The Deceiver
I.
We are not to be ignorant
of Satan’s devices and his main device is deception-2 Corinthians 2:11
A. We are not to be ignorant
of his devices; we are to see and understand how he thinks, his purposes, his
thoughts
1.
We
should have so much light that we know what he’s trying to do and how he’s
trying to do it and when you tell him exactly what he’s trying to do it shines
the light on him and he hates the light because in it deception cannot reside
2.
CEV-We all know what goes on
in his mind; ERV-We know very well
what his plans are; PHILIPS-We don’t
want Satan to win any victory here and we know his methods; TLB-We know what he is trying to do; MSG-We’re not oblivious to his sly
ways; NIRV-We know how he does his
evil work; NLV-We know how he works;
WYC-That we be not deceived of
Satan; for we know his thoughts
II.
Satan is a deceiver
A. Revelation20:3-The thing they enemy will stop doing when he’s thrown
into the pit for 1,000 years is that he will stop DECEIVING the nations
1.
Revelation20:7-10-As soon as he’s loosed from the pit he starts
deceiving (not destroying, deceiving) and destruction follows deception
B. John 8:44-He is a liar
and the father of it – Is what we think about, when we think about Satan?
This is what the Father through Jesus chose to tell us about our enemy
1.
Versions
a. CEB-Whenever
that liar speaks, he speaks according to his own nature, because he’s a liar
and the father of liars
b. CJB- When he tells a lie, he is speaking in character; because he
is a liar — indeed, the inventor of the lie!
c. CEV-Everything
he says is a lie
d. ERV- He
was always against the truth. There is no truth in him. He is like the lies he
tells. Yes, the devil is a liar. He is the father of lies.
e. EXB-When
he tells a lie, he shows what he is really like [he reveals his own
nature; or he speaks
his own language; he speaks from his own]
f.
GNT-He has never been on the side of truth.
When he tells a lie, he is only doing what is natural to him, because he is a
liar
g. Mounce-When he
lies he is giving expression to his own nature for he is a liar and the father
of lies
h. NLV-It
is expected of the devil to lie, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
i.
MSG-He couldn’t stand the truth because there
wasn’t a shred of truth in him. When the Liar speaks, he makes it up out of his
lying nature and fills the world with lies
j.
NLT-He has always hated the truth, because
there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies.
k. VOICE- he
cannot tolerate truth because he is void of anything true. At the core of his
character, he is a liar; e
l.
WE-He has nothing to do with what is true. His
way is to tell lies.
C. Revelation 12:9-Satan is
a deceiver; that’s who he is (AMP-Satan who is the seducer, deceiver of all
humanity)
1.
John
14:6-Jesus is the truth, Satan is a liar;
III.
2 Thessalonians
2:9-12-Deception is how Satan works (After
the working of Satan and Satan works through deception)
A. Satan’s working is with
ALL deceitfulness
1.
Philips-Armed with all
the force, wonders and signs that falsehood can devise
2.
NLT-This man will come to
do the work of Satan with counterfeit power and signs and miracles
3.
AMP-The coming
[of the lawless one, the antichrist] is through the activity and working of Satan and
will be attended by great power and with all sorts of [pretended] miracles and
signs and delusive
marvels—[all of them] lying wonders—And by unlimited seduction to
evil and
with
all wicked deception
B. 10-12-If Satan can’t
deceive, then He can’t destroy; The ones who are deceived are the ones who are
experiencing destruction
1.
Deception always precedes
destruction and there was never destruction without deception first
a. 12-This believing the lie
is an open door to destruction; It’s deception and then destruction
1)
They
way to not believe a lie is to have light and see that it’s a lie
b. NLT-He will use every kind of evil deception to fool those on
their way to destruction
1)
You’d
have to be deceived to travel a path that would lead to destruction
c. Genesis 3-In the garden
it was deception and then destruction
2.
You could avoid
destruction if you could overcome deception
a. Why are these people
perishing? They believed a lie and not the truth and thought it was the truth
1)
They
difference between a person having victory or being destroyed is one believed
the truth, the other a lie
2)
The destruction can only
manifest where deception is present, because as long as they weren’t deceived they
weren’t destroyed
b. Getting the light and believing the truth would cause them to
not be destroyed and walk in victory-John 8:38
3.
Satan
does come to steal, kill, and destroy, but those three are hinging upon him
deceiving you first because he can’t steal, kill, and destroy from someone who
won’t buy into his lies -John 10:10
a. When we’ve been on guard for Satan we think about killing,
stealing and destroying and that’s okay, but we need to be aware of his need
to deceive and his desire to deceive so that he can destroy
IV.
One of the biggest
deceptions he’s worked is deception about who he is and how he operates; Because
of a lack of light on who really is and what he is really trying to do and how
he really attacks we haven’t handled his attacks properly with the swiftness
that we should have and it has hindered us from having the victory over him
that Jesus provided for us
A. We’ve been ignorant in Satan’s devices and not understood
what it looks like when he attacks our lives-2 Corinthians 2:11
1.
