CHAPTER 2
WHEN GOD’S STORY BECOMES YOURS…
YOU KNOW SATAN’S NEXT MOVE
THINK ABOUT IT!
Every story has a bad guy. They may be as bold as Darth Vader, Lord Voldemort, or the Joker. Villains can also be subtler, like a jealous friend, a clueless principal, or a cheating competitor. They are the ones who keep our hero from accomplishing his mission, his purpose in the story. The hero learns and grows as he struggles to be victorious over his adversaries. God’s story tells us that we too have an enemy, Satan. But it also tells us how we can defeat him and grow tremendously when we encounter his tricks and snares in life.
IF I WERE THE DEVIL, I’D BE TICKED OFF. TICKED OFF TO see you reading a Christian book, thinking godly thoughts, dreaming about heaven and other such blah-blah-blah.
How dare you ponder God’s story! What about my story? I had my eyes on you… had plans for you. That’s what I would think.
If I were the devil, I’d get busy. I’d assemble my minions and demons into a strategy session and give them your picture and address. I’d review your weaknesses one by one. Don’t think I don’t know them. How you love to be liked and hate to be wrong. How cemeteries give you the creeps and darkness gives you the heebie-jeebies.
I’d brief my staff on my past victories. Haven’t I had my share? Remember your bouts with doubt? I all but had you convinced that the Bible was a joke. You and your so-called faith in God’s Word.
I’d stealth my way into your mind. No frontal attacks for you. Witchcraft and warlocks won’t work with your type. No. If I were the devil, I’d dismantle you with questions. How do you know, I mean, truly know, that Jesus rose from the dead? Are you sure you really believe the gospel? Isn’t absolute truth yesterday’s news? You, a child of God? Come on.
I might direct you to one of my churches. One of my “feel good, you’re good, everything’s good” churches. Half Hollywood, half pep talk. Glitz, lights, and love. But no talk of Jesus. No mention of sin, hell, or forgiveness. I’d suffocate you with promises of pay raises and new cars. Then again, you’re a bit savvy for that strategy.
Distraction would work better. I hate spiritual focus. When you or one like you gazes intently on God for any length of time, you begin to act like him. A nauseating sense of justice and virtue comes over you. You talk to God, not just once a week, but all of the time. Intolerable.
So I’d perch myself on every corner and stairwell of your world, clamoring for your attention. I’d flood you with emails and to-do lists. Entice you with shopping sprees and latest releases and newest styles. Burden you with deadlines and assignments.
If I were the devil, I’d so distract you with possessions and problems that you’d never have time to read the Bible. Especially the story of Jesus in the wilderness. What a disaster that day was! Jesus brought me down. Coldcocked me. Slam-dunked one right over my head. He knocked my best pitch over the Green Monster. I never even landed a punch. Looking back, I now realize what he was doing. He was making a statement. He wanted the whole world to know who calls the shots in the universe.
If I were the devil, I wouldn’t want you to read about the encounter. So, for that reason alone, let’s do.
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’ ”
Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’ ”
Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
—MATTHEW 4:1–11
Dorothy, 16 — When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, Satan had obviously thought about his attack. Satan was really clever, but no match for Jesus. I loved how Satan quoted out of the Bible; I honestly laughed to myself. Satan thinks he can tempt Jesus Christ, the one and only Son of God? Did he not get that? The Son of God! Wow, Satan really didn’t get it.
Jesus was fresh out of the Jordan River. He had just been baptized by John the Baptist. At his baptism he had been affirmed by God with a dove and a voice: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22). He stepped out of the waters buoyed by God’s blessing. Yet he began his public ministry, not by healing the sick or preaching a sermon, but by exposing the scheme of Satan. A perfect place to begin.
How do we explain our badness? Our stubborn hearts and hurtful hands and conniving ways? How do we explain Auschwitz, human trafficking, abuse? Trace malevolence upriver to its beginning, where will the river take us? What will we see?
If I were the devil, I’d blame evil on a broken political system. A crippled economy. The roll of the dice. The Wicked Witch of the West. I’d want you to feel attacked by an indefinable, nebulous force. After all, if you can’t diagnose the source of your ills, how can you treat them? If I were the devil, I’d keep my name out of it.
