Do NOT Be Outwitted By Satan Part 2

[0:00] Please sit down, turn your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 6. A couple things that I just want to add before I get into the sermon. You received a letter from Stephanie in regards to some of the events.

[0:14] If you noticed, for the, just who's coming, look who's coming for dinner, if you actually click on it, it will actually bring you to a registration form. So we're getting kind of advanced here, right?

[0:27] It's in Squamish, right? We just got the internet a couple of years ago, and now we're figuring out how to use it. But yeah, so if you want to register, you can do that.

[0:37] Number two, I want to call your attention to December 1st is our AGM. It is at 6.30. It's a time where we come together as members of the church to talk a little bit about our direction, what's going on financially, answer any questions.

[0:50] But I'm really hoping to use it as a time of prayer, that we can identify some needs in the body and spend some specific time praying for these things.

[1:02] So please turn with me into Ephesians chapter 6. We're going to be looking at verse 11, and we're going to be looking at one word. If you are new, just visiting today, we've been actually studying Ephesians 6, 10 to 20, the armor of God.

[1:20] The sermon series is titled United We Stand, and we're going to be learning how it is important to see spiritual warfare as a church body, that spiritual warfare is not just for individuals, but it is how we as a group of people.

[1:37] But in order to go to war, we need to understand certain things. Last couple of weeks, we've been studying who the enemy is. What do we know about him? What does God tell us through his word?

[1:49] So today, the sermon is actually part two of what I began last week of, Do Not Be Outwitted by Satan. This title is taken from 2 Corinthians 2, verse 11.

[2:05] So that we would not be outwitted by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his design. So if you take a look at Ephesians 6, in verse 11, you see that we are commanded to put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

[2:29] The schemes, his designs, his wilds, his plans, his methods. And what Paul is teaching us is, we are able to know what those are.

[2:39] All right? These just aren't mystery things that happen. But God in his word, through teaching us our history in the Old Testament, we can come to some very conclusive understanding about Satan's plans and schemes.

[2:59] Now the question I have is, why does Satan have schemes, right? Remember, last week, if you were here, we declared that what Satan's goal, he is a defeated foe, but his goal is to injure God's glory.

[3:16] It is to injure God's glory. And part of that is separating us from him. Why?

[3:26] Why does he do this? Simply because we bear his image. Right from the very beginning in the garden, when he created us, he declared us good.

[3:39] He declared us that we were in his image. Satan wants to destroy that image. He wants to hinder our worship, hinder our obedience, and he wants to hinder us from God's glory.

[3:54] So now that we know what God's glory is, does Satan have the ability to do this? And we talked a little bit about, well, not a lot, a little, a lot about this last week, right?

[4:04] We understood that he is a spiritual being. He is strong. He's experienced. He's intelligent. He does not tire. He has this whole horde of demons who are fallen angels kicked out of heaven working for him.

[4:21] These are a third of the angels bought into his sin of pride in heaven upon creation that they wanted to usurp God.

[4:34] And he has two other allies working for him. The world and, sadly, our flesh. But it's not enough just to have a goal to accomplish something, right?

[4:49] I can make a plan. That doesn't mean I have the ability to carry out that plan. I have to have abilities, strengths. Last week we took a look at World War II. It was a little bit of a long introduction, but I wanted to honor those men who fought for our freedom with telling us a little bit about them.

[5:06] But they had just as many men as the Germans did. They had thousands of tanks. They had thousands of ships. But they needed a plan.

[5:16] They needed a strategy if they were going to land on Europe, right? So they needed a plan to accomplish their goal. And it's the exact same with Satan.

[5:31] Satan doesn't show up at our door. Hey, man, I'm bringing some sin today. Right? Sounds like a couple of frat boy party pals, right? Hey, we're going to go do some lewd and bad things.

[5:44] Satan doesn't work that way, right? We're Christians. We love God. We want to honor God. We want to seek his goodness. We do not want the pain of suffering in our lives, right?

[5:56] We just shut the door. If Satan showed himself at the door, yeah, slam, goodbye, see you later. Satan and temptation would be the easiest thing to deal with in the world.

[6:10] But he knows that doesn't work. It doesn't work when he announces his coming. He doesn't send us a letter. Hey, I'm coming over.

[6:22] Giving you a call, a text. Sin's coming. The reality is we don't want to sin. We don't want to deal with the pain that comes with sin.

[6:37] We desire to have a perfect fellowship with God, do we not? We want to experience one day pure worship with the creator of this universe.

[6:48] We want to love God. We want to obey God. We want to live for his glory. Satan knows this. And when he comes for us, he does not want us to know.

[7:00] He doesn't want to let us know that he's actually coming against us. That's why he uses schemes, plots, plans, methods. He hides. Ambushes us. And he uses all these things along with all his power and all his knowledge to get us to injure God's glory and ultimately break fellowship with him.

[7:25] So this morning, I want us to take a look at four major types of assaults that Satan uses against the believer. Four major assaults that he gets us to buy into temptation.

[7:42] Every situation is either a trial or a temptation. Scripture is quite clear that God does not tempt us to evil. But he allows Satan to come against us.

