The Vision (10.13.23): Satan's Tactics

 

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Genesis 3:1-7:

Genesis 3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

Satan, “the great dragon” and “the old serpent” (Revelation 12:9), tempts the first man and woman to disobey God’s command and to eat the forbidden fruit.

We learn here of his devises and tactics, which include twisting God’s words, telling lies (see John 8:44 where Christ called him, “a liar and the father of it”), making false promises, and appealing to man’s pride.

Satan here pitches sin as a kind of “enlightenment,” the opening of one’s eyes. This lie strikes at an ancient weakness in man to desire to throw off the one true God and make himself to be a god. He wants to rule his own life, to make up his own rules.

Satan even pitches sin as some kind of moral achievement. Man can know good and evil. But man in the state of innocence knew only the good and was not tainted even by the knowledge of evil. It was not an improvement for man to know evil, as Satan falsely suggested, but a degradation.

Satan is like a conman, a snake-oil salesman, a flim-flam artist. He uses the old bait and switch method:

He promises enlightenment and gives spiritual blindness.

He promises freedom and gives bondage.

He promises wisdom and gives foolishness.

He promises warmth and gives icy coldness.

He promises community and gives loneliness (I bet the prodigal had loads of friends in the far country till the money ran out!).

He promises satisfaction and gives starvation.

He promises drink and gives a parched throat.

He promises wealth and gives poverty.

He promises life and gives death.

He promises a party and delivers a funeral.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle