From Chapter 9: "A Battle to Fight: The Strategy" ...

Stage One: "I'm Not Here"
... take a close look at 1 Peter 5:8-9: "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings." What is the Holy Spirit, through Peter, assuming about your life? That you are under spritual attack. This is not a passage about nonbelievers; he's talking about "your brethren." Peter takes it for granted that every believer is under some sort of unseen assault. And waht does he insist you do? Resist the devil. Fight back, take a stand.

A ministry partnership that some dear friends were central to has just dissolved this week, I am deeply sad to say. They had teamed up with another organization to bring the gospel to cities across teh US. These conferences are very powerful, in fact, I've never seen anything even close to the impact they have. Through grateful tears, the attendees talk about the healing, the freedom, the release they have experienced. They recover their hearts and are drawn into an intimacy with God most have never, ever experienced before. It's beautiful and awe-inspiring. Now, do you think the Enemy just lets taht sort of thing go swimmingly along without any interference whatsoever?

The partnership hit some choppy water, nothing much at all really, nothing unusual to any relationship. yet the other members simply decided to end the coalition and walk away mid-season. Were there personal issues involved? You bet; there always are. But they were minor. IT was mostly misunderstanding and injured pride. There was not one word, not one thought as far as I could tell about the Enemy and waht he might be doing to break up so strategic an alliance. when I brought up the fact that they would do well to interpret things with open eyes, keeping the attacks of the Evil One in mind, I was dismissed. These good people with good hearts wanted to explain everything on a "human" level and let me tell you - when you ignore the Enemy, he wins. He simply loves to blame everything on us, get us feeling hurt, misunderstood, suspicious, and resentful of one another.

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When Christ is assaulted by the Evil One in the wilderness, the attack is ultimately on his identity. "If you are the Son of God," Satan sneers three times, then prive it (Luke 4:1-13). Brad returned from the mission field last year for a sabbatical. After seven years abroad, most of the time without any real companionship, he was pretty beat up; he felt like a failure. He told me that when he woke in the morning he'd "hear" a voice in his thoughts say, Good Morning ... Loser. So many men live under a similar accusation. Craig had really been entering into the battle and fighting bravely the past several months. Then he had a nightmare, a very vivid, grisly dream in which he had molested a little girl. He woke up feeling filthy and condemned. That same week I had a dream where I was accused of committing adultery; I really hadn't, but in my dream no one would believe me. Follow this: So long as a man remains no real threat to the Enemy, Satan's line to him is You're fine. But after you do take sides, it becomes Your heart is bad and you know it.

Finally, he probes the perimeter, looking for a weakness. Here's how this works: Satan will throw a thought or a temptation at us in hopes that we will swallow it. He know your story, knows what works with you and so the line is tailor-made to your situation. Just this morning in my prayer time it was pride, then worry, then adultery, then greed, then gluttony. If I thought this was all me, my heart, I'd be very discouraged. Knowing that my heart is good allowed me to block it, right then and there. (Ed. note - could this smack of Marcos Witt's sermon on "Scam Proofing Your Life" just a tad more?) When Satan probes, make no agreement, if something in your heart says, Yeah, you're right, then he pours it on. You'll see a beautiful woman and something in you will say, You want her. That's the Evil One appealing to the traitor within. If the traitor says, Yes, I do, then the lust really begins to take hold. Let that go on for years and you've given him a stronghold. This can make a good man feel so awful because he thinks he's a lustful man when he's not; it's an attack through and through.

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Stage Two: Intimidation
... The Enemy, once discovered, usually doesn't just roll over and go away without a fight. Notice that sometimes Jesus rebukes a foul spirit "in a stern voice" (see Luke 4:35). In fact, when he encounters the guy who lives out in the Gerasenes tombs, tormented by a legion of spirits, the first rebuke by Jesus doesn't work. He had to get more information, really take them on (Luke 8:26-33). Now if Jesus had to get tough with these guys, don't you suppose we'll have to as well?

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That is the next level of our Enemy's strategy. When we begin to question him, to resist his lies, to see his hand in the "ordinary trials" of our lives, then he steps up the attack, he turns to intimidation and fear. In fact, at some point in the last several pages, you've probably begun to feel something like Do I really want to get into all this super-spiritual hocus-pocus? It's kind of creepy anyway. Satan will try to get you to agree with intimidation because he fears you. You are a huge threat to him. He doesn't want you waking up and fighting back because when you do, he loses. "Resist the devil," James says, "and he will flee from you" (James 4:7, emphasis added). So he's going to try to keep you from taking a stand. He moves from subtle seduction to open assault. The thoughts come crashing in, all sorts of stuff begins to fall apart in your life, your faith seems paper thin.

Why do so many pastors' kids go off the deep end? You think that's a coincidence? So many churches start off with life and vitality only to end in a split, or simply wither away and die. How come? Why did a friend of mine nearly black out when she tried to share her testimony at a meeting? Why are my flights so often thwarted when I'm trying to take the gospel to a city? Why does everything seem to fall apart at work when you're making some advances at home, or vice versa? Because we are at war and the Evil One is trying an old tactic - strike first and maybe the opposition will turn tail and run. He can't win, you know. As Franklin Roosevelt said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."