The first step on the way to victory is to recognize the enemy. —CORRIE TEN BOOM6
We are in a battle against a real enemy. He is real and he is the antagonist of every single believer. He is not some figment of Christianity’s collective imagination or some guy running around in a red suit with a pitchfork and an arrow-shaped tail. We must recognize the enemy’s reality if we are to experience the victory God has ordained for us. Otherwise, we will continue to fall right into the devil’s trap and attribute all of his works of darkness to the sovereign hand of God.
In this chapter I want to teach you how to become aware of your enemy without becoming grossly preoccupied with him. Pretending the devil away keeps us believing that God is responsible for all of the problems and circumstances we face, while focusing on the devil too much distracts us from a Christianity of conquest and prevents forward momentum. It makes perfect sense then that the enemy would like nothing more than for us to either make a big deal out of him, believing he is stronger than God, or believe that he does not exist. Both of these thoughts are lies, and that is all the serpent can ever do—lie. C.S. Lewis put it best in his classic book The Screwtape Letters:
There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.7
By entertaining either one of these deceptions, the devil gets what he wants: Christians filled with power who believe they are powerless against the circumstances they encounter. Either God is responsible for all of the bad stuff or the devil is this overwhelming, super-strong adversary we will spend our entire lives battling against, and always losing. In the last chapter we discussed the danger of neglecting the truth of our enemy, but we can also overemphasize him too.
I don’t want us to invest too much emphasis on the devil here. He’s simply not worth our time. However, we need to be informed about who we are dealing with if we are going to approach faith the right way. Many believers out there hold to an orthodox view of Scripture and believe in the reality of the devil and demons. However, they fail to recognize the devil’s active involvement in humanity and they don’t really grasp the enemy’s sinister agenda against every single person on the planet. We need to study the following topic with balance and wisdom in order to walk in the victory that breakthrough faith releases.
As a middle schooler, I was intrigued by horror movies, particularly the supernatural ones—The Omen, The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, etc. In the last decade, the only thing that has changed are the titles and increasingly graphic nature of gore, sexuality, and darkness present on the movie screen. A generation is still being enticed by the works of darkness. Why is this?
This is because there appears to be power available in the darkness. Once again, the devil is assuming his place as the author of lies, because the only power he has is what we give him. When the prince of darkness is the front and center of our focus, he becomes powerful. He becomes a formidable foe, not because he actually is, but because of our emphasis and focus upon him. The devil only gets scary when we believe that he is. The reality is our enemy is a defeated foe, crushed under the feet of King Jesus. This is why he uses media, television, and Hollywood to try and convince the world, and yes, even deceive believers into thinking he is more frightening and powerful than he really is. This is simply not the case. When it comes to exercising breakthrough faith, if we are under the assumption that the devil is a force to be reckoned with, we are going to live in defense mode rather than on the offense.
Pretending the devil away keeps us believing that God is responsible for all of the problems and circumstances we face, while focusing on the devil too much distracts us from a Christianity of conquest and prevents forward momentum.
Preachers, teachers, evangelists, and anyone involved in ministry can easily fall prey to this overemphasis of the devil as well. We just make it sound more spiritual than watching horror movies—but I believe it is as equally dangerous! Perry Stone gives a fantastic illustration in his book Exposing Satan’s Playbook, where his mother actually tried to run a spiritual intervention for him. She went to a key leader in the ministry and expressed her concerns about Perry, noting that since he became obsessed with studying the demonic, all sorts of unusual phenomena had plagued him. Horrible things started happening, including actual “visible manifestations of spirits cloaked in dark garments and hoods hiding their faces.”8
The devil does whatever he can to draw us into his world of darkness through intrigue. Perry Stone shares the exceptional advice that this ministry leader gave him: “As long as you concentrate on demons, they will show up. If you preach and concentrate on Jesus, then He will show up.”9 That statement makes me want to shout!
So Perry made a shift in his emphasis, from darkness to light, from focusing on the devil to keeping Jesus at the center of all things. He concluded that as a result of the shift in focus, “the presence of Christ began to manifest and deliver individuals from the oppression of the enemy.”10 Interestingly enough, overemphasis on the devil and his demons does not bring deliverance to those in torment and captivity. When we give the enemy more attention than he is due, we end up exaggerating his power. This actually keeps people in bondage and torment, rather than introducing these individuals to the author of freedom, hope, and healing—Jesus Christ.
