotions. In his case, obviously, he and his wife wanted some kind of acclaim. They wanted people to see them as important. You know, if they would have just brought a little bit of the money, everybody would have said, wow, that's wonderful! They would have got this acclaim that they needed so much. But they weren't doing it for God. They were doing it because of any, maybe, of Barnabas, or just the need. This need to be acclaimed, this need to be seen as important. Pride.

God killed these people. Satan manipulated their emotions. And it was so in affront to God that God killed them. God holds us responsible when we allow Satan to manipulate us. He held them responsible for allowing Satan to do this to them.

The manipulation of emotions is so subtle. And you and I fight this every day and don't even recognize. It's interesting that Sun Tzu said the greatest victories don't come through battle. It's through when you break the enemy's will to exist and you don't even have to fight. They just surrender. The whole thing about manipulating emotions is, he just sort of surrender. You're now doing what Satan wants you to do and you don't even know it. You've surrendered. And that's one of his greatest tactics. Let's manipulate them so that in the end we break their will to resist and so they don't even know it. You know, there's numerous times in the Scripture where we are told that Satan can maneuver and twist our emotions. Let's look at a couple of them. Ephesians 4. I'm going to bring up three of them here I want to talk about. And I'm just going to briefly go through them because, once again, I hope you do a study on this.

Because, let's look at what is said in these Scriptures. We know this one. This one is quoted all the time. Some of you probably have this memorized. Ephesians 4, verse 26. Be angry and do not sin, do not let the sun go down in your wrath. Now, I've talked to many people that have been married 50 years and they say that Scripture really affected their lives. And they made sure they never went to sleep angry with each other. And it's an amazing Scripture because it doesn't say that don't be angry. Anger is part of the human experience. There are times we should feel anger. But the whole point is, you don't let anger stay. And there's a reason you don't let anger stay.

If we find ourselves struggling with anger all the time, we need to realize something as a Christian. We've opened an avenue of attack. By the way, Satan is an incredibly angry man.

He just filled with anger. Notice the rest of the verse.

Verse 27, I mean. Nor give place to the devil. This is all the context of being angry. We leave ourselves, and we're angry all the time. Now, we all deal with anger. Some of it's good, some of it's wrong. It's like, you know, you should have pride in your garden. But if your pride in your garden is that you make fun of your neighbors, wrong pride, right? It's there with anger. There's a time and place for anger, and it's controlled, and there's a purpose for it. If we find ourselves struggling with anger all the time, we've opened an avenue of attack.

An avenue of manipulation. And what he will do is keep retreating us back into anger.

Something bad will happen to us, and we'll retreat back into anger. I bet he's moving us back onto his ground, and that we find ourselves consumed with anger. At that point, we are losing the bad.

And we don't even know how we got there. And it was a constant retreat on his part, pulling us in. A second emotion is the 2nd Corinthians 2. Now, this is a very interesting one, because it's so easy to miss that this is an emotion. 2nd Corinthians 2.

To set this up, in 1 Corinthians, there was an individual in the church who was committing adultery, and Paul said, look, this sin has to be stopped. The person has to be removed from the church. And today, occasionally, we'll have a situation like that come up, and we'll tell the person, as long as you're committing this sin, you can't come to service, you can't be part of the body. It doesn't remove them from God, it's to help them repent. Now, what happens when the person repents? Now, the focus is, well, they've committed adultery. That's the focus, right? So what's the focus, then, of the congregation when the person comes back and says, I've repented?

Remember, the focus of the congregation is, okay, we understand, you have sinned, been tempted, maybe manipulated by Satan, you sinned, therefore you must leave the congregation. Now, what's interesting, they repent. The responsibility now, according to Paul here, comes on us.

