This study continues with the next talk in the series, where I look at the schemes I believe Satan uses to implement his hatred against God, against human beings, God’s creation, and against Christians. We look at several of these devices in this next study. The title of these talks derives from the verse that tells us we are not ignorant of Satan’s devices or schemes.
[16]. ATTACK ON THE MIND IS PARAMOUNT IN DEFEATING CHRISTIANS AND KEEPING THE UNSAVED IN SATAN’S FLOCK
God made us spirit, soul and body. Those three parts Satan attacks. People’s spirits are turned to unrighteousness, kept dead so they can end in hell, for the devil knows he will end in the lake of fire himself. He must know he cannot prevent that, so he will take along as many as he can to a lost eternity. The soul is the seat of emotion and the mind, and it comes under the greatest attack. Our emotions can be churned, and the demonic hosts do their utmost to turn our hearts away from God. The mind is under constant attack with thoughts, data input from all sorts of places, conflict and demonic opposition.
There is an absolute plethora of ways the mind is attacked and turned from God. Darwinism or evolution is paramount here as it is atheistic humanism that warped the mind into rational thinking with “God is dead,” so the evolutionary thought is that chaos runs everything. Intellectualism ruins the minds, for that too is humanism and makes man reliant on himself and the cleverness of his own abilities, dismissing God and then groping in blindness to a lost eternity. Universities are the worst offenders here, and Satan ensures that Universities are filled with his picked men because the youth are being destroyed. Schools are following on the same track.
The mind is influenced by the media, television, books, contemporary music, the Internet, friends… in other words, the mind is a battleground for all Satan’s schemes. Once the devil captures the mind, he has no desire to release the individual from his clutches. The captive mind will grow even stronger in its rejection of God, for evil is growing in the mind and taking it further into the darkness.
Only Christ can break the devilish shackles of the mind in deliverance and freedom, to bring the captive into the redeeming light of God. Christ came to preach deliverance to the captives.
Isaiah 42:6-7 “I am the LORD. I have called you in righteousness. I will also hold you by the hand and watch over you, and I will appoint you as a covenant to the people, as a light to the nations, TO OPEN BLIND EYES, TO BRING OUT PRISONERS FROM THE DUNGEON, and those who dwell in darkness from the prison.”
Isaiah 9:2 “THE PEOPLE WHO WALK IN DARKNESS WILL SEE A GREAT LIGHT. Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them.”
Light overcomes darkness, and the light of Christ will not be overtaken by darkness. The darkness did not comprehend it. That is fact, but the Christian must avail himself and herself of that great provision. The Christian’s mind is attacked as never before from all directions, and a few of those I listed above. Our minds are our battleground. We must be on our guard.
There is a lovely verse in Psalm 123:2 “Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master; as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, SO OUR EYES LOOK TO THE LORD OUR GOD, UNTIL HE SHALL BE GRACIOUS TO US.”
The eyes of the servants look to the hand of their master, and they know their master is kind and provides for them. (That is not always the case, for some masters or overlords or managers can be ruthless and nasty.) God is never like that. The psalmist must be inferring here that the masters are good ones, parallel to the Lord.
The maid who serves her mistress has the mistress’s trust, and her eyes look to the benevolent one for her help when that help is needed. The mistress, it is assumed, is very happy to help the dependent maid. All these examples are the way God cares for His special children of faith. He would never tease them then withdraw what is good for them. He would never be mean.
The greatest gift was given into the hands of men, that of the Lord Jesus Christ, but men’s hands took Him and crucified Him on a cross. The greatest gift of the Lord Jesus shows that God will always give the best to His own people. He is pleased to give the best.
Our eyes look to the Lord our God, for we know He always blesses us with every spiritual blessing, if not with physical blessings. We must never forget that the whole platform for this is grace, for God is gracious, and it was grace that sent the Lord Jesus Christ – 2Corinthians 8:9 “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.”
Our eyes must look to the Lord, for then He will keep our minds. We need that. We must crave that the Lord keeps our minds. Look constantly to Him.
There are three significant verses here for Christians – 1 Peter 1:13: “Therefore, GIRD YOUR MINDS for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
2 Corinthians 11:3 “But I am afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, YOUR MINDS should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.”
Philippians 4:6-7 “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension, SHALL GUARD YOUR HEARTS AND YOUR MINDS in Christ Jesus.”
