Standing Firm against Satanic Schemes, Part 2

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul didn't pull any punches.

He clearly told his friends about their common enemy. He used a number of terms to describe the devil and his demons, such as spiritual forces of wickedness. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll helps us understand the bold warnings from Paul and how Christians should gear up for a spiritual battle that's beyond our human capacity to win. This is a good day to be jotting notes in your Bible, Ephesians chapter 6, as Chuck gives us clear direction on standing firm against satanic schemes. The scripture says, put on the full armor of God that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes, the schemes of the devil. Our struggle is not against the flesh and blood, says the scriptures, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Wherefore, take up the full armor of God that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything to stand firm.

Chances are good you have never studied the strategy of the enemy. Being supernatural in nature, you cannot see him, he does not touch you, you cannot measure him, and you will not feel him, except within. When we walk, we leave footsteps on soft sand. When he walks, there are no footsteps. When photographs are taken of us, the negative reveals our image. Photographs of him come out blank.

You can't photograph him. When we talk, there are audible sounds that can be heard by human ears. When he talks with his enemies and to us, there are no sounds, but there is great communication. All of this falls in the category of two words, and I hope you will become a student of it.

Not become so preoccupied with it, that's that's all you think of, but that you'll become a student of it. The two words are spiritual warfare. My advice to you, if you wish to be informed as you should be, is to read authors you admire and respect who are biblical to the core, and teach you what they have learned from the scriptures about spiritual warfare.

The best step toward dealing with the enemy is being informed of him. He preys on ignorant Christians. He blinds the unsaved, but he prefers the ignorant Christian, because without even realizing it, as you think you are walking in a testimony for Christ, you may very well be playing into his hands and not really seeing the world around you as you should be seeing it. It is one vast conspiracy. It is a game plan designed to work against us and to break us and to ruin the cause of Christ. Our strength is in the Lord.

Please observe our stance is stronger than his. There is an urgency in these verses, there's not passivity, and there is a knowledge, as he says, to stand firm against the schemes of the devil, there's not ignorance. If you are a Christian that is in touch, then you understand you are stronger not weaker, that there was an urgency in this conspiracy, it isn't passive, and you are to be discerning of it and alert to it even when you read the day's newspaper, even when you watch the day's media. Isn't it interesting that the entertainment world has found delight in turning this subject into something funny, or a horror movie, or leaving us on the edge of our seats concerned about the Hollow Man, or a half dozen others we could name, and invariably as they put their films together the whole mix is put together apart from biblical truth, and you're left believing a lie. Another example of his strategy.

Now having surveyed the battlefield, let's get more specific. First, verse 10, our strength is in the Lord. Our strength be strong in the Lord in the strength of his might. Our strength is in the Lord.

What is it Luther wrote? Did we in our own strength confide our striving would be losing? We're not the right man on our side, the man of God's own choosing, just ask who this may be. Christ Jesus it is he, Lord Sabaoth, his name, from age to age the same, and he must win the battle.

He must win the battle. His strength, it's his armor. Our strength is in the Lord and we put on his armor. As a child of God, you have living within you the Holy Spirit.

That's the third person of the Trinity, co-equal, co-eternal, co-powerful, having all the attributes of the living God living resident within you, and resident within you the Holy Spirit lives every day to take control of your life and waits for you to turn the controls over to him. To begin your morning with simple words like, Lord this is your day, I cannot walk it in my own strength. I cannot face the things that I must face today on my own. I cannot do my own battles.

I cannot protect myself from the attacks. I cannot ready myself for what will happen, and so Lord I give you my mind, my emotions, my will. I am yours and I ask that you give me in return your strength so that I may make it through the day on the side of victory and not defeat. You see every military person going into battle not only must have the right weaponry, he must also have the right mentality.

I call it the mental attitude of victory. You do not begin your day fearing that you will be defeated. You begin your day knowing that you are winning, and you will win because he is the one, if you will, who plays the game through you. He is supernatural and you were not. You were not equipped to stand against an invisible foe. You cannot see him.

You cannot measure him. You cannot know when the attacks are coming, so his strength must be your salvation. We are strong in the Lord. That's where the strength comes from. Verse 11, our protection is the Lord's armor.

We'll look at that next time. It's listed for us in 14 through 20 of the passage that follows, 6, 14 to 20, so we won't go there right now, but he says, put on you the whole panoply of God, the full armor. Don't leave a piece off. It's the full armor, and observe it is not your armor. It's the Lord's armor.

It's something that you can't provide for yourself. Most officers of the law who I know who live in uniform wear a Kevlar vest. We call it a bulletproof vest. They put it on before the day starts, and they don't take it off until they've come back to the headquarters where they change clothes or to their own home where they prepare themselves for the night, but they wear that through the day.

You can't see it, but if you've ever put your arms around them for whatever reason, you have felt it, and you feel the thickness of the Kevlar because it is a protection that keeps them from the bullet of the criminal or the knife attack or whatever. You are to put on the armor. He doesn't put it on you. You put it on yourself. The Lord does not clothe us with the armor. He has prepared it and said, you put it on just as a soldier would put on the protection for the day in front of him.