But God doesn’t let the devil get away with this and tells us his name. The Greek word for devil is diabolos, which shares a root with the verb diaballein, which means “to split.” The devil is a splitter, a divider, a wedge driver. He divided Adam and Eve from God in the garden, and has every intent of doing the same to you. Blame all unrest on him. Don’t fault the plunging economy or a society that doesn’t “get” teenagers for your anxiety. They are simply tools in Satan’s tool kit. He is the
• serpent (Genesis 3:14; Revelation 12:9; 20:2)
• tempter (Matthew 4:3; 1 Thessalonians 3:5)
• enemy (Matthew 13:25, 39)
• evil one (Matthew 13:19; 1 John 2:13–14)
• prince of demons (Mark 3:22)
• father of lies (John 8:44)
• murderer (John 8:44)
• roaring lion (1 Peter 5:8)
• deceiver (Revelation 12:9 GWT)
• dragon (Revelation 12:7, 9; 20:2)
Satan is not absent from or peripheral to God’s story. He is at its center. We can’t understand God’s narrative without understanding Satan’s strategy. In fact, “the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8 ESV).
Nothing thrills Satan more than the current skepticism with which he is viewed. When people deny his existence or chalk up his works to the ills of society, he rubs his hands with glee. The more we doubt his very existence, the more he can work without hindrance.
Jesus didn’t doubt the reality of the devil. The Savior strode into the badlands with one goal, to unmask Satan, and made him the first stop on his itinerary. “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Matthew 4:1).
Does God do the same with us? Might the Spirit of God lead us into the wilderness? If I were the devil, I’d tell you no. I would want you to think that I, on occasion, snooker heaven. That I catch God napping. That I sneak in when he isn’t looking and snatch his children out of his hand. I’d leave you sleeping with one eye open.
But Scripture reveals otherwise. The next time you hear the phrase “all hell broke loose,” correct the speaker. Hell does not break loose. God uses Satan’s temptation to strengthen us. (If I were the devil, that would aggravate me to no end.) Times of testing are actually times of training, purification, and strength building. You can even “consider it pure joy… whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance” (James 1:2–3).
God loves you too much to leave you undeveloped and immature. “God disciplines us for our own good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:10–11). Expect to be tested by the devil.
And watch for his tricks. You can know what to expect. “We are not ignorant of his schemes” (2 Corinthians 2:11 NASB).
When General George Patton counterattacked Field Marshal Rommel in World War II, he is reported to have shouted in the thick of battle, “I read your book, Rommel! I read your book!” Patton had studied Rommel’s Infantry Attacks. He knew the German leader’s strategy and planned his moves accordingly.2 We can know the same about the devil.
We know Satan will attack weak spots first. Forty days of fasting left Jesus famished, so Satan began with the topic of bread. Jesus’ stomach was empty, so to the stomach Satan turned.
Where are you empty? Are you hungry for attention, craving success, longing for intimacy? Be aware of your weaknesses. Bring them to God before Satan brings them to you. Satan will tell you to turn stones into bread (Matthew 4:3). In other words, meet your own needs, take matters into your own hands, leave God out of the picture. Whereas Jesus teaches us to pray for bread (Matthew 6:11), Satan says to work for bread.
Besides, he said, “If you are the Son of God” (Matthew 4:3), you can do this. Ah, another ploy: raise a question about identity. Make Christians think they have to prove their position with rock-to-bread miracles. Clever. If Satan convinces us to trust our works over God’s Word, he has us dangling from a broken limb. Our works will never hold us.
Jesus didn’t even sniff the bait. Three times he repeated, “It is written…"; “It is also written…"; “It is written…” (verses 4, 7, 10). In his book, God’s book was enough. He overcame temptation, not with special voices or supernatural signs, but by remembering and quoting Scripture.
(If I were the devil, I wouldn’t want you to underline that sentence.)
Satan regrouped and tried a different approach. This one may surprise you. He told Jesus to show off in church. “Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. ‘If you are the Son of God,’ he said, ‘throw yourself down’ “ (verses 5–6).
