Dr Charles Stanley - Enduring a Satanic Attack - Part 2

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Satan's never going to walk up and say hello, friend,
I'm the devil. He's never going to say that. He's
going to always come on looking as much like God,
looking like he's on your team, looking like he's on
your side. He's looking out for you. You have these desires,
you have these needs. He wants to help you now,
he wants to help you get what you want. Let
me tell you something. Satan will indeed help us get

(00:24):
what we want in order to get us what he
wants us to have, which is ultimate destruction. That's the
way he operates.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
We're glad you've joined us today for In Touch, the
teaching ministry of doctor Charles Stanley. Satan's ultimate goal is
to make believers ineffective as servants of God. But we
can build a successful defense against the devil by standing
firm on the truth of scripture, so we're prepared to
recognize his deceptive ways. Here's part two of enduring a

(00:57):
Satanic attack.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
Have you ever found yourself facing a very strong, inviting,
alluring temptation, seemingly almost absolutely irresistible to you? What did
you do? Did you walk away? Or did you find
yourself debating with yourself and finally succumbing to Satan's temptation,
and so the apostle Paul warns us of Satan's strategy. Look,

(01:23):
if you will in Second Corinthians, chapter eleventh for a moment,
and notice what he says. Here is his warning to
those who are in the church there at carinth And
if you're noticed, Beginning in verse one in his preface
here he says, I wish that you would bear with
me a little foolishness. And what he's talking about is
really about him bragging a little bit. And so he says,

(01:45):
but indeed you are bearing with me, for I'm jealous
for you, with a godly jealousy, for I betrothed you
to one husband, that is to Christ, that I might
present you as a pure virgin. And what he's saying is,
I've taught you in order that you may be acceptable
in the eyes of the Lord, that you may walk
holly before him. But listen to what he says. But
he says, I'm afraid less as the serpent deceived Eve

(02:08):
by his craftedness, your minds should be led astray from
the simplicity and the purity of devotion to Christ. Now
in this verse he warns says about who the enemy is.
He says, I'm afraid lest the serpent, that is, the
devil should do what he says three things deceive you.
That is, make something appear to be what it is not.

(02:30):
Deception is to lie. Secondly, he says deceived, He says Eve,
by his craftedness, his cunning strategy, and that your mind
should be led astray or seduced. Now realizing that the
mind is indeed the organ of our thought, and that
all temptation, first of all, is offered to the mind,
think about this, Think about that, Think about the way

(02:53):
you would achieve this need of this desire in your life.
What did he do? Satan came to Eve, and the
first thing he did to her is one of the
aspects of his strategy. Here's the first aspect of his
strategy I want you to think about, and that is
that Satan focused eves attention upon a specific thing. He

(03:14):
always focuses our attention upon a specific desire or a
specific need in our life. For example, in the life
of Jesus. You remember the temptations that Jesus had been
there for forty days and fasting and talking to the father,
and so what does Satan do to him. He doesn't say, well,
you're a bad man. He says, ah, there is a stone.

(03:35):
You're hungry, because the Bible said he was. You're hungry.
Just turn that stone into bread. It's real simple, that's
all you have to do. I know that you're hungry.
What was he doing. He had pointed out something that
Jesus desired, and that is he was hungry. He did
desire to eat, no doubt. And he said, well, what
you can do if you'll misuse your power and do
it now before this fast is over, go ahead and

(03:55):
do it now, because you have the power to do it.
He knows exactly how to deal with us. And so
what does he do? He points out he narrows it
down to a desire or some particular need that we have.
That's part of his strategy. The second part I want
you notice is this that he listen. He determines the
time of the temptation. Satan is not going to tempt

(04:18):
us just any old time, any old place, any old way.
You see, because he knows that all of us have
weaknesses and frailedis in our life. His strategy is that
you hit the enemy at their weakest point. In their
most vulnerable moments. Any man who goes to war know
you look for the enemy's weakness. You look for the
flank that shows the weakest area. You look for them

(04:40):
at the point when they are not the most alert,
when a person is tired and worn. It's very easy
for Satan to interject his thoughts at that time. And
so one of his strategies is to focus our attention
upon some desire, some need that we have, and to
misuse our attempts and our methods of achieving that. Likewise,

