Many Christians have lost their God-given power over the world. Why? Because they became ignorant of the devil’s Strategies.
Additionally, they lost the powerful effect of God’s Word in their lives — and the lives of the people they minister to because they fell into Satan’s traps.
So truthfully, God doesn’t want you to be ignorant of your Enemy’s strategies,
Dr. David Jeremiah Video – Do Not Be Ignorant of the Devil’s Strategies and Satan the Great Deceiver
What Does David Jeremiah Say about the Strategy of Satan?
As one of my very favorite pastors, Dr. Jeremiah rings true with his sermon about the devil’s strategies. So, I hope you enjoy the video.
But, if you’d rather read, I took some time to transcribe the Bible message for you.
See it below. And now, from Glendale Arizona listen to Dr. David Jeremiah.
War on Evil and Terror
I never ever thought I” d see the day when Christians wouldn’t understand that they remain in a war. From the start of time, war has actually been easy to determine & specify.
Opposing armies had…
- names
- home territories
- consistency
- dress
- and weapons
Armies on a battleground engaged in skirmishes or battles. So, they moved from place to put geographically.
Vietnam & Guerrilla Warfare
Among the first modern-day signs that the nature of military engagement was changing, at least from the American viewpoint. appeared during the Vietnam War. We coined the phrase, guerrilla warfare. The phrase refered to the tactics of the North Vietnamese who fought unconventionally. Yes, they had uniforms and typical military infrastructure, but they didn’t fight war the way war had been fought.
It was:
- hit and run tactics
- booby traps
- civilian soldiers
- And, it was fought in the jungles.
Yes, it was a whole new kind of war we had never experienced before. And, if that was true in Vietnam in the 1960s, it is magnified many times over today in our war on terror.
The Terrorists — An Invisible Warfare
The chief weapon of terrorists are fear and intimidation. They don’t play by the rules of historic warfare. For them, there are no rules. The war on terror was formally identified in the days following September 11th when America was invaded. We had to step up operations, and try to go out to find the enemies on somebody else’s soil. But, our own the war on terror became part of our cultural conversation. And so, today we are in the midst of this invisible warfare.
We were on a little cruise right after 9/11. While cruising, we ventured through Portland Maine. Somebody said; did you know they came across the border right here? It gives you this eerie feeling that you’re surrounded by people who may not be your friends.
The invisible warriors of our culture – The Devil’s Strategy of Spiritual Warfare
What I want to talk with you about is something I have far more information about – and far more experience with. That is spiritual warfare, because spiritual warfare is like guerrilla warfare or terrorism. Those who come to challenge us in our faith. They’re not visible. We don’t know where they are. No, we don’t know how they get into our lives. But, the Bible tells us that we need to be aware that we’re in a spiritual battle.
In our culture today, there is an incredible rise of Satanism and demon-ism.
Falling Away from Faith — Satan’s Plan?
All throughout the world, as we look at what is happening in our culture today, we should not be surprised to observe the increase of all of these things that are involved in spiritual warfare. Because first, Timothy tells us that the spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith. Now, watch this giving heed to deceiving spirits, and to doctrines of demons in the ninth chapter of the book of Revelation.
John and Revelations
John the Revelator tells us that during the tribulation, there’s going to be an outpouring of demonology of demons. I don’t know if you’ve ever read the description of what happens, but when you get a chance sometime read revelation 9:8-11. And there, you will find a description of what happens when the demons of Hell are let loose on planet earth during the Tribulation Period,
Today, as we move closer to the coming of Jesus Christ and the Tribulation Period, we are witnessing the rise of demonic activity all around the world.
Exorcisms
For instance, in Italy according to CBS News commentator Mark Phillips, there are now 350 trained exorcists. There were only twenty ten years ago. Even in the United States, one in ten Catholics according to a recent survey say they’ve either submitted to or witnessed an exorcism.
Father Thomas Williams says; “There’s an increased interest in the occult, even in Satanism, where I live in Italy.” He wrote satanic worship is actually on the rise! And, this is true in a lot of places in Europe.
And, here in America a November 2010 conference sponsored by the nation’s Roman Catholic Bishops garnered a wave of media attention. The conference held in Baltimore attracted over 50 bishops and 60 priests who were there to learn how to detect and defeat demons. The conference was created due to a lack of trained people in the Catholic Church — and, an increase in demand for exorcism.
