Know Thine Enemy
Thoughts From a Bible Reader
Sharing the things that I feel led to share with you will be much easier if we can make something very clear right here, right from the start. As Christians we have an enemy. That, hopefully, is not news to you. We call him Satan, or the devil, or Lucifer. And we have been handed down pictures of him that may blind us to the reality of how he operates among us.
So when I say “the devil,” what picture comes into your mind? Does it involve red skin, a tail, some sort of pitchfork? Or do you see an angel of light, beautiful to behold, majestic in power? Well Paul, in 2 Cor. 11:14, gave us the second picture, not the first. The devil is not some hideous, ugly creature, but rather is very good-looking and well-dressed. And history and culture have also handed down pictures to us of how Satan operates as well. People expect him to demand child sacrifices, blood offerings, the worship of cabals of witches. He will meet you in the dark of the night and make a deal that will give your soul to him for eternity. And he probably revels in having that image of him being what we fear, because it makes his real modus operandi difficult to discern. Because how does Satan really work on us to damn our souls? The exact same way that he did with Adam and Eve. He lies. Satan, the devil, is a well-dressed seller of lies, and that is the key to his effectiveness.
In Genesis 3:1-7 Satan, disguised as the serpent, started his lie to Eve with, “Is that really what God told you?” Sow a little doubt, create a hesitation of belief. And then when Eve responded to him that God had warned them that not obeying would bring death, Satan went in for the kill. “God lied to you, just so that you won’t become like He is. It won’t kill you.” Jesus told us in John 8:44 that Satan is the father of lies, of all lies and liars. No truth exists in Satan. We are also warned that Satan is prowling about the world, looking for believers to devour (1 Peter 5:8). Is it through getting us to believe his lies that he is able to devour us? I think so.
We can see Satan and his lies at work early in the life of the church through the Gnostic beliefs that he was able to convince some to accept as truth. This lie did not deny Jesus and His death for us outright. Instead what it said is that only the things made of spirit in this world are good, made by Jesus’ good Father God. Anything physical, to Gnostics, was evil, made by a different, evil god. And so Gnostics taught that Jesus did not physically become a man to die for our sins. No, they said, He only appeared to be here physically1. This led John to warn us that “many deceivers have gone out into the world, people who do not confess Jesus as Christ coming in the flesh. This person is the deceiver and the antichrist!” (2 John 1:7). And Satan has his deceivers, his antichrists, actively working in the church today as well, working to create counterfeit gospels that, like Gnostic Christianity, are only partly true, but wrong enough to lead us totally astray.
Strangely enough, this father of all liars is still even right now allowed to approach the throne of God in heaven, where he can make accusations against us, even as he did against Job (Job 1-2). Jesus told us that Satan had asked God for permission to have a go at Peter, to sift him like wheat, but Jesus had prayed for him to not fail in his faith (Luke 22:31). We are told that Satan is accusing us before the throne of God night and day. And it is the blood of Jesus, the word of our testimony, and our being willing to not love our lives, right to the end of them, that will finally bring that privileged position for him to an end (Rev. 12:10-11).
So why am I compelled to bring the devil into my conversations with you at such an early point? Because I am certain that, just like with Gnosticism, it is Satan’s lies that are behind so much of the church today ending up on the wide way that leads to destruction, and off of the narrow path that leads to life (Matt. 7:13-14). Satan’s lies are the reason why Jesus has had to call for those who are already Christians to repent (Rev. 2-3). For example, the recent wave of “Christians” claiming that empathy is a sin I clearly think is Satanic in origin. It is a lie, just like the one told to Eve, to cause doubt and to lead us away from the eternal life found only in Jesus. Why do I think that? Because if empathy is a sin, then Jesus must have been quite the sinner! Again, why? Because Jesus, we are told again and again, had compassion, and what compassion is is empathy on steroids. Empathy is “I feel for you.” Compassion is “I feel for you, and I’m going to do something about it!” So if empathy is bad, compassion must be so much worse! But we read in Matt. 14:13-21 that Jesus had compassion on the crowds, leading to His healing their sick and then to a miracle that saw thousands fed with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish. In Luke 7:11-15 He had compassion on a widow grieving over her son who had just died, and He restored the son to life. In Mark 6:30-44 Jesus “saw the large crowd and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he taught them many things,” and then later fed them as well with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish. I think that you clearly get the idea. Jesus, who as Christians we are called to imitate (1 Cor 11:1), modeled compassion for us. I simply cannot see how you can condemn empathy without also condemning compassion, and so anyone preaching that empathy and compassion are sins are preaching anti-Christ messages. (For a deeper look into where calling empathy a sin began, see The Dangerous Fad of Calling Empathy a Sin ).
So who would want to convince us that empathy and compassion are wrong, if Jesus so clearly demonstrated them for us in how He lived? The devil, of course. And I will unapologetically, as I share with you in my posts, place the blame for the lies that are being handed to us right where it belongs. On the father of lies, Satan himself. He is our real enemy. Not people from the other political party or the opposite end of the political spectrum. Not people from different countries, who speak different languages. Satan is the enemy. He is the one who wants to devour us, to keep us from our salvation. And, I will tell you right up front, he has a lot of experience, knows what he is doing, and is very good at what he has chosen to do. He will use churches and pulpits to spread his lies, if the person in that pulpit is not careful. And “his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will correspond to their actions” (2 Cor 11:15) – Satan hides people in churches who sole purpose there is to lead the rest of us astray. And, in the end, his servants will be punished for this, but you and I do not want to take Satan and how he works lightly, because we could be led astray by him and them.
But here is the good news. Although he is powerful, Satan is not all-powerful. He is not all-knowing either. He has no power to throw you in hell – that power belongs only to God (Matt. 10:28). And the only evil, the only sin that he could encourage us to do that will not be forgiven is blaspheming the Holy Spirit (Matt. 12:31-32). If we resist the devil, he will flee from us (James 4:7). God has also given us armor to protect ourselves from Satan. Truth. Righteousness. The gospel of peace. Faith. Salvation. The Holy Spirit. God’s word, the Bible. Prayer (Eph. 6:13-18). And Jesus has already defeated Satan and the things that he has done (Hebrews 2:14-15, 1 John 3:8). May God help us, His children, to be victorious over our enemy as well!
Do you have questions or comments that you would like to share with me? Feel free to drop me an email (stevesuterfaithandfruit@gmail.com).
Unless otherwise noted, the Scriptures quoted are from the NET Bible® https://netbible.com, copyright ©1996, 2019 used with permission from Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. All rights reserved
https://gnosticismexplained.org/