Satan will attack people’s minds to divert them from any contact with God and fill their minds with rubbish from social media, partying, the new gaming fad on computers, phones and play stations, pleasure, role-playing in computer games, and a huge number of other distractions and dangers.
[17]. THE CORRUPTION OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION – WHO KNOWS BETTER THAN SATAN?
One of the most devious and subtle means Satan has to carry people to hell through unbelief is to corrupt religion. Let us begin with the most primitive. Paganism, with its worship of idols that are man-made, is the result of the light of God in creation being rejected and man turning to four-footed creatures and vain idols. Paul covers that in Romans 1. The stupidity of idol worship is taken up by the Old Testament prophets and by the early Christian apologists. Paganism is religion, for religion is man’s attempt to create his own deity.
Then came the great heresies in the Church, starting not long after its formation. Jesus warned of this in the parable of the tares. Satan determined to destroy and pollute the Church. When Israel was in the wilderness, Satan tried to corrupt the nation through immorality, Balak and Balaam, and strange fire being offered by apostate priests. The great certainty of the Christian faith is that when a work has begun for the LORD, the enemy comes with its corruption.
It was not long in the early Church that serious heresies entered through corruption (satanic defilement), but the question is, “Why did people give way to heresies to follow them?” The answer always has to be twofold. Firstly, those in leadership, those considered shepherds of the sheep, failed in their responsibilities, even though Paul warned the Ephesians elders (understand that to be ALL elders and leadership) of that very thing. The second reason is that people themselves in the churches do not pay much attention to personal study of the Bible to establish their faith in the security of the Bible alone. The devil is cunning and finds thousands of ways to keep people from reading and studying their Bibles.
After the political turmoil in the church of the fourth century, it settled down in mediocrity in the world, but it suffered greatly through Constantine the Great, who, when he was supposedly converted, brought into the church his whole army, having them baptized but not converted. They brought in their paganism, and corruption spread throughout.
Out of that grew the Roman Catholic church, and history will tell you what that church was like from about 800 AD onwards. It was utterly pagan and corrupted. Satan had achieved his aim. His devices/schemes in regard to the church is to corrupt, slowly at first, by false teachers/teaching and then by the introduction of paganism or the world’s standard into the church. So many have fallen because they lost the relevance of the Bible.
It is a serious warning to all those in leadership in churches to guard against false teaching and worldliness and the traitorous neglect of nurturing the sheep that are supposed to be in your care. It is rife in churches, I know. Men and women not established in the faith are leading those not in the faith astray when they should be leading them to Christ.
Satan used the Roman church as the barrier to men’s conversion, and millions have gone to hell. Read it for yourselves in Church History (I am not on a soapbox here). If any of the Catholic faith read this, I am not attacking you, but I plead with you to bow before the Lord and give your life to Him; accept Jesus Christ as your own personal Saviour if you have never done that. That goes for anyone, actually, whether you are associated with some church or don’t go to a church. There is no other way to salvation except through the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not found in a system, a creed, traditions, some religious practice, or a pope, but in the Person of Christ.
[18]. FALSE RELIGION – SATAN PLANNED IT 1,200 YEARS AGO – ISLAM
One way Satan uses to confuse and destroy God’s people is to raise up enemies to the faith, some of these with the smell of hell on them. In the 600s, the rise of Islam saw the destruction of God’s people and the engendering of fear, hate, and war. This enemy has been carefully fed by strong demonic forces. I have written on Islam recently in this article – You Reap What You Sow – Israel And Hamas – And The Wider Nations.
BUT you don’t have to take my word for what was said. Check it out yourselves. There are tens of thousands of histories on Islam and the origin of Allah, one of the Baal gods, found on the Internet and in books. The Palestinians are the old Philistines, and like them, many hate the people of God. One thing people must understand about Islam is that it is a combination of a political system and religion AND that it can only function correctly when it gains control. That is what Islam is working toward in the world and is why we see no integration with the host nations, and riots and demonic demonstrations calling for Jews to be gassed and killed as it happened in Sydney. It is a vile, evil means Satan uses to bring the world into war and destruction.
Islam began as a war movement, financing its wars by raiding and killing innocent caravan traders along the roads to Mecca, and wars and treachery have always been its hallmark right through history. They march on hate, not love, because love is not in the Koran, but we have the love of God in the Bible.