Why do you do it? Look at verse 11. You put the armor on so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. It's an intriguing word. Schemes.

I'm gonna give you the Greek word, and you'll know immediately the English term which is at the root, drawn from the root of it. Methodia. It's in the plural. Stand firm against the methods of the devil. Chuck, are you telling me that the enemy has methods? I'm telling you he has methods. He knows that what touches you will not touch your wife in the same way, so he comes at you one way and her another. He knows that what attacks this part of the family will not affect that part, so he shapes his methods to handle both sides and to bring weakness and disarray and conflict within your family.

And he knows the impact of a conflicting family. The strength in the warfare is in the Lord, and the protection is in his armor, and with it, with them both, we stand against the schemes of the devil. Could you put on a three-by-five card two or three of his schemes? Could you fill out that answer for the quiz today? Name two or three of the schemes that he regularly uses, and get specific and say he uses these on me, and I can usually tell that's from him.

I'm that sensitive. The third thing I want to say after saying that our strength is in the Lord and our protection is in his armor is that our strategy is based on a knowledge of his schemes. Our strategy is based on a knowledge of his schemes.

He operates with a game plan. Let me give you a few of them. Surprise.

Unexpected assaults. Attractive and appealing moments. Tempting thoughts designed to trip us up, and yet to draw us in so as to trap us. Making us think one way, realizing that all the while he is doing something completely different.

Working from another angle altogether. He is brilliant. He is cunning.

He knows what it takes, and he is relentlessly at it. Hold your place. Go to 2 Corinthians chapter 2. I'm going to show you an example of his schemes, of his methods. 2 Corinthians, not first, 2 Corinthians chapter 2, quick word about the context. The Corinthians had one in their midst who was sinful.

They disciplined him as a result of Paul's advice in the first letter, but some of them wouldn't let the discipline end, and so they stayed at it, and they kept him under their thumb, and they wouldn't forgive him after he had forsaken that lifestyle. And Paul comes in the second letter saying, you must forgive the brother. You must let it go. Here's the reason you have to let it go and not linger with an unforgiving spirit, 2 11, so that no advantage will be taken of us by Satan. What does that mean? If I read this correctly in context, it means that if I live with an unforgiving spirit, I leave myself open to satanic or demonic involvement.

I open the door to some way for him to wedge his way into it. Can you imagine in a group this size how many moments of unforgiving have gone on in one week? Can you even imagine? Don't answer out loud, please. And some of you have dragged a name in the back of your mind for months.

In fact, some for years. You don't realize it, but that is, that thrills him to know that you're doing that. It breaks down the guard within your mind for him to insert thoughts, ideas, suggestions, plans that would never get in if it weren't for the unforgiving spirit. That's just one thought. Look at the end of the verse, that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes.

There's the word again in English, but it's not methodia. This is n-o-e-m-a, n-a-ma, from nous, which means the mind. Stay with me here. Don't let your mind drift. We are not ignorant of his attack on the mind. That's where he comes. If he gets the mind and sufficient part of the mind, he gets the emotions, and the will will follow. We are not ignorant of his attack on the mind. A mind that is full of unforgiveness, resentment, and even revenge to the point of rage is a mind open for the sinister attack of the enemy. And it will be surprising how severe it will strike you, and how deeply it will change you.

He's waiting for that open door. Let me show you another one. Look at chapter 10 of 2 Corinthians. Stay in 2 Corinthians.

Go over to chapter 10. Look at verse 3. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. Sounds like what we just read in Ephesians.

He goes further. The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful. Why? For the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. This is the mind game that's going on.

Think of it. The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh. They are divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. There are fortresses within the mind. There are speculations, verse 5, within the mind. There are lofty things.

The ancient cities were built with such bulwarks, walls of protection, and tall buildings or structures to see over the wall. He is portraying this as the mind, and the hope is to bring the whole mind captive, not to the enemy, but to the... How does he put it? To the obedience of Christ. Why else would we suggest people memorize the scriptures? A mind filled with the scriptures is equipped to stand against the attacks on the mind. To show you how subtle the attacks are, stay with me in chapter 11, same book, verse 13.

This may surprise you. He's describing now those who are emissaries of the enemy. 2 Corinthians 11, 13, 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.

Did you know that? You don't think he's some hooded beast hiding out behind the barn, do you? He's robed with a Bible in front of him, preaching at churches around the world. He has seminary training, and he is, without even realizing it, an emissary of the enemy. He is an apostle who is false. In that volume I mentioned by Louis Sperry-Chafer, now in my library, Faded with Age, I found these words. Here is a remarkable revelation of the possible extent of satanic counterfeit. False apostles, deceitful workers. Yet these are shown to be agents of the great deceiver Satan, who is himself transformed into an angel of light. Another surprise, huh? He isn't someone who is disgusting, he is someone who is appealing.

