Spiritual Warfare Part 2 | Schemes of the devil

[Vs 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.] We have spoken about the enemy and the battle, but we are yet to look at the pieces of armour and the weapons at our disposal. Putting on the armour of God is not a complicated and mystical process. Even if we had not read Eph 6, we would still be able to use the armour, If we are not wearing the armour, is it because of ignorance, apathy, or neglect.

[Vs 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.] Vs 12 tells us who the devil is.

WHO OUR ENEMY IS NOT: The enemy is not flesh and blood, not human. So the enemy is not the government, neighbours, employer, employees, spouse, children, or parents.

WHO OUR ENEMY IS: The devil and his army of fallen angels. The enemy may work through flesh and blood, the world around us, and through our own sinful flesh. The devil and his demons have no influence to possess us, but their schemes can affect us seriously. These are four main schemes of the devil we will look at.

SCHEME OF TEMPTATION

We see the title ‘tempter’ used of the devil when he came to tempt Jesus. This temptation was far more strategic than his temptation of Adam, for Adam was only a man. But if he had succeeded against the Son of God, the results would have been catastrophic. He was successful against Adam the first representative, who was in paradise with a full stomach of food when he was tempted. But he could not prevail over the second Adam who was fasting in the wilderness. Jesus was victorious over Satan, using the sword of the Spirit, to rebuke the devil. Do we know enough about the word of God, to be able to prevail. The devil has no answer when scripture is rightly understood and applied. Paradoxically, we are not supposed to follow Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted. We are to flee temptation. Jesus was different from us in that He did not have our sinful nature, He had an unparalleled relationship with God, He had a perfect understanding of scripture, and He had a special anointing of the HS that we do not have. We have been asked to flee from sexual immorality (1 Cor 6:18), youthful passions (2 Tim 2:22), idolatry (1 Cor 10:14), the love of money (1 Tim 6:11), etc., and we are not to give the devil any foothold—not to go to bed angry (Eph 4:26 lest you give the devil a foothold), husbands and wives not to spend extended time apart (1 Cor 7:5 lest Satan tempts due to lack of self control), and so on. While we are to stand against the devil that he may flee, we are not to stand against temptation. Temptation does not flee. Like Peter who had said, “even if I must die with you I will not deny you,” found out, we are not strong against temptation—God will give us a way out when temptation comes, and we must use that way out to flee from it.

SCHEME OF DEPRESSION

This is a temptation to abandon our joy and happiness in Jesus. The title given to the devil that is related to this is ‘thief’. “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). The devil robs us of life and life in abundance. He robs us of the joy in our salvation. Much of the book of Job contains Job expressing his depression. We see how Satan is the cause of Job’s depression. He curses the day he was born. Because it is the devil who is involved, depression is a spiritual battle and we must not ignore the spiritual angle. When a depressed person is asked to stand firm, they feel helpless, knowing that they do not have the mental resolve, and it is a struggle just to get out of bed. The one thing that believers can do when they are depressed and feeling unable to do anything is that they must wait on the Lord, who will renew their strength. They can hunker down behind their shield of faith, knowing that they are safe in Jesus, that every single moment of their depression will work out for their good and His glory. “But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.” (Micah 7:7). Depression is a spiritual battle.

SCHEME OF DECEPTION

We must not allow the devil’s deception to be added to depression. Let’s not allow his lies to be added to his theft. We must remember that he cannot snatch us from the Lord’s hands. “When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies” John 8:44. The devil had deceived the Pharisees into believing that they were righteous and true sons of Abraham, and children of God. The devil wants to turn people away from Christ, to blind people and prevent them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, as we read in 2 Cor 4:4. He regularly snatches the seed of the gospel. He also uses false prophets to deceive, as we see in 2 Cor 11: , where Paul warns about the “super apostles” The devil also seeks to deceive the believers using false prophets who disguise themselves just like Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. If he cannot get believers to reject Christ, he will get them to ignore Christ, or at least to distort Christ in their thinking. Although Christ is clearly shown in scripture, the devil has created many versions of Christ—A Hindu Christ, a Muslim Christ, a social-justice Christ, etc. So we fight the battle with the armour of God, and point people to the true Christ of scripture.

SCHEME OF DIVISION

Division is not so much the scheme of the devil as it is the ultimate goal of all the schemes. God wants to unite all things in Christ Jesus (Eph 1:10), and first, He unites Jew and Gentile, creating in Himself one new man (Eph 2:15). He does this to put the church on display, mocking the devil, for the glory of God. The devil wants to destroy this unity. In Rom 16:17 Paul warns the church to be wary of those who might come in to cause division. Rom 16:20 says, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.”

How do we maintain unity? By putting on the full armour of God. We must put on the belt of truth. Truth unites us. It is the devil’s scheme to spread the falsehood that doctrine causes division. On the other hand, those that hold true to a confession are the most united, because by knowing the truth and teaching the truth, people are bound together. We understand that the gospel levels things out and unites us, it was the gospel that brought Jew and gentile together. And we in South City come from diverse cultures and opinions, and yet we love one another. We put on the helmet of salvation, the salvation that saved us all. The closest relationship possible among people is the relationship between brothers and sisters in Christ. The closest marriage will end, but the relationship between brethren is eternal.

Vs 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. We need to be firm in the day of evil, when we are being divided on the basis of race, religion . . . and vaccination. The devil has many schemes but we have many weapons, about which we will continue to study in the coming weeks.