[7:54] And in God's view, it's a way to strengthen us. It's a trial. It demonstrates our faithfulness. Sometimes when we fail at that and we allow for sin, it demonstrates our depravity.

[8:06] And that we may need a second look at where we are. Maybe my marriage, my faith, my life is not as strong and obedient to the Lord as it needs to. So today, when I talk about one word, it is about one word that I want to preach about.

[8:23] And that is the word schemes. So as I'm putting together this sermon, I'm actually relying on wisdom that has been passed forth through pastors, historians, biblical writers who outline his methods, his means.

[8:44] This was done through pastoral experience, life experience, examination of pastors' hearts and those around them. A lot who wrote about this are the Puritans.

[8:56] The Puritans began in Europe in the 1600s. They believed the Church of England was going back to Rome. And these men wanted to be more biblical, more reformed in their understanding.

[9:08] And they wanted to hold to certain biblical truths that were being lost. They wanted the freedom to worship God as God had revealed himself.

[9:19] One Puritan, his name is Thomas Brooks, stated that along with knowing Jesus Christ, the word of God in our own hearts, the other most important thing we need to understand is Satan's devices.

[9:34] We need to understand Satan's schemes. The Puritan, William Gurnell, he's got a huge book in my office that he wrote in the 1600s, stated that we should always be consulting God to find out about the plot Satan has against us.

[9:52] That we are to seek out, to find out what those plans are. We are familiar with pilgrim's progress, right? John Bunyan was a pilgrim writer.

[10:03] He would not bow to the church, spent many, many years in prison. But his whole book, Pilgrim's Progress, is about the dangers that come along in the Christian journey.

[10:18] And that we are supposed to be wary of them. His desire was that we not get drowsy. We not fall asleep. His goal was that we would have greater watchfulness.

[10:33] Greater watchfulness. Because Satan will work hard to keep those schemes and tactics away from us. Satan will in fact try to get us to think it is just idle speculation.

[10:47] Or get us to think it is just too hard of work to do. To begin. All temptation begins with one big lie.

[11:00] And that is Satan doesn't exist. That is the first lie Satan wants to tell us. We know otherwise. So, the first assault.

[11:13] I am going to outline these four assaults. Within each assault, I am going to give you the tactics he uses to accomplish those assaults. Okay?

[11:23] So, those are the four assaults I shared with you last week a little bit. But we are going to blow them up today. So, the first assault that Satan uses against us is to draw our souls to sin.

[11:35] He wants to draw our souls to sin. His goal in this is to deface the sinner and dishonor God. That is why he wants us to sin.

[11:48] To deface the sinner and dishonor God. Satan does not want our lives marked by holiness. He does not want it. In fact, the Puritans wrote that holiness is of great benefit to the believer.

[12:03] I am going to read you just five points right here quite simply. One, why is holiness important? It gives us evidence of our salvation. It gives us evidence of our salvation.

[12:14] When we desire to be separate and obey God and the things that he's done for us, it gives us evidence that we are a child of God. Two, it provides a source of assurance and peace for the soul.

[12:28] The third, you see here, is it facilitates communion and fellowship with God. When we are in sin, that fellowship and communion is broken.

[12:40] The fourth, it exerts powerful influence in others, in the church and outside of the church. Even in this world, if you remove the Christian influence.

[12:52] And what's interesting about pacifists, one of the arguments is that they should not be police force or should not be in the army. One theologian shudders. I would hate to be in that area where God probably needs to be the most.

[13:07] Right? Doing protection, justice, providing defense for those who are weak. We want people who are Christians. And through a group of people being holy, it keeps entire nations safe and prosperous.

[13:26] So here we go into the tactics, the schemes. Satan's first skill or scheme to draw us to sin is to emphasize the pleasure of the suggested sin.

[13:39] Or the benefits it will reap in our life. Anybody know that song, right? It's all true, right? If we thought sin was bad, we're not going to want it.

[13:51] We're not going to be tempted. In fact, he's got to make it look good. Like a skilled salesman, Satan, will highlight every possible benefit of engaging the sin.

[14:02] And will even make promises that it will deliver. Why does he do this? Because rational people do not desire evil. Rational people do not want evil.

[14:16] But we need to be convinced by some tactic that there's some good in this. Thus, the Puritans concluded in every sin, there is self-deception involved.

[14:31] How does he do this? Well, there's many things. One, he will place an obstacle in our path to accomplish something. And he says what Satan does is we rely on our own natural curiosity about that obstacle.

[14:47] How can I get around that challenge, right? He knows that simply placing sin in our path isn't always going to work. He's got to misdirect us. He wants to trick us into thinking it's something we need.

[15:01] He needs it to make it look something familiar. If it's too easy, it will look like a trap. Everyone knows if you've ever seen a horror movie, you know the person who says, I've got it and is going to go along that lonely road.

[15:17] I've got it all figured out usually dies, right? You know, that's where the bad guy is waiting for him. It's the same thing with sin and temptation. We will be fine all on our own.

