Your enemy is Satan himself, the ex-angel-turned-devil—and his demonic forces. (The Amplified version of the Bible calls them “master spirits.”) Satan’s coming after you with a carefully crafted plan of attack, one you might not even see coming. In fact, you might not even believe you’re in a war at all. That’s one of your enemy’s best tricks—deception. Satan is a liar. Jesus called him “the father of lies and of all that is false” (John 8:44 AMP). Here are some of his deceptive lines, which he’ll use as he tries to control your mind. How many of them have you heard, in one form or another?
* You don’t need to listen to your parents, your pastor, your youth leaders, and all those other people who try to tell you how to live. I mean, look at ’em, those incompetent hypocrites. Look at all their flaws and inconsistencies. This is your life. Live it your way.
* Drinking, drugs, and sex won’t really hurt you. All of those horror stories won’t happen to you. It’s just a big scare tactic. Adults just don’t want you to have any fun—even though they had plenty when they were your age. They just want to control you.
* Do you really believe in “the devil”? Some red-skinned bald dude with a pointy tail and a pitchfork? An intelligent person like you? Get real—that’s a myth. There is no devil, and there is no hell. And, by the way, there is no God or heaven, either. “Right now” is all there is. So, get yours while you can.
* Come on, admit it: You have doubts about God all the time. If God was real, why would He allow those doubts to creep up inside of your head?
* If there really was a God who cared, would you feel as lonely as you do, as overwhelmed by life as you do, as powerless to change things?
Have you ever felt like someone was peppering your mind with questions and concerns like these? That’s how Satan works. He plants all kinds of nagging thoughts, suspicions, and doubts in your mind. He moves slowly, according to his well-laid plans for you. Always remember that when it comes to destroying your life, Satan has a custom-tailored battle strategy just for you. He has studied you for a long time. And he’s going to attack you where you’re weak, where you’re curious, where you’re inconsistent.
For example, he knows your insecurities. If you are self-conscious about your physical appearance, the devil might devise a plan to bring someone into your life who tells you that you’re hot, someone who makes you feel attractive. Then, this person you’ve welcomed into your life might start to pressure you for sex. You know you shouldn’t, but you don’t want to risk losing someone who makes you feel so good about yourself.
So now Satan can sit back and watch you squirm. He’s put his secret weapon in place. He has time—and your raging hormones—on his side. He knows that you can’t click on the TV, power up your computer, or open a magazine without seeing sexual content of some sort. (For example, there are more than 4 million pornographic Web sites on the Internet.) He’ll invest as much time as it takes to bring you down. The devil is short in a lot of areas, but patience isn’t one of them. He has patience to spare.
Fortunately for you, you’re not going into the battle unarmed. The Bible, God’s holy message, assures you, “For the weapons of our warfare are not physical [weapons of flesh and blood], but they are mighty before God for the overthrow and destruction of strongholds, [Inasmuch as we] refute arguments and theories and reasonings and every proud and lofty thing that sets itself up against the [true] knowledge of God; and we lead every thought and purpose away captive into the obedience of Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed one)” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5 AMP).
Now, you might be asking yourself, What are these “strongholds” that I’m supposed to overthrow and destroy? Think of it this way: Satan wants to play you like a video game, conquering one level at a time. Let’s go back to our sexual-temptation example. Satan’s not going to try to turn you from a pure person into a promiscuous, out-of-control sex addict overnight.
No, he’s much more likely to get you interested in a sexually suggestive-yet-mainstream movie—the kind that’s in movie theaters and on basic cable TV all the time. Or maybe an Internet chat room where the conversation occasionally—but not all the time—turns inappropriate.
Next, you might find yourself visiting Web sites you know you shouldn’t, or taking your interest in suggestive movies to the next level—graduating from typical cable fare to pay-per-view stuff that turns up the sexual heat.
And so it goes. The same kind of thing happens with drugs, drinking, cheating, and lying. How many of your friends have you heard lying to their parents, via cell phone, about where they are, whom they are with, and what they are doing? Those lies, most likely, were probably more innocuous at first—like “Sure, Mom, I ate breakfast this morning,” or, “Honest, Dad, we weren’t assigned any homework this weekend.” But those “Level 1” lies soon became Level 2, and so on.
Are you beginning to see Satan’s sneaky war strategy? Is it scaring you, at least a little? Good. Every good soldier approaches battle with a heightened sense of awareness. Only a fool would charge into a war and not be aware of what is at stake.
