Join us in an enlightening discussion on recognizing and countering the deceptive strategies of Satan. Dr. Charles Stanley guides us through biblical passages that highlight the adversary’s objectives and methods. This episode equips listeners with profound understanding and practical approaches to resisting the devil and upholding the truth of God’s Word in every aspect of life.
welcome to the in touch podcast with charles stanley for wednesday august 6th scripture warns us that satan’s attacks are inevitable but believers don’t fight the battle alone here’s part one of resisting the devil when you attempted to do wrong what is your response does sometimes you feel guilty even though you didn’t do what satan tempted you to do
SPEAKER 01 :
Or are there times when you feel like you are under a specific satanic attack? That is, Satan is really attacking you in some particular area of your life. When you are tempted by Satan and attacked by him, do you feel absolutely overwhelmed and helpless and weak as if you cannot help but yield to that temptation? Well, my friend… Satan is going to tempt you. And what you and I must learn to do is to resist the devil. Do you know how to resist Satan when he tempts you? If you don’t know how to resist him, you’re going to spend your life like a spiritual roller coaster, up today and down tomorrow, one defeat after the other, until you learn how to resist the devil. And that’s what I want to share with you in this time. And if you’ll turn to 1 Peter chapter 5, and I want us to read two verses concerning this matter of resisting the devil. Because it is an area in which all of us need to learn how to make application of a spiritual truth. He says in 1 Peter, beginning in chapter 5, verse 8, he says, “…be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” but resist him firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. So the first thing I want us to look at here is what he says, or whom he identifies as our enemy, and he says, your adversary. He didn’t say the adversary. He said your adversary. Satan is the personal enemy of every single one of God’s children. Now, When we say that Satan is our enemy, let me clarify several things. Who is he? Satan is a fallen angel. He was the one who confronted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The Bible says he is the prince of this age. That is, he’s the instigator of this whole world system, whether it’s the religious world system, the economic world system, the political world system, he’s the instigator of the themes behind it all in which you and I live. Not only that, but Jesus said he was the father of all lies, which means that all lies can be traced back to Satan regardless of who tells them. Well, if this is who Satan is and this is who the devil is, what is his objective or what are his objectives? Listen, it’s real simple. You can narrow Satan’s objectives down to one simple thing, and that is destruction. Satan has one thing in mind primarily, to destroy your body, your soul, and your spirit. And if he can’t kill you, he’ll do his best to harass you till he wrecks and ruins your testimony or your witness for Christ and renders you absolutely of no use and no value to God. We’ve begun to accept the immoral age as a moral age. We have begun to get acclimated to the darkness in which we live that now even he says even the elect are being deceived by satanic devices. And let me remind you two or three things about Satan. As strong as he is, he is not omniscient. Satan doesn’t know everything. He’s not omnipresent. He’s not everywhere. And he’s not omnipotent. He doesn’t have all power. You say, well, how can Satan be in so many people? Satan is not in so many people. Satan’s demonic forces can possess unbelievers. Demons can possess unbelievers. They can only harass believers. No believer can be demon-possessed but greatly oppressed and greatly harassed by demonic powers. There are not multitudes of devil. There’s one devil, one Satan. There are multitudes, innumerable hosts of demonic powers that are indeed alive and working hard in today’s age. And we see the evidence of demonic power everywhere. We can be easily deceived by satanic devices because he is little by little deceiving and blinding the minds even of God’s children. That’s why you cannot afford to be ignorant of the truth of God’s word. Now listen to what he says here in this particular passage. When you look at his objective, which is to destroy you, ask yourself the question, well, what is his method of operation? Well, here is a good indication of his method of operation. If you look in that eighth verse, he says, be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Now, he didn’t say he’s prowling around like a cat. He says like a lion. Swift. Strong, deadly, a lion. That’s the kind of enemy you and I have. And he didn’t say the adversary. He said what? Your adversary, the devil. Prowling about, roaring, seeking whom he may devour. And that Greek word means to swallow down. That’s exactly what he means to do. And that is to completely destroy us. So he says, this is your adversary. Now, when you think about how Satan operates and his whole mode of operation is indicated by one word, and that is deception. He does everything he can to camouflage what he’s doing. He doesn’t want us to know what he’s doing. He doesn’t walk around in a red suit and a red tail. Satan uses believers as well as unbelievers. Now, listen. If he can’t attack you successfully, you know what he’ll do? He’ll use you. That is, if somehow Satan can deceive you and use you, his choice tool is not the unbeliever but the believer. Because if he can get a believer deceived and blinded enough and camouflage the truth from a believer enough, he can get a believer being used by himself and he can destroy a family. He can destroy and divide a church. He can do anything. Deceit is his whole approach. Jesus said he is the father of all lies. Now, if you’ll turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 11 for a moment, let me show you something. Here’s how he operates, and he’s very, very shrewd. In this 13th verse, and