If that person's repented, the responsibility now comes upon the church. And he tells them here in 2 Corinthians, wait a minute, if he's repented, you're supposed to bring him back. Look what it says in verse 6. This punishment, the punishment upon this person, which was inflicted by the majority. Now, in other words, the whole church saw this happen. Now, they knew what had happened. Well, it was hard to hide it when Paul told them to. Sometimes you hope to hide things, and not hide them, but you cover people's sins, love covers them all to the sins. But they could hide this one. Everybody knew that. He says, But the majority is sufficient for such a man, so that, on the contrary, you ought rather to forgive and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one be swallowed up with two-month sorrow. Therefore, I urge you to reaffirm your love for him. So what Paul says here is, okay, if he's repented, bring him back. Like, who not here is sinned? He could be asking that question. Okay. So let's understand. We're all sinners, and we're all repenting. So the person has to be brought back. But what I find interesting here is that the end of this instruction of bringing back, notice what he says in verse 11. Now, remember, he's talking now, not to the man who sinned, and he was repented, but to the congregation. Lest Satan should take advantage of us where we are not ignorant of his devices. We know his tactics here, folks. And what he says is, if we're not willing to forgive someone who has sinned and accept them when they have repented, then Satan's going to get to us. Paul's concern was no longer the man who committed adultery. He had repented. The concern was, now, was Satan get the church? Well, Satan now attacked the congregation. They won't accept... or they'll look down on this person, will accept him as a member of the congregation.

This emotional idea that I am superior because I haven't committed that sin is a very dangerous place to be. Oh, I know I've committed sin, but I haven't committed that sin. Now, as long as he continued to commit adultery, he had to be outside the church. But the moment he repented, and he was now right with God, they had no right to say, you're not right with God.

They had no right to say that. In fact, now they were the problem, and that's what Paul feared here. Lest you be now, be get manipulated by Satan. But it feels so good. That person's so bad. I can't believe a person would do that. But they repented.

Now, and sometimes you don't know if a person's really repented. You say, well, how do I know? We accept. That's what we do. If the fruits aren't there, we'll know. You'll figure it out. But Paul's point is, err on this side, not on the other, because you don't want to end up manipulated by Satan. A third emotion is the 1st Timothy 3. This ties directly in with what...

I was going to take some notes from Mr. Parriment. I'll say that in my sermon. No, I'll say that because it was just like a perfect lead in here. 1st Timothy. 1st Timothy.

1st Timothy. What we have here is a list of qualifications that Paul gave Timothy. So now, when you go and you ordain elders in different congregations, you just don't pick some money and say, I think you'd be a good elder. They must meet certain qualifications that are visible that you see. And then, with prayer and the input of the people, if this person meets those qualifications, they can be ordained. But there's also instructions here on when not to ordain somebody. And look at verse 6. He says, not a novice, someone new in the faith, someone that doesn't have experience, someone that hasn't been through a lot as a Christian, not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride, he fall into the same condemnation as the devil. I remember when I first came into the ministry, a pastor who I work with that I still hold in high esteem and great respect, first thing he told me was, we have ruined many a good man by ordaining him.

And his point was, it's amazing how this pride becomes part of it and destroys people. Of course, Satan knows that for every leader he destroys, how many other people does it affect? How many other people does it affect their relationship with God?

Because we all need leaders, and leaders are part of the structure. You destroy a leader, though. You destroy people's relationship with each other. You destroy people's relationship with God. That's why leaders do need to remember, what did you call us? Low life? Yeah, we need to remember that, too. God called us because we're the low life. He puts things as perspective, doesn't he? But he knows, that's why he said, don't ordain people that are novices, because Satan will get to them through their pride. I don't care if you're a novice, I don't care who you are. Especially our male pride. Our male pride can get in the way a lot. We have to really work on that one. What I find interesting is the next verse. Moreover, he must have a good testimony among those who are outside. Now, this verse has a good reputation, not just in the church. This verse has to have a good reputation outside the church. Lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. In other words, he'll be more so concerned about his own reputation, that that will be more important than serving God's people. So, this idea of pride. So, here are warning signs, just from those... Now, all three of those scriptures are warnings about Satan's manipulating of our emotions. So, when you think about it, here's warning signs. That you're under attack by Satan. When you find yourself constantly feeling angry and bitter, when anger and bitter is just part of your experience all the time, you're very seldom at peace, you're very seldom at a time when you're not angry, you're under attack. You're involved in a battle. And Satan's found a way to get in there.