(05:01):
he determines the time when we are the most vulnerable
and we are the most susceptible. That's why the apostle
Paul said this chapter, he said, I fear lest by
his cunning strategy he does what. By his cunning strategy,
he will seduce us in our mind, in our thinking.
We will begin to think the way Satan thinks. We

(05:21):
will begin to listen to what he has to say
to us. So the third thing I want you to
notice is this, and that is that one of his
strategies is he creates doubt in our mind. If he
can create doubt in your mind about God, well, if
God were so good, why would he do thus, and
so if he can create doubt in the word of God,

(05:43):
he not only has a toll hold a stronghold, he
begins to build a fortress. When you begin to doubt
any portion of scripture, somebody says, well, I believe some
of the scripture. Well, which partner you believe? Well, I
believe this that partner, I don't believe certain things. It's
interesting to me what I've discovered when anybody has ever
told me what portion of scripture they don't believe. Usually,

(06:04):
if you will keep talking, there's something about that portion
that personally bothers them. Naturally, that's what Satan would do.
That's part of his strategy. And so people what they
do is they say, well, you know, that sounds right,
and I believe that's probably true. In what we do
when listen, when we begin to doubt God in any area,

(06:25):
we open the door for disobedience in other areas. You see,
you're not just going to be disobedient in one area.
You hang in there with one act of disobedience, and
you keep failing in this area, you're going to start
failing over here. In fact, I don't know of many sins.
If I know of any at all personally that you
can commit in an isolated fashion without it listen, spilling over, in,
descending in some other way. And so therefore what does

(06:47):
he do. He focuses their attention upon a desire, upon
a need, and then he determines the time when he
is going to lay that temptation or that trial before us,
because he knows the timing is so important. And then
he's going to create some form of doubt in our
mind in some fashion. Then the fourth thing he does
he likes to engage is in debate. Oftentimes we think

(07:09):
we just talking to ourselves. And so here's some temptation,
and you think, well, you know, after all, I deserve that,
or I think that would satisfy me. I should drive
one of those, or live there, or wear this or
do that, or go here or go yond or whatever
it may be. Surely there's nothing wrong with that, And
so you begin to talk. Yet something on the inside
of you says, this is not the right time, or
this is not the right way, this is not the

(07:30):
right purpose, this is not the right plan, And so
you begin to talk to yourself. What happens, haven't you
found yourself talking yourself into something that when you first
thought about it, you knew it was wrong to begin
with no question in your mind. And the longer you
talk to yourself about it, who you talk to yourself?
Right into it? You say, well, I talked myself into it. No,
you didn't. While you were talking, who do you think

(07:51):
was interjecting these negative thoughts? Who do you think? Listen?
You think, well, I'm just arguing myself. No, that's what
he does. He gets us in a debate. The worst
thing that Eve ever did was get into debate the
Saintann Listen, you'll never defeat him. He is a master debater. Listen.
He has a list of excuses and defenses for his arguments,
like you and I have never seen We can't bring

(08:12):
up anything that he doesn't have, some excuse for, some
rationale for tempting us and trying us to move in
a direction that will lead us away from God and
unto himself. That's the way he operates. The best way
to handle him is tell him what Jesus said. It
is written. But he will get you the debate. He
got even debate. He said now look, he said, now

(08:33):
did God really say this? And so he got her
in this conversation. Next thing, you'll notice how absolutely cunning
and deceitful he is. Listen. His key method of strategy
is using listen, using deception. Now watch this. He is
a deceiver, here's a liar. He makes things appear to
be like they are not. And so here's what you'll

(08:54):
found out is he began to work, for example, in
Eve's life, in trying to mislead her. We said, deception
is to mislead someone, to make them think something is
what it is not. It is to lie to them.
Satan's never going to walk up and say, hello, friend,
I'm the devil. He's never going to say that. He's

(09:15):
gonna always come on looking as much like God, looking
like he's on your team, looking like he's on your side.
He's looking out for you. You have these desires, you
have these needs. He wants to help you. Now, he
wants to help you get what you want. Let me
tell you something. Satan will indeed help us get what
we want in order to get us what he wants
us to have, which is ultimate destruction. That's the way