Paul is talking about being deceived, he says in verse 13 of chapter 11, he says, Now listen. Satan is going to dress himself up how? In the most acceptable clothing possible. So that even believers are deceived by the way Satan presents himself. So God’s people, in order to be able to identify him, must be very, very discerning. Back over to the second chapter of the same passage. A book, 2 Corinthians 2, verse 11. Listen. He says, Now, this is the way he operates. He connives and manipulates. If he can get one believer to say something about another believer, he stands off and watches them destroy each other. Satan is a deceitful, cunning, scheming liar, and his ultimate and only objective is to destroy. There never has been, never will be any good objective in the mind of Satan to destroy, to maim, to kill, to ruin the testimony, to divide everything he can to destroy the people of God, the families of God, your finances, your friendships, your church. your business, he’ll do anything and everything he can, and he will use anybody who is willing to be used by the devil. And this is exactly what he does. And we’re living in a society today where all kinds of sexual perversion have become accepted. You know why? Because Satan has said, and Satan will use the Bible. He’ll take verses of Scripture in the Bible, and to a clouded, fuzzy, darkened mind, Satan will give a man… the wisdom, that is satanic wisdom, to so pervert the Scripture that he’ll find a verse of Scripture that will allow him, he thinks, to go about his perversion and proclaim it to others and say, we believe in God and Jesus is our Savior and all of this is acceptable and we’re living in a society that is becoming more and more immune to the wickedness and the vileness of immorality and we’re accepting it as a way of life and saying, well, after all, you’ve got to love everybody. Listen, let me tell you something. Surely we’ve got to love everybody, but that doesn’t mean… I have to accept their lifestyle as godly. And you see, when Satan says, well, you’ve got to love everybody, and he’ll use the Scripture to pervert it, to change it just enough to get a person living in sin, sear their conscience until they’re totally wiped out in their whole spiritual life. Deceit, cunning, manipulating, conniving, as he says, scheming Satan. That’s the way he operates. Now, friend, if you don’t believe there’s a devil, you’re in trouble. Secondly, if you don’t know what the Bible says, you’re going down in defeat. For the simple reason, if we don’t know the principles of Scripture, when Satan speaks, how do we know who’s doing the talking? Is it the devil doing the talking or is it God doing the talking? Listen, what Satan tells you is a lie. But here’s what he’ll do. He’ll mix just enough truth with that which is erroneous, just enough truth with that which is error, just enough true doctrine with false doctrine to just get a little bit and get a taste. And before long, he’s got you moving his direction until finally he blinds you to the truth and you don’t even know the truth and cannot discern between right and wrong. Satan’s cunning, deceitful, camouflaging, enticing, entrapping methods of destroying God’s people. That’s exactly what he’s doing. The cults today, for example, are having a heyday. Why? Because so many of God’s people are so deceived by error because they don’t know the truth. If you don’t know the truth, you can’t battle one who is your enemy, who knows the truth and knows error and knows how to distort the truth. And there are people today living in sin who think they’re doing the right thing. And there are God’s people who are causing division and strife and heartache who think they’re doing the right thing. Now, let me tell you something. Whenever you hear something, you ask yourself this question, where did that come from? Is that in keeping with the Word of God? Is that in keeping with the principles of Scripture? Is that in keeping with holy conduct? Or is that some manipulation that Is that something that Satan is behind, but he’s covered it in the life of a Christian, or he’s covered it so that you cannot distinguish how evil and satanic and destructive and what the ultimate consequences of that act may be. Second thing I want you to notice here when it comes to the way he operates, and that’s this. When you look at the way he operates, he operates first of all in the mind. For example, how does Satan work in a person? Here’s what he does, now watch this. He injects into your mind his thoughts. Now listen, if Jesus Christ is your savior and Christ is your life, which the Bible says he is, and the Holy Spirit is living within you, Jesus isn’t coming up with a lie. The Holy Spirit isn’t coming up with error and gossip and criticism and all the rest. That is strictly from the devil. It doesn’t make any difference who it comes through. It is ultimately from Satan. So what does he do? He attacks the mind. He projects into your mind a thought, maybe an evil thought, maybe an unkind thought, maybe a lustful thought, greedy thought, whatever it might be, but he injects it in your mind. At that moment, you have the privilege of accepting it or rejecting it. But you see, so many people open their minds to so many things, they just live in neutrality. They sit in front of the television, for example, and all the garbage that comes through some of the programs, for example, they sit there with an open mind. When somebody says, man, you’ve got to have an open mind, you tell them that’s straight from hell. God doesn’t say have an open mind. He said think on these things. