The believer’s arch-enemy, Satan, has one goal in mind for you if you are a Christian striving to live a devoted life for Jesus Christ: plainly stated, he wants in the worst way to devour you. (I Peter 5:8) He has a formidable arsenal of spiritual weapons with which to do it, and he has had several millennia to hone his skills, enjoying unbelievable successes throughout history.
Beware of the following Satanic strategies aimed at you:
- The dart of doubt: He tries to get you to doubt God’s Word, God’s goodness, God’s call to you; he wants you to doubt your salvation and your own worth. Every one of King Saul’s soldiers saw Goliath and said, “He’s so big, no one can kill him.” The young shepherd boy, the future king of Israel, David, saw Goliath and said, “He’s so big, how could I miss him!” “Doubt sees the blackest night, faith sees the day.”
- The dart of discouragement. “The fruit of discouragement is nothing.” Two frontier Kentucky farmers met at a fence row early one bleak February morning. One asked, “What’s new out here?” The other replied, “Nuthin’ at all; nuthin’ much ever happens out here. Nuthin’ ‘cept a new baby boy was born down at Tom Lincoln’s cabin…nuthin’ much ever happens out here.”
Maybe that is how you sum up your life. But, do not doubt it: God is always at work in and through your day-by-day living. (Romans 8:28)
- The dart of defeat. Moses felt the pain of it, but read about him all the way to the end of the story. He was buried personally by the Lord God! Peter experienced bitter defeat in Pilate’s judgment hall when he vehemently denied, three times, that he even knew Jesus; but Jesus had prayed for him (Luke 22:32), and Peter rebounded and preached on the day of Pentecost and thousands were saved that day, baptized and added to the church!
In one season of his brilliant baseball career, homerun king Mickey Mantle went into a slump. At one point, a little boy sat down beside the slugger, and Mantle thought “Well, maybe this kid will have an encouraging word for me.” But the lad said, “You stink!” No doubt every one of us has been in a spiritual slump; maybe a friend has even said something like the boy said to Mantle. Only the shield of faith will deflect those darts of discouragement.
- The dart of distraction. Jesus warned against it: “No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit (ready) for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:62) Demas forsook Paul because he got distracted by the world. “Looking unto Jesus” (Heb.12:2) is the sure antidote for this deadly dart. Watch it!
- The dart of disinterest. Pollster George Gallup says that many “born again” Americans are practicing a religion that is “comfortable and titillating, but not challenging.” Gallup labels this as the “central weakness of Christianity in this country.”
- The dart of disillusionment. Looking at a person rather than looking to Jesus; what if, in 800 B.C., you had pinned your hopes on a prophet named Jonah?
- The dart of disappointment. Causes of which could be unfulfilled expectations (e.g., you got saved but still have a terminal illness, migraine headaches, problems at work, etc.).
- The dart of discontentment. Preachers discontent with churches; churches with preachers; husbands with wives and wives with husbands, etc.
- The dart of disobedience. Satan deceives you into ignoring what God said to Cain: “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted; and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.” In 1947, several ships docked in the port town of Texas City were loaded with fertilizer—which, when packed too tightly, can be explosive. Big signs warned all not to smoke, but one man chose to disobey the order. He threw a cigarette butt away, giving no thought to the consequences of one small act of disobedience. But one explosion after another rocked the coast, up to 150 miles away. Houses a mile away crumpled; 500 people died and 4,000 were wounded. ONE SMALL ACT OF DISOBEDIENCE BROUGHT UNIMAGINABLE DEVASTATION. Don’t let the Devil deceive you about one little deed of disobedience.
- The dart of disloyalty. No man can serve two masters. A house divided against itself cannot stand. Paul warned Timothy, in what are some of his last written words, about a man named Alexander, who did him “much evil.” (II Tim. 4:14) He went on to say that this coppersmith “greatly withstood our words.” One cannot help but think that Alexander at one time had been a loyal teacher in the church, proclaiming truths that he had learned from the apostle. But in the course of time, his loyalty to the Word of God, and to the teacher who had taught and trained him in the doctrines of the faith, vanished. Since that first century, there have been—and still are—an innumerable host of men and women whose names could be added to this list, along with Alexander’s—a list that could be labeled “The Disloyalists.” Let it never be said of you or me, “He/she is an ‘Alexander the coppersmith!’”
“Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.” (Eph. 6: 16)
YOU and GOD 