[15:29] Like a fisherman who jiggles his rod with the bait. Sometimes the fish has got to know, right? There used to be like 20 of us here yesterday. And this one little fish just fly, kind of jumps around.

[15:43] And now it's only me, Louie, and Fred, right? It's really good water. They all talked about that bait. You know what? I'm going to go for it too, right?

[15:54] He uses stuff. He makes it look live. He makes it look fun. Sometimes he puts an obstacle in our way and we run away.

[16:06] And what he does, he's already set a trap, a snare. The reason why he does this is he makes us feel good about avoiding the first temptation. We end up just simply exchanging one temptation for another.

[16:21] We read magazines or comes in the news all the time, right? Furniture stores, right? Get this couch $2.99, man. It's going to be the bestest couch you've ever had.

[16:33] You go in. Well, that couch isn't going to look good. I know it's $2.99, but you're going to need that matching chair. Oh, by the way, this matching chair is $8.99, but do you really want your house to look empty without the chair?

[16:45] All right. You know, I'll make that $8.99 purchase. Oh, look at that table, right? That's imported wood, right? It's mahogany or, I don't know, teak, which I love, right?

[16:55] Gets us to buy in more. So the next thing you go in thinking, I'm going to buy that couch. I'm going to save so much money. And next thing you know, you've got to put out a second mortgage on your house to pay for it all.

[17:08] Bait and switch. That's what he does. He lies. As it tells you, it'll make you happier. It'll make your home more comfortable. It'll make you fulfilled.

[17:21] Some of us, my buddy, actually counts money by how much money he saves rather than how much money he's actually putting out. That's how he thinks, right?

[17:31] And I remember we had to confront him many times. Yes, it's a great deal. It's $500. I know it's worth $5,000, but you don't have $500. That's how he does it.

[17:42] He wants to draw us. He gets us thinking about the good or the benefit of the sin. Yes, that would be a really good thing for your house, but you can't afford it.

[17:54] The second tactic that Satan uses to draw us to sin is to de-emphasize the dangers, right? The first one is makes it look good. The second one, hey, really, it's not that dangerous, right?

[18:07] And he does this in the way the Puritans called this sin with virtue's color, which means he renames the sin. Greed is disguised as good stewardship.

[18:22] Your hoarding abilities are really a spiritual gift. Look at how much you're securing, ultimately used for God's kingdom.

[18:33] Yes, there's a lot of money in your bank account and your kids haven't had any clothes since, I don't know, the cretienne years, but that's okay.

[18:47] Pride is seen as a noble virtue, right? It's good to think positively about yourself. It's good to have a good self-esteem, is it not?

[18:59] So he renames these sins. The other one he renames is drunkenness is good fellowship. Right? I'm more relaxed. I'm more fun.

[19:13] The second way he gets us to de-emphasize the sin is it's really harmless. Right? It won't cause any damage. Go ahead.

[19:25] Do that sin. Another way that he uses to buy into this is, oh, don't be so legalistic. Right?

[19:36] That's legalism where you're come from. Don't do that. You're free. You have these things called Christian liberties. Use them. Be liberal with them. Hey, God created sex, right?

[19:50] It's good. Yeah, I know. It's supposed to be used in marriage, but we're old. For younger people, the line is that gets addressed at every campus, college is, hey, speaker or pastor, how far is too far?

[20:12] Right? That always gets asked. The best response I ever heard was, the action you're doing with this maybe girlfriend who might one day become your wife is, are you bringing her closer to God's holiness or further with your action?

[20:29] Right? At that point, I would just quit dating the girl. Right? I just don't want to be in a bad example, but we have to ask those questions in our relationship. And the biggest one is, everybody's doing it.

[20:43] It's fine. Third tactic Satan tries to use to draw our souls to sin is, you know what it is? Bad. It's sin. But it's really not evil.

[20:56] Right? There will be so little impact on your life and the life of others. A little pride, a little worldliness, a little drunkenness. That's not going to cause your soul to hell.

[21:10] And it's usually followed with a comparison to others. My sin is so small. Do you know the Winstanleys? Oh, man. They're such a mess. Right? Of course not.

[21:21] But Satan wants you to redirect to someone who, yeah, sins more. Hey, I'm not Hitler. You know? We always have that rationalized kind of going, we're going to look to someone near us.

[21:37] And why does Satan do this? Satan wants to draw you in by degrees. He knows if he puts that, hey, you're going to have an affair and sleep with another woman that's not your wife in front of you.

[21:49] You're not buying into that. You are not buying into that. But, hey, do you want to have coffee with that coworker? She's kind of having a hard time. Hey, I'm a Christian guy.

[22:01] I might have some wisdom for her. Yeah, I'm just going to go spend time. You know, I don't even find her physically attractive. Right? You're just going to go. You're going to do it. You're going to create these talks. Oh, I'm stronger.

[22:11] Oh, wait. Coffee's now lunch. All right. I'll go have lunch with her. Oh, sure. You can call me any time of day. I'll help you out. Right? Right? That's how it all starts. If you knew at that beginning that's going to lead to a full-fledged affair, you're not buying it.

