Diversions and Distractions: Tools Used Against Us
(Rev. Barry Johnson and Rev. Rodney Johnson)
NOTE: New Light Faith Ministries and Barry Johnson Ministries, founded by Rodney V. Johnson and Barry O. Johnson, respectively, are partnering to offer Bible studies for Christians who are seeking to grow in their relationship with Jesus. This is a Bible study lesson, not a sermon. The Bible studies teach foundational truth that are designed to challenge, encourage and, most importantly, flame the fire of hunger in the Christian who wants to learn more about who they have become in Christ Jesus. The Bible studies you find on this site contains the written version of the lesson. However, these lessons also include a video and an audio file of the study, a PDF version of the lesson and a sheet for note taking. If you would like any of the additional resources for these studies, please email us at newlightfaithministries@gmail.com or bjteachingltr@gmail.com for more information or contact us at the email provided on both of our Sermon Central pages. Please visit our YouTube Channel (Barry Johnson Ministries; New Light Faith Ministries, Inc.) to watch or listen to these lessons as well as other available sermons. Be blessed.
Introduction
Several years ago I was returning home from a trip to the east coast. My flight took off from New Jersey and was scheduled to arrive in Kansas City around 7:30 p.m. There was bad weather scheduled for Kansas City so I changed my scheduled flight for an earlier one hoping to beat the weather. Once we took off, the weather worsened in Kansas City and we were not allowed to land. Our plane was diverted Tulsa, OK as we were getting low on fuel circling the airport. We were told that once we got to Tulsa they would refuel the plane and then we would return to Kansas City. That did not happen. Once we arrived in Tulsa we were informed that the pilots could not fly to Kansas City and we would need to find hotels for the night. I had been away from home for three weeks and I was determined that I was going to get home that night. So after retrieving my bags I went to the rental car station to rent a car. There were several others doing the same and three of us decided to share a ride. I got into the car with 2 strangers in Tulsa, OK for a 3 hour road trip to Kansas City. As it turned out the guys I got into the car with were Christians and we all prayed that we would arrive home safely which we did. But here is something that I found out the next day: had I stayed on my original flight I would have gotten home at the scheduled time as the weather had cleared up enough for that flight to land. However, had I waited overnight in Tulsa for the flight the next morning I would have been stuck there because the weather deteriorated overnight causing the airport to shut down.
When I boarded my flight in New Jersey I boarded that plane with the expectation that when I stepped off the plane I would be in Kansas City. That did not happen. Why? Because bad weather caused that plane to be diverted to another airport 3 hours away. But before that happened, I saw the forecast and came to the conclusion that I needed to change my flight. So I allowed myself to get distracted by the potential weather changes and figured I should be proactive and get ahead of it. My only goal was to get home that night. My distraction by the weather led me to make a decision that caused me to get home 4 hours later than I would have had I not changed my flight at all. Because I was so distracted by the weather forecast, fear set in that I wouldn’t be able to get home so I made the decision to change my flight which was diverted. I did not get home “that night” per se, but very early the next morning. Now here is something I want you to remember. When I prayed about the situation I did not pray and ask God “should I change my flight” because of the weather. No, I prayed and asked God to allow me to get on the earlier flight. Do you see the mistake I made?
The title of this month’s lesson is “Diversions and Distractions: Tools Used Against Us.” Paul wrote the following to the Christians in Corinth: “(10) Now whom you forgive anything, I also forgive. For if indeed I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven that one for your sakes in the presence of Christ, (11) lest Satan should take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices.” (Second Corinthians 2:10-11) In verse ten Paul talks about forgiving and then transitions to verse eleven where he mentions how Satan takes advantage of us when we choose not to forgive. But we want you to focus on what Paul wrote in the last part of verse eleven. He said, “…for we are not ignorant of his devices.” Through God’s Word and the Holy Spirit residing within us, we know his plans, his thoughts, his cunning, and his skills for he has not changed his tactics. We are not ignorant of the great number of devices which he is constantly using to injure us and to destroy the souls of people. He is full of wiles; and Paul had an abundance of occasions to be acquainted with the means which he had used to defeat his plans and to destroy the church. This lesson will focus on two of those “wiles” and or devices, diversions and distractions.
The Spirit of Diversion
By definition, a diversion is “the act of an instance of diverting or straying from a course, activity, or use. In the case of Rodney’s flight home, it was a diversion or change of course. It also means a deviation – trying to do one thing but ends up going off course. Satan wants to divert us from the place God wants us to go. That’s the spirit of diversion. Let me give you another example – a football analogy.
