"The Devil's Design"
2Co 2:11 Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.
Introduction: We are always talking about the plan that God has for our lives but would it surprise you to know that the Devil also has a plan for your life? The word that Paul uses in our text is translated "design" in the ESV. Now make no mistake, Satan can't make you do anything you don't want to do. There is no such thing as "...the Devil made me do it..." But what he can and does do is seek to use all his wiles, his ingenuity, his intelligence and his wit to influence our thinking and our emotions. I have a 5 point outline of the things that Satan has in mind for you and I. His plan for us includes these five things.
I. Doubt - To make you question God's word and His goodness;
This is the tactic that Satan used against Eve. He implied that if God was really good He would not have prohibited Adam and Eve from using all the trees of the garden.
Have you ever asked yourself what the book of Job is really all about? Can I tell what I think that it's all about? It's about doubt! Satan spends all of his time trying to get Job to doubt God's goodness. Pure and simple! Satan wants to get all of us to do the very same things. It is also the strategy that he used on Eve and so many others.
II. Discouragement - To make you look at your problems rather than at God;
ILL - There is a legend that the devil was having a yard sale. People were buying articles such as lying, cheating. etc. An article was on the end of the table that had a sign not for sale. What is this item that is not for sale, people ask. The devil said I use this a lot of times and found it to be very effective. It is called discouragement. If I can get people discouraged, then I can do almost what I want with them.
ILL -- Someone said, "Discouragement is dissatisfaction with the past, distaste for the present, and distrust of the future. It is ingratitude for the blessings of yesterday, indifference to the opportunities of today, and insecurity regarding strength for tomorrow. It is unawareness of the presence of beauty, unconcern for the needs of our fellowman, and unbelief in the promises of old. It is impatience with time, immaturity of thought, and impoliteness to God."
SOURCE: William Ward. Today in the Word, April, 1989, p. 18.
Do you know how to recognize discouraged people? Listen to their conversation for just a few minutes and it won't be long before you will hear them complain and criticize. These are sure signs of discouragement.
What is the key towards guarding our hearts against discouragement?
HOPE AND A GRATEFUL HEART
There is an old legend of a man who found the barn where Satan kept his seeds ready to be sown in the human heart. On finding the seeds of discouragement more numerous than others, he learned that those seeds could be made to grow almost anywhere. When questioned, Satan reluctantly admitted that there was one place in which he could never get them to thrive. "And where is that?" asked the man. He replied sadly, "In the heart of a grateful person."
(From a sermon by Stephen Sheane, "Remembering the Blessings" 1/19/2009)
III. Distraction - To make us focus on the wrong things, to divert our attention, to ultimately take our eyes off the Lord
ILL - Human Distraction: Humans specialize in distraction, especially when the task at hand requires intellectual heavy lifting. But in the era of e-mail, instant messaging, Googling, e-commerce and iTunes, potential distractions while seated at a computer are not only ever-present but very enticing. Distracting oneself used to consist of sharpening a half-dozen pencils or sipping coffee. Today, there is a universe of diversions to buy, hear, watch and forward, which makes focusing on a task all the more challenging. A growing number of computer scientists and psychologists are studying the problem of diminished attention. And some are beginning to work on solutions. Microsoft is developing software that can learn to gauge where and how a computer user is directing attention. One piece of software in development learns to assign a level of urgency to incoming e-mail messages while shielding people from messages they can see later - based on an assessment of how busy they are. (NY Times 2/10/05)
http://garydfoster.com
WORLDLY DISTRACTION
A man bought a new hunting dog. Eager to see how he would perform, he took him out to track a bear. No sooner had they gotten into the woods than the dog picked up the trail. Suddenly he stopped, sniffed the ground, and headed in a new direction. He had caught the scent of a deer that had crossed the bear's path.
A few moments later he halted again, this time smelling a rabbit that had crossed the path of the deer. And so, on and on it went until finally the breathless hunter caught up with his dog, only to find him barking triumphantly down the hole of a field mouse.
Sometimes Christians are like that. We start out with high resolve, keeping Christ first in our lives. But soon our attention is diverted to things of lesser importance. One pursuit leads to another until we've strayed far from our original purpose.
IV. Defeat - To make you feel like a failure so that you don't even try;
STOP PAYING THE BULLY
In his book Fuzzy Memories, Jack Handey writes:
There used to be this bully who would demand my lunch money every day. Since I was smaller, I would give it to him. Then I decided to fight back. I started taking karate lessons. But then the karate lesson guy said I had to start paying him five dollars a lesson. So I just went back to paying the bully.