When you can't forgive others, because somehow forgiveness of their sins means that, you know, well, wait a minute, I didn't do that. I should get a greater reward, because they did that, or whatever. In other words, you measure yourself by other people's sins. That's a real dangerous place to be when you measure yourself by other people's sins. Because there's probably somebody else measuring themselves by your sins, right? And somewhere there's somebody else saying, well, I'm not as bad as that person. So, when we find ourselves measuring each other by each other's sins, we're in trouble.

And when we find that we have a constant fascination with our own honor, with our own pride, we're in trouble.

We're in real trouble. Most of the time, when us as men, when we're saying, well, I have to defend my honor, you know what we're saying? I have to defend my pride. Live to honor God, and don't worry about your own honor too much. Live to honor God.

Because before Him, we're all dishonorable. Just to honor God. And if we're obsessed with our own sense of honor and pride, we're under attack. Now, what's interesting is Satan is filled by anger. He can't forgive. He's going to be treated by God, and that's all. Until God pays, there's going to be a problem. And he's defending his honor. He's pride all the time.

So here we see how Satan attacks our emotions. Satan attacks our thoughts. It's the third way he attacks us. It's interesting in 2 Corinthians 15.

And of course, this comes through television, radio, what we read, what we see on the Internet, what we watch on YouTube. This comes from Facebook. Things bombard our minds all the time from people who are also being manipulated by Satan. And we forget that. Everybody's being manipulated by Satan. So everything that comes into our minds, we've got to filter, is it from God? Or is it godly? Or is there some truth to it, at least? We just can't swallow everything that comes in. 2 Corinthians 10.

Verse 3, For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. This would be easier if it was, okay, let's all strap on our guns and go fight the enemy. At least you could see the enemy.

He says, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty. Mighty in God! We're back to something I read in Ephesians. This is real important. Our power to win this battle comes only from God.

You've got to think about who you're up against here. David knew he couldn't beat Goliath on his own. There was no way. He was a dead man. You and I can't beat Satan on our own. It's not possible. For pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, we're going to rest in a sentence. And bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

Sun Tzu said that battles are won before the battle that run through preparation and training. Through preparation and training is how you win a battle.

You and I have to be guarding our thoughts and bringing them into the captivity of the obedience of Christ.

That's the end of the way, by the way. You've heard me say this before. There is no way to change emotions except through changing thoughts. You shouldn't feel that way. It's about the dumbest thing you can tell a person. You probably get punched in the nose. Don't feel that way. Well, how do I change that? But changing thoughts changes feelings.

And that's why Satan constantly brings up, as he said, arguments. He brings up arguments. We're involved in arguments about people, arguments about each other, arguments about the Bible. Until we get to the place where we're not even seeing what God's doing anymore, we're just into minutia arguing. Oh, he likes that. He loves chaos. Remember, he loves chaos. He creates chaos. And then he likes to tell you, I can bring order out of chaos. Just do it this way.

It's the way he thinks. It's one of his greatest tactics. Create chaos. And then come along and say, hey, I can bring order out of this. Watch this.

Our fourth reason. Our fourth reason. And then I want to just... I've let it go just a little over. He started what? It was about five after. I usually speak for an hour, but we may go just a little longer. Luke 22.

Luke 22. Luke 22.

In all this, what he wants to do... Remember, we've talked about the power comes from God. Right? The power, if he's saying, comes from God. So what does he want to do? He wants to sever your faith in God. So he attacks our faith. So he attacks our weaknesses, our emotions, our thoughts. But he's got to restore our faith so that we don't hang on to God. So that we disengage from the only power we have. What's interesting here is this situation where Jesus, before his death, his crucifixion, and here in Luke 22, verse 31. And what he says here to Peter... And the Lord says, Simon, Simon, indeed... Now listen to this... Satan has asked for you that he may sift you as wheat, that he may just tear you to pieces. He's actually asked God, let me have that one. Let me have him. Now, you destroy Peter, you probably destroy a lot of people. Because even among the disciples, he was a leader. Let me have that one.