[22:27] So Satan draws us in by these small degrees. And as he go, he sears our conscience. We don't feel guilty. Right?

[22:38] I walk. I was living with a buddy. And I say living. Close. Friends. He was having an affair. And I could see. And I remember my antenna just goes up.

[22:50] How he's texting. He's deleting texts. And I'm just with him. Oh, I just need to delete all this. And I knew he's a businessman. And you don't want to delete texts because sometimes you need that for your business stuff. But there were things that obviously he was ashamed of.

[23:02] He didn't want to let know. He was a very strong Christian man. Praise God. His marriage survived. He repented.

[23:13] And he's being built back up again. But that, his wife will say, those were the darkest days of her life. Right? Other sins that are other lies that Satan will tell you is, you know what?

[23:25] Sin's a secret. Don't worry about it. You're in a different town. Country. Country. I've got friends that are businessmen. They know this temptation only too well.

[23:37] That when they travel, they bring a friend. All times. There's always a co-worker that has to come. Because they know the temptation of being away.

[23:49] Thinking it will cause no damage. I have many. I can show you a list of people whose marriages are a complete wreck because of this.

[23:59] The other two lies is, I can stop whenever I want. And the second and the last one is, isn't God's love so great he'll forgive me?

[24:10] Right? His mercy is so big. So loving that he will forgive me. So I can go in and do this sin. See, Satan wants you to believe this lie.

[24:26] And that lie is, sin is quickly and effortlessly repaired. It's not. Slowly but slowly, you are disintegrating your relationship with God, your relationship with your friends, your spouse.

[24:41] And the other reality is, all sins put Jesus on the cross. Death and gossip. Lying and stealing. Slandering.

[24:55] Every sin put God on that cross. That's the third tactic. The fourth tactic to draw us to sin is, sin is sin, but it's unavoidable.

[25:07] It's unavoidable. We've got to do it, right? It's the lesser of two evils. We've got to make a choice. He'll tell us, man, sin is so strong. It is so strong. You know what? You're so weak.

[25:18] God will understand. You're a man. You have urges. You're a woman. You need to talk to someone about something. Right? Don't I get credit for resisting a little while?

[25:33] I fought the sin for five months. It's not going to count even though I willingly go down that road with sin in the six months. There was a guy who was a part of our church that was involved in political politics.

[25:48] He was a U.S. Congressman when I was a pastor in the state. He was such a big target by Obama. Even though he was a Republican, Obama would fly him around on Air Force One doing anything.

[26:00] He was just in his 20s. Right? This guy, Christian home, Christian family, homeschool, like nine kids, all these things. That you would think would protect him from the world.

[26:13] And Obama was leaning on him because he knew if he could get a Republican to buy into this position. It ended up never happening. But what he did buy into was the lie of political favors.

[26:25] Money under the table. Next thing you know, his condo is upgraded quite a bit. And he got kicked out for legal scheming with money. Right?

[26:37] Little by little by little. He would argue, man, I just, if I did this, I would win these people's influence. And if I had their influence, just look at all the good I could do politically.

[26:50] Right? I think every politician has got to weigh this. It's hard. It's tough. You're a boss. You own a company. I know if I kind of cut things here, I'll save money in the end.

[27:03] Therefore, keeping my people working. One of my first jobs out of high school was working for a rental car company. And it was a Christian boss.

[27:15] And I was so offended when I found out that there was actually collusion between Avis, Hertz, Budge, and all the major companies. And he agreed to that. And that broke my heart that he was a part of a legal scheme to keep the money up to get more money from people to do their bottom line.

[27:36] When some of them really had horrible service and horrible cards and all that kind of stuff. But, you know, he would argue it keeps the business going and keeps food on the table for all my employees. Something really simple.

[27:47] And whenever you hear the argument, the ends justify the means. This is Satan trying to tell you it is unavoidable. It's the excuse we hear.

[28:01] I remember hearing quite often when I was young. People are so much more open when they have a few beer with them. Right? Let's hit the bar. Maybe I'll have an opportunity to share Christ. If I had all this money, look at all the good I could do.

[28:18] See, in all those tactics, Satan's famous tactic is the one-two punch. He's going to extol the virtues of the sin.

[28:30] And he's going to minimize the danger. My wife and I went through this. More me. Always wanted a Jeep. We were shopping a couple years ago.

[28:41] And we had set a budget at what we could afford the Jeep to be. What our monthly payments could be. And I'm driving one day. We're actually at a wedding. And there's a couple of hours. And I stop in at this one Jeep dealership.

[28:52] Blah, blah, blah. There's one a lot. I want to know how much it is. It's actually, oh, you know, it puts me in. Oh, but don't worry. We have a new one. We have a new one. Same amount that you want to pay. We can put you in a new one.

[29:03] Right? Okay. So he takes me on the ride. I'm going for this ride with them. He says, look at that. Only $75 more a month. Only $75 more. Yeah. Over like nine years.

[29:15] And it turned out that the total was $70,000. And I just said, are you out of your mind? All right. We had to set a budget much lower than $70,000.

[29:28] Well, it's the same thing every month. Yeah. For like six or 10 more years. It's crazy. But that's what Satan does. Right? That's why you see in news are your newspapers.