Too many people feel it is easier just to pay the bully than it is to learn how to defeat him.
SOURCE: Sherman L. Burford in Fresh Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching (Baker), from the editors of Leadership.
Contributed by: William Neel
MISSING OUT
ILL - Leith Anderson, a pastor, shares an experience of disappointment. As a boy, he grew up outside of New York City and was an avid fan of the old Brooklyn Dodgers. One day his father took him to a World Series game between the Dodgers and the Yankees. He was so excited, and he just knew the Dodgers would trounce the Yankees. Unfortunately, the Dodgers never got on base, and his excitement was shattered.
Years later he was engrossed in a conversation with a man who was a walking sports almanac. Leith told him about the first major league game he attended and added, "It was such a disappointment. I was a Dodger fan' and the Dodgers never got on base."
The man said, "You were There? You were at the game when Don Larsen pitched the first perfect game in all of World Series history?"
Leith replied, "Yeah, but uh, we lost."
He then realized that he had been so caught up in his team's defeat that he missed out on the fact that he was a witness to a far greater page of history.
V. Delay - To make you put off doing something so that it never gets done.
"Decision Without Procrastination"
"During the early days of the ministry of Dwight L. Moody, the great evangelist launched a series of meetings in Chicago with promise of the largest crowds that he had ever addressed up to that time. He was speaking of the life of Christ, and on the first Sunday night, October 8, 1871, he took as his topic the trial before Pilate. As he came to the end of his message, he turned to Mat_27:22, 'What shall I do then with Jesus, who is called Christ?' He concluded, 'I wish you would take this text home with you and turn it over in your minds during the week, and next Sabbath we will come to Calvary and the cross, and we will decide what to do with Jesus of Nazareth.' It may have been an artistic device. But speaking of it in later years, Moody called that conclusion to his morning's address the greatest mistake of his life. Even while Mr. Sankey was singing the final hymn:
'Today the Savior calls;
For refuge fly;
The storm of justice falls,
And death is nigh-'
the fire engines began to sound on the street on their way to their first contact with the great Chicago fire in which Moody's hall was laid in ashes, and in which it is estimated that over a thousand persons lost their lives. Moody never saw that congregation again, and some of those to whom he spoke on that night doubtlessly died."
(From 2000+ Bible Illustrations in e-Sword Bible. Go to: http://www.e-sword.net)
Conclusion: Satan will use any combination of these devices to destroy us.
On the slope of Longs Peak in Colorado lie the ruins of a huge tree. Naturalists say that it stood for over 400 years. It had weathered thousands of storms and had been hit with lighting 14 times. At the end, an army of beetles attacked the tree and leveled it to the ground. This tremendous giant, that age had not withered, that lightning had not blasted, that storms had not subdued fell at last before beetles so small that a man could crush them between his forefinger and thumb. Many people survive rare storms and lightning blasts somehow but allow the beetles doubt, discouragement, distraction, defeat and delay to destroy their happiness and effectiveness.
ILL - The story is told of a Sunday class that had been asked the question, In your time of discouragement, what is your favorite Scripture? A young man said, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want" Psalm 23:1.¨ A middle age woman said, "God is my refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Psalm 46:1. Another woman said, "In this world you shall have tribulations, but be of good cheer, I have overcome this world. John 16:33-35." Then old Mr. John who was 80 years old, with head of white hair and dark black skin, stood up and said with as much strength as he could muster, it is "and it came to pass¡¨ 85 times in the bible. The class started to laugh a little thinking that old Mr. John's lack of memory was getting the best of him. When the snickering stopped, he said. At 30 I lost my job with six hungry mouths and a wife to feed. I didn't know how I would make it. At 40 my eldest son was killed overseas in the war. It knocked me down. At 50 my house burned to the ground. Nothing was saved out of the house. At 60 my wife of 40 years got cancer. It slowly ate away at her. We cried together many a night on our knees in prayer. At 65 she died. I still miss her today. The agony I went through in each of these situations was unbelievable. I wondered where was God. But each time I looked in the bible I saw one of those 85 verses that said, "and it came to pass.¨ I felt that God was telling me, my pain and my circumstances were also going to pass and that God would get me through it.