I can't imagine... I keep saying, none of us are that important. I don't know, in the eyes of Satan, maybe there's been a time in your life where he's gone to God and said, let me have that one.

That's hard to believe he would care that much about any of us, doesn't it? But I can see Peter... but us? I see, yeah, he's asked for you. But I have prayed for you that your faith should not fail. Then the next statement is, but... okay, it's not a button here, but... And when you have returned to me, strengthen your brother. I have prayed that you don't lose faith, but he is coming after your faith, and you have no idea the battle you're about to fight. And of course, Peter didn't, because he says in verse 33, but he said to him, Lord, I am ready to go with you, both the prison and the death. He says, you have no idea the battle you're about to fight. Oh, yeah, I do. Prison, death, doesn't matter. Let's do it. And he says, you have no idea. You're so overmatched here, Peter. You are so overmatched. So I'm praying for you, so that God's going to have to help you through this. That's what Christ says in verse 34. He said, I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day before you will deny me three times that you know me. Peter thought that inconceivable. But I have more faith than that, and you know the story. Three times before the rooster crowed, he denied him publicly. Veatively, almost violently denied. I don't know him. I have nothing to do with him. His face was gone. And at the end, when he heard the rooster, he just collapsed and said, Ouch! Just whooped! I just stepped in the ring and got beat up!

So he just beat him up! He lost the battle. He didn't even know he was in the battle. First punch knocked him down and it just beat him up!

And it's like, wow, I really wasn't prepared. And Jesus knew it because he said, when you return, boy, you're going to lose this one bad, son. You have no idea who you're going up against. But after he beat you to a pulp and you return, I'm going to use you to help others. Because he says, straighten your brother. So he landed and get beat up. And if you read the story of Peter, what happened? He returned and over time, with God's help and God's Spirit, he became a strength to the others. And never forgot how beat up he got. I imagine the other ones didn't stop reminding him at times how beat up he got. Boy, you thought, I remember this. Remember it's Peter. You can imagine ten years later, Hey Peter, you know, all sitting around. Remember the time you told Jesus?

Remember he said, Satan's going to beat you up? Yeah, I remember. Yeah. I had to learn the hard way on that one.

And it's recorded here. He wants to destroy our faith. Because without that, we detach from God. And when you and I detach from God, we can't win this.

We can't? No more than Peter could. But when we draw to God, something happens. So now what I want to do, I'm going to go a little long here, because I do want to cover just a couple of scriptures on how to take these tactics now and understand them. How do we defeat Satan? How do we defeat him? First Scriptures in Hebrews 2. Hebrews 2.

First Word Team. It is much then, as the children, it's us, have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself, Christ, likewise, shared in the same, that through death He might destroy Him who had the power of death, that is the devil. In other words, God let Jesus come in the flesh to defeat Satan as a man. We talked about that when I talked about the second Adam. God could have defeated Satan anytime He wanted to, but He was going to do it through human being. No, just not any human being. The Word was going to give up His position there in Heaven and come down and be like us to defeat Satan and go back. And then say that, yep, we beat you through one of them. And so, He became flesh to defeat Satan. And then the rest of this sentence is really interesting. And release those, that's us, who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage, to release us from this battle in which we are getting beat up all the time.

He's releasing us from this. The point being made here by the writing of Hebrews, remember, God's already won the war. The war has already been won. You and I have our individual battles to fight, but the war is already won.

Satan is defeated. The problem is, you and I still have to fight him. This is because God hasn't sent Christ back yet. So we're still involved in the war-fare. But God's already won! He says, oh no, it's all set up. The plan's set up. He's been beaten and Christ's going to come back. Now then, you just have to fight him. But we have to remember, sometimes in the midst of the battle, we forget, this war has already won. And receive the courage from going to God and saying, it's already won, I don't feel that way. Because I still have to fight. And receiving help from him. I mean, how many times now, in this sermon, if I pick that a sentence, the power of God, the mighty God. Christ here defeated him. This is where the strength comes from. We can never get to the place that we think we do this on our own.

