The Devil is a defeated enemy. Thus we can praise God with the words of Martin Luther’s hymn, "The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him, His rage we can endure. For lo, his doom is sure, one little Word shall fell him!" Since that eternal Living Word has defeated the devil victoriously through His death on the cross (Hebrews 2:14), we who belong to Christ no longer "walk according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air" (Ephesians 2:2). This is the truth that we must now proclaim – Christ has defeated the Devil! Let us understand the glorious fact that "greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world." (1 John 4:4). If you have Christ with you, you have the best power and protection you need against the Devil.

Perhaps there are some readers who are afraid of him, or of what he may do to you. Perhaps you have believed what Charismatics have been popularizing about the Devil: That there are demons here, there and everywhere, and that even believers have demons that they need deliverance from, such as "spirits of debt, and spirits of fear." Every imaginable problem and pain is attributed to demonic power, to the point of building up an intense paranoia about the Devil.

Dear Reader, the Word of God assures us that there is really no need for us who are in Christ to be too fearful of Satan. Although he may be strong and cunning, he is already defeated, and his doom is already foretold. For sure, his power is real, and we must be watchful of his devices and ready to resist him. But we must not become too occupied with him, lest we become distracted from our devotion to the Lord and to His Word. The Lord Jesus should be our main object of attention and devotion at all times.

Having said that, let us also take heed to Ephesians 6:11 – "Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil." The word ‘wiles’ here refers to the many methods, tactics and stratagems that the Devil regularly uses against God’s people. The Devil is a master strategist, and has devised the most ingenious schemes to hinder God’s work and disable the effectiveness of believers. That is why we must be vigilant and watchful. Let us consider some of his methods.

Satan is a master of disguise. According to 2 Corinthians 11:14 he can even disguise himself as an angel of light! He may disguise false teachers as true teachers, and false churches as true churches. The many cults and pseudo-Christian movements that exist today are testimonies to his work. An undiscerning person who looks at these cults and movements would think that they are Christian, because they bear the outward marks of Christianity.

Being watchful against them is not difficult. All we need to do is to mark these movements as cults and avoid them completely. But what is more difficult to handle is when false teachers are found within true churches of Jesus Christ. Satan infiltrates true churches with false disciples and false teachers. This is brought out in the parable of the Tares that Jesus told in Matthew 13. The parable is about a man who sowed good seed in his field. An enemy came at night and sowed tares among the wheat. There is an interesting characteristic about the tares: In the earlier stages of development, they cannot be distinguished from the wheat by ordinary means! It would be extremely difficult to tell them apart because they look alike. The differences between the two become very obvious only at harvest time. In the same way, those who have been only "outward" Christians will be revealed for what they really are, at the time of judgment.

An example of this can be found in the account of the conversion of Simon the sorcerer (Acts 8). At the beginning, this sorcerer seemed to repent and sincerely believe in Christ, and so Philip baptized him. But later on we learn that he actually had ulterior motives for becoming a Christian. Simon was greatly impressed by the signs and wonders he saw Philip and the apostles performing. These wonders were apparently more spectacular than his own magic tricks which he had been using to gain respect and honour from the people. He was therefore interested in getting the power to do what they did and to bestow the Holy Spirit on whoever he wills. Because of this, Peter rebuked him and Simon begged Peter not to let God’s judgment fall on him.

Church history proves that he was not truly converted. Irenaeus, an early church father, tells us that after this event, Simon the sorcerer became the first great heretic and cult leader of his time. He eventually twisted the Gospel and led many Christians astray by his teachings, even claiming that he, like Christ, was God incarnate! He deceived many because of his counterfeit conversion experience, and his counterfeit teachings.

God’s Word tells us not to believe every spirit, but to "try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world." (1 John 4:1). Christ described the Devil as the Father of lies. That is his specialty. Deceit and deception are his stock in trade. (John 8:44). Hence we must be watchful against any form of deception or disguise that the Devil attempts to foist upon us.

The Devil often attempts to sow discord or disagreements among brethren in order to divide them. In 2 Corinthians 2 the apostle Paul alerted the believers at Corinth that they must be ready to forgive an errant brother when the discipline applied to him had accomplished its objective of bringing him to repentance. There should be restoration and reconciliation among brethren. The reason for this is given in 2 Corinthians 2:11 where he says – "Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices." Satan would take advantage of any breakdown in relationships among Christians because he knows that they are stronger when united.

We must not allow the godly unity we have to be disrupted by rumours, strife and division. These things provide Satan with the opportunity to devour his prey. When we allow ourselves to remain angry with someone and let it develop into bitterness, we are actually giving place to the Devil. Ephesians 4:26,27 tells us, "Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil". Let us therefore watch against this strategy of Satan, by preserving the bond of love among Christian brethren.

These are the devices that Satan uses with regard to the Word of God. When the Lord gave the commandment to Adam and Eve that they should not eat the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, Satan skilfully sowed the seed of doubt with his question, "Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" (Genesis 3:1) That question opened the way for him to strike Eve with his venomous lie: "Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Eve fell into his trap, but at least she did regret later on, that she had doubted the Word of God (Genesis 3:13). By then it was already too late to undo the damage.

