The Deception of Satan

By Pastor Aschalew Beyene

Part One

As believers, we must know who the enemy is, and be aware of his strategies. The devil is the enemy of God and he is fighting Him through His church here on earth. In Ephesians 6: 12, The Bible says “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of the dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm”. We aren’t fighting against physical forces, but against the forces of darkness. You can’t see the devil with your natural eyes but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist.  The devil is around attacking God through  believers, and we must be aware of his strategies.

Strategies of the Devil

Deception

and Eve. In 2 Corinthians 11: 3 it says,  “But I fear less somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” Notice, it doesn’t say Satan deceived Eve, it says the serpent deceived her. Eve was able to see the serpent with her physical eyes but, she didn’t see what was in the serpent.He deceived her by his craftiness; meaning ability, skill, expertise. Often, the devil will deceive us using people or other physical beings to entice us.

 Corruption

Before Satan walked into the Garden of Eden, both Adam and Eve were pure and innocent people. However his deception corrupted their purity. To corrupt means to contaminate and infect. If you get an infection, it causes disease, and if you don’t utilize medical treatment that disease can kill you. Similarly, in the Garden of Eden, Satan infected Adam and Eve’s minds with sin. 

Corrupt means to make something bad or worst. Originally, there was nothing bad in Adam and Eve, but when the enemy came; he corrupted them with the evil in him. All forms of corruption such as; lying, cheating, deceiving all come from the devil. He is the source that puts these evil acts in people. If you are a believer, you have the spirit of the Lord within you and nothing of the devil.The day you received Jesus as your personal Savior you said no to the devil, and his evil acts. Remember, being a Christian is about your walk not your talk. You can’t keep living a corrupt lifestyle and have Christ living on the inside of you. There must be a change in behavior to living a Christ-centered life of righteousness. Another characteristic of corruption is to impair good qualities. As we discussed earlier, Satan came to the Garden of Eden in the form of a serpent.  The devil can change into a physical being but he is still the devil with the mission to destroy. The devil will never introduce himself to you as the devil and let you know about his plans for destruction, rather he uses people against us. Sometimes the people closest to us, family, friends, co-workers can be his instruments of evil. He may use others to convince us to do something outside the will of God, but with the spirit of God and Jesus living in us we have the power to say no. We live like Jesus not like people of this world. We must be a light and the salt of the earth. The power of God is in us to change our surroundings. What does light do in a room? It kills darkness. Light and darkness cannont dwell together, you cannont be righteous and evil at the same time. The function of our light is to expose the darkness of the devil. The devil works in darkness and he hates light because it exposes him. John.1:5

>>>> Read More >>>>