Now, I’ll have more to say about exorcism and Christians a little bit later on. And, I don’t cite these these statistics in any way to indict the Catholic Church or anything of that nature. I only point out that Satanism is on the rise.
Demonism is moving forward; and just like Paul wrote to Timothy in the latter days, this is what’s going to happen. So, we’re seeing it manifest itself in our culture in ways that many of you know about, because you’re shaking your heads up and down. You know what I’m talking about.
Art of War” by Sun Tzu – Winning Strategy Against Satan?
There’s a book that was required reading for:
- All Central Intelligence Agency officers
- recommended reading for the US military intelligence personnel,
- also listed in the US Marine Corps professional reading program.
This book, which gains new readers and new venues every passing year, was written 2600 years ago, and it was written in China. The title of the book is the “Art of War” by Sun Tzu.
Know Yourself
The book was written simply with 13 chapters. But, in the third chapter, and the 18th principal, he said if you know the enemy and you know yourself you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself, but not the enemy, for every victory gained, you will suffer a defeat. But, if you know neither the enemy nor yourself you will succumb in every battle.
Did you hear what he said? Tzu said if you know yourself, and you know the enemy, you do not need to fear a hundred battles. If you know yourself but you don’t know the enemy, for every victory that you have you will have a defeat. And, if you don’t know the enemy and you don’t know yourself, you will lose every single battle that you fight!
No wonder military people have read this book with great interest, because it is true 2600 years ago. It was true and, it’s even truer today. Also, it’s true in our lives as Christians. If we do not know our enemy we do not have much of a chance to be victorious over the enemy?
The Devil’s Strategies According to The Bible
The Bible tells us a great deal about the enemy of our souls. It tells us in Ephesians for instance, that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood – but, we wrestle..
- against principalities and powers,
- and against the rulers of the darkness of this age
- against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
John Phillips tells us we should remember when we read that that our enemies are not people. We must see beyond people.
The Real Enemy
Satan may use people and strategies to persecute us. He may use people to lie to us; or cheat us; or hurt us; or even kill us! But our real enemy lurks in the shadows of the unseen world. It moves people like pawns on the chessboard. And, as long as we see people as enemies and wrestle against them, we are spending our time in vain.
Now, isn’t it true that today in our churches, our small groups, and in our communities we get focused on the people? Then, we lose sight of where the battle is really being fought? And, if we continue to do that, we will continue to lose. We go backward in our Christian experience.
The Devil’s Strategies — What Strategy Does Satan Use?
Now, to illustrate how Satan accomplishes what he does in the world today, I paged through the Bible. I remember doing this one day in my office at home. So, I underlined every verb I could find that described what Satan does.
A verb is an action word. It is what says this is what he does.
This is his action. Simply, I put them all together and they go like this:
- Satan beguiles,
- seduces,
- opposes,
- resists,
- deceives,
- sews terror,
- hinders,
- buffets,
- tempts,
- persecutes,
- blasphemes.
And, Satan does much more that I don’t have time to put in the list! All of his actions are deceitful. They are devices and they’re destructive. And, they’re aimed at diminishing and defacing the glory of God and the effectiveness of his people. And, so many of us today are being victimized by it. We become unaware that it’s even happening but aware that something is wrong.
Who is Satan?
Now, let me tell you some things that I’ve learned about Satan. First of all, he is the great deceiver according to John.
The Devil’s Native Language
In the words Jesus gave to a group of Jews who were struggling with his message, he told them that they were the children of their father the devil. He also told them they had a hard time with truth, because their father’s native language was lies. A person’s native language is what they speak easily and converse him what they naturally speak. And, ladies and gentlemen, Satan’s natural language is lies!
The Great Deceiver
Revelation refers to Satan as the one who deceives. The whole world which he deceives by counterfeiting and camouflaging. He tries to imitate the work of God. And, he does it very effectively. Yes, he’s the great deceiver. But, he is also the great divider.
The Great Divider
Did you know that Satan’s purpose is to divide and conquer? He has always been a divider. When he was cast out of heaven, he divided the angels. And, he took a third of them with him.