Many times we like to make
Satan’s strategy against more “spectacular” than it really is; Every attack of
his, every attempt of his big or small against a person’s life begins with lying
words that produce thoughts-(Genesis 3, Matthew 4)
2.
We’ve understood what Satan’s
attack looks like in our lives and we’ve made it spectacular when it’s not
B. What are you looking for
when you are on guard against the enemy? What does his attack look like in your
mind?
1.
When
people think of the devil they think of some big, bad, scary something and they
see fire and demons destroying people and the picture he’s painted is that he’s
so big and bad he can do whatever he wants; When people think about the devil
attacking they think about demons, fire, smoke and pitchforks and horns and
deception is the furthest thing from their mind
2.
With
the help of religion and Hollywood the enemy has worked to create and distorted
view of who he is and how he operates-Isaiah 14:16
C. When we think about the
enemy as his attack on our lives we need think about deception, lies, thoughts,
our mind and not get enthralled with all this other stuff that distracts away
from what we need to do to overcome his attack in our lives
1.
2
Corinthians 4:4 (KJ&)-This is the biggest issue Satan deals with in a
man’s life, his eternal salvation and notice take notice of his devices of his
method, how he works: by blinding their minds from the truth, keeping them from
the light, getting them to believe a lie to be true
a. On the biggest issue he
used his greatest weapon deception
1)
His
entry point into any person, any church, any community is through the mind and
the mind is always his point of attack
2)
Not
very spectacular, no smoke, fire, manifested demons
b. What is he trying to do
with the mind?
1)
Hath
blinded-Darken the mind, To blunt mental discernment
2)
He
wants to prevent you from seeing so that you cannot discern the truth from a
lie
a) AMP-That they should not discern the truth, preventing them
from seeing
3)
These
people don’t believe the truth, they believe lies, but they don’t know they are
believing lies because they don’t have light, they can’t see to discern the
truth from a lie and the whole time they are thinking that they believe right
c. These people are lost
(destruction), but the destruction came through deception
d. There must be something
about this light that makes him vulnerable, that exposes him, that He can’t
overcome
1)
He
doesn’t want this word shining unto you, He doesn’t want you to see (the truth)
2)
Satan
doesn’t want the light to shine unto them because if it shines unto them
they’ll see they’re believing wrong
3)
He
lives in constant fear of you getting light and seeing
e. How would people in this
state overcome him and this destruction? They would do it through the might of
the light
1)
John
1:4-5-The might of the light; darkness has never overpowered it
2.
Matthew 4-This has to be one of Satan’s greatest attacks
against any man at anytime; this had to be spiritual warfare of the highest
order and yet it’s not spectacular at all; There’s no thunder, no lightning, no
fire, no explosions in hell, there’s not twenty big bad demons manifested
around Jesus; It’s the enemy saying something to Jesus, endeavoring to deceive
and enter his thought life
D. Even when demonic influence increases it still started on
this level of lies and deception-Luke 8:26-35
1.
29-Why is the devil always
tempted people in the wilderness? He wants to get you out there alone where he
can talk to you
2.
30-Who allowed the devils to
enter into him? Who gave these devils permission to enter into him? He did-John
14:30, Ephesians 4:27
a. The devil wasn’t entering into everybody like this
because everybody hadn’t yielded to him the way that this man had-1Peter5:7-8
3.
They entered him through his mind
(The mind is the gateway to the heart and anything that gets in you has to go
through the mind)
a. When that demon was oppressing him his mind was unsound, therefore
demonic activity of every kind always has to do with the mind
b. Words of Satan spoken to the believer and yielded to become
thoughts taken
c. Thoughts taken continually become strongholds in the mind (it’s no longer just a thought you have,
it’s your WAY of thinking)
d. Strongholds in the mind enable that spirit to set up
residence and give it authority to inspire everything a person does-Rom8:6,Isaia26:3
1)
When you begin to yield to what that spirit says you give
that spirit place in your life and you will begin to take on his
characteristics
4.
It got to this place that looks
really spectacular, but it began with him yielding to the deception of the
devil in his thought life
E. *What we would call some of Satan’s greatest attacks
began with him whispering in the ear of a man who yielded to what he said
1.
His attack on our life is subtle on purpose-2 Corinthians
11:3 (Subtle-Refined, Fine, Delicate)
a. It’s not
spectacular on purpose; he makes something huge look like something small-Matthew
7:15
1)
ERV-Be careful of false prophets. They come to you and
look gentle like sheep. But they are really dangerous like wolves.
b. If six demons showed up in the flesh at your house
tomorrow you’d know to resist them and it’d be obvious
2.
No evil spirit, no matter what
the rank, is just showing up in somebody’s life and doing whatever he wants
without him saying something first and them yielding to what he said –
All of these ranks of spirits work through the same method
3.
When we’ve been on guard
for Satan we think about killing, stealing and destroying and that’s okay, but
we need to be aware of his need to deceive and his desire to
deceive so that he can destroy
4.
Beware of the quiet
whisper of the enemy for it has destroyed the lives of many)