Testing isn’t limited to the desert; it also occurs in the sanctuary. The two stood on the southeastern wall of the temple, more than a hundred feet above the Kidron Valley, and Satan told Jesus to jump into the arms of God. Jesus refused, not because he couldn’t, not because God wouldn’t catch him. He refused because he didn’t have to prove anything to anyone, much less the devil.
Neither do you. Satan is going to tell you otherwise. In church, of all places, he will urge you to do tricks: impress others with your service, make a show of your faith, call attention to your good deeds. He loves to turn church assemblies into Las Vegas presentations where people show off their abilities rather than boast in God’s. Don’t be suckered.
Satan’s last shot began with a mountain climb. “The devil took him to a very high mountain” (verse 8). Another note out of Satan’s playbook: promise heights. Promise the highest place, the first place, the peak, the pinnacle. The best, the most, the top. These are Satan’s favorite words. The devil led Jesus higher and higher, hoping, I suppose, that the thin air would confuse his thinking. He “showed [Jesus] all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. ‘All this I will give you,’ he said, ‘if you will bow down and worship me’ “ (verses 8–9).
Oops. Satan just showed his cards. He wants worship. He wants you and me to tell him how great he is. He wants to write his own story in which he is the hero and God is an afterthought. He admitted as much:
“I will ascend to the heavens;
I will raise my throne above the stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon.
I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.”
—ISAIAH 14:13–14
Satan wants to take God’s place, but God isn’t moving. Satan covets the throne of heaven, but God isn’t leaving. Satan wants to win you to his side, but God will never let you go.
You have his word. Even more, you have God’s help.
For our high priest [Jesus] is able to understand our weaknesses. When he lived on earth, he was tempted in every way that we are, but he did not sin. Let us, then, feel very sure that we can come before God’s throne where there is grace. There we can receive mercy and grace to help us when we need it.
—HEBREWS 4:15–16 NCV
The last two Greek words of that verse are eukairon boçtheian. Eukarios means “timely” or “seasonable” or “opportune.” Boçtheia is a compound of boç, “to shout,” and theô, “to run.” Nice combination. We shout, and God runs at the right moment. God places himself prior to our need, and just before we encounter that need, he gives us what we need.
You don’t have to face Satan alone. You know his schemes. He will attack your weak spots first. He will tell you to meet your own needs. When you question your identity as a child of God, that is Satan speaking. If you turn church into a talent show, now you know why.
Even more, now you know what to do.
Pray. We cannot do battle with Satan on our own. He is a roaring lion, a fallen angel, an experienced fighter, and a trained soldier. He is angry—angry because he knows that his time is short (Revelation 12:12) and that God’s victory is secure. He resents God’s goodness toward us and our worship of God. He is a skillful, powerful, ruthless foe who seeks to “work us woe; His craft and power are great, and armed with cruel hate, on earth is not his equal.”3 But there is wonderful news for the Christian: Christ reigns as our protector and provider. We are more than conquerors through him (Romans 8:37).
Arm yourself with God’s Word. Load your pistol with Scriptures and keep a finger on the trigger. And remember: “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12).
If I were the devil, I wouldn’t want you to know that. But I’m not the devil, so good for you. And take that, Satan.
Lauren, 15 — Knowing Satan is real changes the way I live each day, because when you know that Satan’s out to bring you down, then it gives you that much more reason to fight against him and focus on God’s story for your life.
DON’T JUST SIT THERE…
Thank God that Jesus overcame Satan’s temptations without using any superpowers—and that with God’s help, you can too.
Make a quick list of your three most common cravings (e.g., food, sex, popularity, revenge, doing nothing, etc.). Circle the one you think Satan might most effectively use against you to get you to make a foolish or sinful choice.
Ask a Christian friend you can trust to go through your list with you and talk together about some of the ways Satan might tempt you to make stupid choices.
Text or Facebook (or email or whatever) this to a Christian friend today: “Tell me one thing you know for sure is true from the Bible.”
Ask your parent or youth leader or another wise Christian to suggest a passage you could memorize and say to yourself when tempted to do that thing you are most often tempted to do.
Memorize that passage!