How God fooled Satan at Christmas

“….the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age understood; for if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” –I Corinthians 2:8

There is more going on in this universe–above us, underneath us, in the spirit world surrounding us–than we can imagine.

God is always at work. The hosts of Heaven are constantly serving Him in ways unknown to us.  But so is His arch-enemy at work, as well as his minions.  We see this throughout Scripture.

Satan is the enemy is all that is good.  Anything that would honor God, benefit humanity, and spread the gospel, Satan hates and works to sabotage.

But God is not stymied by Satan. The Heavenly Father loses no sleep worrying about him.  Satan’s doom is settled, his fate is sealed, his days are numbered.

“On earth is not his equal,” said Martin Luther about the devil in His majestic anthem “A Mighty Fortress.”  Granted, you and I are no match for Satan.  But in Christ we are more than conquerors.  This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith in Christ. (Romans 8:37 and I John 5:4)

God is constantly handing the devil defeat after defeat. We see it in life, we observe it in the world about us, and we see it demonstrated in Scripture.

Case in point:  The First Christmas. 

First, understand that as a created being, Satan shares none of the attributes of Almighty God—not omniscience, omnipresence, nor omnipotence.  This means that he is limited in knowledge and space and power. When it comes to predicting what God is going to do next, he has to rely on what he can figure out, what he remembers from the timeless past when he resided in Heaven as a favorite angel, and what he reads in Holy Scripture.

Since the Holy Spirit does not enlighten his understanding, Satan sees as the world sees, not with the mind of Christ. Once we understand this, a hundred puzzles fall into place.

Satan did not know God’s plan which involved the cross. Bear this in mind.

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We actually know what Satan is up to

We are not ignorant of his devices. (II Corinthians 2:11)

We actually know a good bit about Satan. More than we think, I expect. His history, his driving force, and his game plan are spelled out all through Scripture. We are left with tons of unanswered questions, but we know enough to understand how he works and what to do about him.

His devices. We know his maneuvers, his designs, his schemings, his wiles, and how resourceful he is. (Those are all different ways the Greek for “devices” is translated in various versions.)

Look at it this way. Satan is no fool. He has been studying human nature from the early days of the human race. He knows human psychology to a degree that any university in the land can only imagine. If they gave doctorates to serpents, he would have degrees out the kazoo. He is one smart dude.

He knows you.

The question before us, today, though, class, is this: do you know him? Do you pay attention to how he works?

There are two extremes to avoid: going to seed on Satan and seeing him in every thing, everywhere, is one extreme; and completely ignoring him is the other. There’s a balance somewhere in the middle where God’s people should take our stand.

If you are trying to do right, to live for God, to resist the encroaching infiltration of the world, then you are in his crosshairs. He has targeted you.

You’d better learn how he works and how to resist him.

Please note that I am not recommending that any of us specialize on the devil.

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Here’s what those blinded by Satan are not seeing

But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. II Corinthians 4:3-4

It’s not just that outsiders to the faith have not been shown the way to eternal life, as though they were sitting by the roadside waiting.

It’s not simply that the unsaved need to be instructed and helped, as though they were gathered in a celestial waiting room somewhere, eager for us to appear.

Neither are they simply blank slates on which we may write Heaven’s love-letters to their souls, as though nothing had corrupted their minds or skewed their values.

Those living without Christ are in serious trouble.

A great many have been blinded by the enemy. Not all, thankfully, but far too many.

Satan has done a number on those abandoned to his oversight.

Millions without Christ look at good and see evil, hear Truth and call it lies, see a bit of Heaven and call it hell.

If they see Jesus at all, it’s only as the enemy. If they see the gospel, they call it propaganda. If they receive a kind act from the Lord’s disciples, they grow suspicious and search for ulterior motives.

The enemy has been messing with millions without Christ, and this has left them far removed from the childlike way they entered this world. They have been mistaught by those they trusted most, misguided by those sent to instruct them, and miscast as possessors and protectors of truth while they attack the very ones sent to bring them truth.

In the Greek city of Corinth, the Apostle Paul encountered such enemies of the faith. Perhaps they were not normally mean-spirited people, certainly not murderers or thieves or abusers. Their hostility against the people of God and against the Gospel of Jesus could be explained by one thing: Satan had blinded the eyes of their understanding. They were blind to the greatest reality of all, God.