[29:41] I know most of us don't get them, but we still get those free drop-offs. Hey, it's only $100 a week. Remember, car used to be monthly payments. Now they tell you biweekly.

[29:52] Just to lower that damage. So those are four tactics that Satan uses to draw us to sin. The second assault that I want to talk to you about today is he wants to divert our souls from our duties.

[30:08] He wants to divert our souls from our duties. And what do I mean by duties? Spiritual disciplines. Times of prayer. Times of devotion. Times with our family.

[30:18] Participation in church. Using our gifts in the church. And ultimately obedience to God's command. So Satan's goal can be answered in this question.

[30:30] Why does Satan attack this? What would be the main reason? If Satan keeps us away from church and doing and being involved in church, it's like an enemy cutting off an army supply line.

[30:46] You no longer get the resources that you need. You can start the fight at first, but you run out of ammunition. You run out of gas. And you're not able to carry forward in the battle.

[30:59] And what's interesting about this assault, it actually has two targets. It's like me and you. That when we fall for these schemes, we're not being blessed by me not serving, not me pursuing God.

[31:18] You are not benefiting from my gifts, just like I don't or am unable to benefit from your gifts. There's like a double-edged sword to it. The first tactic that he uses to accomplish is just to prevent it.

[31:33] Sometimes it's through physical illness. Sometimes we hurt ourselves and we're not able to make it to church. We're sick. The second one is business, worldly affairs, whether it be work or sports or entertainment.

[31:53] Satan just distracts us from what should be the main thing. And what the Puritan said is, he says, this is actually a spectacular attack that Satan has. Why?

[32:03] Because you never associate Satan with it. Right? You associate the circumstances of life to be coincidental. When sometimes it is he, the one, who is behind it.

[32:21] The second tactic that he uses to performing, to divert our souls from serving him, is he will emphasize the toilsome and tediousness of the duties.

[32:34] I remember some young man was preaching on God's word. And he says, man, just reading your Bible, isn't that legalistic? Isn't that hard? Wow.

[32:46] Yeah, sometimes it is hard to take out 20 minutes of our day. We're busy. But it's something that we need to do, something that we need to invest in. Do we find eating to be legalistic?

[32:58] Right? Do we find drinking to be legalistic? It's something that we have to do in order to live. You know, I love to serve, but it's way too early.

[33:12] It's so much responsibility. The third tactic that he uses to do this is, he questions whether the service is really rendered unto God.

[33:22] Is that real worship? Sitting around a group of people who I don't know. Man, I'll tell you where I feel closer to God. I love being up in the mountain, right? I can hear the birds chirp.

[33:33] Maybe a cougar stalking somebody. Right? That's authentic. That's right in nature, right? That's creation. It's funny.

[33:46] I knew this church where one of the elders was never there. I had to ask them, how come this elder's never here? He had a fishing boat and he fishes. Oh, that's his time with God. Well, no, he's actually supposed to be at the church caring for God's people.

[33:56] Excuses that we use, right? We point to others. We see how happy they are.

[34:10] We've served God and we've served in the church, but it really hasn't helped me feel close to God. The Puritans noted that this argument only uses for those who've actually never really done it or tasted the sweet taste of grace.

[34:27] Another lie that we believe is, I just never see much fruit in what I do. You know, no one's saved. No one seems encouraged. Nobody seems to like me.

[34:40] And then the other one that I've heard many, many times, it's just not that time of our life, right? I'm too busy with school. I'm too busy with work.

[34:50] Oh, yeah, guess what? I'm too busy with married now. Oh, I'm too busy with babies. Too busy with young kids. Too busy with my older kids.

[35:03] And now I'm too busy with my grandkids, right? There's always excuses that are out there and Satan wants us to buy into each and every one of them.

[35:14] The fourth tactic that he uses is he will get us to focus on us, the individual, rather than the service that we are doing.

[35:25] What that means is he makes it all about us. Right? It's the lie that we are unworthy to do the duty. I'm unworthy. I'm sinful. I give in temptation.

[35:36] I don't deserve. My heart is unprepared. Be K, if I did that, I'd be so insincere. I can't do that. But then Satan uses the opposite attack, right?

[35:50] Well, if salvation is by grace alone, so therefore I have no need to pursue holiness or minister to others. God's already done it all. Amen? Praise God! If I did, that'd be work.

[36:04] I'd be working for God's blessing and salvation. We know God doesn't believe in salvation by works. The fifth tactic that he uses to divert our souls is he actually seeks to corrupt the duties.

[36:21] And it's interesting. I found their thoughts on this. Convicting. One, you start with encouraging the duty that you do the lesser duty, rather the most important duty.

[36:36] I'm going to be a really good pastor. I'm going to nail you guys. You know what? I know you're only paying me for 40 hours. I'm going to give you 80 hours. The greater duty is my family. But this is the lesser duty I'm choosing.

[36:50] Because when I'm here, I don't have to listen to my two nagging kids. Right? My wife's cooking really hasn't been that good lately. I can order in Wendy's all the time. Right?