I love the way the commentators help viewers understand what’s going on in the game because they can see the entire field and we can’t. For example, the announcer will say the defensive team looks like it’s in zone coverage or two-deep coverage, which means the safeties are playing behind the cornerbacks to prevent a long pass. When the safeties are covering the line, it’s an opportunity to throw the football. When they are back off the line, it’s an opportunity to run the football. When the quarterback comes to the line, he’s looking to see where the safeties are positioned. Let’s say the team is in a cover two, which means there will be opportunities for the wide receivers to run routes between the linebackers and the safeties.
But to succeed, the quarterback must make sure the safeties don’t come up into the coverage and take away the route. So, he looks at the safety to his left until the safety sees him. The safety begins to watch the quarterback’s eyes and takes a step or two backwards. When the receiver comes across the formation from the right, the safety is not in proper position because he has been looking at the quarterback. That safety has been diverted.
We can easily get distracted and diverted from doing something that we need to do because the things that distract us are often things that we enjoy. How much of your free time do you spend on Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, Instagram, YouTube? If you were to evaluate this time, would you say that you spend more time using those apps than you think? I have an Apple phone and there is a setting on my phone where I can check to see how much “screen” time I am using.
In other words, it tells me how much time I am looking at my screen. Now the only reason I would be looking at my screen is because I am engaged in something. At the time that this lesson was being written Rodney checked his phone and saw that he had spent 4.5 hours on his phone reading and researching. That’s a lot of time for just 4 days of the week. He was averaging an hour per day and he says he does not look at his phone that often. Now imagine spending that same amount of time everyday studying God’s Word or in quiet praise and worship of Him.
Another area of diversion that we want to spend a few minutes discussing relates to military war strategies. A well-known military war tactic is to feint attack on one area to draw the enemy’s attention away from the primary target. This is a strategy that military personnel are very familiar with and it’s not just used in the military. Boxers use this strategy and you see it employed in football games weekly. The overall goal of this strategy is to get the opponent’s attention off of the primary goal being attacked. If you think about this from our enemy’s viewpoint, he is a master of getting us so diverted and distracted that we have very little time for the things of God. Yes, we have great intentions, and we see the participation trophy for those intentions, but when it comes to doing what we intended it is often lacking in substance.
A diversion, as a principle, is neither positive nor negative until it is utilized and the intended outcome manifests. It all depends on the motivation behind it and who wins. If the person utilizing the diversion to gain something from an opponent and they are successful, then for them the diversion was extremely positive and had a positive outcome. The opposite is true for their opponent. For them it was negative all the way around.
Our point to this is simple: A successful diversion, one that has an aim and a purpose, is dependent upon, now listen to us ladies and gentlemen, a successful diversion is dependent upon the person seeing the diversion, but not recognizing that it as a diversion, and then responding to it in the desired way.
Now we want you to hear this closely because I want you to think about Rodney’s travel diversion. Remember how it all got started with him looking at the weather forecast and hearing about what was happening at home? When it comes to a diversion and a distraction, what the eyes see and what the ears hear are what we follow and what we follow is what diverts us. Do you see this? Let’s talk about a few examples of this from Scripture.
Examples of Diversions from Scripture
We want to give you a couple of examples to think about as it relate to diversions from Scripture. Let’s go to the ninth chapter of the book of Joshua. Joshua 9:3-14 records the following, “(3) But when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai, (4) they worked craftily, and went and pretended to be ambassadors. And they took old sacks on their donkeys, old wineskins torn and mended, (5) old and patched sandals on their feet, and old garments on themselves; and all the bread of their provision was dry and moldy. (6) And they went to Joshua, to the camp at Gilgal, and said to him and to the men of Israel, ‘We have come from a far country; now therefore, make a covenant with us.’ (7) Then the men of Israel said to the Hivites, ‘Perhaps you dwell among us; so how can we make a covenant with you?’ (8) But they said to Joshua, ‘We are your servants.’ And Joshua said to them, ‘Who are you, and where do you come from?’ (9) So they said to him: ‘From a very far country your servants have come, because of the name of the LORD your God; for we have heard of His fame, and all that He did in Egypt, (10) and all that He did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon king of Heshbon, and Og king of Bashan, who was at Ashtaroth. (11) Therefore our elders and all the inhabitants of our country spoke to us, saying, ‘Take provisions with you for the journey, and go to meet them, and say to them, ‘We are your servants; now therefore, make a covenant with us.’ (12) This bread of ours we took hot for our provision from our houses on the day we departed to come to you. But now look, it is dry and moldy. (13) And these wineskins which we filled were new, and see, they are torn; and these our garments and our sandals have become old because of the very long journey.’ (14) Then the men of Israel took some of their provisions; but they did not ask counsel of the LORD.” (Joshua 9:3-14)
