EPHESIANS 6:11 – Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

THEME OF THE DAY. THREE SCHEMES OF THE DEVIL. There are two words which would summarize both the life of the Lord Jesus while He walked upon the earth and Christians as they walk upon the earth – “spiritual conflict.” It happened at Christ’s birth when King Herod attempted to kill Him by having all baby boys two years and under murdered (Matthew 2:16). It continued with the wilderness temptation of our Lord by the devil immediately after His baptism (Matthew 4:1-11). And it didn’t let up in the twilight of Jesus’ life as He encountered tremendous spiritual warfare in the Garden of Gethsemane and on Calvary’s cross (Matthew 26:36-46; 27:45-46). So goes our Master, so go His people. The Apostle Paul ended his written testimony of his life on earth with these words, “I have fought the good fight” (2 Timothy 4:7). He would also exhort us in today’s scripture of the source of this spiritual conflict – the schemes of the devil. The word “schemes” means “craftiness” and is associated with the deceitful methods of the devil in his attacks on God’s people. And the devil, with centuries of dealing with humans, has an arsenal of schemes to use with the goal of making us spiritual casualties. So, what might be a few of those schemes? Let’s consider three.

First, the devil will draw us away from remembering he is real, alive, and active in our lives. And he will do this through worldliness. Next to doubt of God’s Word, this might be his most effective tactic; forgetting his existence. If this happens, then we will fail to see all of life as it really is and the Bible describes – a temporary existence in enemy territory in constant spiritual conflict. Our lives will not be oriented around the spiritual but the physical. Remember these words of the Apostle Paul to help us understand where life is truly lived – So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

Another scheme of the devil is closely related to the first. It is placing our minds more on the things of this world than the next. Unlike the first scheme, here we may acknowledge the devil and confess the spiritual conflict we are in, but we won’t allow such thinking to guide our lives. This is the Christian immersed in worldliness. It will show in the place spiritual priorities take in our lives and decision-making. The devil doesn’t have to lead us into gross sin. All he needs to do is “nudge us” to invest more of ourselves in worldly things than eternal.

A third scheme of the devil is to get us to neglect daily cultivating our relationship with the Lord Jesus. He will do so by a full schedule of worldly events, activities, and investment of our time leading to physical exhaustion. An exhausted Christian will not be a praying Christian. A tired Christian will not be a sacrificial serving Christian. A stressed Christian will not be a studying Christian. Should we succumb to the devil’s scheme of busyness of life pulling us away from intimacy with the Lord Jesus in His Word, prayer, and through His church, spiritual defeat will come and our walk with the Lord reduced to joyless religiosity, not the abundant life He came to give (John 10:10).

Life is a battleground, not a playground. The devil is active with many schemes employed to distract and destroy the Christian. May we be armed with knowledge of our foe so we may consistently defeat our foe.

PRAYER: “Father, teach me to know my spiritual foes that I might fight the good fight You have called me to.”

QUOTE: “To be ignorant of our spiritual foes is to place ourselves in a condition of constant spiritual defeat.”