Think of the most fabulous, beautiful, glamorous, attractive image that you can possibly put into your mind. Multiply it by a hundred, and you haven't come far enough. He is the highest of God's creations, and in that state, pride led him to fall, and in his fall he left heaven and the surrounding presence of God, and a third of the heaven fell with him and became the fallen angels, the demonic forces. And these demonic forces have worked alongside their master, the sinister Satan himself, with a plan designed to thwart the plan of God at every point. If you and I could see with supernatural eyes the presence of demons in this very place, we would be shocked. If you and I could know how often they are present in the most sacred of places, we would be amazed. I warn our students at Dallas Seminary all the time that they have now entered the most dangerous place on earth, and that's a seminary.

If the enemy can get in there, he has got it made for getting into the church, because it's the training ground for the church. If you are underway in your study of the scriptures and you're making a serious study of the scriptures, I will tell you, you are again in the crosshairs of his scope. He despises everything you love, and he embraces everything you despise, but he will make his plan look so attractive and appealing, you will play into his hands in the process of doubting, questioning, and little by little turning against the things that are right. He'll even have you question before you doubt, and before the doubt runs its course, he'll have you entertaining that with other people questioning alongside you.

He never runs out of help when it comes to carrying out his strategy. Back to Ephesians, let me show you a word that we'll miss in our New American Standard Bible, our struggle. 2 Corinthians 11, go back to Ephesians 6, 12, our struggle is not against flesh and blood. See the word struggle? It's pale, p-a-l-e, spelled like our English word pale, but it's the only time in all the New Testament it's used, this word. It comes from a verb, palo, which means to sway, s-w-a-y, to sway. But this word is not about swaying, it's about wrestling.

In fact, that's the better rendering. Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood. You guys who love sports, or gals too, you who love sports know that there's no more close contact in sports than wrestling. I'm not talking about that dumb stuff that comes on a World Federation today where you laugh at all the nonsense.

I'm talking about true high school, true college, true Olympic wrestling. You're all over each other, you're sweating on each other, and at times you're bleeding on each other. It's hardly a part of the body you don't touch with each other. You are up close and really personal. And that's the word he uses here, our wrestling.

He doesn't operate from some distance. The demon is upon you and around you and over you and under you and working ahead of you and following behind you. Get this! Believe it!

It's a wrestling match, not with flesh and blood. We do ourselves absolutely no favors by ignoring Paul's teaching about Satan or by overlooking the realities of spiritual warfare. Please stay with us because Chuck Swindoll will continue this message on Friday's edition of Insight for Living, and he's prepared a closing comment for today's program as well. To learn more about this ministry, visit us online at insightworld.org. It's important to remind our loyal listening family that these programs are available to a global audience because of the generous support that arrives during the month of December. To that end, we're calling on friends like you to join us in the all-out effort to bring God's message of grace to all 195 countries of the world. At this very moment, while you're enjoying this program in your own hometown, Chuck's teaching spans the globe, not only in English but often translated into local languages as well. We've given a name to our growing passion.

It's Vision 195. Through this prayerful effort and together with friends like you, we can implement the Great Commission of Jesus by making disciples through radio, our website, the mobile app, CDs, books, DVDs, the podcast, our live stream feed, and more. Even in the face of challenges that have confronted us all in 2020, we are not deterred from this desire to pursue Vision 195.

Chuck? There's hardly a nation in the world that hasn't suffered from the complications of this coronavirus. The 2020 pandemic that spread like wildfire has become truly global. The insidious bug has crossed every border, broken every barrier humanity has placed in its way. In spiritual terms, COVID has spread like human sinful nature. Without prejudice, the disease has violated every continent on our globe, just as sin courses through the veins of every man, every woman, every child in this world.

Well, at Insight for Living Ministries, we're painfully aware of the collateral damage caused by the pandemic of man's sin, let alone the global suffering caused by the coronavirus. But in both cases, we know that God is neither surprised nor stymied. God is the answer.

He's not the problem. And our greatest calling is to point our suffering world to the one who is able to save us. Remarkably, while churches and much of our economy were obstructed through 2020, Insight for Living never missed one day of Bible teaching, not one.

In fact, our mission to reach all 195 countries of the world through Vision 195 moved ahead without hindrance. And if the compounding events of 2020 taught us anything, it's certainly true that our lives are fragile, our times are volatile, and our need for a Savior is urgent. So let me ask, won't you join me in giving generously to the mission of Insight for Living Ministries?

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Jesus said, we must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent us, for the night is coming when no one can work. Thanks for hearing me. I'm speaking today from my heart. I look forward to receiving your year-end gift, that generous gift you send and send to us soon.

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You can also give online at insight.org. Join us again Friday when Chuck Swindoll concludes his message titled, Standing Firm Against Satanic Schemes, right here on Insight for Living. The preceding message, Standing Firm Against Satanic Schemes, was copyrighted in 2000, 2001, and 2009. And the sound recording was copyrighted in 2009 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.