What happened in this story? Did you see it? Gibeon was the head of the four towns occupied by the Hivites. When the inhabitants of Gibeon heard that the Children of Israel were coming their way, they devised a plan to get the Israelites to enter into a peace agreement with them by deception. They knew that all the inhabitants of the land of Canaan were to be cut off and the Israelites would show no mercy to them. This made them afraid of fighting them understanding that they would make no covenant with them. Their solution was to trick them into a peace agreement. By disguising themselves they made the Israelites believe that they came from some very far off country which the Israelites were not commanded to make war upon nor forbidden to make peace with but were particularly appointed to offer peace to. It is very likely that they knew some of what the Israelites had been commanded in the Law, specifically what was recorded in Deuteronomy 20:10-11. It says, “(10) When you go near a city to fight against it, then proclaim an offer of peace to it. (11) And it shall be that if they accept your offer of peace, and open to you, then all the people who are found in it shall be placed under tribute to you, and serve you.” Unless they could be admitted under this notion, they knew their fate would be the same as Jericho and Ai. So, they used a diversion and a distraction to trick the Israelites. In verse eight the Israelites asked the right question, got the answer they were expecting but paid too much attention to what they were seeing. And here is the kicker as recorded in verse fourteen, “….but they did not ask counsel of the LORD.” Their attention was so distracted by what their eyes saw and what their ears heard that they failed to ask God what they should do. When you read the rest of the story, when Joshua found out he had been deceived he honored his agreement not to kill them but that agreement caused them to disobey God.
Why was Israel not to live among the nations who did not serve the Lord? Turn with to Deuteronomy 7. We are going to read verses 3 and 4. “(3) Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. (4) For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods; so the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly.”
This was God’s issue the whole time with the children of Israel and why He gave them the instruction that He did. He knew that if the children of Israel began to spend time with the other nations that they eventually would turn them away from Him. Sadly, we are seeing this in the Church today. The Church is spending so much time paying attention to the culture, paying attention to what society says, paying attention to what this person says, or what that person says, that they have forgotten about what the BOOK says. The Church has been diverted so far from Scripture that they are not in a place where God can truly begin to work through them to make a change, to make a difference.
Now let’s look at Mark chapter five, another example of potential diversion. The woman with the issue of blood has just touched Jesus’ garment and instantly healed. We will begin with verse 34. “(34) And He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your affliction. (35) While He was still speaking, some came from the ruler of the synagogue's house who said, "Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?”
This is the person who had come to Jesus and asked Him to go with him to heal his daughter and Jesus agrees. That was the path that they were taking. That was their destination. But the men from the ruler’s house came and said your daughter’s is dead so there is no need to bother with Jesus. This is a diversion, ladies and gentlemen. The men from the ruler’s house are essentially saying, “You can’t heal a dead person.” We are going to hear people say things that sound logical, that sound reasonable. But if the Word of God means anything to you, it’s not what you see and it’s not what you hear. It is WHO you believe! Now let’s read verse 36.
(36) As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, He said to the ruler of the synagogue, "Do not be afraid; only believe." Jesus says, “Don’t let what you have just heard divert your attention as to why you came to Me in the first place.”
Again, the principle is this: What the eyes see and what the ears hear are what we follow and what we follow is what diverts us. The spirit of diversion has a definite purpose. If the path that we are on is spiritual maturity, if the path that we are on is to look more and more like Jesus, then we know what this spirit is trying to do. It’s trying to get us off that path by minimizing in our lives the things that we are doing – reading and meditating on the Word, praying, praising and worshiping God, and periodic fasting. And it will start so innocently. I don’t have to read the Bible today. I can read it tomorrow. Or, I don’t have to pray today because I prayed a lot yesterday. These are little decisions that seem so innocent.
Purposes of the Spirit of Diversion
If the enemy is using this tactic with such effectiveness then it stands to reason that we need to understand its purposes. What is he trying to accomplish by diverting our attention, focus, energy, thoughts, etc.? Let’s go to First Kings chapter sixteen and see an example of how it was used against Israel. First Kings 16:29-33 says, “(29) In the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah, Ahab the son of Omri became king over Israel; and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty-two years. (30) Now Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD, more than all who were before him. (31) And it came to pass, as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took as wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians; and he went and served Baal and worshiped him. (32) Then he set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. (33) And Ahab made a wooden image. Ahab did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him.”
