Satan's Tactics by Zac Poonen

in our last two studies we were considering what God's purpose for man was when he first created him and how he made him different from the animals and how he had made provision for all his need if we understand these basic concepts we will open our whole being to let God have his way in us all the time in every area it's because we don't understand or accept or believe these clear teachings right in the beginning of scripture we don't see them the devil is blinded our eyes to them that we find our Christian life so unsatisfactory the average Christian believer born-again believer if you were to ask him and if we were to give you an honest reply he would admit that this Christian life is not satisfying and yet God intends our life to be satisfying but it'll never be satisfying until we believe that total surrender to God is the best for us now we want to look at the origin of sin in the human race as we read it described in the third chapter of Genesis in those first few chapters of Genesis we get certain basic concepts concerning a number of things in man's relationship with God which help us to know how it should be in our lives - in Genesis 3 for example we see a number of things related to temptation if you look and meditate on this I believe it can give us some insight into the tactics of Satan so that we are not deceived in the same way can we read that the first thing that the devil did was to come to even make her question the Word of God and this is how he comes today - is this really God's Word has God really said this is it necessary to do what God has said is it dangerous to disobey God and the devil tries to take away that foundation from our lives of God's Word so that we're like the man who built his house on sand and collapse and that's what he did with Eve he came and said as God really said and through the centuries the devil has always been questioning God's Word the Bible says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ so if the devil succeeds in removing the word of Christ from underneath your life you're not going to have any basis for faith at all and the opposite of faith is fear and that's why you find the world full of people with fear their life is built on sand and it crumbles and in this you see another thing and that is Satan is trying to tell Eve that it's not so serious if you disobey God you know implying as it were well God is such a loving good God and he's not going to let you suffer and be cast out just because you disobeyed him once in one area oh no he will he'll ignore he's the God of love and even though he said you will die if you disobey and partake of the stree you won't die don't worry sin came when the devil when the woman decided to believe what the devil said rather than what God that is the origin of sin when we begin to believe what the devil says rather than what God says what are the type of things the devil says he says sin is not serious you will not be punished if you do wrong and there is no such thing as hell there is no such thing as eternal death these are some of the things which the devil's been feeding humanity with lies you surely shall not die he says in Genesis 3 verse 4 they apply this to the Christian life today what will happen to a Christian who lives according to his flesh I'm talking about a born-again Christian who's not careful about his Christian life but who continues to live according to the desires of his flesh Romans chapter 8 we read these words written to born-again believers is very clear because it says there in Romans 8:12 brethren he's not talking to non-christians there he says dear brethren we are not under obligation to the flesh to live according to the flesh if you live according to the flesh Romans 8:13 you will surely die but if through the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live so what is he saying to born-again believers if you believers live according to the flesh the desires and passions of the sinful nature in our body you must die just like God told Adam you will surely die and what did the devil come and tell Eve you will not surely die and what is being preached to many believers by many preachers today if you're born again if you're once accepted Christ and you happen to live according to the flesh you will not die you are eternally secure isn't it the same language of the devil when God says in compare these two verses God told Adam if you eat of this tree of knowledge of good and evil you will surely die God says today in Romans 8:13 brethren if you live according to the flesh you will surely die the devil took that word of God and said you will not die and that today the devil takes this word of God and says if you live according the flesh you will not die because you accepted Christ once how can you die it is impossible and do you know the number of millions and millions of believers whom the devil has fooled by making them believe that once they've accepted Christ it's not possible for them to die the Bible says in Luke chapter 3 the last verse Adam was the son of God Adam was a son of God it says that in the last verse of Luke chapter 3 but he died he was eternally lost finally because he disobeyed what about today a son of God when he decides to live according to the flesh is God's Word in Romans 8:13 going to be fulfilled you will surely die it will but the devil questions God's Word this whole purpose is to deceive man make him live in sin so that finally he spends eternity with the devil in hell that's his aim Paul once said in one of his letters in 2nd Corinthians 2 we're not ignorant of Satan's schemes cygnus tactics and schemes and we must not be ignorant to them and we need not be ignorant to them if we read scripture because all his tactics the same tactics he used once before here is one example to make you question God's Word and to negate