The Strategy of Satan - Tony Evans Sermon

let's assume that you are going on a journey you're going on a trip it's a journey that you have to take you you don't have a an option not to go on this journey you are informed when you begin the process of entering this journey that this will be a a dangerous trip there will be landmines that you will not be able to see explosives that you will not detect quicksand that will be covered over there will be pits that you'll be able to fall into and they are all through this journey but they will not be obvious to you but they will be there throughout the journey but after being told this disappointing discouraging news about this journey you must take the person speaking to you gives you a map and on this map are all the places where the dangers lie it's written on the map it shows you where every landmine is where every explosive is where every uh pit is where every every place that would seek to bring you home do you win and destroy your life they're all laid out on the map on the journey you must take so the question i want to pose to you today is how are you going to treat this map given the fact of what it has on it and the journey that you must take uh will you ball it up and put it in your pocket will you ignore it will you read it once a week will you reference it occasionally probably not because your life depends on it because you've got to take this journey and there are minefields so that map is going to become the most precious thing in your life because you want to make it to the other side we are all on a journey called life once you were born you started this journey and it's a journey you must take you do not have another option if you are alive you've got to take this journey called life in this journey called life there are mine fields there are explosive devices pits with sharp edges at the bottom all designed to destroy your life from from completing your journey god has given you a map his word and his word is designed to reveal to you the pitfalls so that you can make the journey what you think about the map will affect how well you do on the journey you might decide to ball it up and put it in your pocket and ignore that it's there or you might decide to look at it but not pay attention to it you might decide a weekly visit to it is once is enough i'll take my chances the rest of the week on my own or you can decide that this map is absolutely essential because i want to complete this journey and i don't want to be killed by what's on the road undetected now i understand that all of us have faced consequences at some level that there would be hardly a person in here who hasn't made a decision that turned out to be unwise that you have paid for or are still paying for i've had more than one inquiries tell me what to do because i'm bleeding with the consequences of whatever the decision was but i would like to suggest if you will stay with this you will view consequences differently and more deeply you will stay away from future ones and learn how god meets you in the ones that you may be dealing with currently in genesis chapter 3 we have the strategy of the devil to bring consequences into your life negative consequences i've been running into men and the first con thing that comes up is what football that's the buzz now and i can assure you every single team has been watching game film all week they've been watching game film of the enemy of the team they're gonna play they want to learn their tendencies they want to learn what their movements have been the personnel they want to become fully acquainted with the group they want to destroy satan has game film on you you got game film you've been assigned a demon and that demon knows your every move he knows your every moment he knows your orientation he knows your sensitivities he knows your inclinations that demon understands you and so there is a report on you me and us so there is a tailor-made strategy to do you in even as a believer to defeat you and to bring negative consequences into your life you're on tape spiritually speaking so today i want you to understand the strategy because if you know the strategy you can better see the landmine and handle it more appropriately let me say it in a more raw term there is a contract out on you me us to bring about your inability to finish the journey understanding this however will help you me us to move forward differently than we perhaps have come to this point because there's no use in continuing to step on landmines that you don't have to so let's look and see how the enemy to your journey is working in verse 1 now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the lord god had made crafty means sneaky crafty means clever or shrewd the snake the serpent was more crafty sneaky slithery than any of the other creatures god had made so when satan wanted to make his move he chose something that would be consistent with what he wanted to achieve he wanted to achieve craftiness so he chose a crafty creature satan knows what to choose and who to choose to slither into your world in order to get your undivided attention he knows how to maneuver slick knows how to whine and dine in order to cause you to have a conversation with him has it ever bothered you that this woman is talking to a talking snake we got a talking snake not only do we have a talking snake we got a talking walking snake because the snake now is walking because the curse was that from then on it would have to crawl in his belly which means it didn't have to crawl on his belly prior to that so we have a walking talking snake and this walking talking snake is not a shock that this woman is on she's coming on a normal conversation the very first conversation between a human being and a person is about god kind of sorta because we read in verse 1 that the serpent was more crafty and the serpent said indeed has god said you shall not eat from any tree of the garden please notice a missing word the serpent was more slithery than any other beast the lord god had made but then the serpent said hath god said not half the lord god that missing word is on purpose the word god elohim deals with god's power the word lord deals with