The first level of spiritual warfare is temptation. That will be our first encounter with the enemy. It will not be a frontal assault but an invitation to find our comfort, our significance, or our provision in sources other than God. Matthew records the showdown between Jesus and Satan in the 4th chapter of his gospel. The text says, “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan” (Mt. 4:1).
In those temptations, Satan was simply trying to draw Jesus outside of God’s will. The first temptation was about food. In essence, he was saying, “If you really are the Son of God, do your thing. Don’t wait on God’s provision but turn these stones into bread. Does he not care that you’re hungry? Take matters into your own hands and provide for yourself.”
The second temptation was about calling out God to keep his promise of protection. “Throw yourself off the temple wall and prove you are the Son of God and that he loves you.” In other words, make a demand on his goodness on your terms. Again, Satan is tempting Jesus to take matters into his own hands rather than to be led by God.
Finally, Satan offered Jesus a shortcut to fulfill his life’s purpose. He took Jesus upon a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world. The destiny of Jesus is to rule over all the earth and Satan offered him that destiny without suffering. All he had to do was bow down and worship Satan. He offered him a crown without a cross.
Satan tempts us all to take things into our own hands…to run ahead of God and decide what is best for us, rather than waiting on him. He tempts us to make demands on God by deciding how and when his promise should be answered in our lives. If he doesn’t meet our expectations (demands), we take offense. He tempts us to take shortcuts in fulfilling our destiny. We enter into relationships without prayer and marriage without wisdom. We manipulate circumstances to get what we want before we are ready to steward the blessing or the promotion.
In each of these temptations, Satan is whispering that God is taking too long or that he can’t be counted on. He tempts us to take control, manage things ourselves. If God has promised it, then grab it now…there is no need to wait. Yet the mark of Jesus’ ministry was to do only what he saw the Father doing and say only what he heard the Father saying. He waited on the Father’s provision and timing and trusted him in those decisions.
When we give in to the temptation, we are coming into agreement with Satan, just as Adam and Eve agreed in the garden. To do so gives the enemy a legal right to afflict us, torment us, or oppress us because our actions accuse God. We usually start our spiritual warfare when we feel the torment or oppression, but we should recognize it begins with the temptations and cut it off there.
Here is the thing. Satan rarely offers us things that are clearly sinful. Often they are good things, but the sin is in our choice to get those things apart from God, his direction, or his timing. Adam and Eve saw that the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a source of wisdom…which God wants us to seek. But they sought wisdom from another source other than their creator. We sometimes become like children who know they have an inheritance waiting for them but choose to steal it from their father or demand it rather than waiting on his timing and his judgement about what is best for them. The “Prodigal Son” comes to mind (Lk. 15).
Jesus cut off the temptation attack in two ways. First of all, he was absolutely convinced of his Father’s love and that his Father’s directions were to be trusted at all times for the best possible outcomes. In other words, he trusted God to be good to him and to do so at the right time. Secondly, he had stored up the Father’s Word in his heart so that he could draw from that storehouse to inform his decisions when temptation came his way
The Word of God is the sword of the Spirit (Eph. 6:17). When we engage the enemy, we should do so with the sword. Satan is always seeking a legal reason to afflict us. Revelation calls him “the accuser of the brethren, who accuses us before our God day and night.” When we declare the Word of God, obey it, and stand on it, we establish that we are law keepers rather than law breakers. It disarms the enemy in the courts of heaven and keeps him at bay. After Jesus invoked the Word of God three times, Satan abandoned his assault. That does not mean he won’t come back, but he left Jesus for a season waiting for another time when he might find Jesus vulnerable.
We need to understand that resisting temptation is our first and foremost strategy in spiritual warfare. Renewing our mind daily by meditating on the Word is essential. We cannot wield God’s sword if we do not have it in our heart and mind. Being quick to acknowledge sin, confess it, and repent of it, is also essential. It is persistent, unrepented sin that most often opens the door for Satan to get a foothold. It is also imperative that we monitor our own thought life so that we may make every thought submit to Jesus. It is our recurring thoughts and the enemy’s rationalizations for choosing to step outside of the will of God that we must diligently guard against.
One other important strategy for proactively keeping the enemy outside the walls is to find out more about our family line. It is amazing how many of us have little to no history on our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents. Satan often gains access to believers through their bloodlines. Remember, Exodus 20 declares that the sins of the fathers will be visited on the children to the third and fourth generation. The guilt is not passed down but the consequences are passed down which may include curses that have been incurred due to unrepented sin in the bloodline. Many bloodlines are stained with adultery, molestation, witchcraft, violence, racism, and so forth. These issues need to be discovered, if possible, and then renounced and repented of on behalf of our ancestors to keep Satan from using them against us and our children. The holidays might be a great time to ask about family history…the good, the bad and the ugly.
Again, many times we don’t engage in spiritual warfare until the enemy is pummelling us. It is much better to realize we must always stay on a war footing with the enemy and detect when he us trying to draw us out of God’s will in our thoughts or actions. The man who taught me the most about deliverance always said, “It is better to realize that someone is trying to break into your house than to realize he is already inside.” Proactive prevention is the best strategy for spiritual warfare. We don’t need to be paranoid, but we do need to be wise. Ask the Holy Spirit to alert you to Satan’s attempted intrusions and keep the doors locked and the lights on.