That doesn't mean we don't fight the fight.

But we also realize who gives us the power, who gives us, who shows us through this, who does it in us. It is the power of God. So let's go to James 4 then, as our last passage.

James 4.

Now, he starts out here talking about the strength that was in the Church, which is in the subject I'm talking about. But I have to read this to lead up into why he says certain things. Because he starts this passage with verse 1 of chapter 4. Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure, the war in your members? He said there's a war inside you, and part of you wants to give in to the enemy. And we must never forget that. You and I have a desire at times to give in to the enemy. Because part of us is like the enemy. Sometimes we sort of relate to the enemy.

Emotionally, we relate at times to the enemy more than we relate to God. And that's very sad, but it's where we are. Understand that. We have to sometimes go to God and say, I understand. Right now, I'm attracted to the enemy.

And I ask you to remove that from me. We have to do that. Because this war is the inside of us. It is external, it would be so much easier. But it's inside. And what James is trying to get the Christians here to understand in his day, understand where the war is taking place. You know, if everything we wanted to do, if our will and desires were exactly what God wanted, there wouldn't be a war would there? So why is there a war? There's a war because, well, I really don't want to always do what God wants. And yet I do want to do what God wants. So part of me wants to obey God, and part of me doesn't want to obey God. And now there's a war. Yeah. There it is. That's where it takes place. Ground zero of this war is inside your mind, in my mind.

You lust, you do not have, you murder, and covet, and cannot obtain, you fight and war, yet you do not have because you do not ask. And you ask and do not receive because you ask and miss, but you may spend it on your own pleasures. So, you know, you fight and fight and fight, inside, outside, your whole life's a mess. You fill with anger and bitterness and pride and envy and greed and lust. And you're filled with all this stuff, and then you go to God and say, Well, God, why won't you answer my prayers? And God says, why? Whenever I give you, you're just going to misuse. You're just going to misuse it. And remember, the warfare is inside our minds.

So this is where God, or Satan, or Satan's going to fight you, is inside your mind. Outside things are going to come at you. Outside things are going to come at you. To try to affect your mind. And that means we have to accept and understand His battleground. And here's a battleground you and I fight in that we most, many times do not recognize. Verse 4. Adulters and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is enemy, entity with God? You're the enemy of God. Whoever, therefore, wants to be a friend of this world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, the Spirit who dwells in us yurns jealously?

You and I live in the war zone. And what we try to do is we try to be as much like the enemy in the war zone as possible. We try to blend in. Where we work, at school, social media, wherever we go, we're trying to blend in to the war zone.

The enemy's habitat. So I want to look like the enemy and walk like the enemy and talk like the enemy and dress like the enemy. And so, you know, we can be so offended by a sermon on male pride or modesty or I mean just name anything. Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. But I like that. Yeah! We all like it to a certain degree. Well, what we have to understand is that's the war zone. That's the enemy. We're the enemy's territory. And we're trying to look and act and talk and be like the enemy. And so we can't figure out why we can't win any of these battles. Well, maybe we're on the wrong side. By the way, St. Louis, so you stay with him, you lose. But we have to understand sometimes we're on the wrong side. We're actually... We're actually... what's it called when you go along with the enemy? You collaborate. Sometimes we're just collaborating with the enemy. When it's picking your ground, isn't it? He picks his ground and wants us to collaborate with him. But he gives more grace, therefore he says, verse 6, God resists the proud, and we're back to pride again, and gives grace to the humble. So part of the key to how we deal with this is get out of Satan's world. Get out of his... don't let him pick the terrain. You know, you go out and it's an hour before Sabbath on Friday night, you go to the bar with a bunch of guys, you sit around pretty soon, it's 10 o'clock at night and you're half drunk. Well, no wonder. You're in his terrain. You're lost when you walked into the bar an hour before the Sabbath and said, I'm just going to have a drink before I go home. You already lost before you walked onto his terrain. He's all good. This is easy. I can shoot you. I mean, you're right in my gun sights.