(09:39):
he operates. You see what he says ultimately is this,
God is not giving you his best God is depriving
you of his best. Therefore, if you want the best
and you want your needs matter, here's what you do.
I'll help you get them. He doesn't come on as
the devil is saying that, but he comes oftentimes through
other people, oftentimes in our thought processes, things that we hear,
things that we see. It is his way of absolutely

(10:02):
undermining and destroying everything good within us. He is a
deceiver of all things. Satan is not in a hurry.
Whatever it takes, he will do it, and he'll take
the time necessary to defeat us if he possibly can.
Why Because he is an absolute deceiver. He knows exactly

(10:22):
how to focus our attentions so that we don't look
at the real issues around us. We just see what
we want. We just think this is a way to
get it, and this is the time to get it.
And before long a person is deeply, deeply in debt
doing what Well, they just went to them all last
Saturday and going to the mall once a week every
two three weeks, and that's not gonna hurt anything. Then
they watch the TV and they watch all these ads

(10:43):
and all these probact things. You know, I really ought
to have one of those and after all, I work
eight hours a day and five days a week, mine
I deserve it. And so what does he do? He
just plummets your mind with thoughts. What is he doing?
He's heading you in a direction, and what he's doing
it in such a fashion we think, well, this is
the way I think, and this is what I do deserve,
not realizing listen, Satan can throw listen his fiery darts

(11:07):
of thoughts, negative thoughts, thoughts that lead us away from God,
leading us away from financial responsibility. He doesn't say to
a lost person, if you not trust that Jesus Christ
is your personal savior, that you're going to hell. Satan's
never going to say that. Don't believe all that stuff
about hell and about heaven and about judgment. I mean,
don't believe any of that stuff. What does he do?

(11:28):
He majes on this. He mages on the satisfaction of
the moment to the neglect of the future. Don't think
about consequences. And that is exactly what he does. He
glorifies and magnifies the present so brilliantly, listen, so successfully
that what does he do He clouds our thinkings so

(11:48):
we never stop to think about what about the consequences,
What about the other side, what's on the other side
of this, We don't think about that. Why, that's part
of his strategy, and that is to deceive us as
up to the consequences of our disobedience. Well, one of
his other forms of strategy is to create division. He listened,
This is one of his choice tools. Also create division,

(12:09):
division between children and their parents, division between friends, division
between employees and employers, division in churches, division in government,
division in nations. Listen to dislodge, unity, disunity, disharmony, division, discord,
all these things. He loves that. So what does he do.

(12:31):
He's not going to stand up and say, well, listen,
I'm the devil, I'm opposed to you. What does he do?
He gets one of your friends or one of your
employees that is, employer or whoever it might be. That is,
he always uses someone else, creating division and strife. Well,
what is his ultimate strategy? His ultimate strategy is to
destroy us. Now, since we are believe us. He can't
destroy our soul, he can't destroy our spirit, he can't

(12:54):
destroy ourboud it. He can't do anything to us. That
knows God has him to do it. Here's what he
can do. He can sure destroy our joy, our peace,
our contentment, our happiness, and our assurance if we allow
him to do it. His goal, the Bible says that
he is a destroyer, a liar, and the murderer and
a deceiver. All those were a serpent a snake. What

(13:14):
a perfect term for someone who would try to destroy
as a slithering snake, satan, a serpent, a destroyer, a deceiver,
a murderer, a liar. He's the one you and I
have to face in mortal combat day by day. He
is there in every situation and circumstance he possibly can

(13:37):
doing what using the strategy we just talked about. How
why does it work? All of us will have to
admit we've been defeated at times. We will have to admit,
as you look in the scriptures, he was successful in
the past, he's successful today. He'll be successful in our
life today and tomorrow if we allow him to do it.
So what is the question? The question is is how
do we win when we have a Satanic attack? Well,

(13:57):
turn back if you will to Ephesians chapter six for
a moment and look at this passage. Listen to what
Paul says. He says in verse ten, Finally, be strong
in the Lord and in the strength of His might.
How do we endure when we are under one of
those vicious, penetrating, overwhelming attacks, by say, what do we do?

