Tempter's Strategems Against the Saved

He causes them to have incomplete consecration (Acts 5.3). God is a jealous God. He demands full consecration, loving Him with all our hearts, all our minds, all our strength and all our soul. He wants us to be so selfless that we would not retain any part of our offering for self-consumption. Satan, however, is most afraid of our total consecration, for in so doing he will lose his working field. "Why hath Satan filled thy heart . . . to keep back part of the price of the land?" (Acts 5.3) Satan had filled the hearts of this couple (Ananias and Sapphira) in that they kept back a part for their own use and yet claimed publicly they had offered all. How many are the believers today who know they should offer, and yet they consider the price too high; so they cheat themselves as well as others by keeping back a part for themselves and offering the rest to God in pretence of a total offering. Do they know how Satan has filled their hearts? Let each reader ask himself if he has fully consecrated.

He hinders them from taking off the filthy garments (Zech. 3.1-3). When in Jesus’ famous parable the prodigal son comes home, his father puts the best robe on him. The son will never wear his beggarly clothes in his father’s house. Clothes represent righteousness. Satan is afraid of man removing his old righteousness. So he frequently entices man to establish a righteousness other than the righteousness of God (see Rom. 10.3). We ought to put on the Lord Jesus as our righteousness and get rid of that self-made righteousness of service and sacrifice as advocated by today’s moralists. "Satan standing at his [the high priest Joshua’s] right hand to be his adversary….Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments" (Zech. 3.1,3). Satan would not have us taking off that which naturally belongs to us. Although believers have already been saved by trusting in the Lord Jesus as their righteousness, they are often deceived into retaining all their natural righteousness. Their old garments were naturally filthy, yet these are still their garments. Their own righteousnesses were filthy, but still are recognized as righteousness. So that Satan causes them to do good in their own power, stirring up their original righteous deeds in order to please God and obtain men’s praise. Do they not know that their old garments are as filthy rags before God? Our natural righteousnesses are totally unacceptable to Him. Nonetheless, Satan wants us to use our soul power to execute the will of the spirit. Let us therefore be very careful.

He drives believers to work with fleshly envy and strife (James 3.14-15). Satan is not willing to see Christians being united in one. If he finds two believers in agreement, he will try to split them apart. If he discovers three disciples in unity, he will break up their harmony. If he learns of more being together, he will smash their oneness. He will sow jealousy and strife in the hearts of the believers so that they will refuse to work together. This happens in spiritual works as well as in secular works. Believers are deceived into musings like this: “You are stronger spiritually than I am; you are more appreciated in preaching than I am; your interpretation of doctrine is different from mine.” All these create envy and strife. How poisonous are such strifes in the hearts of men. And how dangerous they are, for they are not easily detected in appearance.

He hinders believers from the cross by means of other people: "Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall never be unto thee. But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan" (Matt. 16.22-23). The defeat of Satan is at the cross, therefore he is most fearful of people going to the cross and obtaining the victory of Calvary. Here he was bold enough to tempt the Lord Jesus, enticing the Latter to mind the things of men instead of His minding those of God. The Devil is skillful in manipulating human affection, causing people to depart from the way of the cross by judging it to be too difficult, too painful. To walk in it indicates a lack of self-preservation. But to mind the things of men automatically shuts off the minding of the things of God. Irrespective of self-pity or considering others, God’s will shall suffer. When "I" is in ascendancy, Satan can easily put what is his into it. Self-love, self-esteem, self-pity—these all travel in the opposite direction from the cross. Human consideration, sympathy, fear and compromise—these, too, run opposite to Calvary. Inability to deny self and human affection is the method Satan uses to stop men from going to the cross. Satan trembles at seeing people crucified and resurrected (see Matt. 16.21).

Consequently, he tries his best to block them from the cross. But the Lord has appointed for us no other way except the cross (1 Thess. 3.3). What way are you taking today? How very sad that nowadays many Christians see the cross and by-pass it because they are not willing to be crucified. The affliction may be avoided and self may enjoy peace, but the will of God is missed. With real death, there comes real resurrection. There, Satan has no foothold. This he hates most. Since Satan is afraid of our going to the cross and dying and being resurrected, we must all the more die to self and be resurrected from the dead by faith in the Lord.

He threatens as a roaring lion (1 Peter 5.8). Satan not only entices in secret, he even dares to seek the careless and unwatchful to devour. Satan threatened Martin Luther with a scroll on which was written all of his sins, tempting him to doubt his salvation; but he overcame by the grace of the Lord. We realize how Satan frequently threatens and devours at the time of our weakness. This is truly one of his master tactics. His plot is to intimidate people. As a lion roars to cow and devour, Satan in like manner threatens believers so that they may be defeated through fear. How often all he does is merely threaten and nothing else. Those who are not intimidated recognize its vanity. Those who accept his threatening will encounter what is threatened. Are we not frequently faced with false alarms? Why should we be afraid of him?

He causes pride: "Lest being puffed up he fall into the condemnation of the devil" (1 Tim. 3.6). Many Christians profess well in their spiritual life, and they are also fruitful in their service. Then, Satan seeks opportunity to work by causing them to be puffed up and fall. We have often witnessed great spiritual warriors and revivalists fall because of this sin. For this is the frequently-used device of Satan. He deceives man into counting the grace of God as his own. When grace begins to work in man’s heart, Satan causes him to develop self-esteem, the man thinking that he now is different from ordinary people. He considers himself to be a wonder. Satan wants man to be puffed up since this is the Tempter’s own nature.

He stirs people to do things beyond God’s will: "Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel" (1 Chron. 21.1). God had not commanded David to number the people of Israel. It was Satan who moved David to do this thing that was beyond God’s will because he loves to have men suffer the wrath of God along with him. He will either hinder man from advancing, or push him too far. Today Christians are so careless as to deem all movings as being those of the Holy Spirit, not realizing that Satan can also move people. To number the children of Israel and of Judah cannot be counted as constituting a grievous sin, yet it was outside of God’s will. So that Satan’s instigation proved to be successful. Due to the lack of spiritual discernment, believers sometimes are moved to do a thing which, because it does not appear to be bad in itself, they judge themselves to have been moved to do by the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, we should not look at things on the basis of their being good or bad in order to determine the source of inspiration. We should only decide by judging whether or not such things are the will of God. For outside of God’s will there certainly do exist many good things!

He beguiles people to disbelieve in God’s word (Gen. 3.1). In Genesis 2.17 God had explicitly ordered man not to eat the fruit of the tree of good and evil; but the Devil suggested: "Hath God said?" The entire Bible is the word of God which is effective in attacking Satan. This is why the Tempter is so afraid of it that he beguiles people to doubt that the Bible is indeed the word of God. What is surprising is that the majority of people who doubt the Bible are so-called believers and not those who are total strangers to the Christian faith. The Devil first entices men to doubt God’s word, then to believe in the Devil’s word, thus causing men to fall into sin (see Gen. 3). Such work has not yet ended from the time of the garden of Eden even up to this present day.

He oppresses people with sickness (Acts 10.38). How very many are the wiles of the Devil. If he cannot stir people into rebellion in their spirit, he will attack them in their body. He will oppress them with sickness so that they cannot enjoy the blessing of resurrection life. Due to discomfort in body, believers are able to be weakened in steadfastness and watchfulness in the spirit. We frequently see how workers who are active in the work of Christ easily fall into sickness. This is because the Devil wishes them ill so that they will cease to do the Lord’s work.