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. We have the mind of Christ. That narrows my mind down to things that are holy and righteous before God. There’s nowhere he says I’m to be open-minded. When somebody tells you you’ve got to be open-minded, they’re getting you to dump some garbage into your life that you don’t want. So you have to be careful when somebody says open your mind. Listen, Satan uses the mind as the playground. So he injects these thoughts. When he injects a thought, if it’s not of him, you just let it keep moving right on by. Somebody says, well, what about all these thoughts? I can’t help these thoughts. Listen, if somebody says, you can’t keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair. There’s some of those… There’s some of those thoughts that Satan’s going to send your way. They may come your way and go right on through, but you’re the one who decides whether you keep the thought and respond or act upon it or not. So the mind is Satan’s playground. That’s where he plays. He takes our natural, normal curiosity. And what does he do? He carries it beyond the point that God ever intended it to be. Imaginations. All kinds of imaginations. imagining, curious, wondering, how would this be? How would that be? What does he do? And he just intensifies that until you cross the point of disobedience before God. That’s the way he operates. You see, he’s a scheming, conniving manipulator of the minds of men. And let me tell you something. Once you give yourself over to Satan, friend, you are in serious trouble. He says in Romans chapter 1, those who knew the truth and refused to accept the truth and gave themselves over to it, that God responds by giving them over to their sin, which means He allows the full impact of the consequence of their disobedience and their rebellion against God. So we have to be very careful. Now listen, if you’re a parent, the one thing you ought to do is listen to this sermon very, very carefully and be sure you teach your children how to resist the devil. Because they’re going to schools where oftentimes teachers and professors, regardless of the school, are giving them the world’s viewpoint. This is the way it is. Accept this. Accept that. Accept the other. God’s outdated. The scriptures are ancient. They don’t have any meaning. They’re not valid for today. And listen. When somebody pumps that into your child day after day after day after day, year after year, in a scheming, conniving, manipulative, intellectual approach of keeping your mind open, you think about this. You’re paying some institution, some university, thousands of dollars to wreck your child’s mind. Now, that is tragic, but that is exactly what we do. So, the mind. The second area in which he works in is our conscience. Now, here’s what he does. Now, listen carefully. Do you feel guilty even though you don’t do what Satan tempted you to do? If you feel guilty because he sent the thought through your mind, that is a satanic accusation. And he’s called the accuser of the brethren. He is called a liar. He is called a deceiver. He is called the destroyer because he seeks to accuse. Now, if I sin against God, I have a right to feel guilty. That is the Holy Spirit convicting me of my sin, and I have to deal with that. But the question comes is this. How am I able to distinguish between an accusation of Satan and the conviction of the Holy Spirit? And here’s the way. Let’s say, for example, that you do sin against God, and you ask the Lord Jesus Christ to forgive you, and you move on. All right? Suppose just the thought comes through your mind, and you don’t commit that sin, and Satan accuses you. What are you to do when Satan accuses you and says, look at you, look what you just thought. Now, wait a minute. The question is, did I think that up or did Satan put that in my mind? If, for example, it is the Holy Spirit convicting you of sin… The Holy Spirit doesn’t say to you, you’re bad, you’re evil, you’re not worth anything. Look what you’ve done. Look at you now. That’s the way Satan operates. The Holy Spirit is specific in his conviction. That was a lie you told. That was a lustful look. That was a deceitful word you passed on. The Holy Spirit convicts us specifically about sin. He doesn’t tell us, oh, what’s God going to think about that? Now, that never comes from the Holy Spirit. That is strictly from the devil. It is the devil who says, well, well, well, you’ve blown it again. What do you think Jesus thinks about this? Look at you now. What do you think God’s going to accept you? Look at your behavior. Look at your performance. What kind of a character? What does he do? He, in general, just absolutely attempts to annihilate your sense of self-worth. But when the Holy Spirit is convicting, He convicts precisely and exactly what you and I have done. When the Holy Spirit is working on us and we deal with sin, what happens? There may be some agony over the grief of our sin, but after we’ve settled it with God, what happens? There is joy and peace and release and freedom. But if it is a satanic accusation, that is, he’s just accusing you falsely and making you feel what you feel, here’s the difference. Even after you have agreed with the devil, oh, that’s right. Oh, my goodness, I’m not worth anything. Listen, even after you have agreed with his lie, there is no peace, no joy, no release, but what? There is oppression, there is depression, there is discouragement, and that’s the way you can tell the difference. When you’ve settled it up with God, there ought to be a certain peace and joy and release in your life. If you believe in the devil’s lie, listen, if you confess it, God settles it. He says, all your sins been atoned for on the cross. You’ve been forgiven past, present, future. And what we do in confession, we just write our fellowship with him. We get that right. Then there ought to be peace and joy and release because it takes confession repentance to do that. If I’m still feeling down in the dumps and, oh, what does God think? And God’s upset with me and he’s mad, he’s angry. I want to tell you, you are listening to the devil’s lie. Every bit of that is a satanic accusation that’s straight from hell and not from God. Don’t believe it. You just point the devil to the cross and tell him, listen, all my sin was atoned for by the blood of Jesus Christ. I refuse your accusations because my sin has been taken care of.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you for listening to Resisting the Devil. For more inspirational messages like this one, visit our online 24-7 station. And if you’d like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
