1 Peter 5:8 – Satan’s Tactics: The Favorite Lures – Bible study

1Peter 5:10 Satans Tactics: The Favorite Lures We have returned several times to the a theme, Satans Tactics. The Bible makes it clear that the devil IS (not was or will be, but IS) a roaring lion, roaming about, searching for some to devour. That means every Christian in every generation is in danger. If Satan can find a weak spot, he will destroy you. We left off several, looking at some of Satans favorite lures. Satan has many tools he can use to steal, kill, and destroy, but some of them have been around a long time and many have experienced their pull. Lets continue noting them this evening.. I have mentioned two: I. \#6\ Desire – Satan uses our own wrong desires against us. Ge 3:6 tree to be desired to make one wise A. He knows the human race. He has studied us for thousands of years. B. And he knows each of us. He has watched us since birth. C. He will use the things that we want to get us to do the things he wants. II. Discouragement and its big brother, depression. A. Satan wants to "push down" our spirit, steal our courage, our hope, our zeal and our zest. B. Everyone wrestles with them. We must train ourselves to find encouragement in the Lord, in His Word, and in His service. C. But even beyond that, Satan spiritually attacks our spirit to make these conditions worse. 1. That will not happen some of the times. Satan, our enemy, is always working to take a natural flaws and make them worse. 2. While it is hard enough to deal with ourselves, we must not let Satan make things even worse. a. What do we do? b. In short, resist him. (1) Recognize it is a spiritual attack. (2) Turn to prayer, the Word of God, and faith. (3) Give new, spiritual behaviors to his attacks. III. Doubt A. Doubt is another of the first tools the devil used. Ge 3:1 Yea, hath God said B. I wonder if Satan even knew how far doubt was going to go and how valuable a tool it would be for him. 1. In the last 100 years, Satan has gone from sowing seeds of doubt about what God said to growing mighty oaks of doubt as to whether God even existsand people are falling for it almost every time. a. Years ago, I said few Christians would ever make it through a secular college without being riddled with doubt about the Bible and God. b. In more recent years, I would have said that few students would make it through public school without being riddled with doubt. c. However, today I say that few children will even make it INTO school before being filled with doubt about God. (1) Most families never go to church. (2) Most homes today dont have a printed copy of the Bible in them. (3) Most kids love the evolutionists view of dinosaurs. (4) Then add PBS, secular preschool books, and television that plants the thoughts that the world is millions of years old and was formed by some kind of explosion. (5) Manyif not mostparents do not believe in God. c. Under such conditions, most children will never think twice about God. Doubt of God will be their default status. 2. But doubt of Gods existence is not the only doubt that Satan slips upon us. a. Some "Christians" doubt that portions of the Bible are true. b. Even some Christians have been taught to doubt portions of Gods Word. c. Others doubt that God hears and answers prayer, that Jesus will come again, that God will honor His promises to Israel, that God will provide for them if they will walk by faith, and the list goes on and one. C. Satan has been duped many into making an entire career out of doubting God. 1. I have never thought of this before. 2. Someone sent a link for me to listen to a series of what I thought was sermons. They were sermons but not for the Bible, but against it. 3. Listening to this man for a while showed me how much time, energy, and effort the devil has put into making people doubt. 4. But I have never considered how many hours, years, decades, and centuries of time, energy, and effort people have put into doubting God, what God said, and God-given common sense. D. It is for this reason, the Apostle Paul gave this warning: Col 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. 1. The word "spoil" means to ruin, like milk left out for days in the hot, direct sunlight of an Alabama summer. 2. Our children are being ruined by modern education. 3. I am sorry to have to say this so bluntly, but I am to the place where I believe it would be better for your children to have no formal education than to be educated by our public schools and colleges, as well as, most private schools and even some of our Christian schools and colleges. Matthew 16:26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? 4. Some would scold me to say, "Preacher, you would be making my child subject to ignorance and poverty all of his life." a. First, I would rather they go through life ignorant, poor, and with faith than that they go through life ignorant (much of what they are being taught is just plan WRONG!), wealthy, and filled with doubt concerning God. b. But with the dropping scores in our public school day, many are not graduating with any more real education than what their own parents could easily provide and if they worked at it, even exceed. 