[37:02] Guys tell themselves that all the time. I've had to sit down with pastors who I have their kids in my congregation in former churches. You need to step out of ministry because I know for a fact your kids feel unloved.

[37:15] And your grandchildren feel unloved. And yes, you honestly believe you're doing God's duty. So we start to prioritize. We know this first one is your home, right?

[37:26] God, home, that relationship. And then whatever else God has given you. Sometimes he tries to do or give something to someone that is beyond their reach or beyond their ability.

[37:39] So they really, and I knew this one guy, he wanted to be a preacher so bad. He started taking all these speaking courses and all these things. And he's a horrible speaker. Nobody really wants to listen to the guy.

[37:51] But he goes because he sees and he will tell you that, man, BK's got a real gift that I really want to have. But that's not his gift. His gift was actually the gift of service and how to work as a deacon and help people.

[38:06] He's far greater than I could ever be. And he has abilities far beyond me in that area. But he wastes years of his life going to preaching conferences and try to do that. And it just will never happen for the guy.

[38:20] And sometimes it's the wrong time, right? You're preparing for tomorrow when today's duties aren't getting done. We have to look, what does God have for us right here before me?

[38:32] That's my first responsibility. Yes, I'd rather be doing that. But sometimes I might have to wait. I might have to wait for that calling to do that. See, what makes this tactic so effective?

[38:48] Satan is never seen as being a part of this because people are pursuing duty, right? It's the Martha Mary. Remember those two before Jesus? Martha always doing the work, preparing for Jesus and the apostles.

[39:01] But he confronted, hey, Jesus says, I'm only here for a couple of years. This is where you need to be, Martha. Not doing things for everyone. And we know those people.

[39:11] And God bless you. Sometimes you go over to someone's house, they cook you a great meal, dinner, and then they clean up. And they still actually haven't sat down at the dining room table to talk, right?

[39:23] Because they do want to be a good hostess in that way and prepare that loving, hospitable environment. But the goal is to get to know one another. I always say, order in the pizza and just throw it in the recycling box after, right?

[39:35] Make it simple. Six tactics is he destroys the foundation of the duty, right? Do it in your own strength. Do it for the praise of others.

[39:45] Do it out of habit. And the reason we do these things, we try to manipulate God into doing something we want. If I serve him and I do all these devotions, God will answer whatever prayer I have. Or to do the duty and have no desire to leave your sin.

[40:03] The seventh tactic is he distracts us by putting wrong, sinful, blasphemous thoughts into our minds as we try to pray.

[40:15] He tries to distract us. I knew I had to do an assignment where we had to pray for an hour at first. And I remember finding that very hard until I had to walk just to keep my mind focused.

[40:28] I wouldn't know where I ended up with the walk, but I knew there was no other distractions coming in because when I'm left in my room sometimes, oh, wait, I got to make sure that bill is paid. I got to do, you know, all those things.

[40:40] Sometimes you got to do something different. And the other way that he uses to, he called spoils the duty. After the fact, if I did something wrong, I start to dwell on the criticism of what I did wrong.

[40:54] And therefore, you know what? I'm never going to serve again. Or he can force people to take pride in their performance with the goal that I will start to think I am called, I am blessed, I am more important than others doing it.

[41:09] In fact, I'm so good, I don't even need to prepare anymore. Right? Those are the things that Satan teases people with. So let's move on to the third assault.

[41:21] The third assault that Satan uses against is to dilute pure doctrine. Dilute pure doctrine. The Puritans saw this temptation as the true domain of Satan.

[41:37] Satan is the father of lies. And this is his principal work against the church. In fact, they said that it is demonic activity to create and maintain heresy in the church.

[41:51] That is the primary goal of Satan. And this is what was really interesting about why. And they said, we don't always understand that any error doctrinally is sin.

[42:10] And that we will accept people much more easily who think wrong theology, but act good.

[42:22] Do you understand what I'm saying there? We're more forgiving. It's because we don't see teaching that Jesus is not the son of God is actually evil.

[42:37] That is lie from hell. But we tolerate certain lies. We want to be more loving, more accepting, more tolerant.

[42:50] And he says what happens is, the secondary reasons why Satan does this, is error is contagious sin.

[43:01] It spreads from one person to another. And it affects everything. Usually, when you see church splits, there is usually an error has been accepted somewhere in the church that has led to wrong practice, which causes division, hatred, and wars.

[43:30] That is why when you meet with Carl doing membership class, we go over what we believe. That's why when a Jehovah witness shows up and tells you that Jesus is not the son of God, you don't entertain that talk anymore.

[43:50] You're wrong. It's interesting, just on the Mormons, when we were reading out of Genesis, when Satan has said, you know, you can be like other gods.

[44:02] Mormons take that to understand that we can be like gods. They totally misrepresent that verse. And that has led hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, to hell.

[44:18] Mormons believe that we can become like gods. We can become spiritual children, that we will have our own planet to populate. That's what Mormons teach. And you can do that through a lot of legalism and a lot of good living.

[44:31] They're lies. But they happen in Christian churches too, all with the spirit of we want to be tolerant and loving.