As a result, Paul said in our text, they do not see: a) the Gospel, b) Christ who is the image of God, c) the glory of Christ, d) the gospel of the glory of Christ, and e) the light of that gospel.

None of this is clear to them.

Once again, the text is Second Corinthians 4:1-6 and it’s well worth a few minutes of your time today.  Thank you.

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15 lies Satan tells about Scripture

“(The devil) was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.  Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar, and the father of lies” (John 8:44).

If I were the devil, I would do everything in my power to keep you from the Word of God.  I would say anything I could think of, anything I thought you would believe, anything that works, to get you to read other things.

As Paul said, “We are not ignorant of his devices” (2 Corinthians 2:11).  We know how he works.  And here are some of the lies we have noticed pouring out of his factory, all geared toward destroying confidence in God’s Word.

One. “You already know it, so don’t read it.”

He’s lying to you. You do not know it. I’ve studied the Bible all my life and in no way could I say I “know” it. I know a great deal about it, but there is so much more.  For the typical church member to shun the Bible because “I’ve been there and done that” is laughable.

Two: “No one can understand it, so don’t read it.”

He’s lying.  Even a child can understand a great deal of Scripture.  Meanwhile, the Ph.D. will find plenty to challenge his thinking.  Only a book from the Almighty could touch so much at every level of their existence.

Three“It’s boring. So don’t read it.”

He’s lying.  The Bible is a lot of things, but boring is not one of them.  We’re boring, and that’s the problem.

Four: “It’s better left to the professionals. So, don’t read it.”

He’s lying, using a lie he once sold to the Catholic church during the Middle Ages.  By keeping the Holy Scriptures in the Latin (and not in the language of the people) the church could give it whatever slant they chose.  Some hardy individuals paid for the right for us to own Scriptures in our own tongue with their very lives.  We must not take lightly the privilege we have to own a copy of the very Word of God in our own language.

Five:  “You need Greek and Hebrews to know what it really means. So, don’t bother reading it.

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Truths the devil uses to stop us from praying

The forces of hell will do anything to keep us from praying.

Satan tells lies to keep us from praying.  He uses pleasures and misinformation and our laziness to keep us from praying.  He uses false teachers and busy schedules and great television to keep us from praying.

He also has been known to use truth.

As odd as it seems, the dark prince does not hesitate to speak the truth if it will make us think we shouldn’t pray.

Here are ten true statements Satan uses to put a stop to the most powerful force in the world, the prayers of God’s people…

1–God already knows what you need. (So, no point in asking, he says.)

2–You are unworthy.

3–You are weak.

4–Your faith is small.

5–You have no idea whether God will answer your prayers or not.

6–You’re only one person. (True, says Satan, and so what good will your prayers be?)

7–You don’t know how to pray.

8–Your sins can block your prayers.

9.–When all is said and done, you still cannot prove that what happened was an answer from God.

10.–Faith is hard and difficult to identify.

He’s right, of course. But those statements–while biblical and completely accurate–don’t tell the whole story.

Let’s take a quick look at each of those ten “true” statements….

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The hazardous art of predicting the future

“And it happened that as we were going to the place of prayer, a certain slave-girl having a spirit of divination met us, who was bringing her masters much profit by fortunetelling….” (Acts 16:16)

Some culture writers and half-serious columnists do it for fun, giving forecasts on life in the future.  Some, like meteorologists, work at it seriously to protect  lives. It helps to know the hurricane in the Caribbean may be headed our way or that the tornado season is upon us.

But then, once in a while we come upon those strange individuals who believe they are endowed with supernatural gifts of prophecy and fortune-telling.

If you are one who believes you have such a gift, I have a word for you….

Give it back.

Newsweek of January 1, 2000, reported on a prediction from 98 years earlier.  In the 1902 Atlantic Monthly, economist John Bates Clark wrote “Looking Back on the 20th Century” in which he projected himself into  the year 2000.  He concluded we would be seeing….

–strawberries the size of apples and oranges growing in Philadelphia.

–Moving sidewalks through pneumatic tubes in order to transport people

–No more slums

–War and poverty eliminated.

