The Devil's One-Two Punch
One of the fundamental principles of warfare is you never go to war without your body armor and your weaponry. As a rookie cop, I was mortified one night when I arrived to roll call. The entire way there I kept feeling like I had forgotten something. I couldn’t figure out what, but something just didn’t feel right. It was in the middle of roll call when I realized what I had done. My hands quickly snapped up to feel my chest. I had forgotten to put on my bulletproof vest! You’d better believe that night I did my best to “lay low.”
The good news is God has equipped us with spiritual body armor. Paul is saying to us in Ephesians 6 that if you are going to stand against the wiles of the devil, it is essential you suit up with the whole armor of God. It is just as crucial to your victory to know your enemy because knowledge is power.
I’ll never forget years ago catching a street dealer who was dealing drugs. I had watched him for several nights so I knew what he would do. I was watching him from a couple of blocks away. He never knew I was there. Every time a squad car turned the corner, I’d watch him turn to run inside the apartment building where he lived. There were two doors, and he always chose the one on the right. I knew it was time to make our move. By now, we knew what his move would be. I sat on the corner of the building in the shadows and radioed my partner to turn the corner in the squad car. Sure enough, he turned and ran for the door. About the time he reached for the door, I stepped out of the shadows and put a form tackle on him that would have made my old defensive line coach proud!Knowing your enemy’s moves is the secret to success on any level of warfare. It’s why the United States has a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that is responsible for gathering intelligence information on our nation’s adversaries. Opposing governments conduct espionage by sending spies secretly behind enemy lines to gain intelligence information for one reason: knowledge is power! It’s no different for everyone fighting the good fight of faith. It is critical that we are intimately acquainted with everything about our enemy.
The reason more Christians do not live victoriously is because they do not know Satan’s strategy. Here’s the reality—unless you gain knowledge about your enemy, you have no hope of succeeding against him. The prophet Hosea wrote about it thousands of years ago.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. (Hosea 4:6)
Those words are just as true in the spirit realm as they are in this earthly realm. The Bible tells us the devil has declared war on each of us. He has declared war on you. He is like the cartoon character, Wile E. Coyote who is always plotting and planning and strategizing to devour that innocent Road Runner. The Bible says that Satan really is a wolf—and one that is extremely wily. And just like Wile E. Coyote, he really does want to devour you. That is what Paul is teaching us and part of what we are doing in our intelligence gathering—learning about the wiles of the devil—the devices he employs in his assault against us and everything we hold dear.
Because we are at war, it is essential that we continue our advanced intelligence gathering. As Paul says in Second Corinthians 2:11, “lest Satan should take advantage of us.” If we do not learn about him and gather intelligence information about him, Satan WILL have the upper hand on us. Paul says we are not to be ignorant of his devices—his tools, his tricks, and his tactics—that he deploys against us.The good news is—to use a little police jargon—we know his M.O., his modus operandi, his method of operation. Why? Because he has been using the only three bullets he has ever had since the dawn of humanity in the Garden of Eden—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. And poor, naive Eve never saw it coming. Like a trained boxer, he sets up his opponent with a jab and then goes for the knockout punch. First, he attacks through lies…then he attracts through lust. This is the one-two punch our adversary, the devil uses every time. He lures us in with lies and then baits the trap knowing the bait we’re most apt to take.It is probably safe to say you have taken the bait a time or two as well. I know I have. As a young teenager, I took the bait that began with a lie: “Phil, you aren’t good enough and no girl would ever want you.” Those thoughts and insecurities had me careening—if not for God’s grace—toward a life wrecked by alcohol and womanizing. The lies I believed set me up to take the bait. What is the “bait” that Satan is using to lure you into his web of destruction? He may not be luring you down a path that will destroy your life, but one that will most certainly destroy your effectiveness for God’s Kingdom. Is it one of bitterness? Or perhaps it’s unforgiveness or anger that is searing your soul.Just as crucial as knowing your enemy, it is essential that you gather your information from a reliable source. Years ago as a member of the Kansas City SWAT, we would never serve a search warrant without first doing some intelligence gathering. Before we made a move, we would send a C.I., a confidential informant or undercover officer, to go to the location where the target was supposed to be. We would do that so they could report back to us as to what the house looked like, how it was laid out, whether there were any weapons or anything else we needed to be aware of.
On one particular occasion, we were getting ready to serve a drug warrant at an apartment. Our C.I. came back with intelligence information that our entry point was up the stairs and the first door on the left. We all heard and acknowledged his report and proceeded to charge up the stairs. On this occasion, I was the ram man, and BAM, I hit that first door on the left. However, as soon as that door came open, I realized something was terribly wrong. The only thing on the other side of that door was a 95-year-old man in nothing but his whitey tighties! The entire team was already in motion, proceeding with their finely tuned entry protocol. The first one inside the door pointed his gun at this poor man and yelled, “Get down, get down.” Utterly petrified, the elderly man dove face down on the ground. As it turned out, we had received some bad intelligence. We found out later when our C.I. told us, “I meant the second door on the left, not the first one on the left. Sorry about that.”Now that was some pretty bad intelligence information. The good news is we always have good intel because our information comes from God Himself. Knowledge is power. God does not want us to be ignorant of Satan’s devices. There is no more reliable source on the face of the earth than the Bible because it is inerrant, infallible, and it provides accurate intelligence on the enemy of our soul.
