Satan's Strategy - Part 1

A group of blind men heard that a strange animal, called an elephant, had been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and form. Out of curiosity, they said: "We must inspect and know it by touch, of which we are capable". So, they sought it out, and when they found it they groped about it. The first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said, "This being is like a thick snake". For another one whose hand reached its ear, it seemed like a kind of fan. As for another person, whose hand was upon its leg, said, the elephant is a pillar like a tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said the elephant, "is a wall". Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant is that which is hard, smooth and like a spear.

Image of Elephant and Blind men

This story demonstrates the cliche, “You can’t see the forest for the trees.” If you’re too close to something or focused on one element of something, you’ll miss the big picture.

There is no topic where this is truer than spiritual warfare. When I say, “spiritual warfare,” the first thought many people have is demonization and exorcism. That is part of spiritual warfare, but it is only one part and not even the most relevant part of spiritual warfare for Christians.

Spiritual warfare is a battle between Satan and his followers and God and his followers. In addition to Satan, we have two other enemies, the flesh and the world. In future messages we will examine the flesh and the world in more detail.

Today we are going to figuratively step back and look at Satan’s broad strategy in spiritual warfare.

The first of Satan’s strategies is

1. Territorial spiritual warfare

In John 14:30 Jesus calls Satan the “ruler of this world.” Satan and his followers have authority over places on this earth.

In the book of Daniel, we read about an angel who had a message from God for Daniel who was prevented in reaching Daniel because, “the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days.” Daniel 10: 11-13.

Satan and his followers have authority over geographical areas. There is more in the Bible about how spirit beings have authority over territories than most people realize. There is a key passage in the book of Deuteronomy that gives us insight into this.

Deuteronomy 32:8–9 ESV

8 When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. 9 But the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.

This passage raises some interesting questions. What does it mean that the Most High divided mankind? When did he divide mankind? Who are the sons of God?

God divided mankind when he confounded the languages at the Tower of Babel, which is described in Genesis 11. The term “sons of God” is used throughout the Old Testament to refer to spirit beings. These verses explain the foundation for Territorial spiritual warfare. The “sons of God” have authority over all the nations of the world except Israel.

There is an unseen battle going on right now in the spirit realm throughout the world for control of places. This explains why the spirit being, the prince of Persia, tried to prevent the angel from God reaching Daniel with God’s answer to his prayer.

There are far-reaching implications of this aspect of spiritual warfare that are so important that we are going to investigate this in more detail next week.

This type of warfare is hidden to us and is not an aspect of spiritual warfare that affects our day to day lives. There are people who have experienced aspects of this in their ministry, such as when they have been unable to evangelize or have an effective ministry in places where Satan has dominant control. This tends to be in other areas of the world, although there are places in the United States where it is true as well.

Our response to Territorial Spiritual Warfare is primarily prayer.

Our response to this kind of spiritual warfare is primarily prayer. Jesus tells us to pray that God keeps us from the evil one (Matthew 6:13).

The Bible doesn’t instruct us as to how to respond to territorial spiritual warfare. It is noteworthy that the battle described in Daniel 10 was in response to Daniel’s prayers.

There are people who believe they have been called to a ministry of attempting to wrest control of areas away from Satan. Their strategy is primarily prayer but also includes binding and casting out. This is not something the Bible speaks to or commands us to do or even gives us instructions regarding how to do.

Satan’s second strategy is

2. Satanic blinding

The key passages that describe this are the parable of the soils found in Matthew 13:1-23, Mark 4:1-20, and Luke 8:4-15 and 2 Corinthians 4:1-4.

Here is the parable of the soils,

Luke 8:4–8 ESV

4 And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable, 5 “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. 6 And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. 8 And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.” As he said these things, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Jesus’s disciples did not understand the parable so they asked him what it meant. Here is the beginning of his explanation.

Luke 8:11–12 ESV

11 Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. 12 The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.

We are going to stop here because this part of the parable relates to Satan’s strategy. We will consider this parable again when we talk in more detail about our other enemies, the flesh and the world.

Jesus said Satan can take away the truth of the gospel from the hearts of some of those who hear it so that they don’t believe it. How does he do this? Paul gives us some insight in 2 Corinthians 4 when he explains about the difficulty he has in his ministry of evangelism. He explains why some people don’t believe the gospel.

2 Corinthians 4:1–4 ESV

1 Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. 2 But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. 3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

People who have not trusted in Christ are perishing. They are part of Satan’s dominion. He wants to keep them under his control and does so by blinding them to the light of the gospel. It is as if he can remove the truth of the gospel when people hear it from their hearts like a bird plucking a seed from the soil. We are not told how he does this, but it’s easy to imagine. All he has to do is flood the minds of those who don’t yet believe with lies. When his followers except the lies is truth, it negates the gospel.

For example, when someone hears that Jesus died for them, these thoughts might enter their minds. “Don’t be a fool and believe such idiocy. If you believe that, all your friends will think you are crazy. If you believe that, you’re going to have to give up everything in your life that you enjoy. Why would you want to believe that and become like all of those hypocritical people who call themselves Christians?”

If people accept these thoughts, they will be blinded to the truth of God’s love and the gospel. Those lies effectively take the gospel right out of their hearts.