our covenantal relationship with god so the serpents is basically saying let's talk about god but let's leave out relationship we can be religious but not be relational so the first conversation between a snake and a human being wants to bring up religion but leave out relationship let me explain something the devil doesn't mind that you in church as long as you don't have a relationship with the lord he don't mind god talk he doesn't mind invocations and benedictions as long as there's no relationship with god in between he doesn't mind that the creature that satan used to bring death and consequences to eve and then adam and then the human race was a creature over whom man and woman were to rule and watch this and the creature was good because the bible says whatever god created in chapter one was good so at this point the snake's not bad which means that the strategy is to use something good to create something bad he doesn't go find something bad because there's nothing bad to find other than him so satan find something good that men and women should have been over and he uses something good to bring something bad and then that how it works in our lives it starts off looking good but once infiltrated with his purposes that what was good even that included god became bad so his strategy first of all is for you to miss him so if you're looking for somebody with horns a red jumpsuit and a pitchfork you're looking for the wrong creature he's going to use something that is good to create something that is bad so that you can have consequences negative repercussions like an illusionist at a magic show some of these things these guys can do with just spectacular and one of the main reasons that they are able to cause us to go ah wow it's because they do something over here to get our attention while they're doing something else over there in other words they distract us from what they're really about satan is not going to tell you up front i'm here to destroy your future you know they're not going to tell you that he's going to be crafty sneaky slithery and we we know what that means so a subordinate creature the bible calls satan a counterfeit it says he has counterfeit doctrine counterfeit miracles counterfeit spirits counterfeit teachers in order to do one thing deceive we know what that looks like to have been duped tricked because it didn't look like deception some of some of you have gotten what i've recently gotten in my mail from a credit card company congratulations congratulations you have been awarded a 5 000 increase on your credit limit you are now cause they want to make you feel good platinum who doesn't want to be platinum who doesn't want to feel platinumish and you are a preferred customer so they've made me they made me feel good about me they tell me that i'm worthy they have a higher credit limit but behind all that behind all that and the reason i know what's behind it is because i pay consequences some of you know what it is to be paying on something minimum amount year after year after decade after decade after decade all because they made you feel good gave you a platinum sense of yourself you started smelling yourself so he wants you to miss him and so he uses something that's crafty but slithery and will make even god part of the conversation what's the second thing he does that's in verse 1 2. indeed has god said you should not eat from any tree of the garden he wants you to think god is holding out on you he never references all the trees she could eat from he wants to talk about the one tree that you gotta know know on he doesn't talk about all the freedom that you have from every tree of the god you may freely eat he wants to talk about well let's let's talk about what god said relative to what you can't do he says you shall not eat he wants to paint god as a god who's trying to keep you from having a good time and he does it oh magnificently he reduces a command and makes it a question see when we started god said i command you not to eat he says let me let me just ask you a question tell me what you think about this see when we reduce god's command and turn it into a question we've lessened its impact because he just asked me a question can somebody ask me a question god's nose are so we can enjoy his yeses did you hear that god's nose don't eat from that tree is so that you can eat from all the other trees what they're gonna find out is when you eat from that one tree you lose all the mother trees his nose are to protect his yeses every tree of the god you may freely god is a big big god of freedom they go on freedom but when he puts that no in a lot of he tells he tells things okay i don't want you have sex outside of marriage okay that's what he tells singles and satan says god holding out on you and it looks like god is not fair he's done a number on us and so what he does in doing that is to not only bring consequences but keep us from ever getting around to all the stuff that's the free benefits that he wants to bring into your life by getting you stuck in this one tree in fact you let the new testament tell it first corinthians 7 the single should be a lot happier than the married folk that that's what paul says father the singles should be single should be shouting if you don't believe me ask the married folk you're sitting next to [Applause] [Music] it's like the child that complains at christmas about the one toy they didn't get so they don't even get to enjoy the toys that they did have satan is saying god is trying to hold out on you he doesn't want you to he don't want you to enjoy everything that's out there to be enjoyed now let me explain something at this point that a lot of people are confused i know uh flip wilson made it famous the devil made me do it so let's get something corrected the devil cannot make you sin he doesn't have he he doesn't have that kind of juice he can't he can't make you sin why because colossians 2 says that the death of christ defeated him so he cannot force you to sin since he can't force you to sin he makes you want to because he can't impose sin on you he starts messing with your mind and so the way he does that is deceiving the thought pattern so that you begin to think differently