Now let’s read First Kings 22:51-53. It says, “(51) Ahaziah the son of Ahab became king over Israel in Samaria in the seventeenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and reigned two years over Israel. (52) He did evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of his father and in the way of his mother and in the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who had made Israel sin; (53) for he served Baal and worshiped him, and provoked the LORD God of Israel to anger, according to all that his father had done.”
How did Ahab and Ahaziah make Israel sin? They led them to worship Baal, known in Israel as Baal-peor, and whose worship was identified with Molech and child sacrifices. Leviticus 18:21 commanded them, “And you shall not let any of your descendants pass through the fire to Molech, nor shall you profane the name of your God: I am the LORD.” So what did they do after receiving this commandment? Jeremiah 19:4-5 tells us. It says, “(4) Because they have forsaken Me and made this an alien place, because they have burned incense in it to other gods whom neither they, their fathers, nor the kings of Judah have known, and have filled this place with the blood of the innocents (5) (they have also built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or speak, nor did it come into My mind).” (Jeremiah 19:4-5) Now who are the Ahab’s and Ahaziah’s today? The men and women in the pulpit who are leading their congregations away from the truth and from the Lord by what they teach or support.
Many of you may have seen the video of the New Year’s eve service where the pastor of the Church entered the Church swaging to the secular song “Walk it Out.” This song has absolutely no place being played in any house of worship. Some of the lyrics says, “Now hit the danceflo’, and bend ya back low. She do it with no hands, now stop pop and roll. I’m smoking bubble ho, yeah dey in trouble ho, I like the way she moves, an undercover ho…” You get the point. A pastor entered his Church for a New Year’s service with this song blasting. People were dancing and swaying to the music just as the song said. If you didn’t know better you would have thought you were seeing a party at a night club and literally you would have been right. People were dancing and gyrating before the altar as if they were in a club. Even people who don’t go to Church were appalled by these “church goers” and the church’s leader. I do not know what this pastor was thinking but when he was asked about it he justified his actions by saying he was being relevant to the people and making the Church relevant. You do know that Jesus never tried to be “relevant” regardless of how many messages you hear that He did, right? He held to His Father’s standards and those standards were never lowered to make the world feel better and respond to Him. Let’s look at another purpose.
First Peter 1:24-2:2 says, “(24) Because ‘ALL FLESH IS AS GRASS, AND ALL THE GLORY OF MAN AS THE FLOWER OF THE GRASS. THE GRASS WITHERS, AND ITS FLOWER FALLS AWAY, (25) BUT THE WORD OF THE LORD ENDURES FOREVER.’ Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you….(1) Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, (2) as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby.” One of the goals of the spirit of diversion is to keep the Church spiritual babies by keeping us off the narrow path that leads to spiritual maturity and the spirit is working through the pulpit to make this a reality. Have you ever wondered why the prosperity preachers’ messages are so well received? If you tell someone that all they have to do is believe and receive that is an easy message to hear “and receive.” But if you tell someone they need to make a change and that God has standards that they are to live by, those messages are judged, critiqued and not checked to see if they are scripturally accurate.
It’s interesting that we never go back and check the validity of the Word that we hear when we agree with it nor the Word that we disagree with. You would think as we grow we would like to verify everything we hear to make sure we are on the right track. When we are distracted or diverted from the truth because we are not willing to take the time to verify it, after a while, and this is important, the spirit of diversion will produce an easiness to accept doctrines that are not grounded in spiritual truth. (Some examples: tithing, predestination; God controls everything; all good and bad things come from God.)
Why are doctrines, especially those similar to the ones just mentioned, diversions? The answer is simple: they lengthen the time it takes for us to transform into the image of Jesus. Second Corinthians 3:18 tells us, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” (Second Corinthians 3:18) When we accept the wrong doctrine without researching it ourselves our growth in Christ can be delayed by months and years. It can be stopped in its tracks because there is no growing in Christ when the foundation is not in Him.
These doctrines delay our understanding of who we are in Christ and our oneness with the Godhead. Jesus says in John 17, beginning with verse 20 that “(20) I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; (21) that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. (22) And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: (23) I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.” (John 17:20-23) Jesus prayed for us and that we would be one with Him and His Father. That comes through believing the truth. Our enemy does not want us to know who we are in Christ so he will use any and all means to divert us from this truth or distract us when we are hearing truth. If you have ever sat in a Church service where the Word was being preached in truth, you know what this looks like. It is amazing how things try to flow through your mind when the truth is being preached and how easily it is to pay attention when something is being preached that is not found in God’s Word. Maybe it only happens with me, but I must fight to focus on the truth, but if I am listening to something that is not making sense, my mind is not interrupted. There is a reason for this.