The gospel is the most amazing, loving truth anyone could ever imagine. If I told you that yesterday someone rescued me from a burning building and in the process that person died, what would you think of that person? You would think that was the most heroic, selfless, loving thing anyone could ever do. Can you imagine condemning such a person, who would be willing to give his life to save yours? That’s the gospel. Why would anyone not believe that? People don’t believe because instead they believe lies like, “Why believe in God when he allows innocent people to suffer?”

Satan is the best liar ever. Jesus said, “When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” John 8:44 When Satan first comes on the scene in the Bible, his first words twist the truth, “Did God really say…” and his first declarative statement is a blatant lie, “You will not surely die.” Genesis 3:4

Blinding spiritual warfare is focused on those who have not yet trusted in Jesus to prevent people from being saved from sin.

What is our response to this? We who have already trusted in Christ cannot be blinded as to the truth of our salvation. A person who is blinded won’t be interested in a responding to satanic lies because they don’t believe they are being blinded by Satan.

Our response to Satan’s strategy of Blinding spiritual warfare is evangelize and pray.

Continue to sew the seed, evangelize Luke 8:4, Acts 1:8, Matthew 28:18-20

Pray Colossians 4:3-6

for open doors

for clarity in presenting the gospel

for godly lives for those sharing the gospel

gracious speech

wise answers to objections to the gospel

We are to pray that God opens the eyes of those who don’t believe so they see the light of the gospel. Never stop praying that for those who have not yet believed in Jesus. And continue to share the truth of the gospel. It will only be in response to those two activities that people will come to trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Satan’s third strategy is

3. Teachings of Demons

In first Peter chapter 4 the apostle Paul tells us this,

1 Timothy 4:1–3 ESV

1 Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, 2 through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, 3 who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

On the surface this seems to be an incredible statement. Who in their right mind, considering that we live in such an intellectual age, would ever devote themselves to the teaching of demons? The answer may surprise you.

The teaching of demons refers to anything that people believe whose source for that belief is a demon. There are world religions who claim as their source angelic revelation.

Consider Islam:

Jibra’il or Gabriel in English and the Bible. “Jibra'il is the Archangel responsible for revealing the Qur'an to Muhammad, verse by verse. Jibra'il is known as the angel who communicates with (all of) the Prophets. He is mentioned specifically by name and as the Holy Spirit in the Qur'an.”

The Angel Gabriel is considered the most important of all the angels in Islam. In the Quran, the angel is called Jibreel or the Holy Spirit.

The Angel Jibreel’s main responsibility is to communicate the Words of Allah to His prophets. It is Jibreel who revealed the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad.

Say: Whoever is an enemy to Jibreel — for he brings down the revelation to your heart by Allah’s will, a confirmation of what went before, and guidance and glad tidings for those who believe — whoever is an enemy to Allah and His angels and apostles, to Jibreel and Mikail (Michael) — oh, Allah is an enemy to those who reject Faith. (Quran 2:97-98)

https://aboutislam.net/reading-islam/understanding-islam/what-do-you-know-about-angel-gabriel/#:~:text=The%20Angel%20Gabriel%20is%20considered%20the%20most%20important,communicate%20the%20Words%20of%20Allah%20to%20His%20prophets.

Consider Mormonism:

"And it came to pass when I was seventeen years of age, I called again upon the Lord and he shewed unto me a heavenly vision. For behold an angel of the Lord came and stood before me. It was by night and he called me by name and he said the Lord had forgiven me my sins. He revealed unto me that in the Town of Manchester, Ontario there was plates of gold upon which there was engravings which was engraven by Maroni and his fathers, the servants of the living God in Ancient days, deposited by the commandments of God and kept by the power thereof and that I should go and get them. He revealed unto me many things concerning the inhabitants of the earth which since have been revealed in commandments and revelations."

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/HNS/Mormons/smith.html

The prophet Mohammed claims to have received revelation from the angel Gabril and Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, claims to have received revelation from the angel Moroni. I believe that both of these are accurate descriptions, but they were not revelation from God but from demons. I say that because the content of their communication is contrary to that which we have in the Bible, the inspired word of God.

In addition to these we can add every major world religion, Hinduism, Buddhism, animism, and voodoo. Every one of these religions has as its source communication from “deceitful spirits.”

The goal of each of these religions is to deceive people so that they do not have faith in Jesus and if they do to attempt to get them to depart from that faith. This aspect of spiritual warfare, in my opinion, is the most common type of spiritual warfare experienced throughout the world. As a result of this, millions if not billions of people are ensnared in satanic lies and blinded from genuine faith.

Our response to this type of spiritual warfare is remain in the faith and pray.

Do not to depart from the faith (1 Tim. 4:1). We are to devote ourselves to sound teaching which will point out the errors of demonic teaching.

We also have to pray (1 Tim. 4:5) as it is only by God’s help we can defeat any demonic activity. Through a careful handling of the word of God the teaching of demons can be exposed and along with prayer be defeated.

We are half way through our investigations of Satan’s strategies in spiritual warfare. The three we have covered are not visible and often not easily detectable.

The implications of Satan's Strategies

government

evangelism

religions

The big takeaway from what we have seen so for a is, pray.

Pray for our leaders who are being influenced by evil spirits. Pray for the lost who are blinded to the truth of the gospel. Pray for all those entrapped by demonic teaching that they will see the truth.

Even if none of these strategies of Satan touch you, they touch those around us and affect us.

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