He instigated division in the first family pitting Cain against Abel. In the early church, he entered into the heart of Ananias and motivated him to divide his loyalty between God and money. Wherever you see Satan at work, there’s always division.
Listen to me carefully. Did you ever wonder why there are so many churches that go through church splits and have all kinds of problems?
The Devil Goes to Church?
Satan is at work in the midst of the church. You say; you mean Satan goes to church? Oh my, yes! He goes to church. I’ve probably sat next to him a couple of times. And, he loves to divide the people of God.
If we could only understand that, we would step back from our petty differences and realize that we’re just playing into the hand of our enemy, whose purpose is to divide. And, when Satan injects the poison of;
- suspicion,
- intolerance,
- hatred,
- jealousy,
- and criticism.
Eventually, that poison gets into the system! Then, it has to get out! And, guess how it gets out?
Listen to the words of James:
“And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body. And, it’s set on fire the course of nature. And, it is set on fire by hell. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.”
What happens in churches is that Satan gets hold of the tongues of God’s people. And, he uses their tongues to poison the atmosphere of the church. He does that in families, and he does it in workplaces, and he does it in communities.
Satan’s purpose is to divide. He does not know the meaning of unity. He has no concept of unity. His whole strategy is the strategy of division. He’s the great deceiver and, he’s the great divider.
The Devil as Destroyer
Lastly, Satan is the great destroyer! In his attempt to destroy the work of God in the universe, specifically on planet Earth, Satan will do anything! He will delay, demolish and dismantle anything he can do to destroy.
Satan and Job
When God allowed Satan access to the life of Job, what did he do? What did Satan do when he was given free reign on Job’s family? He destroyed;
- his servants,
- cattle,
- children,
- and his family!
Tribulation
Satan is the destroyer. And, though he was not able to destroy Job nor his wife, he did everything he could to destroy in the Great Tribulation. We are told that the fifth trumpet sounds and this demonic horde I told you about at the beginning is released on the earth. And, the Bible says the angel who leads them is the angel from the bottomless pit; and his name is in the Hebrew Abadan and in the Greek Apollyon, and both names in their respective languages mean the destroyer.
Listen to me ladies and gentlemen. Satan has one plan for your life and mine. He wants to destroy us.
He wants to destroy our influence for God!
Why do you think Satan gets to men and women in spiritual leadership and gets them caught up in immorality and all of those things? Because, when that happens their influence is destroyed.
People can live their whole life honoring the Lord. But, if Satan gets an advantage of them for a moment of weakness of the flesh, they do something that dishonors God. Then their influence for God is ruined. With that, Satan is the victor.
Prayer and the Devil’s Strategies – Deceive, Divide and Destroy
We ought to pray against him every day. Pray that Satan would have no place in our lives. Why? Because he comes to deceive. He comes to divide. And, he comes to destroy.
Well, you say; “Pastor Jeremiah how does he go about this? What does he do?” Well, he has several strategies. And, I want to tell you a little bit about them because if we don’t know our enemy we’re gonna lose every battle.
So, let me illustrate some of the strategies.
Strategy #1 — Indifference
The first is the strategy of indifference. Satan’s cleverest ruse in the modern world is to make us think that he doesn’t exist; that he’s a figment of the overactive imagination of dreamers and schemers and Hollywood script writers. He wants us to think he is a cartoon character, with a cultural role to play as a mischief maker. Or at worst, a dark imaginary boogeyman who hides in closets and under beds — and inhabits our nightmares.
Anything but reality! Satan Does Not Exist?
If Satan doesn’t exist, then we have no obligation to resist him, or hold him accountable. It’s a great strategy for Satan. For any enemy, convince the opponent that you are not real. Make the rival believe you are incapable of bringing him any harm.
And, Satan’s strategy seems to be working.
It is amazing to read the statistics of what the people of God understand, or should I say, don’t understand about him. Few people today, even many self professed Christians, take the Bible’s teaching about Satan very seriously. They see life that is a stage filled with human players. Albeit they don’t see players directed or influenced by spiritual directors; or cue cards; or puppeteers.
For example, there was a report in the April 10th 2009 Barna Group profile which which created some statistics from a survey of 1871 self-described Christians. They were asked to respond to this statement:
Quote: “Satan is not a living being but a symbol of evil.”