(14:20):
Is what we do? We stand firm in the strength
of Almighty God. Thank you Father, that he that is
within me is greater than he that is tempting me.
We draw strength from God. We stand firm in the
strength of the Lord. The second thing we do is,
he says, even in this passage, he says, we are

(14:42):
to resist. Listen, he says we are to resist. And
in for example, also in James chapter four, verse seven,
he says, submit yourselves from the Lord God, and resist
the devil. He will flee from you. What do we do?
We stand firm in the strength of the Lord. We
resist the in the strength of the Lord. Never in
our strength, never in our wisdom. No debating with him.

(15:04):
We resist him. We stand against him. We say no
to him. In our heart, we say no to him.
The third thing we do is we do exactly what
Jesus said do, and that is to answer his enticements
by saying, it is written, it is written, it is written.
Why do you think he hates the Word of God?
Why do you think he wants to keep you so

(15:25):
busy that you don't read it? Why do you think
he wants to keep you so busy you don't study it.
Why do you think he wants to keep you away
from church listening to it? Why does he want you
to come to church with out of Bible, with out
of note, and without a pencil, Because he does not
want you to listen to what was being said. He
does not want you to remember it, because the next
time he entices you with temptation, he wants you to
be suddenly listen what without anything to say back to him? Listen?

(15:48):
And what is that verse? What was that? And so
what happens? Jesus says, it is written, thou shalt not
tempt the Lord thy God, man shall not live by
bread alone. Jesus answered Satan's vicious assaults upon him with
the reply of the Word of the Living God. He
knew that Satan had no answer for that. What do
we do? We say? It is written? Whatever the issue is,

(16:11):
you name whatever that is, get yourself a verse into
a scripture, or three or four verses, or whatever it
might be but something that you armed with, something that
you're armed with, so you can say what Jesus says
it is written. So how do we stand. We stand
firmly in the strength of the Lord. And listen, we
stand submissive to the will of God. If you're not

(16:31):
standing submissive to the will of Gods, you're not going
to resist the devil. Now, this is the key. If
I listen, if I'm going to speak to the devil,
if I'm going to resist him, I've got to be
in the spirit. That means walking in submission to God's will.
If I'm living out in the flesh and Satan comes
along with something, I'm not going to sense the strength.
But listen, and what he'll do is he said, why

(16:53):
should God answer your prayer? Why should God listen to you?
Look at you? This is why we need to walk
in the spirit, that is, walk in submission to the
will of God in every area of our life possible. Now,
so we said, first of all, we want to stand
strong in the strength of the Lord. We want to
resist him in the strength of the Lord. We want
to say to him it is written. And the fourth

(17:14):
thing we want to do is to assume the authority
that we have as a result of being in dwelt
by the Holy Spirit, and the Bible says that he
that is within us is greater than he that's in
the world. Why did the Holy Spirit come to do
what he says, to live on the inside of us,
to live through as the life of Christ, to be
our comfort, to our strength and our God. It is
he who is a power within us. We have the

(17:35):
right and the authority to say to Satan, listen, in
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, on the authority
of his word, by his shed blood, Satan, be gone,
Get out of my life. Get out of here now.
Now Will he be back? Absolutely absolutely, But at that
moment he'll be gone. God has given us a clear

(17:57):
picture of who the enemy is and how he works.
He's also given us assurance that we do not have
to yield unless we choose to. I want to say
to you, my friend, if you've never trusted Jesus Christ
is your savior. He's got you, and listen to what
he says. He says he blinds the minds of the unbeliever,

(18:20):
so you will not believe in him. Do you realize
that it's written in the word of God, crystal clear
and black and white, exactly what Satan has done to you.
He's blinded your mind. So I don't believe this. I
don't believe that. I don't go to this. I don't
go to that. You know why he's blinded your mind?
You say, Well, you calling me blind spiritually, if you've
never trusted Jesus Christ is your savior, you are spiritually

(18:42):
blind to the reality of who God is and what
he's up to in your life, and is love for
you and what he wants to do for you by
saving you in dwelling you and giving you Heaven is
your home. Yes, and Satan will do his best to
keep you blind you. So what do I do? Here's
what you do? You say, Father, I'm going to accept

