Prepare to Defend

Adversary: one’s opponent in a contest, conflict, or dispute

From middle school through college, game days were hands down the best days of my life. Ok, maybe not that extreme, but game days had no rival in my mind. It didn’t matter if we were playing a team that could not make a basket to save their lives or a team that we knew would beat us to a pulp. Game days were the days when I woke up with anticipation and anxiously watched the clock the rest of the day until game time. Without a doubt, the time crept by as slowly as a snail through peanut butter, but that time was when my mind would game plan for our opponent – who I would guard, how we would defend their best player, and how we would come out victorious.

Leading up to game day, we prepared for our opponent. We knew what defense they ran, their strengths and weaknesses, the strong hand of their point guard, whether they would run a full court press or not. As we were in the gym or a classroom, game planning for a victory, our opponent was doing the same. Just as we knew their strengths and weaknesses, they knew ours.

In sports, we game plan for a victory. When playing a board game, we strategize how we can win. We even think through how we can beat traffic when driving through a big city on a long trip. But do we even consider how to have victory over our spiritual adversary, the devil?

Our Adversary - Satan

One of the greatest books on spiritual warfare is C.S. Lewis’s, The Screwtape Letters. This book addresses temptation and spiritual warfare in a satirical style, so while it is fiction, C.S. Lewis opens the readers minds and eyes to the intricacy and disturbing detail of Satan’s ploys against humanity.

In the garden of Eden, the devil brought ruin to God’s perfect world by enticing Eve to sin. Satan has always wanted to be more powerful, more beautiful than God, and he tempts us with the same desires. When we know our opponent’s intentions, we are more likely to defeat them. Look at how C.S. Lewis describes Satan’s and his demons’ tactics in this excerpt from The Screwtape Letters –

“Never forget that when we {Satan and his demons} are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy form, we are, in a sense, on the Enemy’s {God’s} ground. I know we have won many a soul through pleasure. All the same, it is His invention, not ours. He made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one. All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden.”

I encourage you to read that again.

Satan did not create pleasure. Yes, sin is pleasurable for a season (Heb. 11:25), but going against God in any degree ultimately leads to destruction (Rom. 6:23). Just like he did in the garden, Satan uses what God has created for us to enjoy and entices us to indulge in those pleasures in an unholy way.

A perfect example of this is found in Matthew 4 in the temptation of Jesus. In all three temptations, Satan tempted Christ with what was already His for the taking – food, a large following, and power/ownership. All these things were part of God’s ultimate redemptive plan, but if Christ would have agreed to Satan’s invitation, it would not have been in God’s timing or His way.

By tempting Jesus in the wilderness, Satan hoped that he could keep his plan of destruction in motion by causing Jesus to sin. He failed – meaning that Christ would go on to die on a cross for the sin of all mankind and then defeat death three days later by rising from the grave. Satan’s plan was destroyed for good, but he continues his path of destruction today. “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” 1 Peter 5:8

Satan does not just want to play games with you. He wants to destroy you. Just as the devil tried to disqualify Jesus from being the Savior, by causing Him to sin, he makes us believe that we can be disqualified from God’s grace (or that other people can be).

In my own life, Satan uses guilt and shame to drive me to places God never intended for me to go. Rather than confess my sin and embrace God’s forgiveness, I am tempted to live in shame that paralyzes me from moving forward. It took me some time to identify this, but now that I have, I am equipped to fight off temptation.

Your adversary is not your parents, your boss, or even the bully at school. Your adversary is the devil himself, and he uses the fallenness of mankind to tempt you to sin. Whether that is someone else’s anger, laziness, or criticism, we must fight temptation with all the armor we have been given. We have been given all that we need to succeed. 1 Corinthians 10:13 says, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”

The way of escape is found at the cross, at the empty tomb. Death and hell have already been defeated. The wrath of God that you and I deserve has already been experienced by Someone standing in as a substitute for us. We cannot be disqualified from heaven or from God’s grace and forgiveness because we did not pay our own debt. It was covered by the perfect, sinless Son of God who took on all your sin. Why? For love. I know, it doesn’t make sense to us, nor does it seem fair because it’s not.

That’s where faith comes in.

When your adversary tempts you, in faith, run to God and His Word for your armor. Before temptation even shows its head, identify the pattern and equip yourself for battle. The victory is yours for the taking. If you want to win, know your opponent. Know how he plans to destroy you and prepare for battle. You have been given all you need to fight. Will you put in the effort to win?