4. Sadly, our education system has become an arm of the devil and it is useful only in sowing doubt into the minds of our children. E. What do we need to do about it? 1. You are going to have to decide is your God a miracle- working, all-powerful God or not. a. If he is not, cast him aside. He is not the god of the Bible. b. If He is, then remind yourself that God can do anything except lie and fail. 2. Then, study the Bible. 2 Timothy 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 3. After you are well grounded, we need to study what the devil espouses. a. Study his doubt theology and mythology. (1) Not to believe in them, but to debunk them. (2) That field is called "apologetics." It is the study of defending the Bible. b. When we are strong enough, we need to listen to those kinds of speeches so that we can answer them. 1 Peter 3:15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: c. Those people are not smarter than us. They just have more tainted evidence and have been brainwashed. (1) We dont need to be afraid of them. (2) We need to expose them. IV. Disdain A. Yet another one of the devils earliest tactics. Gen 3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: B. To disdain the things of God is to contradict them and to disobey them. 1. That is exactly what the devil got Eve to do. 2. She KNEW what God had said. She even told the devil what God had said. 3. She just did not DO what God had said. 4. That is disdain for God, His Word, and God-given common sense. C. I find it interesting when Christians are excusing their sin how often they work in the statement, "I know I should be doing it, but." 1. They say that as if to indicate they should get some kind of credit for at least knowing what the will of God is. 2. Friend, knowing what God wants and then not doing it gets you no credit. 3. What it gets you is greater condemnation! 4. If you are a Christian, this statement will not apply do you, but hell is filled with people who knew about heaven and did nothing about it. a. Do you think knowing about salvation and then rejecting it is going to get them a fan in hell? b. I dont think so! c. It may get them some hotter coals but no cooling! d. Why not? Because to know the truth and then to disobey it is to disrespect God and His effort to get the truth to you. e. It is to disdain God. D. Disdain for God among the lost and wicked has grown into a demonic rage. 1. The devil has gotten into mankinds emotions and stirred them unto people are without control. 2. I believe it is part of Satans end time stronghold on the world. Revelation 12:12 Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. 17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. a. "wrath" and "was wroth" mean was the devil was enraged. b. The lost world is following the devils bad example. Psalms 2:1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? 3. People have gone from mere distain to anger, from anger to bitter, from bitter to hatred, and from hatred to pure rage. 4. Lets be careful that we are not caught up in this tool of the devil. V. Delay A. The best Biblical example I know of delay is King Agrippa. Acts 26:28 Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. 1. The devil is good at asking, "Why do today what you can put off to tomorrow?" 2. Even more, the devil likes to get you so busy putting out sage brush fires that you let the whole city burn to the ground. B. What must Agrippa have thought as he listened to Paul preach about heaven, hell, and the judgment of God? 1. He probably thought, "I doubt that there is any truth to this but if there is, I will look into it later." 2. Did he? Not as far as the Bible says. 3. As far as we know, Agrippa is in hell right now wishing he had not put off till tomorrow what should have been done today. C. Years ago I talked with a man who had told me for years that he is going to start serving Jesusone day. 1. On this occasion, the man was in his 40s, I think. 2. I remember asking him, "How old do you think you are going to live?" His answer was that he did not know, but he doubted he would live to be very old. His health was not the best at that time. 3. Then I asked, "You think your life is already half over?" He said he hoped not, but that it probably was. 4. I said, "So by your own estimates, you have already wasted over half of your life. When do you think your some day is going to come?" 5. That was years ago and to my knowledge that man still has not gotten serious about the Lordand because of that, I question his salvation. D. Now what about you? How much of your life has the devil tricked you into wasting? I believe these are Satans tactics, but not just five tactics. I believe they are his best five tactics. He fires off one and if that does not work, he reloads and repeats until he finds one that does. The question I have for you is, "How long are you going to let the devil make a fool out of you?"