Free Indeed: Spiritual Deception Series

Satan’s strategy: Deception

2 Corinthians 10: 3-5, John 8:44

1. Illus. of sign at army base

• “What do you call an untrained soldier? A casualty.”

• The purpose of these mornings is not to glorify Satan, but to show you his strategy so that you don’t become a casualty.

2. Need: We live in a war-zone. Like it or not, recognize it or not, we are in the middle of the age old conflict between good and evil, the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness, God and Satan. Now, these leaders are not the same in power, because they aren’t. And, the outcome of the war has already been determined. But we can lose our individual battle and God still win the war. God is going to win the war, but you and I can still have lives torn apart if we aren’t very careful.

3. Background: Last week we saw that Satan is a real and determined enemy. He uses three primary strategies against the believer: deception, temptation, accusation. Can’t really separate them, but for sake of understanding them we have to.

4. Interrogative: How does Satan use deception against us? Ask and answer 3 very important questions about this subject.

I. What are the sources of Satan’s deception?

1. Satan wants to deceive us. But it’s doubtful that Satan is going to personally appear to us. How does he go about getting that deception from his heart into our minds? There are at least 3 pipelines that he uses to funnel deception into our lives.

2. Pipeline #1 is the world system. When the Bible talks about the world system, it is talking about a set of values and priorities held by the lost around us. These values and priorities are contrary to God’s values and priorities.

 Satan has insinuated his lies into this system, where his lies have been adopted as truth. “He who dies with the most toys, wins.” “If it feels good, do it.” “The most important thing in the world is that I make myself happy.”

 When this atmosphere of lies surrounds us, we find ourselves accepting them as truth without even questioning it.

 Illus. of talk show (that’s your truth) Had accepted, without thinking, the lie that there is no such thing as absolute truth.

3. Pipeline #2 are spirits of deception. 1Timothy 4:1. Notice that this deception is both personal (give heed to seducing spirits) and doctrinal (and doctrines of demons). Satan’s army is both whispering deception into our minds, and raising up false teachers that will teach and preach deception into our minds.

 Who do you think whispers in our ear, “you can get away with it…nobody will ever know!”

 What would cause a man to say, “The Holy Trinity is not three in one, but nine in three. If you doubt it God will strike you dead.”

4. Pipeline #3 is self-deception. Do you have any idea how often the scripture warns us about deceiving ourselves? Here are just a few examples:

 James 1:22 says we deceive ourselves when we hear the Word but don’t do what we hear.

 James 1:26 says we deceive ourselves when we call ourselves Godly but don’t bridle our tongue.

 1 Corinthians 15:33 says we deceive ourselves when we think the company we run with doesn’t have an influence on us.

 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 says we deceive ourselves when we think we can live like the devil and still be a child of God.

 Galatians 6:7 says we deceive ourselves if we think we can sow without reaping the inevitable harvest of what we sow.

5. The deceiver lies to us through the pipelines of the world system, deceiving spirits, and self-deception.

II. What are the consequences of Satan’s deception?

1. “So, I hear a lie and buy into it. So what? I’ve been lied to before, and usually no great harm comes from it.” That’s probably true, but there are two truths you have to remember about Satan:

 He has a terrible plan for your life. John 10:10.

 When we accept one of Satan’s lies as the truth, he is able to establish a beach head in our life. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5

 He then uses this beach head to expand his operation in our life, with the ultimate goal of stealing, killing, and destroying.

 None of Satan’s deceptions are benign. If he deceives you, it is because he is trying to steal, kill, and destroy you.

2. Illus. of my cousins

• Told me if I would hold onto electric fence and onto his hand, the current would run through me without hurting me and shock him.

• I found out it didn’t work that way!

• “It was just a little white lie. We were just having some fun.” Well maybe he was, but I wasn’t!