we begin to think differently than we ought to so it becomes our decision influenced by him not enforced by him so that means we can't blame the devil any longer not from the force standpoint what he does is he plants his thought into your mind until it becomes your thought and so then it influences your action my action our action so the second one is god is holding out on you he's keeping that tree from you when god's whole point of restriction was to enhance freedom the third strategy the woman responds from the fruit of the trees of garden we may eat but from the fruit of the tree verse 3 which is in the middle of the garden god said you shall not eat it or touch it or you're going to die he said to the woman you surely will not die okay there will be no consequences so what is he getting at here what god said is not gonna happen i know god told you that but don't buy it strategy god's word cannot be trusted you can't believe that bible you can't act on that bible you can't you can't trust that that was written 2 000 years ago 4 000 years ago if you're going into the old testament they don't know what you're dealing with they didn't have all this technology god you can't buy that god's word cannot be trusted the bible says in romans 3 verse 4 let god be true and every man a liar let god be true and everybody who disagrees with him is lying even if they are good liar the bible says in john chapter 8 verse 44 satan is a liar and he's the father of lies well there's a couple of things there number one he's a born liar anybody know any boring liars they're just okay born lie they've been lying since now only not only is he a born liar but he's the father of lies which means he got chillings if you're a father you got children so he spawns deception he he replicates deception he says god's word cannot be trusted like don cornelius and the soul trained scramble board he gets all the words out of order and you can't you can't buy that it's all you can't buy that that's not real and right for the day so skip his no trespassing sign you're not going to die this is not going to hurt you you're not going to get into trouble you're not going to catch a disease you're not going to live a lifetime in debt you're not going to become emotionally unstable you're not you're not you're not it's okay you got to check out whoever's talking to you whether they're a child of the father of liars don't worry it's it's not going to be that bad probably enough folk in the audience today who know yeah it can be that bad it really can be that bad you talk about deception it reminds me of the story of the banker who was uh duck hunting the banker was duck hunting the banker this duck comes across takes up and going bam shoots the duck out the sky the duck falls into a farmer's land the banker who's doing the duck hunting goes to get the duck but the farmer's standing out there the farmer said that ain't your duck i mean it's not my duck i shot the duck yeah but it fell on my property so that's my duck oh the banker said oh no it's not i shot the duck that's my dog my farmer said oh no it's not that duck is on my property this is private property you can't have that duck like i said well i tell you what there's a way we can resolve this i'ma let you hit me as hard as you can you hit me as hard as you can follow your face and hit me then you let me hit you as hard as i can and whoever screams the least gets the duck of course the bank is younger than the farmer and you know he's in shape so he feels like this is going to be my duck because because i'ma hurt this man so farmer you go first obama cox back bam hits the bank of the banker falls to the ground with a little grown farmer gets up after a moment gets himself together okay now it's my turn the father said that's okay you can had a duck [Applause] satan just wants to hurt us you're not going to die one of the things most of us have learned on some level is when we play with sin then sin winds up playing with us you're in charge of it one moment and then it's in charge of you the next moment months years decades and this is a challenge because we are being bombarded in our world today on every level this leads him to another strategy verse 5 for god knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be open and you will be like you will be like god he says look let me explain why god does not want you to eat from this tree god is selfish god doesn't want anybody to be like him but him and because god is selfish and knows if you eat this tree you're going to know as much as god knows be as smart as god is he wants to keep you from being like him he doesn't want you to be his equal when he knows you could be his equal of course that was satan's whole goal to be god's equal in isaiah 14. so god doesn't want you to be his equal and to keep you from being his equal he doesn't want you to get that tree cause then you won't need him anymore you're going to know it all yourself you will be like god and what was the one thing satan wanted more than anything else when he rebelled against god he wanted his independence he did not want to have to answer to god anymore and our rebellion is a desire for our independence because if i'm like you and if i'm equal to you i don't have to submit to you if we're on the same level at work you don't get to boss me not if we on the same level if you can become like god if man can become like god if governments can become like god they don't have to answer to god because they are like him god doesn't want you he don't want anybody to be like him you all remember doing michael jordan's heyday everybody wanted the commercials you want to be like mike remember everybody won't be like mike superstar michael jordan so folks wanting to be like mike went out and bought jordans say jordans parents went into debt to get their kids jordans because they want to be like mike jersey number 23 because they want to be like mike i got news for you putting on jordans don't make you like mike wearing a jersey with number 23 doesn't make you fly you don't become like jordan simply because you got a phrase or you like basketball there must be an ability that matches your shoes you just can't look the part and