(19:02):
by faith what the Bible says about your son, that
he is your son. I'm going to accept by faith
that when Jesus died at Calvary, he took all of
my sin upon himself and paid my sin debt in fulin.
I'm going to ask you to forgive me of my sins,
and I'm going to ask you to save me. Open
my eyes, Father, help me to see the truth, save

(19:24):
me from my sins. You say, well, now, how do
I know God will do that? I am absolutely confident
he will. You know why, because it's this clear. Whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Period Sign God Almighty, I know he will.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
Doctor Stanley's message reminded us that Satan's ultimate goal is
to cause us to doubt and lure us away from
fellowship with the Lord, making us ineffective in our service
to God. But we can remain strong by implementing some
basic Christian disciplines. Learn about the importance of things like prayer,
Bible study, fellowship with other believers, and worship at in

(20:12):
touch dot org. And to listen again, click Today on
Radio on our homepage. If you'd like to have a
copy of doctor Stanley's complete message, you can order it
from our online bookstore the title is Enduring a Satanic Attack,
or order the entire Believer's Warfare series. Our web address

(20:33):
again is in touch dot org or call one eight
hundred in Touch. If you prefer, you can write to
us at in Touch Post Office Box seventy nine hundred, Atlanta, Georgia,
three zero three five seven. Satan hasn't changed in all
these thousands of years, still do we know our enemy

(20:55):
well enough to spot his attacks? Today's moment with Charles
Stanley is to.

Speaker 3 (21:00):
Head human connection and healthy relationships. It's what our heavenly
Father longs for us to have, But life today makes
it far too easy to be self sufficient and isolated.
We can get stuck, caught in our own lives, disconnected
from those around us. Within Touch's Fully Human workbook, learn
to repair and renew your relationships. Do the word of

(21:20):
God and the teachings of doctor Charles Stanley. Connect again
and sustain true fellowship with others. Visit in touch dot
org slash store.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
How far are you willing to go to trust God
with my family, with my home, my future, when things
are going great.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
And when things are going not so great. I'm willing,
but just don't know how to completely trust God.

Speaker 1 (21:45):
If you and I genuinely love Him, and if we
really believe that His love is perfect, we will indeed
trust Him in the most difficult times? Can you still
trust God? By Doctor Charles Stanley? Order yours today? Go
to InTouch dot slash store.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
You're listening to in touch Satan's schemes are so old
you'd think by now, we'd always see him coming with insight.
For believers, here's a moment with Charles Stanley.

Speaker 1 (22:20):
Think about this for a moment. Here's Adam and Eve
in an absolutely perfect environment. They have a perfect relationship
to the Father. They do not have a sinful nature,
but rather they have a nature that is absolutely perfect
in that relationship with our Heaven and Father and their creator.
They live in a relationship where all of their needs
have been met, all their desires are being met. And

(22:43):
so that's the kind of relationship they have. Now if
Satan can defeat them in such a perfect environment, perfect relationship,
when all of their needs and all of the desires
have been met, what about today? First of all, we
were born in this world with a sinful nature. Secondly,
we have a bent away from God, not toward God.
We live in an environment that is sensual, that is wicked,

(23:05):
that is file in every way. We have it coming
toward us from every direction, all kinds of temptations and
trials to walk away from God, to disbelieve God, to
indulge ourselves in all kinds of sin. And so our
environment is absolutely different. We don't have a perfect relationship
with the Father that our relationship can be right because
we have a bent away from God. And when you

(23:25):
and I got saved, God is starting to change their life.
And yet, in spite of that, we still have the
capacity to sin and oftentimes those desires to be disobedient
to God. Why would Satan change his strategy when he
was so successful with a perfect situation, when he has
something that is so far removed from perfect Today he
has not changed his strategy or whatsoever.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
You can learn more about how to recognize and reject
Satan's tactics at in Touch dot ororg tomorrow on in Touch.
It's not enough to just be aware of say and strategies.
If we expect to defeed him, we also have to
be properly equipped, and Tuesday's program outfits us in the
armor of God. On in Touch the teaching ministry of

(24:11):
doctor Charles Stanley. This program is a presentation of in
Touch Ministries Atlanta, Georgia and remains on this station through
the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.