And, here’s what the statistics reported:
- 40 percent of the respondents agreed with the statement – these are Christians!
- 40 percent agreed that Satan wasn’t a real person, just an influence.
- 19 percent agreed somewhat.
- 26 disagreed with the statement.
- and 9 percent disagreed somewhat.
- and eight percent weren’t sure what they believed about Satan.
But, more than half of the Christians who were asked, believe that Satan was just an evil influence – but not a real person! So, you can see the confusion that exists in the minds of Christians when only 35 percent believed that Satan is a real being.
Satan, The Invisible Enemy
There are two reasons why Satan is able to keep himself so invisible..
- He’s a spirit being.
- He clothed himself in the images of this world in…
- art,
- literature,
- television programs,
- entertainment,
- education,
- scholarship,
- and leaders.
Wherever Satan gets a foot in the door, he will take it. And, 2nd Corinthians says that Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.
Now You See Him — Now You Don’t!
We should not be surprised that we do not see Satan himself. And, we don’t see demons. But, that doesn’t mean the effects of Satan and his demons are not present, because they are. We look upon them daily.
As we survey the chaotic and pain terrain on planet earth, never forget that the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.
Someone has said; If Satan goes to and fro on the earth, walking back and forth on it, then he has passed near you more times than you know. The Bible could not be clearer about the existence of the devil, and the reality of the spiritual conflict going on all around us.
The Stand
We read earlier that we’re to put on the whole armor of God and stand against the wiles of the devil. For we don’t wrestle against flesh, but against principalities, powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this age. We wrestle with the spiritual hosts of wickedness.
Did you realize how many times the word against is in that paragraph? And, you know what the word means? The word against is a word which means you’re swimming upstream, against the tide.
Satan is against us! He’s against you and me. And, when we sit back and act like he doesn’t exist, indifferent to what he’s doing in this world, we fall into his trap.
Victors or Victims?
We become not victors as we were meant to be; but victims in the spiritual war.
Years ago, AW Tozier wrote this in his book: He said, in the early days when Christianity exercised a dominant influence over American thinking, men conceived the world to be a battleground. Our fathers believed in sin, and the devil, and hell is constituting one force. And, they believed in God, and righteousness, and heaven as the other man had the two sides he could not be neutral. For him, it must be life or death, heaven or hell. And, if he chose to come out on God’s side, he could expect open war with God’s enemies. The fight would be real and deadly. And, it would last as long as life. You’d hear below the Christian soldier never forgot what kind of a world he lived in.
It was a battleground…
How different it is today. He says the spiritual world has become not a battleground, but a playground. Instead of being here to fight we’re here to frolic. Instead of being here to view earth as a foreign land, we’ve made ourselves very much at home here. Rather than living in expectation of eternity with God, we’re pursuing life as we want it now, with little thought for the future.
If Poser was correct when he wrote this in the mid 20th century, how much more do his words apply to us today? We have lost sight of the fact that were in a war. And, we have become indifferent to the fact that we have a real enemy. His name is Satan. And, he is organized to the hilt! His demons cover the earth with their presence. The first strategy is indifference.
Strategy #2 — Ignorance
That’s not a good word. It’s just a true word next to our passive and difference to his presence in our lives. Satan depends upon our ignorance of his strategies.
Years ago, a missionary professor by the name of Paul Hebert caused an incredible stir in theological circles when he wrote an article called “The Flaw of the Excluded Middle.”
It was published in a leading scholarly journal. And, it never had been examined before it came about because, on the mission field, they could not understand what the natives were telling them when they would talk to them about spiritual beings. They talked about things that happened that didn’t have any way to resonate with the missionaries. Trained as a missionary in Western schools, our missionaries knew nothing of what they call the excluded middle.
The Excluded Middle
There is the spiritual and there’s the earthly. But, in between the spiritual and the earthly, there’s a middle thing. And yes, Satan & his emissaries live in that middle ground. We don’t know anything about it. We know something about heaven, but we know nothing about the in-between atmosphere where Satan and his demons work. But, the people in the mission field; they know about that. They know about this middle ground and they live with it every day. They experience it.
So, when missionaries who have no background in that go to these places, they’re totally taken back. They don’t know what to do. They feel totally powerless. Then, many of them come back to the States because they don’t know what to do.