be like mike and you just can't act the part and be god he is in a class by himself and he will always resist anybody who seeks to be independent of him with the consequences of your rebellion god so much doesn't want man to try to be like him which he could never be but even to carry that thought he told israel you can't even take a picture of me you you can't take a picture of me make no graven image in the ten commandments of me don't you create something you think might coulda looked like me cause anything you come up with is gonna be a bad photograph you remember how they used to have those photograph machines in the mall and you go put your little money in and you sit in that seat you pull that curtain and you sit down and then they take a picture four little pictures come out and you take those pictures don't show nobody them pictures some ugly pictures in fact we apologize for our picture that's not a good that's not a good picture of me yeah it is you just don't like it but god said don't photograph me don't create an image of me why because i'm in a class by myself and anything you come up with is going to make me look bad so he says i am who i am i'm not who you want me to be god is selfish okay let me let me talk a minute now about this tree god knows if you eat from this tree you will have the knowledge of good and evil okay so let's let's let's look at this tree this tree has two things on it good and evil okay but it's a google tree it's a google tree because it's information knowledge the knowledge of good and evil so you will be able to google all the information necessary for you to know what god knows because you're going to be like god so you have this comprehensive knowledge without god okay stick with me here you will be like god but you won't need god you will be able to determine and discover good and evil but you can leave god out of the equation of the discovery there is good and evil information but evil has not entered into the world yet other than the presence of satan there is no evil so what he is saying is there is an information base of knowledge that will discuss things you don't know anything about and you can get that without god because you will have become your own god because you will be like god therefore you won't need god to discover your own truth as i tell you often many of you living with with people who want to be like you parents they're called teenagers who think they know what they're talking about they talk like professionals they talk like experts the reason why you've got this teenage strife in your home or you may have had it gave it to your parents and giving it to your parents you have that strife is because they want to be like you they want to be parent so there's a conflict you say in a moment they but but two grown folk in this house you create a distinction right away the problem is they want their independence while still depending oh you ain't missed that this is true see they want their independence don't tell me what to do just feed me don't tell me what to do but you got to get me some clothes don't tell me what to do but you got to take me where i need to go because i haven't got my driver's license yet so i want to be independent but i still want you to cover me i know you want to be that independent why don't you cover yourself and see how that goes see what we're doing is we're living in a world now who has insisted on independence and god has said you got it and the result of consequences what was the consequence he says you're going to die because remember death is not succession of life cessation of life death is a illegitimate separation so when a body dies it's only dead because the soul left there was a separation which made the body inactive there's economic there's social death environmental death relational death there's all kind of deaths so we a lot of us ending dying are dead in a certain category because we ate from the independence tree i want my data without god and i will determine truth right and wrong and i will do it independently of god because i want to be like god i want to be my own god it reminds me muhammad ali he's on an airplane true story muhammad ali is on the airplane during his heyday he's sitting on the plane the stewardess comes back and says bye and says mr ali will you buckle your seatbelt we get ready to take off she comes back down the aisle ali has not buckled his seat belt said mr ali i really do need you to buckle your seatbelt we need to take off muhammad ali says superman don't need no seat belt stuart has said superman don't need no plane you need to buckle your seatbelt you ain't all that i don't care how much education you have what degrees you have what notoriety you have what success you have what money you have where you live what car you drive what car what clothes you wear you cannot be like him he is in a class by himself and you are to submit all of those categories to him when you don't [Applause] consequences it says you're gonna die and so so many of us are dying dying with regret dying with debt dying with relationships we're just dogging not knowing that's a consequence not just something that happened bad bad luck it doesn't know it's a consequence of sin which we've all faced on various levels finally verse six his final move it says when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was the delight to the eyes and that the tree was desirable to make one wise she took from his fruit and ate and she gave also to her husband with her and he ate if it feels good do it when she saw that the tree was good for food that tree was always good for food that's why i told him i eat it but here's what he did he let her see the tree through his eyes because she's now looking at this tree different than when she talked about it earlier when she saw the tree was good she'd been passing that tree in the middle of the living room of their house every day but when she saw the treatments good for food why did she look at the tree differently because now evil has been dropped from the conversation see it was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil but now she's only seeing the good part of the tree and isn't that how deception