it to cancel it say it will not happen so that's the first thing we can learn and take a warning from in Genesis chapter 3 if you want to overcome if you want to live as God wants you to live you better accept God's Word exactly as it is written the second thing I want you to see here is when the devil communicated with Eve he says to her something which implies that God doesn't really love you as you think he does he doesn't really have your best in mind he's trying to withhold something from you notice what it says in Genesis 3 in verse 5 the next sentence he says is God knows that in the day you eat from this your eyes will be opened and you'll be like God knowing good and evil and of course he doesn't want you to be like him what a line it's amazing how the devil succeeded in making I believe that and it's amazing to see how God how the devil has succeeded today in making a lot of people believe a lie as if God is trying to withhold from you something that's good for you how can that be did God create man in order to withhold from him he need not have created him at all the whole purpose with which God created man was to bless him and to give him all that he had to make him partake of his nature and to make him rule over all of his creation but the devil portrayed another picture of God is a hard taskmaster and one who didn't love and one who's trying to withhold something from man and so he told man you better fend for yourself take care of yourself because God is not going to care for you what a lie when he had created man with a very purpose of blessing and providing for him the devil convinced him that that was not true and he find the same today the devil is out there convincing believers that God doesn't really care for them that's why he didn't grant them this request he implies why did God allow your child to die why did he allow that sickness to continue that proves God doesn't love you and there are lots of believers who believe that and when they believe that do you know what it leads to depression discouragement anger at God which also leads to sickness in the body many other problems if the devil can succeed in making you believe this lie that God doesn't love you that he doesn't care for you he's not going to provide all your need he would have succeeded in making you take the first step towards sin the first step to a defeated life is to believe that God doesn't love you you know faith is really the nutrition speaks a lot about faith faith is to believe that God loves me that's more important than even not falling when Peter was about to deny Jesus three times the Lord wanded you're going to deny me three times Peter but I'm not praying that you won't deny me that's probably needed to break your pride but I am praying that after you have denied me and you've let me down and the devil's got ahold of you and you reach the bottom you reach rock bottom I want you to remember there that God still loves you that's what I'm praying for you that your faith will not fail the Lord told Peter I'm praying that your faith will not fail meaning that if you have come to that end of yourself I want you to believe right there that God loves you still he still loves you that is faith to believe that even though I made a mess of my life even though I've done something wrong God still loves me how much more when I'm trying to please him when we were sinners he loved us when we were his enemies he loved us how much more now that we're his children so one of the things we learned right from the beginning of man's creation and man's fall is that the aim of the devil is to make us doubt God's Word and to doubt God's love and if he succeeds in those two areas in your life I want to tell you right now that you're doomed because you'll definitely fall he doesn't lead us to fall straight away he removes our foundation and then we just fall on our own we have discouraged say if God doesn't love me if he doesn't not gonna answer my prayer what hope is there for me we get discouraged then the devil leads us into more sin the other thing I want you to notice further down is the woman trusted her senses she saw with her eyes that the tree was good for food you know the other thing we need to learn from this passage is that we can't trust our senses if you trust your senses you'll be deceived you'll go straight trust your senses for example if you trusted your senses you would think that the Sun goes around the earth because every day you see the Sun Rise move in the sky and set in the West and if you trusted your senses you'd say hey the Sun is moving it's not moving it's an appearance it's the earth revolving on its own axis that gives you the impression that that stationary Sun is moving God has put it there to teach us everyday don't trust your senses don't trust what you see the we know from geography that the Earth revolves around its own axis it and the equator it's at a speed of about thousand kilometres an hour and when we look down at the earth we don't feel it moving at all the earth looks very stable and stationary and yet the earth under your feet is revolving it a thousand kilometres thousand miles sorry thousand six hundred kilometres an hour that's how fast the earth is spinning and yet yet you don't feel it you can't trust your senses that's the message that comes through from that you go by your senses you'll be deceived that woman saw she went by our senses this appears good to me it is not good for you look at the people who take alcohol and cigarettes and harmful drugs today if they look at it and they say that appears to be good for me I get a kick out of it it'll destroy your body so that's the other thing that we see here and when man Falls like this what did God expect from a Damini just to trust it believe that I love you even though you may not know the reason why I have forbidden you from eating this