Now listen ladies and gentlemen, those missionaries trained in the same schools as pastors. And, I learned from them too. I knew nothing of that in my college experience, or my seminary experience. So, I had very little training at all about what goes on between heaven and earth where the spiritual battles are really fought. Read the Book of Daniel and you will see that.
And today, because we are not aware of what is happening and how Satan goes about his work, he gets up next to us.
We’re not even aware he’s there!
Finally, the middle ground which is where the war is being fought is like an unknown territory to most Christians! So, one of the problems that we have, and one of the reasons why Satan is being so effective even in Christian circles, is not because we’re simply indifferent to him like he doesn’t exist; we’re ignorant of how he works.
Strategy #3 — Infiltration
Let me give you the third thing that’s true about Satan and how he works.
Not only does he work through our indifference and through our ignorance, but he also works through infiltration. Satan loves to infiltrate our lives. Here’s a verse of Scripture you need to remember. I’ll just give you a little phrase out of Ephesians – and it says:
“Don’t give place to the devil.”
How many of you know what it means to give place to the devil? You say, well why would anybody in their right mind ever give place to the devil? Of course we don’t do it on purpose. Nonetheless, we do it.
Christians today run the risk of being confronted by his power, by allowing things in their lives that should never be allowed in the front door. Proverbs says;
“Can a man take fire to his bosom and his clothes not be burned?”
You say; well pastor Jeremiah, what are you talking about?
Many Christians today build a fire in their lap with their;
- thought,
- lifestyle choices,
- harboring of sin,
- dabbling in dark practices like astrology and fortune-telling.
And then, they wonder why they get burned! Why Satan gets into their life. All he needs is a little beachhead into your life, and he’ll set up shop as quick as he can!
I read about a pastor in Haiti who created the following parable. As a result he used it to illustrate to his people the necessity of knowing how ruthless Satan is. And he demonstrated how uncompromising the Christian must be when it comes to allowing Satan a foothold in our life.
A Parable
A certain man wanted to sell his house for $2,000. Another man wanted very badly to buy it but, because he was poor, he couldn’t afford the full price. After much bargaining, the owner agreed to sell the house for half the original price with just one stipulation. He retained ownership of one small nail protruding from just over the back door.
After several years, the original owner wanted the house back. But, the new owner was unwilling to sell it. So, the first original owner went out found the carcass of a dead dog and hung it from the nail he still owned. Soon, the house became unlivable and the family was forced to sell the house to the owner of the nail.
The Haitian pastor told his congregation; if we leave the devil with even one small peg in our life he will return. Consequently, he’ll hang his rotted garbage on it and make it unfit for Christian habitation.
And, that’s what he does! That’s the ruthless enemy who opposes us! So, don’t give him the tiniest toehold in your life. Do not leave the door to your heart cracked open to the slightest degree. And, do not rationalize or excuse any failure to obey the true Lord of your life!
When failure or misstep occurs, as they will, confess them immediately and cleanse your own heart from all sin. Go to the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, the one who is in you is more powerful than the one who is in the world.
Dr. David Jeremiah Sums Up His “Ignorant of the Devil’s Strategies Sermon
I shared this message with you because I believe this is what God wanted me to tell you. I also believe that there are people who have been under the bondage of Satan. Those people allowed the enemy of their souls to come and take control of their lives. And, they let him pull them away from their allegiance to Christ.
You have been around the gospel all of your life! Your friends told you about Jesus. All around us we see the forces of goodness and wickedness in dispute. Many individuals do not understand it. All the description in the Bible of spiritual warfare, and the guide to spiritual defenses, is truly the only way I know to stay safe in this battle.
Truth is, Jesus Christ defeated Satan at every turn in His life. And, He is our best defense in spiritual warfare today.
Curious about How to Accept Christ?
If you have never made the commitment to receive the love and life-changing experience of Jesus Christ, please take a moment to Read John 3:16 to learn how.
I hope you took advantage of Dr. David Jeremiah’s video: “Do Not Be Ignorant of the Devil’s Strategies“. Contemplate this lesson the next time you feel an urge to divide or criticize. I know I will! The message is a bit frightening. But, if we continue to seek the Lord Jesus Christ for guidance, we do not have to be afraid of Satan or his strategy for upsetting the world.
In Christ, Bob