What do we take from this? It is no use complaining against Islam. We must understand that Satan brings enemies against us and, in a wider sense, against the world. He prepares them. We must be of sober mind to understand these things. We see it everywhere in the Old Testament. We will not escape a similar situation just because we are Christians. Look at the huge numbers of Christians slaughtered by the Romans because they would not bow down to Caesar. Add to that the millions who perished because they would not bow down to the pope. Satan raises up these movements to corrupt and destroy the Bride. He is the foulest enemy of Christians and Israel.
The Bible tells us this – 2Timothy 3:1-4 “Realize this, that IN THE LAST DAYS DIFFICULT TIMES WILL COME, for men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, UNLOVING, IRRECONCILABLE, malicious gossips, without self-control, BRUTAL, HATERS OF GOOD, TREACHEROUS, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”
Wicked people from hell who dismember living babies with the most cruel brutality, as we saw in Israel, are enemies of the last days. We don’t need to highlight atrocities. We need to be very firmly established. We need our faith to be solid so we can stand for the Lord if we are called to do so. We are looking forward so much to the Rapture. Recently, I was accused of being a coward because I would not accept that the Church will be in the Tribulation. I was told I was scared of suffering, but that is false. Christians will be raptured up BEFORE the Tribulation begins, and it has nothing about being scared. The Bible is clear about that. God, who is my Deliverer from the wrath to come, does not consider waiting to be raptured any mark of cowardice.
[19]. THE DECLINE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD AND THE ADOPTION OF PAGANISM – SATAN’S RUSE
When I say the Western world is turning to paganism, some may raise their eyebrows and look quizzical, but elements of paganism are making inroads into our societies. In essence, what is pagan is that which replaces the true God. The pagan societies turned from the knowledge of God into paganism with or without their idols. It is thrilling for me when I travel through the South Pacific islands and see the remnants of paganism there, but that is history. In a much greater measure than Australia or South America, Africa or Europe, these island nations have turned to God.
Idolatry is that which replaces God and which modern men and women worship. It may not be the plethora of carved gods you see in Hindu temples. Probably the most ornate symbol of Hinduism outside India is the temple at Nadi in Fiji. It is so colorful, so gaudy, and so prominent, but it symbolizes the multiplicity of gods that Hinduism has. I think it is wonderful when Indians turn to God from Hinduism, and their conversions are genuine, coming out of paganism.
In the Western world, a man’s car can be treated as a god, and his house also. In Australia and New Zealand, sport is god. In fact, it is god supreme. Sport has turned to paganism, worshipping the sport itself and the players. They sing their hymns, they chant, worship the team, and idolize the players in their bedrooms and clubhouses, the sports temples of the god. I think it can be similar in the USA, and it sure is in the UK. A similar thing is evident with rock music and all pop. When the rightful God is replaced, then false gods rise up.
The New Age movement has many elements of paganism attached to it, and a visit to a New Age retail agency (that I don’t recommend, by the way) seems to place one outside the “feel” of God. The adoption of culture into Western societies and our blind governments, who seem happy to rush into these things, are allowing questionable things and stuff that has its basis in paganism of other cultures. Eastern mystic religions, Wicca, and so much more are making a comeback as the adoption of paganism is becoming much more evident.
For overseas people, there is a horrible thing that has been happening in Australia for a while now, especially coming from the Australian Labor Party, mainly as that political Party is so very anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and anti-God. It has adopted what is known as “a smoking ceremony” taken directly from the spiritist Aborigines with their satanic worship and the worship of the Dreamtime Rainbow Serpent, and that is Satan. Certain leaves are lit, and the wafting smoke is fanned onto the face and head. It is invoking the evil spirits, all associated with the Dreamtime worship, which is totally the worship of Satan and evil spirits. The Labor Party opens Parliament with that now instead of Christian prayers.
Yes, we have returned to paganism, and most people do not know it. Satan presents himself as an angel of light and deceives even the most world-wise among the unsaved. Nations are being more deeply deluded as they turn from God. His schemes are a multitude, and I am only touching on a few of them.
As we close the Church age, and we are very close to that, the Rapture will happen, and God’s people will be taken up, but then, there is such a turning to Satan in the world under the Antichrist and the False Prophet. Please, if you have not been saved, then repent before God now and receive Jesus Christ as your Saviour. It will be too late if you refuse Him now.
This ends Part 5. More will follow in the next Part.