Spiritual Warfare: Lesson 2 ? The Strategies of Satan

Spiritual Warfare: Lesson 2 – The Strategies of Satan

The Battle belongs to the Lord…but You are the Soldier!

Introduction

 In every war, there are battles. In every battle, there are attacks. As Christians, we experience these attacks in varying degrees. Some attacks seem like skirmishes, some like never ending battles and some battles seem like all out war. Regardless of how much we may want to ignore this component in our Christian lives, the battles do exist and the warfare will continue. The more we learn the truths concerning spiritual warfare, the more prepared we can be to fight and to be victorious. In furthering our knowledge of spiritual warfare, this lesson addresses the strategies of Satan. Behind every war and every battle and every attack lies a strategist, the mastermind of the ultimate plan of attack. In our case, this strategist is Satan. He is our enemy, our adversary…the one who wants to take us out.

Webster defines a strategy as “a careful plan or method: a clever stratagem.” Strategies in general can be applied to every area of our lives. Strategies invoke plans, goals and achieving ultimate purposes. A stratagem goes a step further in definition and means “an artifice or trick in war for deceiving and outwitting the enemy, a cleverly contrived trick or scheme for gaining an end.” Satan is the master of deception, tricks and schemes and he will do anything he can to win the battle. Satan waged war against the Lord the moment he was cast out of heaven. We entered that war the moment Adam and Eve succumbed to his temptation to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. Genesis 3:1 says, “Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.” The Bible is clear in its description of Satan from Genesis to Revelation and we have no excuse for our ignorance of his strategies. We must shine the light of truth into the darkness of Satan’s lies and deceptions. The Word of God is our light of truth and we are the soldiers who must know it and live it out everyday.

This lesson focuses on the most prevalent strategies that Satan uses against us. From the beginning of time, we have been dealing with certain human characteristics, ones that he understands better than we do. He watches us, observes our behavior and then cunningly wields his schemes to get us to fall into sin. We will examine the key areas of temptation, pride and lust, as they are the focus of Satan’s major tactics and schemes against us. We will learn of what the Bible teaches about these weaknesses in our flesh and how we can overcome them, just as Jesus did.