HOW TO SPOT SATAN & RESIST HIM
In our modern contemporary world, the entertainment industry produces movies games, etc. in an attempt to provide entertainment for our enjoyment. When it comes to us receiving our scare fix we no doubt will buy or rent a horror flick of our choice. Although many horror movies have been made with various plots & themes, the idea behind making these movies is to present to the audience what evil looks like & by doing this producers expect the audience to react in fear. I mention all this to say for years Hollywood has portrayed blood, gore, vampires, and exorcisms to all represent what evil looks like. And the number one person evil is generally associated with is satan. I will admit even after I became a Christian for years I associated satan’s character in this way. Now to some degree I still fully believe satan is behind the influence of many movies with killings, vampires, exorcisms, blood & gore. But I also believe this is nothing more than a clever deflection by satan to mask who he is, & provide the world with a fanciful reality of his identity. The more I became a student of God’s word the more I began to realize how clever this strategy by satan was. The word of God truly helps me start to put things together in a new light.
The first thing I noticed was the bible always seems to portray the person of satan opposite of the way the world & Hollywood movies portrayed him. My perception of him was this individual with red horns & a pitchfork going around trying to frighten people. The bible describes satan as a deceiver, someone who carefully crafts together schemes. 2 Corinthians 2:10 states “But one whom you forgive anything, I forgive also; for indeed what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ, so that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes.” Also, the bible describes him as someone who appears to be beautiful. 2 Corinthians states “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.” The bible says many people are not even aware of who satan is or his deceptive tactics. Simply put the entire world system is under the spell of satan. In 1 John 5:19 it states “We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” So I soon realized the world’s portrayal of satan was simply an allusion.
So the question is who is satan & how do we spot his attacks? To build a solid foundation & a case for this post I’d like to use the three temptations of Jesus Christ by satan recorded in the bible. For the sake of time, I’m going to breakdown this blog into three series to explain & give a detailed focus on the strategies of these temptations. The story begins in the gospel of Luke 4:1-13. But for today we are only going to look at verses 1-4 it states” Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry. And the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” But Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.” To give a clearer picture of this verse let me explain the importance of why these temptations occurred. This monumental account in scripture was recorded for our benefit. Jesus was prophesied for years in the old testament to be the coming messiah who will save sinners from their sin & death. But another important aspect of Jesus's messiahship was could he defeat his archenemy the devil. See if Jesus could not defeat the devil then we would have no hope & confidence he could save sinners.
The bible calls Jesus the second Adam. The reason being is the first Adam in the Garden of Eden was defeated by satan. So in essence when the first Adam failed all men fell in him. But the second man Adam (Jesus) won so all men who believe in him can now live. So in this chapter, we see Jesus is being led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by satan for forty days/nights. This means satan didn’t come after Jesus, but rather Jesus under the divine leading of the Holy Spirit went after satan. Why would Jesus do this? Well, it’s because he had to show he could defeat the serpent of old the devil, thus showing he had the power to overcome evil. Now I use to think Christ was only presented with three temptations by satan. But after careful study of this chapter, I noticed that satan tempted Jesus for forty days/nights & the scriptures only record the last three temptations of Christ. Why? Well, it’s because the last three attacks were the most ruthless, venomous attacks imaginable. See for forty days/nights satan was tempting Jesus & had no success with his attacks. But after the forty days ended the bible says Jesus became hungry. This was crucial to satan because he now spotted a weakness in Christ & wanted to use Jesus's hunger to try & deceive him. During the forty days of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness, he ate nothing to show the intense focus he needed to have to defeat the devil. So he had no consciousness of being hungry.
But after the fight was over satan feeling unsuccessful decided to go in for a last-minute cheap shot & try to defeat Christ by using his basic human need for food. So in Luke 4:3 satan is saying to Jesus look you are the son of God? you are supposed to be king right? You are royalty, what are you doing walking around hungry in this desert wilderness nothing of a place? See if God loved you, you wouldn’t be hungry right now? Now, why would God feed these rebellious Israelites in the wilderness for forty days? & here you being the son of God & not rebellious going hungry? Look you're God, you don’t have to wait on anybody just create yourself some food go ahead you deserve it; you won the forty-day fight. Now we may not understand this temptation by satan positionally because none of us have the power to turn stones to bread-like Christ. These temptations were unique to Christ & his abilities. But we can understand this temptation categorically, I will explain why in a moment. Picking back up Jesus's reply to satan was simply brilliant; instead of Jesus just giving satan his personal feeling about the situation he used the word of God which is the sword to fight satan’s attacks. Jesus didn’t tell the devil I rebuke you! No, he fired back in an expository manner using scripture by quoting Deuteronomy 8:3 which states “So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.” Jesus brilliantly uses this verse to draw a comparison of the children of Israel who were in the wilderness for forty years with bread but yet they died. Not because of lack of food, but because they failed to trust & obey God’s commands. So even though they had plenty of bread many of them were killed by God for disobedience.
Jesus was simply telling satan I don’t survive because of bread. I survive because God wants me to survive. See satan was not trying to get Christ to satisfy his hunger, but rather he was trying to get Jesus to distrust God’s love by eating bread. I mentioned all this because that’s exactly how satan comes at us, his goal is to get a Christian to distrust God’s love & reach out & grab some satisfaction on your own. For example, when we are experiencing a dark period in our life satan will say if you were a child of God this or that would not be happening to you. Then he will tell you to make your own decision in how to resolve your issue hence to act independently of God. I’m going to stop here but in my next post, I’m going to discuss the second temptation of Christ & how it applies to our life & more insight on the person of satan.