Satan’s Strategies
God’s enemy is a strategist, a schemer. That is why the Apostle Paul admonished his congregation at Ephesus to, Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes (Ephesians 6:11). The Greek word for schemes is methodeia. So, it behooves God’s people to know the methods, the strategies of Satan, including his limitations. Specifically, we want to look at his deceptions, his corruptions, and his accusations.
Thinking about the dark side may seem intimidating to the would-be spiritual warrior or to the Christian who is plagued by demons. How much must I know to deal with the demonic? Neil Anderson provides this somewhat humorous illustration to help us focus on what is essential:
People’s lives are like houses. Suppose a family hasn’t taken the garbage out of their house for months, and they have spilled food and beverages without cleaning up. That will attract a lot of flies. To resolve this problem, I don’t think it is necessary to study the flight patterns of the flies and determine their names and rank structure in the insect hierarchy. There may be some value in doing this which I am not aware of, but I don’t think the answer is primarily found in gaining knowledge about and getting rid of the flies. Similarly, to “focus on the flies” in our lives is to allow the devil to set the agenda for us and distract us from the real issue — which is to get rid of the garbage. Repentance and faith in God have been and will continue to be the answer in this present church age.
Satan’ Deceptions:
Satan’s battle plan involves taking control of or influencing a person’s mind, usually without the person knowing it. Sinful practices such as those mentioned in Scripture that involve occult practices have captured many minds to the control of the “angel of light.” Actually, Satan is not an angel of light. Second Corinthians 11:14 says Satan disguises (meta schematizo) himself as an angel of light. More recent plagues, even epidemics, such as pornography, dark and evil video games, and mind-altering drugs throw the door wide open for Satan to enter; and little do his victims know of their subjugation. They think they are free, but truly they have become slaves to sin, as Paul documents in Romans 6:19-21.
I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! (NIV)
Many of these people thus trapped profess interest in the work of the Lord and fellowship in the church. Just as demonized people gravitated to Jesus, their attraction to the church is like a moth to a lightbulb. Perhaps they know that church is the one place where deliverance should be most likely to come. But most churches fall far short of recognizing the devil in their midst, let alone know how to deal with such destructive forces.
The primary attribute of Satan as a deceiver was manifested in his first encounter with humans in the Garden of Eden as he enticed Eve to disobey God’s command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God had told Adam, before Eve was created, that eating of that tree would result in death. Adam must have told Eve because she answered the tempter’s question by saying they were forbidden from eating of that tree. Well, you know the rest of the story, and all humanity has suffered ever since.
By the way, any men who feel morally superior need to notice that Eve gave the fruit also to her husband who was with her. His sin was probably worse than hers, in that he was not deceived; he sinned with full understanding of what he was doing. As still is the case often with men, he [Adam] chose the woman over God. But the main point here is that Eve spoke truth by saying to God, The serpent deceived me, and I ate (Genesis 3:13).
Neil Anderson sees the devil’s deception as his primary strategy for controlling people:
If I tempted you, you would know it. If I accused you, you would know it. But if I deceived you, you wouldn’t know it. If you knew you were being deceived, then you would no longer be deceived. Eve was deceived and she believed a lie. Deception has been the primary strategy of Satan from the beginning. That is why truth sets us free, and why Jesus prayed, “Sanctify them in the truth; Thy word is truth” (John 17:17). “Having girded [our] loins with truth” (Ephesians 6:14), we have available to us our first means of defense.
There are three primary avenues through which Satan will attempt to dissuade you from God’s truth and deceive you into believing his lies: self-deception, false prophets/teachers, and deceiving spirits. We are vulnerable to Satan’s lies if we fail to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5).
Sometimes, the devil uses other humans as his agents to gain control, as John MacMillan points out:
Let it ever be held in mind that the authority committed to the believer is over the powers of the air and never over the fellowmen or their wills. He is called to bind the unseen forces but to deliver his brethren. Satan's constant aim is the subjugation of the human will to himself; God's purpose is the full liberation of the will that the freed spirit, through glad acquiescence in the divine will, may glorify his Creator. Human control of the will of another, as manifested in hypnotism, etc., is obtained through the use of occult powers latent in the soul and is as unlawful for the Christian as wizardry and necromancy, which are directly forbidden in the Word of God. (emphasis mine).