Our enemy is a defeated foe, crushed under the feet of King Jesus.
After learning this valuable lesson, Perry Stone gives us a powerful key to activating our breakthrough faith and releasing the supernatural power of God: we are to shift focus from the defeated one who deceives with trickery and illusions, and exalt the Greater One living inside of us, who has all authority, all power, and all dominion. Darkness does not stand a chance in the Presence of King Jesus!
With all of this in mind, there are some basic facts we need to keep in mind concerning the adversary if we want to begin living a lifestyle of breakthrough faith. Peter reminds us, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8).
The Enemy Is Our Adversary
The devil is not God’s adversary, as God already defeated him at the cross of Calvary. Rather, he is our adversary. The Amplified Bible emphasizes this, with Peter writing “for that enemy of yours, the devil…” The very name satan, in Hebrew, means “adversary.”11 His tactics are not aimed at God; they are rather directed toward us. After all, God is not going to believe the devil’s lies; the only people capable of believing his deceptions and thereby granting him an inroad into their lives are human beings, like you and me. This is not intended to scare any of us; it is only meant to simply raise awareness that our adversary is not God but the devil.
The Enemy Is a Devourer
God is not the One who devours and destroys—this job description belongs to the devil. It is vital that we classify anything that threatens to destroy life or assault the promises of God as devilish in origin.
The Enemy Devours Those Who Allow Him
There is a secret in this passage that arms us for victory. Unfortunately, it gets lost amidst us focusing on the devil, his evil schemes, and his being like a lion (he is not a lion; he only masquerades as one). Peter tells us that the devil is “seeking whom he may devour,” with the key word being may. In this book, I am going to arm you to stare the devil’s tactics in the face and with burning words of faith declare, “No, you may not!” I want us to stop giving him permission to devour our lives.
The Enemy Is Our Foe and Antagonist
Ephesians 6 reminds us that we are in a battle. Paul writes,
Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:11-12).
The devil is defeated, but nevertheless he is looking for an inroad of agreement because he is well aware of the destruction he can bring to lives that say yes to his deceptions. Paul reminds us to be on guard—not against our Father God who is out to get us, but rather against the strategies of the devil, the evil one (see Matt. 6:13; John 17:15; 2 Thess. 3:3). You may chuckle at that, but we seriously need a paradigm adjustment if we are going to walk in supernatural, breakthrough faith. The devil is our enemy, not our Father. God is not fighting against us; He is fighting for us, equipping us with every resource necessary to stand victorious in the day of battle (see Rom. 8:31)! The fight is fixed and the battle is already won.
The Enemy Is No Respecter of Innocence
This is obvious in a world stained by child abuse, sex trafficking, and the unspeakable atrocities committed against the innocent. It is easy to let these realities cause us to desire a speedy return of Christ. The reality is that while we are still occupying planet earth, we must recognize that these abominations are the by-products of a devil who is deceiving people left and right. He is obtaining an inroad into their lives, gaining a foothold, developing a stronghold, and ultimately achieving a stranglehold. Again, we must acknowledge the horrors in this world as the devil’s architecture, otherwise we begin to distort and pervert the good character of God.
The Enemy Is Our Accuser
John writes in the Book of Revelation that the devil, who is “the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down” (Rev. 12:10). This Scripture reveals that the devil no longer accuses us before God; rather, he accuses us directly.
Do you know why he is unable to accuse us before God, bringing up our sin, our works, our issues, and our unworthiness before the throne of Heaven? It is because he knows that God would have one eternal response to every single one of his accusations: the blood of Jesus was enough. In the Book of Job we see the devil presenting Job before God (see Job 1:6-12), but I do not believe that such a scenario is possible under the New Covenant. While the enemy cannot accuse us before God, he can accuse us directly and try to deceive us out of believing that the blood of Jesus is enough to make us acceptable in God’s sight (see Hebrews 3:13). I believe this is the chief revelation that he will try to challenge in our lives, for it is Jesus’ blood and our testimony that ultimately spell defeat for him.
God is not fighting against us; He is fighting for us, equipping us with every resource necessary to stand victorious in the day of battle.
We recognize the enemy’s tactics, not to become overly preoccupied with darkness, but to predict his moves and thwart his advances in our lives.
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
Exposing Satan’s Playbook by Perry Stone
Eight Ways to Keep the Devil Under Your Feet by Joyce Meyer