works you only see the good part you don't see the outcome if they told you that hit with that marijuana or that crack is going a few years from now have you an addict needing to get the monkey off your back if you could see you in that condition with the evil it would change how good that hit is up front if you could see yourself with three children out of wedlock and a single parent on welfare trying to make it if you could see that in advance then all of a sudden sex wasn't that wasn't all that it wasn't all that [Applause] if you could see the evil but what he wants to do is erase the evil and you just fall in love with the good this is so good so he increases her physical appetite when she saw the tree was good for food physical appetite then on top of increasing her physical appetite he increases her emotional appetite it was desirable that's what it said it was desirable she was feeling that tree she feeling the tree that treated and gotten a gizzard she she feeling that tree then he increased her intellectual appetite her intellectual appetite it it can make one wise i can really be smart the danger of so many of us and we have a fairly educated constituency here is that you have allowed your degrees to rule over the word of god you've allowed human wisdom and intellect and all truth is god's truth there's nothing wrong with getting educated and becoming more skillful but whenever that truth conflicts with divine revelation you are ignorant the bible calls it fool bible calls that a fool but that is the knowledge of a fool when you're smarter than god it's like nietzsche who great made his great philosophical statement because man has become so educated and philosophically astute god is dead signed nietzsche a few years later nietzsche died somebody wrote the sign nietzsche is dead signed god [Applause] that's why that's why okay hold on you are to respect all people the bible says give honor to whom honor is due if people have accomplished something if they've done great things you ought to honor that but what you are not to do is turn them into an american idol because they ain't all that yes they have achieved you respect it you recognize it but you got to understand there are a lot of fools out there who've eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that we are impressed with we are impressed with never mind they they popping pills to survive never mind that they strung out on drugs never mind that they can't stay married never mind that never mind all that they just can sing or rap or or or they're smart with a degree never mind all that we get impressed with the wrong folk honor it recognize it but don't turn it into an american idol because just like you they gonna die there is a way that seems right to man proverbs 14 12 says but the end thereof is death proverbs proverbs says in in proverbs chapter 3 verses 13 to 18 it says you are to eat from the tree of life which will give you wisdom because you know our biggest problem today all of us on varying levels our biggest problem is our lack of discernment if i would boil it down to our biggest problem we are not able to discern so we get impressed with the front stuff that looks impressive because we haven't discerned the back stuff that's the end of the story so we we lack discernment and that is the one thing that spiritual people have according to hebrews chapter 5 verses 11 to 14. spiritual people know how to discern it says between good and evil they're not faked out because it looks good up front they're able to see good and evil why because they eaten not from the tree of independence they're eating from the tree of life which gains wisdom and so james 1 sums it up in james chapter 1 we read these verses in verses 13 to 16. let no one say when he is tempted i am being tempted of god for god cannot be tempted by evil and he himself does not attempt anyone each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust then when lust has conceived it gives birth to sin and when sin is accomplished it brings forth what death it doesn't mean you're going to drop dead physically i mean something's going to die there will be an illegitimate separation so satan's strategy can be boiled down to one word deception about that that but because some whole thing up is he deceives us and you know we're not picking on anybody because everybody's been tripped up at some level but when you find where a trap is you don't keep walking over it [Applause] you gotta you gotta address that trap and then you gotta you gotta move on but you don't just keep walking you have to see people go over the same thing over and over again they're doing the same thing over and over over and over over and over over two mischievous boys one day went to a department store and they were they wanted to be mischievous and so what they did was they they took the tags off of the couture expensive garments and put the price tags on cheap garments then they took the tags off of the cheap garments and put those tags on the expensive garments so the expensive garments had cheap tags and the cheap garments had expensive tags on them so when folks came into the store they were buying expensive things for low cost and buying inexpensive things for high cost because the tags have been switched what satan has done is he switched the tags on us and he's got us spending a lot of our lives and our time on our and our energy on cheap stuff because he didn't switch the tags not understanding what god has provided for us free of charge he switched the tags so the question on the floor is do you want to avoid any future consequences and do you want to see as much mercy as god can give you for caring consequences because if you're tired of consequences you qualify for god's abundant grace

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Keywords: Tony Evans sermon, Christian sermons, sermons, powerful sermons, strategy of satan, sermons on satan, sermons on demonic, sermons on demons, demonic oppression, freedom from demonic, motivational, motivational video, tony evans, tony evans radio, dr tony evans, tony evans sermons

Id: 8Q42znK2UuM

Length: 49min 48sec (2988 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 12 2019