We have all heard of the concept of mind-control; hypnotism is a form of mind control which apparently requires the consent and cooperation of the person being hypnotized. Maintaining control of our mind gives us a sense of autonomy and dignity which we believe is our right as a way to maintain our individuality. Unfortunately, we may not be as much in control as we think. In the case of unbelievers who voluntarily choose to defy God, the human mind finds itself cooperating with Satan’s schemes, even if they do not know it. But, disobedient believers also give the devil a foothold (Ephesians 4:27). Anderson makes this point clear.
Don’t think that Satan is no longer interested in manipulating your mind in order to accomplish his purposes. Satan’s perpetual aim is to infiltrate your thoughts with his thoughts and to promote his lie in the face of God’s truth. He knows that if he can control your thoughts, he can control your life. That is why Paul continues in the present tense with the statement, “And we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).
Neil Anderson also notes that Satan’s deceitful workings will continue to the very end of this age and are a “clear and present danger” to all humanity, including believers.
In addition to deceiving ourselves and being deceived by false prophets and false teachers, we can pay attention to a deceiving spirit. “The Spirit explicitly states that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons” (1 Timothy 4:1). John also cautioned us to test the spirits in order to unmask antichrists (1 John 2:18) and to distinguish the spirit of truth from the spirit of error (4:1-6). Satan’s demonic forces are at work attempting to pollute your mind with lies in order to keep you from walking in the truth.
Satan’s Corruptions:
MacMillan traces Satan’s corruptions of mankind from the earliest cultures:
The Old Testament introduces us to a multiplicity of gods. We find mankind from the earliest times adoring its deities and yielding itself in varieties of methods to worship. The philosophies underlying these forms of worship were sometimes noble and lofty in theory, but in practice the trend was to become unspeakably vile. Among the more cultured nations of antiquity, such as the Greeks and the Romans, the Eleusinian and the Bacchanalian mysteries were such that the apostle to the Gentiles says of them, ‘Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness,’ and again, ‘For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret’ in the bosom of their societies (Ephesians 4:19; 5:12). And, in the latter part of the first chapter of his epistle to the Romans, he exemplifies his statement by outlining the descent from the knowledge of the true God to the indescribable abominations which characterize most of the heathen religions.
In Romans 1, the Apostle Paul writes about stages of descent in which sinful humans abandon their image-of-God creation and descend into animalism:
1. In verse 23, the descent begins with the worship of idols, in which mankind exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed animals, and crawling creatures. Therefore, God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts (1:24) to become like the idols they sought after, for that is always the result and the curse of idolatry.
2. God gave them over in 1:26, 27 to degrading passions, as they descend below the level of the animals into the abominable sins of lesbianism and homosexuality, bringing on themselves the due penalty of their error - the corruption of their moral natures combined with the vile diseases which follow immorality and cause the deterioration of their physical beings.
3. The final stage of descent is seen in 1:28 in which God gave them over to a depraved mind, a morally hopeless state, where the whole mind and nature become corrupted and depraved as described in verses 29-32 by twenty-four foul attributes. Such is the downward path of Satan’s successful corruption of humans, as the lusts of the flesh override all semblance of moral truth and spiritual life. (emphasis mine)
God’s enemies must greatly enjoy the thought that modern man thinks idolatry does not exist in the West, and in cultures where it does exist, the idols are mere works of sculpture, not to be taken seriously. Tourists in Africa and Asia may even buy the little idols to take home as decorations. Such ignorance of the reality of the spiritual world is part of the arrogance that stems from “enlightenment” mentality. Reducing reality to what our five senses can comprehend conveniently exempts us from dealing with the fears and torments that the “poor primitive people” still endure. Perhaps Shakespeare had a more enlightened worldview when he had Hamlet say, There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
MacMillan continues to unfold Satan’s strategies and his grip on a huge portion of humanity:
The worship of evil spirits, called generally animism, is frequently separated from visible and material representations of the objects of devotion. Demons may take as their abode huge old trees, rocks, caves, streams, etc., and cause the people to worship them there. What missionary has not come across altars reared at the foot of some ancient banyan tree, upon which sheaves of incense lifted smoky fingers in silent appeal to the dreaded spirits which inhabited it? Or, at the crossings of streams, inserted in the ground will be found a few spears of incense, renewed as one traveler after another seeks to propitiate the demon of the stream that he may be allowed to cross unmolested. Great is the fear of these water demons.