Earlier I described a successful diversion as one that is dependent upon the person seeing the diversion, not recognizing it and then responding to it in the desired way. One of the enemy’s most faith destroying diversions is for us to see a lack of visible fruit in our lives. Now follow me closely: when we see nothing, we don’t see faith. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Do you know that if you need to see the evidence of something then that is the opposite of faith? Faith is about believing even when you cannot see it. For example, you pray for a person and the person remains sick. You pray for a person and the person had to go to the hospital anyway. You pray for a person and the person dies. The enemy wants you so focused on what did not happen that you eventually stop praying all together. We must remember that as our faith grows, we will see more and more visible fruit!
So How Do We Minimize and Withstand the Diversion Attacks?
So, how do we minimize and withstand the attacks of the spirit of diversion? Let’s go back to the story we read earlier about how the Gibeonites fooled the Children of Israel. Joshua 9:14 says “And the men took of their victuals, and asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord.” When they were approached by the Gibeonites, they listened with their ears and accessed with their eyes and accepted what they heard and saw. In doing this, they did not “feel” the need to ask God about the situation. How many times do we accept what we see and hear as gospel and do not seek God’s face about a situation?
There is a word in the Hebrew that aptly describes how we can minimize the spirit of diversion’s impact in our lives. It’s the word sur. It appears 56 times as turn aside, and 51 times as turned aside. We are only going to look at the first time the word is used. Exodus 3:1-4 says, “(1) Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. (2) And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. (3) Then Moses said, ‘I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.’ (4) So when the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ (Exodus 3:1-4)
Now look at verse 3 – “Then Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight….” Moses made a purposeful decision to investigate the diversion, the distraction. Now look at verse 4 – “So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him…” The Lord made a purposeful decision to speak to Moses after Moses allowed Him to divert and distract him. What we see in these two verses are purposeful decisions to follow the leading of the Lord. For us today, it’s something that we feel on the inside. We can feel the Lord tugging at our hearts and minds, and we must come to the place of yielding to that tug. We must come to the place of turning aside when we feel it.
In the book, “The Wigglesworth Standard”, Smith Wigglesworth, an early 20th century evangelists shares a story told by a visiting evangelist, who said, “Years ago the Spirit of God began to speak to me, but I was too busy to heed His voice. He persisted, until I commenced to go aside when He spoke, so that I could hear what God the Lord had to say. This became my manner of life. I obeyed His pleading voice; until now, at the slightest breath of the Spirit, I leave everyone and everything to be in His presence, to hear and to obey His Word.”
Summary & Conclusion
Ladies and gentlemen, when we live our lives in constant yieldedness and constant obedience, when we live lives of turning aside to hear the Lord speak, the spirit of diversion will be powerless to hinder our transformation to Second Corinthians 3:18 and the results that the transformation will produce in our lives.
If you have a cell phone that tracks your screen time, when you finish this lesson check your phone and see how much of your time so far this week have been spent looking at your phone. Maybe you do not look at your phone that much, so maybe for you it’s the television or your tablet or just being on your computer. You know how you use your time. When you are in Church, pay attention to how often your mind wanders when the Word is being delivered versus when the offering is being taken or announcements being made. Monitor how often your mind drifts when you are saying your prayers or when you are reading your Bible. Or better yet, see how often something comes up when you are scheduled for your personal Bible study time. All of these distractions and diversions are intentional.
When I was in High school we were required to take driver’s education. This was a requirement that had to be met before we could take the test to obtain our official driver’s license. There was the classroom work that had to be successfully completed followed by behind the wheel driving training – where they actually took us out on the road and we could put into practice what we learned. During that training we had to hold the steering wheel at the 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock position at all times while paying attention to our surroundings. Now here is what’s important. We were not allowed to have music playing and those riding in the back seat were not allowed to be carrying on conversations. The car had to be quiet and the reason was simple – the instructor did not want us distracted. Distracted drivers are more prone to getting into accidents and injuring themselves and others because they run red lights or swerve into oncoming traffic because they take their eyes off the road. Many Christians are going through life as distracted drivers – getting into spiritual accidents because they are distracted. If this is you and you have experienced a diversion in your walk with Christ, today is the day that you can get back on track. It starts with the decision to remove any and all distractions that are hindering you. We hope that this lesson serves as a starting point to getting that done. Let’s pray.