[44:42] I'm not saying we're unloving, but we have to deal with unbiblical thoughts. In fact, they said this is Satan's preferred tool for derailing reformation, since it divides the reformers and gives enemies the ammunition they require to use against them.

[45:03] Error, corrupt doctrines, move to corrupt practices, and impede spiritual growth. How does he do this? And I'm going to read these very quickly. One, and by the way, I'm going to put this PowerPoint up online so you can grab some of the points.

[45:16] One, he attempts to give lies a basis in Scripture. He's going to take one verse completely out of context. Even though we know six other verses say the opposite, they're going to mind down on that verse.

[45:31] Verse in Colossians about Jesus Christ being the firstborn of all creation, Jehovah Witnesses bound down. What they do not understand is that firstborn, it doesn't mean that. It means that Jesus Christ is the pinnacle.

[45:43] He was always there, but he is the most precious element in God's universe. Jehovah's Witnesses, well, no, he's firstborn, man.

[45:54] He was born. He's not eternal. And it erodes certain thoughts. The liberal use of language of Scripture to legitimize error.

[46:07] You know, we hear that, wow, man, Jesus was a really worthy prophet. No, he wasn't. He was the Son of God. Disguise error in a cloak of mystery.

[46:18] I'm sorry, I could teach you that, but you're really not going to understand that. You need to just trust what I tell you. Right? That's what false prophets do all the time. You're gaining authority through my eloquence of speech, my education.

[46:34] Here's one that was very interesting. If you read that, this is written in the 16th century. Okay? If you understand the charismatic movement today, it actually started in the early 1900s.

[46:49] Okay? And so people think that he's targeting them. He's not targeting them, but he's targeting aspects of what we see in the charismatic movements. They wrote down that when people have audacious or ecstatic visions, dreams, miraculous signs, prophetic utterances, and inward impulses, or what they called spontaneous injection of scripture verses into one's mind, which simply says, God said to me, he speaks to me, that gives me an inward authority.

[47:20] That is a lie from Satan. There is no experience outside of God's word that gives someone more authority over the Bible. Even if my head starts glowing and I can do wild and crazy miracles, if it's not written in scripture, it's a lie.

[47:38] He gets false teachers to live really good moral lives. I have a friend who was a Mormon, and the reason why he pursued it is he was attracted to the strictness of life.

[47:49] He later on got out of it because that strictness of life broke his back. Make bold assertions of truth and attacks anyone who says anything contrary.

[48:02] They make truth look unattractive. Oh, it's so unloving, that doctrine. That just really divides. That's horrible. And as I said, they argue for error from the learning or eloquence or the lifestyle of the person rather than weighing the words.

[48:19] That's why we are called to be Bereans. The Bereans were the people in Acts that did not trust the words that people were preaching them.

[48:31] They wanted to look at their Bibles to make sure, even though they said they were speaking for God, they wanted to make sure God said it. That is what we are called to be. And the fourth assault that Satan uses against us is to disguise the true soul's state.

[48:49] Basically, he wants unbelievers to think they're saved and he wants believers to think they are lost. The reality is we can always count on is Satan will always contradict God.

[49:03] They had four arguments that hypocrites use to convince themselves they are saved. One, they are fearless in danger like the righteous. Hey man, I'm bold just like Daniel.

[49:14] I'm upright like David. I can conquer Goliath. That must mean I'm saved. They said perform secret duties in the closet.

[49:25] They had rituals, little things that they did that they believed they were earning God's righteousness. They've overcome some of their sins and they despise hypocrisy in others.

[49:38] Usually, people who are like this are hardcore legalists who build their faith on works-based righteousness. The most offensive truth to someone who bases their salvation on their works of righteousness is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

[49:55] You know that? It will become offending to them. The fact that Jesus did all the work for you and you just need to live in that faith is offensive to someone.

[50:08] You don't know how much I pray, how much I work, how much I give. Look at all the good things I do. I want credit for that. It's still not enough.

[50:19] The gospel offends those people. And he usually keeps them by keeping God's true messengers away. He isolates them from serious thoughts about spiritual state.

[50:33] And they will use carnal friends and flattering preachers to enforce their thoughts rather than people who honestly care about their life and want to share the gospel.

[50:44] On the flip side, Satan's goal against the believer is one, Satan knows he cannot rob a believer of their salvation, but he can deprive them of their peace and comfort.

[50:59] He wants to rob us from our assurance that God, that we objectively belong to God. You know that? That's why when I put the survey, a lot of people said they had asked Jesus Christ into their heart multiple times.

[51:16] I think we all know that, right? We've got sin in our life, and Satan keeps calling us hypocrite, hypocrite, hypocrite. We really are saved. But he wants us to believe that we are not.

[51:33] He wants to rob us of that assurance. He wants people to fall for this when his enticements to pleasure, durable sins are unsuccessful. The Satan tries to tempt us to despair that we're not having any fun.

[51:50] So there's three reasons why Satan attacks our peace. One, it's personal. He hates us. Demons hate us. Two, he can't actually separate us from God. But if he gets us to think we are, we will act like we're not enjoying his peace.

