2 Thessalonians 2:3-12
When it comes to being deceived, it is not
the outright obvious things of evil that get us, it’s the whispers! It’s the
whispers of Satan that can destroy individuals, families, and churches. There are
four subtle ways that he does that:
One is by trying to destroy, deny, or
distort the truth of God’s Word. He will cause us to dwell and focus on
the grey areas of life, and divide us as too our interpretation of what we
think is right. He will divide God’s people over minor things that don’t mean
squat in the end…and take our focus off of the major things that God desires
for our lives.He will also tries to discredit the testimony of God’s people. That’s you and I. He will trap us into a false sense of security, watching for our weaknesses, then causing us to act differently than what we profess to be; and thereby destroying the effectiveness of our witness. His greatest tactic is allowing us to profess our faith while using every scheme possible to prevent us from practicing our faith. Or, he will try to trip us up and cause us to do something stupid to discredit our testimony.
Through envy and jealousy and greed and selfishness, he will depress or even destroy our enthusiasm for God’s work. Christians are like autos--when they begin to knock, there is something wrong inside… And, of course, through all these and more, he can and does dilute the effectiveness of the church.
What are the Devil’s schemes? Well, we can always expect him to feature areas of “forbidden fruit.” These are things that God says “Don’t” and Satan knows that the flesh always wants what it can’t have! So he works on the lust of the flesh; the lust of the eyes; and the pride of the heart; to sway us into the path of temptation.
S.M.I.C.E. is an acrostic I like to use for this. These are the five most vulnerable areas in life that Satan uses to deceive and destroy; (And, remember, we are not just talking about the world but those in the church as well.)
S = (sex) We are living in a society where sex and sexual imagery is rampant. You can’t turn anywhere without being faced with it. I picked up a PG13 movie the other day and it said “some” language and sexual imagery”…and, don’t even get me started on the sitcoms that flood our T.V. screens every night…or the statistics on how many people – including pastors in our churches – are getting hooked by on-line pornography.
M. = (money) What are Satan’s tactics? To appeal to man’s covetousness, his desire for more, for bigger and better... He wants us to be discontent with what we have.
Question – Does Satan want you rich or poor? The answer is both. He can get to us from either direction. But, listen to what God says about money or wealth – from Prov. 30:8-9 “Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches… but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say “Who is the Lord”? Or, I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.” These two areas of life – Sex and Money - are #1 and #2 on Satan’s list of tactics!
I. = (image) 1 John 2:15-16 "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, ( which I mentioned earlier ) is not of the Father, but is of the world." Why do we have these lusts? Because Satan tries to tell us that we have a “worldly” image to keep up. I mean, “What will people think?” Satan seeks to distract us by getting us to focus our attention on the material instead of the spiritual. He wants us to focus on what the world thinks rather than what God thinks; especially when it comes to image.
C. = (compromise) Compromising with worldliness can destroy a person. Compromise can put us in jeopardy and endanger us. Compromise can discredit us and put us under suspicion. Compromise can ruin, weaken, and des-troy us. Compromise will always lead to disloyalty and half-hearted commitments. Satan would have us compromise our faith, compromise the Word of God, compromise our loyalty to the church, to compromise means settling for less than the best!... Daniel, Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego had uncompromising faith…and it kept them from getting burnt!
E. = (ego) Whenever we live as if the world can’t get along without us, and we make ourselves to be more than what we are, it is like living in a glass house just waiting for someone to throw a stone, which will cause our house to tumble down around us. Ego - that thing that inflates our attitudes, disrupts our altitude, and hinders our aptitude! It is a major stumbling block in this world in which we live. There are many who live as if the job just can’t function without them, or unless they are in charge. There are those who egotistically feel as if everything in the church centers around them. It’s ego that makes us angry and upset, and blind to the truth. Satan wants us to think “It’s all about ME!” Forget about what is best for the church, or best for the future, or bring glory to God…It’s all about ME!
While S.M.I.C.E. may not be a word, it is a list of strategies Satan uses on us every day. Maybe we need to look at these areas of temptation and discover where our weakness may be.
If we understand how Satan works, we can be on our guard when situations arise that could lead us to sin. We will be tempted, but we read in 1 Corinthians 10:13, "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” One of the “ways out” is to be aware of Satan’s schemes; Satan’s tactics; and Satan’s whispers.
This is warfare...and the battle is raging. God has given the church – in His Word – three main purposes… which will be the subject of our message next time.
If the Holy Spirit has spoken to you today, and you recognize an area of your life where Satan has been deceiving, please take a moment at the altar to confess it before God. Whether it be Sexuality; or Money issues; or an Image problem; or an area of Compromise; or an Ego trip… God will help you to change that area of your life, and He will do it in a way that will not bring you guilt and embarrassment; but that will bring Him glory! James chapter 4 says “Come near to God and He will come near to you. Submit yourself to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you;… Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up!”
Satan is whispering in some of your ears right now…
Don’t listen to him…listen to the Spirit of God within.
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