tree it's very interesting to see that God never gave Adam and Eve a reason if you obey after you get an explanation why you should obey that's not really the obedience of faith the highest form of obedience is the obedience of faith that is the way the maximum spiritual growth if you obey God because you know the reason well that's good that you obey God but it's not the best form of obedience in Romans chapter 1 and chapter 16 you read this expression the obedience of faith and what is that it is an obedience what is the opposite of the obedience of faith is the obedience of reason that means I know why I need to do this therefore I do it what if you don't know the reason that's a higher level of obedience you know and God when he gave Adam a command saying don't eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil he never gave him a reason he never told him God could have easily given 25 reasons why you shouldn't need of it he just said don't eat it I'm telling you don't eat it if you eat it you'll die but he never gave him a reason now today because God's given us the holy spirit we know the reason see the essential difference between these two trees tree of knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life on the other side the essential difference is that in 1 Adam could choose a life centered in himself that means if I want to know what's good and what's evil I don't have to go to God I know it myself I can consult my own reason and decide what's good what's evil the way of death the other tree was the Tree of Life symbolizing God himself in the fire of his holy spirit and if I choose to live by that tree what I'm saying is Lord I want to live in dependence on you every time I want to know what's good and what's evil I'm not going to trust my own reason I'm going to come to you and say Lord is this good for me to do this it's a life of constant dependence upon God for wisdom for life every day and the fact that I've got so many years of experience doesn't make a difference think of a branch in a tree maybe it's had 50 years of experience bearing fruit but it still needs to abide in the tree if it is to bear fruit now so it's constant it's constant dependence that new branch has to abide in the tree to produce fruit as much as this other branch that has been producing fruit in it for 25 years it doesn't make a difference 50 years jesus said apart from me you cannot bear fruit you can do nothing so the tree of life symbolized a life of dependence upon God that's the meaning of faith living by faith Lord tell me is this good or evil and it's a moment-by-moment revelation from God that keeps me from what he shows me is evil that's how Jesus lived and that's how God wants you and me to live but as I said earlier the other is the tree of knowledge of good and evil where I don't need to consult God at all and that's how all human beings in the world live do you think everybody in the world is living evil lives no a lot of people do a lot of good things but they don't live in dependence upon God God is not created us just to do good things he's created us to be dependent on him he said go and live by that tree of life not the tree of knowledge you got me where's depend where you depend on yourself because there is a way that seems right to a man it says in proverbs 14 and proverbs 16 but the end of it leads to death proverbs chapter 3 verse 5 and 6 says trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean upon your own reason your own understanding in all your ways acknowledge him then he will direct your paths so we see here in that verse that the enemy of faith is our reason if I depend on my reason I'm going to go astray and so it says trust in the Lord and don't lean upon your reason leaning upon reason is partaking of the knowledge of tree of knowledge of good and evil my reason tells me what's good I do that my reason tells me what's evil I don't be that I don't need to pray I don't need to consult God about anything when you live your Christian life without seeking the will of God as to what is good for you you choose yourself what's good for you you're living according the principle of good and evil which Adam chosen we've all got that infection so I try to expand this passage to show you how sin has come into the human race this is how it came by living according to our own reason we ourselves deciding what's good for us now what is the obedience of faith supposing he said the devil said to Eve here the reason why God is not allowing you to partake of this tree is because he knows that you'll be like him and he doesn't want you to be like him supposing Eve had said in response well I all the reasons but one thing I know God loves and but when he loves me he cannot possibly withhold from me anything that's good for me supposing she had said that she'd I can't understand it looks according to my reason that yeah this is a good tree and it looks as if God should give it to me but he hasn't but but I know God loves me and so even though I can't understand why is forbidden it I'm going to obey Him what a different story it would have been and what a different story it would be in your life when you face a situation that you can't understand and you say well I can't understand this I don't have the explanation for it all but I know God is a good God in His wisdom is greater than mine and I'll do what he says can make all the difference in your life so let's learn from this passage and learn to live by dependence upon God for wisdom concerning what is good for us and what is he god bless you

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Keywords: Revival, Character Of God, Free Sermons, Video Sermons, Jesus Christ, What Is The Gospel, SermonIndex, What Is The Truth, Zac Poonen

Id: cuTCna5lc6U

Length: 25min 36sec (1536 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 04 2017