[52:06] And the third reason why is peace is probably one of the most vulnerable things that Satan can attack in a believer. They said it adorns and beautifies and renders people amiable and pleasant.

[52:18] That when we feel assured and loved by God, we are different people. So I'm just going to give you briefly some of the ways he does this. One, he makes us feel like hypocrites. He makes false arguments against our salvation.

[52:30] And he says all of those arguments are based on four truths. One, if you are saved, you must have had some feeling of terror in your life.

[52:40] That all of a sudden you feared God. If you had that, that's wrong, that's bad, you're not saved. On the flip side, if you did have that, he will say, oh, that must be some kind of bondage you're under.

[52:53] God is all love. You shouldn't have had that experience. The third is, you must know the specific time and manner of your salvation.

[53:04] If you can't name that, you must not be saved. And the other lie that he uses is, salvation must be followed by remarkable gifts of prayer and exhortations, as well as growth in grace.

[53:22] Those are lies that Satan tells us. Sometimes people get saved over years. You know that? They just come to grips with one truth at a time. Others, it's in like a half a second.

[53:34] They understand it all. The other lie that he tells us is that saving faith must mean there is assurance of faith. The reality is just because you might believe you might not be saved, that is not an indication that you are not saved.

[53:52] There's a lot here, and I'm going to add tactics into the next sermon before we go any further. We have a fellowship dinner, but I'm going to tell you the one last point.

[54:04] The most common place that Satan dispenses as lies in us is during moments of affliction. Moments of affliction opens our hearts to all sorts of lies. Anything that is tough or hard must mean that God does not love me.

[54:20] God would not have this for me. God would never treat his children this way. Satan might even emphasize God's holiness and justice in our lives, and the reality is that doesn't make us praise him.

[54:36] That makes us feel unworthy and dirty. That is a satanic lie. Ongoing struggle against sin proves we are hypocrites, especially when we relapse into the same sin over and over and over again, despite having sincerely repented of it and praying over it.

[54:57] So good is Satan at this that we begin to think he's actually the Holy Spirit. I'm going to end with this last.

[55:09] I'm going to ask Ryan to go to the last slide on 1 Peter 5.8. There's a lot here. And Satan wants us defeated.

[55:25] That's what he does. When I went through this study, and I did an entire paper on that, there was days where I wept. Simply because I fell for a lot of these tricks, a lot of these tactics, I bought lock, stock, barrel.

[55:39] I'm thinking, how is it these guys, 500 years old, know exactly how I'm thinking? Because they detail. They go into great detail about our thinking and what our heart is saying.

[55:52] And it reveals truths in me that I don't want to admit. I can't believe I gave in to Satan there. I accepted that, that lie. But it's okay.

[56:10] Satan is a great deceiver. You know that? He is the deceiver, the capital D deceiver. And there's times, as I taught a couple weeks ago, is that we are to cling to Christ.

[56:22] And there's times in my life I did not cling to Christ. And the reality is, once these schemes come to light, we now know how to look for them.

[56:34] We now know how to identify them. Satan has been unmasked. On masks. Next couple weeks, we're going to go over the armor of the Lord and learn how God has prepared us to fight Satan.

[56:47] But if we look at 1 Peter 5.18, it says, notice it says, be sober-minded. That means we are to think clearly, think carefully, think biblically.

[57:01] The second thing is, be watchful means to be vigilant, to be on alert. We have to look for signs of the enemy's presence, to look for the enemy's activities, to look for the enemy's purposes.

[57:13] To identify those things. Man, I am going through affliction. I need my brother and my sister to be praying for me. But notice that word, resist. Satan's designs are always evil.

[57:27] The more you give in, the more he will take. We are ultimately to remain steadfast in the truth. Which means unmoved, unyielding, using faith in God's Son, in God's Word as our shield by God's will.

[57:43] And God promises that we will be perfected. Established and strengthened. Four things that Satan does know.

[57:56] One, he knows you, so he's always going to be personal in his approach. Two, he's going to look for the best times to attack you. Three, sometimes those times will be over a long period of time.

[58:11] And four, Satan wants to isolate you. He wants to isolate you from people who are going to be there for you. All right. We've got lunch ready for you.

[58:23] This was a little bit of a wordy sermon. Let me pray, give thanks for the food. I'm just going to ask some of the people. We're going to clear out some of the chairs. Pie them on the side. We're going to bring out some tables.

[58:33] And we're going to enjoy some fellowship. And I'm sure we're going to talk about all the tactics that we've bought into, right? Hey, I don't want to leave you with a sense of despair. I want to leave you there's a sense of hope because Christ already has victory.

[58:47] Amen? And he is a serious foe. And I want us to see him as a serious foe. But he also gives us the tools, the armor in order to fight him. And that's where we're going for the next several sermons.

[58:58] My prayer is that your heart will be delighted to know that we have a God that knows these things so well, so great, and gives us such comfort in the knowledge of his armor that he provides for us.

[59:10] Dear Lord, Heavenly Father, we just come to you and we thank you. Thank you. There's just an...