Many others have not been so fortunate – They did not regret the doubts that came unto them, and in fact, they still persist in them. Throughout the last two centuries the Devil has successfully sowed destructive seeds of doubt in the hearts and minds of Christian professors and theologians in many well-known seminaries. As a result of this, one seminary after another capitulated to liberal and modernist teachings. First it was Harvard, then Yale, then Union and Princeton. Many others followed after that. As the graduates of these seminaries took over the pastorate of churches, these churches also became infected with doubts about God’s Word.

The approach each time seems to have been the same. A foundational truth is first questioned, and then doubted, and finally it is replaced with a lie. Concerning creation the question was asked, "Did God really create all things from nothing in six literal days?" This eventually gave rise to belief in Evolution. Concerning the Flood the question was asked, "Could there really have been a flood so great that it covered the whole earth?" This brought the "Local Flood theory" into being. In a similar way, doubts about the miracles of the Bible brought about rationalistic and non-literal interpretations of the Scriptures. And questions about the accuracy of the Bible have brought about the rejection of the doctrine of the verbal and plenary inspiration of the Scriptures. Let us therefore be careful whenever doubts are raised concerning the inerrancy and infallibility of the Scriptures, for the author of such doubts is the Devil himself.

Doctrine is not the only thing in which Satan sows doubts. He also tries to make people doubt God Himself. The best example of this was his attempt with Job. When God granted him permission to test Job, the Devil did everything in his power to make him doubt God’s goodness, by afflicting him with sickness and loss. Thankfully, although Job came very close to doubting God’s goodness, he remained steadfast and did not deny his Lord (Job 1:21).

Besides sowing doubts, the Devil sometimes distorts the truth. This was what he did when he tempted our Lord Jesus in Matthew 4. This can be seen in vv.5 and 6. "Then the devil taketh Him up into the holy city, and setteth Him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto Him, If Thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone."

This portion of Scripture that he quoted was actually misused. Psalm 91, from which the Devil had quoted these words, is all about God’s protection of His own when they have no choice but to face danger. It is not at all about protection from self-inflicted danger. And that was the very meaning that Satan was trying to force into it. He was challenging our Lord to prove God’s faithfulness to Him by jumping down from the pinnacle of the Temple, to force God to save Him from being killed. The implication here, is that if God’s hand can be forced to do His bidding, then Christ can feel that He must be someone very, very special. This was therefore an appeal to self-centred pride, exalting itself at God’s expense. This brings us to the next device that the devil uses…

This is one of the most cunning strategies that Satan has used to bring people into sin. When he tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden, he enticed her to eat the forbidden fruit by saying, "in the day ye eat thereof then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." (Genesis 3:5) The enticement to eat the fruit was self-deification – to become like God. Satan himself fell from his original position as the highest archangel in heaven because of this. He yielded to his own pride and said, ‘I will ascend above the heights of the clouds: I will be like the most high." (Isaiah 14:14) Today, he is still trying his best to convince people – "You can be as gods." The teachings of the New Age movement openly encourage the pursuit of self-deification. The goal of these teachings is for man to reach higher levels of spirituality until he attains godhood.

Self-deification is also the object of sorcery and witchcraft. Initiates are attracted by the promise of wielding supernatural power to do whatever they like. Today, sorcery and witchcraft are being fed to us subtly through internet games like ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ and books like the Harry Potter series. Let us be very careful about these things!

While many of us will probably not overtly pursue self-deification in the above forms, we need to know that every time we fall into the sin of pride, we are essentially guilty of deifying ourselves. When a person is proud he is actually exalting himself at God’s expense. He is claiming for himself the glory which belongs to God alone. This temptation to fall into pride is the reason why 1 Timothy 3:6 says that no new believer should be put too quickly into a position of spiritual leadership – "Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil."

Pride can cause not only new believers to fall, but mature believers as well. King David was nearing the end of his life when he fell into Satan’s trap: 1 Chronicles 21:1 – "And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel." And when David out of pride took a census of his armies to determine exactly how great he was in military strength, the Lord chastised him severely. God sent a terrible plague which destroyed about a tenth of his troops.

In 2 Timothy 2:23 Paul told Timothy: "But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes." Verse 26 makes it clear that these foolish and unlearned questions are used by the Devil to ensnare believers: "And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will." They get so caught up with their disputes over foolish questions, that they neglect what they really should be doing. Believers are thus distracted from the things that really matter, and Satan traps them by keeping them occupied with these trivial matters.

Dear Reader, have you allowed yourself to be distracted by trivial matters? Today we can see how skillfully the Devil has placed so many distractions in the lives of believers. He keeps them busy in many non-essentials of life. He convinces them to work for long hours six or seven days a week, so they can afford their expensive lifestyles. He stimulates their minds with worldly music and messages from their TVs, VCRs, CDs, DVDs and PCs. If this sounds familiar to you, perhaps you are falling into the snare of the Devil. Before you know it, you may find yourself neglecting your walk with God and in a backslidden state.