He picks the terrain all the time and it's all around us. It's every place we go. So we have to be real careful. Verse 7 now. So we have to be humble before God. We have to realize and recognize that we are in this occupied territory and we can't collaborate with the enemy. Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. It doesn't just say, resist the devil and he will flee from you. It says, submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. In humility, we have to be before God every day saying, I can't do this. I can't even tell the difference at times between your way and his way. We have to admit that. Sometimes I want his way. Sometimes I want to collaborate with the enemy, but I really don't. I want to be your child. I want to be your son. I want to be your daughter. We have to recognize the war you and I are trapped in every day of our lives.

Now, that doesn't mean life is a bad, terrible thing. In fact, the more you submit to God, the better life gets, by the way. But the issue is, you can't escape the war. The only way you can escape the war is go live with the enemy. But you're going to fight God sooner or later. You're going to fight somebody. You're either going to fight God or you're going to fight Satan. I mean, the war is the war. Everybody is going to pick a side.

So we have to understand the reality of this. He says, Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Now, this tells us what to do. Climb your hands, your sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up. You're telling us to be depressed and lament and mourn. What He's saying here is, go to God in such humility that you're cleansed. The more clean we are before God, the more we see Satan's dirt. Actually, the more obvious his tactics become. He's like, Oh, I see what he's doing. Sometimes Satan's subtle and sometimes he's not. But even when he's subtle, with God, we can see it. I don't know why I see what he's doing. He's affecting my life. We are so vulnerable to Satan's attacks, but we're either spiritually unprepared, so we're being driven by our own emotions and desires and thoughts that he's manipulating, or we're not... our faith and our strength isn't actively involved in this kind of experience all the time. Drawing close to God, we're too sure of ourselves. We get so sure of ourselves, Satan says, Oh, he thinks he can take me.

We just get too sure of ourselves. But when we look at this, what James says here, we stay close to God, Satan has no chance.

Satan may have you and I overmatched, but he has zero effect on God. I had a little dog one time. I couldn't let him off the leash because he'd find the biggest dog in the neighborhood, pick a fight with him, and then run and get behind me, and it was a little chihuahua, and he would like stick his head out like, Aha! I got you now! Sometimes I look at the big dog, No, you're on your own, boy! You just picked 150-pound German shepherd. You're on your own!

You know, we just run and hide with God. Because, you see, this overmatched, Satan can't do anything without the permission of God.

God lets him be the God of the world, so he does all kinds of evil things. But that's by God's permission. God, somebody's going to say it's enough, you can't have this world anymore, and he takes it back. And Satan's power to resist that is zero. His power to resist Christ's return is nothing.

So when you and I are overmatched, just go run to God.

Or do we have to have this kind of cleansing our hands, purifying our hearts? Stop being double-minded. Stop trying to be the enemy and fight the enemy at the same time. This is a lifelong process. There's a lot of wars being waged on the earth right now today. You know, the most important war going on in all the world today is the one inside your mind. It's the one that counts in the end. When Christ comes back, it won't matter who won and lost a war or battle today. It really won't matter. But the battle that took place in your mind will matter. To be there to be changed when Christ returns. Even I arrived involved in a daily battle with an enemy who wants to destroy us. And if it wasn't for these scriptures, I wouldn't recognize that. But you don't go through every day and think, oh, Satan's out to give me. I'm not saying we should think that way. You're real buggy if you think that way all the time. But the point is, the scriptures say you and I are in a daily fight with powers and principalities and spiritual hosts, spiritual armies. It says that. So we have to recognize we are. But God's power is with us. Christ has already defeated Satan. It's already done. The war is lost. We're just waiting for the victory parade and we have to do some fighting between now and then. That means we must follow Christ's lead. We must be aware of our adversary's tactics, which we've talked about today. And we must draw close to God. Because for what we read today, when you follow Christ's lead, you're aware of Satan's tactics, and you draw close to God, you win. Well, God wins.