Deception Series... Recognoizing the enemy!

Who is the enemy? Matt6:13

Matthew 6:13 “Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil. You’re in charge! You can do anything you want! You’re ablaze in beauty! Yes. Yes. Yes.”

a. 2 Corinthians 11:3“And now I’m afraid that exactly as the Snake seduced Eve with his smooth patter, you are being lured away from the simple purity of your love for Christ.”

b. 1 Peter 5:8 “Keep a cool head. Stay alert. The Devil is poised to pounce, and would like nothing better than to catch you napping.”

2. Our enemy, satan

a. Jude 6–7 “And you know the story of the angels who didn’t stick to their post, abandoning it for other, darker missions. But they are now chained and jailed in a black hole until the great Judgment Day. Sodom and Gomorrah, which went to sexual rack and ruin along with the surrounding cities that acted just like them, are another example. Burning and burning and never burning up, they serve still as a stock warning.”

b. Revelation 12:7 “War broke out in Heaven. Michael and his Angels fought the Dragon. The Dragon and his Angels fought back,”

c. Luke 10:18 “Jesus said, “I know. I saw Satan fall, a bolt of lightning out of the sky.”

3. He has been titled by various names!

a. Accuser- Revelation 12:10 “Then I heard a strong voice out of Heaven saying, Salvation and power are established! Kingdom of our God, authority of his Messiah! The Accuser of our brothers and sisters thrown out, who accused them day and night before God.”

b. Prince of Power- Ephesians 2:2 “You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience.”

c. The wicked one- Matthew 13:19 “When anyone hears news of the kingdom and doesn’t take it in, it just remains on the surface, and so the Evil One comes along and plucks it right out of that person’s heart. This is the seed the farmer scatters on the road.”

d. Adversary 1 Peter 5:8 “Keep a cool head. Stay alert. The Devil is poised to pounce, and would like nothing better than to catch you napping.”

e. Serpent- Genesis 3:4 “The serpent told the Woman, “You won’t die.”

f. Cunning- Genesis 3:1 “The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made. He spoke to the Woman: “Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?””

g. Murderer- John 8:44“You’re from your father, the Devil, and all you want to do is please him. He was a killer from the very start. 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.”

h. Father of lies- Jn 8:44

I. Ruler of this world- John 14:30 “I’ll not be talking with you much more like this because the chief of this godless world is about to attack. But don’t worry—he has nothing on me, no claim on me.”

3. How do we know satan is attacking us?

a. Deceit- John 8:44 “You’re from your father, the Devil, and all you want to do is please him. He was a killer from the very start. 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.”

b. Accusation- Revelation 12:10 “Then I heard a strong voice out of Heaven saying, Salvation and power are established! Kingdom of our God, authority of his Messiah! The Accuser of our brothers and sisters thrown out, who accused them day and night before God.”

c. Capitalizing on weaknesses- 1 Peter 5:8“Keep a cool head. Stay alert. The Devil is poised to pounce, and would like nothing better than to catch you napping.”

d. Oppression through demonization- 2 Corinthians 10:3–5 “The world is unprincipled. It’s dog-eat-dog out there! The world doesn’t fight fair. But we don’t live or fight our battles that way—never have and never will. The tools of our trade aren’t for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ.” “Does it sound like we’re patting ourselves on the back, insisting on our credentials, asserting our authority? Well, we’re not. Neither do we need letters of endorsement, either to you or from you. You yourselves are all the endorsement we need. Your very lives are a letter that anyone can read by just looking at you. Christ himself wrote it—not with ink, but with God’s living Spirit; not chiseled into stone, but carved into human lives—and we publish it. We couldn’t be more sure of ourselves in this—that you, written by Christ himself for God, are our letter of recommendation. We wouldn’t think of writing this kind of letter about ourselves. Only God can write such a letter. His letter authorizes us to help carry out this new plan of action. The plan wasn’t written out with ink on paper, with pages and pages of legal footnotes, killing your spirit. It’s written with Spirit on spirit, his life on our lives! The Government of Death, its constitution chiseled on stone tablets, had a dazz…”

e. Physical afflictions- Matthew 9:32 “Right after that, as the blind men were leaving, a man who had been struck speechless by an evil spirit was brought to Jesus.” Luke 13:16 “So why isn’t it all right for me to untie this daughter of Abraham and lead her from the stall where Satan has had her tied these eighteen years?

Closing discussion

Prayer/prayer request