WILES OF THE DEVIL – PART TWO
Friday – April 7, 2017
Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus. God is so good! It is Friday and the day that I remind us all too pray for the body of Christ, the body of Anointing or anointed ones in the earth. The building pictured is a wonderful old church building but it is not the Church. You and I brother and sister, the people of God, are the Church and we are on assignment. We don’t go to Church, have prayer time, and then there is everything else. Our whole life, every second must be associated with the Master, our assignment in the earth to the world to expand the Kingdom of God. Now let’s return to our Bible Study in Ephesians concerning the wiles of the devil.
Ephesians 6:10-13 (KJV)
10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.
11 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
Yesterday I left off reviewing the first sin in the Garden of Eden and the association between Bible love and fear. Other than salvation there is perhaps no more important topic in the Word of God than this one of recognizing and avoiding the wiles of the devil. The devil and all his minions have zero good feelings toward anyone, they come only to steal, kill, and destroy, period. The Bible is full of direct references to the wiles of the devil which I will be launching into momentarily and many accounts and parables that illustrate the wiles of the devil. Now let’s turn back again to the fifth chapter of Ephesians.
From yesterday you will recall the command to walk in love even as Christ walked and walks in love toward us. We reviewed that at its core Bible love is obedience to the Scripture, the Word of God. We are to be obedient to the Word of God and this is the only expression of love recognized by God. Conversely God’s expression of love toward us is the performance of His Word. Following this Paul launches into a list of sins (thoughts, words, and actions encouraged by the devil) found among God’s people. We will also review this list once more and I will then go to a couple of other Bible references as we explore the wiles of the devil. Remember, temptation to sin always starts in our thought life and the resultant sin is the result of faulty thinking. Faulty thinking violates light, violates love, and violates the Word of God. This opens the door for the enemy and some degree of stealing, killing, and destroying comes into our lives.
Ephesians 5:3 (KJV)
3 But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;
Perhaps we are all thinking right now, well I’m not involved in any of these sins. Not so quick. One thing that I have found to be crucial for our thinking and that is to not think only in the natural but in the spiritual. All natural manifestation has its origin in the spiritual therefore the spiritual which includes our thoughts and words is the superior realm. In the natural fornication is having sex with someone to whom you are not married. However spiritual fornication takes place before physical and is an equal sin. Remember that Jesus tells us that if we lust after a woman in our hearts we are guilty of adultery (Matthew 5:28). Now, don’t get hung up on trying to parse a difference between fornication and adultery, there is only a circumstantial difference. Spiritual fornication or adultery also takes place when the proper (Biblical) spiritual order of things is changed by our choice. Listen to how God views all of this, He uses the word whoredom.
Ezekiel 23:29-30 (KJV)
29 And they shall deal with thee hatefully, and shall take away all thy labour, and shall leave thee naked and bare: and the nakedness of thy whoredoms shall be discovered, both thy lewdness and thy whoredoms.
30 I will do these things unto thee, because thou hast gone a whoring after the heathen, and because thou art polluted with their idols.
Brother and sister are we bowed down to the idols of the heathen? Where is our focus? In verse twenty-nine above we see the effects of our whoredom, our fornication, our adultery, which sure looks like stealing, killings, and destroying to me. In the KJV, verse thirty makes it look like the Lord actively brings the judgment (justice) into our lives but that is not the case, our actions opens the door for an adverse judgment against us at the request of the devil, it is more passive on God’s part, God is dealing in justice. See that verse in a different translation.
Ezekiel 23:30 (HCSB)
30 These things will be done to you because you acted like a prostitute with the nations, defiling yourself with their idols.
As I finish for today, the sin of uncleanness is associated with moral failures (God’s moral law) such as homosexuality. God loves homosexual persons, in other words He will save and cleanse (deliver) the homosexual but the acts of the homosexual turn God’s stomach. We cannot embrace this evil lifestyle in any way.
2 John 1:9-11 (KJV)
9 Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.
10 If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed:
11 For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.
I will pick-up with covetousness next week.
By: Dr. David Wood, Author, Bible Teacher, and Prophetic Voice
