SATAN,
STRATEGY OF

WHEN the Mavericks play and the opposing team is up for a free throw, they run into opposition from the Dallas fans. The folks attending the game and sitting in the seats directly behind the basketball goals have posters put under their seats before the game. The fans hold these posters up to distract the opposing team’s players from making good shots. These posters say “Brick,” and they are painted to look like bricks. A “brick” in basketball is a word used to indicate a ball that is thrown so poorly that it completely misses the goal. It indicates the idea that the basketball misses just as easily as if the player would have thrown a real brick at the net. When the player gets up to shoot, the fans are ready with their posters, waving them in the air to distract him.

Now, a lot goes into getting these cardboard signs to the fans. First of all, somebody’s got to cut out the cardboard. Then, the cardboard has to be painted. Then, someone has to be paid to pass out the cardboard signs before the game. All of this is done just to get the player’s eyes off the goal.

But a seasoned basketball player understands one thing. No matter how many bricks are up there, he is to keep his eyes on the goal.

Satan is going through a lot of effort to put bricks up in your face to distract you from making your goals. However, God has enabled us, if we focus on Him, to be able to make the goals and for those shots to be “all net.” It’ll be swoosh! He makes this possible when we keep our eyes on Him. Where are your eyes? Don’t be distracted.815

[Worldliness, Distraction of]

Ps. 141:8; 2 Cor. 4:18; Heb. 12:2

IN YELLOWSTONE National Park, there are large signs that say Don’t Feed the Bears! Tourists always disobey it. They feed the bears, and every year the park rangers have to pick up dead bears. The bears get used to being fed by the tourists and they lose their ability to fend for themselves in nature. They wind up looking for a handout, and when the handout is no longer there, they die.

Satan offers us handouts—a party here, a relationship there, a thrill here, and he gets us so used to him that we forget God. When he stops handing things out, when you lose the job, when life turns upside down on you, then you don’t know where to go. Satan has a strategy of tricking people into relying on cheap substitutes.816

[Deception, Satan’s; Deception, Cost of; Temptation, Leading to Sin]

Gen. 3:1–4; Prov. 14:12; James 1:13–15