–A near “pot-hole free expressway of progress” for all of mankind

–Wealth evenly distributed

According to Mr. Clark, “Humanity has it made in the shade” by the start of the 21st century.

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What the prince of darkness is up to right now

We are not ignorant of his devices. (II Corinthians 2:11)

We actually know a good bit about Satan. More than we think, I expect. His history, his driving force, and his game plan are spelled out all through Scripture. We are left with tons of unanswered questions, but we know enough to understand how he works and what to do about him.

His devices. We know his maneuvers, his designs, his schemings, his wiles, and how resourceful he is. (Those are all different ways the Greek for “devices” is translated in various versions.)

Look at it this way. Satan is no fool. He has been studying human nature from the early days of the human race. He knows human psychology to a degree that any university in the land can only imagine. If they gave doctorates to serpents, he would have degrees out the kazoo. He is one smart dude.

He knows you.

The question before us, today, though, class, is this: do you know him? Do you pay attention to how he works?

There are two extremes to avoid: going to seed on Satan and seeing him in every thing, everywhere, is one extreme; and completely ignoring him is the other. There’s a balance somewhere in the middle where God’s people should take our stand.

If you are trying to do right, to live for God, to resist the encroaching infiltration of the world, then you are in his crosshairs. He has targeted you.

You’d better learn how he works and how to resist him.

Please note that I am not recommending that any of us specialize on the devil.

I’ve known a few ministers and a larger number of laypeople who seemed to focus on this archenemy. Every sermon they preached, every conversation they held, they talked about the devil far more than the Lord Jesus. Not a good thing. The Bible tells us to resist him (James 4:7), not to specialize on him.

We do far better by concentrating on the Lord Jesus Christ and obeying Him. However, if we do that effectively, we will soon encounter the adversary. From that moment on, we’ll be learning lessons about Satan whether we like it or not.

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How should we address God in prayer?

When you pray, say, “Father.”  –Luke 11:2

We hear people praying, “O God, do this…and God, do that…please God….”

We do not criticize one another’s prayers.  Any prayer is better than none.  And yet, I wonder about addressing the Heavenly Father as “God.”

It certainly makes sense. God is who He is.  There is one God and no other.  When we say “God,” we are referring to no other Being in the universe because deity is a category occupied by Him alone.  He is the only one in that class.  So, it’s not wrong to address God as God, I suppose.

But it feels a little like addressing my earthly father as “Coal miner.” Or “Farmer.”  Because that’s what he was.  Only he was so much more than that.

Our Lord Jesus had something to say on this matter.  When you pray, say ‘Father.’

Say “Father.”

That certainly reads like a command, and not a suggestion.

One wonders why we take that so lightly.

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Truths which Satan uses to stop us from praying

The forces of hell will do anything to keep us from praying.

Satan tells lies to keep us from praying.  He uses pleasures and misinformation and our laziness to keep us from praying.  He uses false teachers and busy schedules and great television to keep us from praying.

He also has been known to use truth.

As odd as it seems, the dark prince does not hesitate to speak the truth if it will make us think we shouldn’t pray.

Here are eight true statements Satan uses to put a stop to the most powerful force in the world, the prayers of God’s people…

1–God already knows what you need. No point in asking.

2–You are unworthy.

3–You are weak.

4–Your faith is small.

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Fifteen lies Satan tells you about Scripture

“(The devil) was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.  Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar, and the father of lies” (John 8:44).

If I were the devil, I would do everything in my power to keep you from the Word of God.  I would say anything I could think of, anything I thought you would believe, anything that works, to get you to read other things.

As Paul said, “We are not ignorant of his devices” (2 Corinthians 2:11).  We know how he works.  And here are some of the lies we have noticed pouring out of his factory, all geared toward destroying confidence in God’s Word.

One. “You already know it, so don’t read it.”

He’s lying to you. You do not know it. I’ve studied the Bible all my life and in no way could I say I “know” it. I know a great deal about it, but there is so much more.  For the typical church member to shun the Bible because “I’ve been there and done that” is laughable.

Two: “No one can understand it, so don’t read it.”

He’s lying.  Even a child can understand a great deal of Scripture.  Meanwhile, the Ph.D. will find plenty to challenge his thinking.  Only a book from the Almighty could touch so much at every level of their existence.

Three“It’s boring. So don’t read it.”

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