To the heathen the presence of evil spirits is a terrible reality. The fear of the supernatural rests like a pall over the day and night. Someone has compared the native to the restive horse, ready to shy immediately at whatever unusual occurs about him. He lives in continual dread, overcome by the belief that multitudes of demons are ever at hand to do him harm. (emphasis mine)
Satan’s Accusations:
Besides deception and corruption, Satan also resorts to accusation to disarm and defeat God’s people. I have met people who honestly believed they had “lost their salvation” by blaspheming the Holy Spirit. While this is not the place to go into a full exegesis of Mark 3:22-30, where Jesus raised the concept of blaspheming the Holy Spirit, Satan has twisted this concept and accused some of God’s children as blasphemers because of lesser sins than that of disbelief.
The devil is an accuser. He is like a prosecuting attorney deceptively seeking to discredit and discourage a witness on the stand. He points his slimy finger and says, “Aha! You’ve done it now! There’s no hope for you. You’ve blasphemed the Holy Spirit!” Perhaps you have questioned some spiritual gift, anointed preacher, or apparent supernatural manifestation. Is that blaspheming the Holy Spirit? Of course not. In fact, it could be necessary discernment… A Christian can grieve the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30) and even quench the Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19) — but neither of these is unpardonable.
Satan is called the accuser of the brethren…who accuses them before our God day and night” (Revelation 12:10). We have all heard his lying, hateful voice in our hearts and consciences. He never seems to let up on us. Many Christians are perpetually discouraged and defeated because they believe his persistent lies about them. And those who give in to his accusations end up being robbed of the freedom that God intends His people to enjoy.
Unfortunately, some Christians do the devil’s work by accusing themselves. We need to know that if we are in Christ any image or thought we have of our self that is not positive is unbiblical. Satan delights in eroding the confidence of God’s people and encourages self-condemnation.
Truth is the Victory:
So Satan tries to separate us from God by deception, corruption and accusation. He succeeds when we passively accept his strategies. So, how can we overcome his attacks?
Neil Anderson tells about two ineffective ways and one effective way of responding to the attacks of the devil. He says:
… the most spiritually defeated Christians are those who pay attention to deceiving spirits (1 Timothy 4:1). They weakly give into the temptations and believe the lies and accusations. These Christians are defeated simply because they have been duped into believing God doesn’t love them, or they will never be victorious Christians, or they are helpless victims of the past. …
The second response is just as unproductive. Christians try to argue with the demons: “I am not ugly or stupid. I am a victorious Christian. That is not truth. I rebuke that lie.” They think they are fighting the good fight, but in reality, those negative thoughts are still controlling them and setting the agenda. They are standing in the middle of the street shouting at the demons when they should be marching forward.
The third response is this: We overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil by choosing the truth. We are not to believe evil spirits, nor are we to dialogue with them. We are instructed not to pay attention to them
As you have been thinking about spiritual warfare, perhaps you have been looking for the key idea or the formula for successful spiritual warfare. Maybe you or someone you care about is troubled by demonic influences, and you want to know how to engage in exorcism. Hopefully, you are not just interested in demonology as a theological doctrine. My hope is to help you see the authority you already have in Christ and to use that authority.
There is no magic bullet for spiritual warfare, but Neil Anderson helps us understand that dealing with the demonic should be seen as a truth encounter rather than a power encounter. The primary prerequisites for helping others find freedom are godly character and the ability to teach the truth about who Christ is and who we are in Him.
We need to correct a basic misconception in exercising spiritual authority. Anderson says,
Satan is like [a] yappy little dog: deceiving people into fearing him more than God. His power is in the lie. He is the father of lies (John 8:44) who deceives the whole world (Revelation 12:9), and consequently the whole world is under the influence of the evil one (1 John 5:19). He can do nothing about your position in Christ, but…he can deceive you into believing his lies about you and God…You don’t have to outshout him or outmuscle him to be free of his influence. You just have to out-truth him. Believe, declare, and act on the truth of God’s Word, and you will thwart Satan’s strategy.
This concept has had a dramatic effect on my counseling. Previously when I exposed a demonic influence in a counselling session it would turn into a power encounter. With such a process, I saw counselees become catatonic, run out of the room, or become suddenly disoriented. I would attempt to take authority over the demon. My first approach was to get the demon to expose itself; then I would command it to leave. This exchange often resulted in a great deal of trauma for the counselee. Although some progress was made, the episode would usually have to be repeated.
But I have learned from the Scriptures that truth is the liberating agent, and that has proven to be the case in every successful counseling session. Jesus is the Truth, and He is the One who sets the captive free. Power for the believer comes in knowing and choosing the truth. We are to pursue truth, because we already have all the power we need in Christ (see Ephesians 1:18, 19). Furthermore, people in bondage are not liberated by what I do as the pastor/counselor, but by what they choose to believe, confess, renounce, and forgive.
