You’re Being Watched

 You are being watched. Every hour, every day, every second. There’s a creature crouching, waiting, stalking, watching you with hate-filled eyes piercing through the darkness. You never see him, yet he’s always there, looking for a chink in your armor, searching for an opportunity to strike.

Yes, this adversary is Satan the Devil. The apostle Peter wrote, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8).

“Know your enemy” is the famed maxim uttered by Sun Tzu, ancient Chinese soldier and author of The Art of War. Indeed, of such a dangerous foe, we cannot afford to be ignorant. After warning the Corinthians of a potential threat, the apostle Paul explained, “Lest Satan should take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices” (2 Cor. 2:11).

God’s Word tells us much about Satan’s attacks. He is “more cunning than any beast of the field,” more cunning than a slithering snake or a stalking lion. Thus we’re told, “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil” (Eph. 6:11). His attacks also draw comparisons to fiery arrows or darts: “Above all, [take] the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one” (Eph. 6:16).

So what are some of these wiles and fiery darts of the wicked one? What do we need to stand guard against?

Distractions

Satan loves to hurl distractions at us. He wants us to spend less time studying God’s Word, less time praying, and less time thinking of our Creator. He wants us to spend more time dwelling on the things of this world.

Nearly anything can be a distraction. Even something good can be a distraction. It’s good to work hard and be industrious, for example, but we must never spend so much time working and being “busy” that we haven’t any time for prayer and Bible study. It’s good to serve others and yet, as we’ve seen before, serving can also be a distraction (Luke 10:38-42).

If things are going well in our lives and we’re comfortable, we may fall asleep at the wheel and drift off the road. If difficulties are swelling all around us and crashing against us, we may get discouraged, stop swimming, and drown.

As the Book of Proverbs tells us, “Give me neither poverty nor riches — feed me with the food allotted to me; lest I be full and deny You, and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’ Or lest I be poor and steal, and profane the name of my God” (Prov. 30:9).

In every season of life, Satan is at war with us. In the good times, the bad times, and the times of boredom alike, we must remain vigilant.

Temptation and Lust

The deadliest distractions are those directed at our lusts and carnal human nature, the chinks in our armor. These can vary a little from person to person. One may struggle most with sexual temptation and lust; another with greed and materialism; and another with alcohol, tobacco, or some other addiction. Whatever you might desire, Satan will use it like bait on a fishhook.

The apostle Paul warned married people, “Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control” (1 Cor. 7:5).

Working through the prophet Balaam, “who loved the wages of unrighteousness” (2 Pet. 2:15), Satan “put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality” (Rev. 2:14). He used pagan women to seduce the Israelite men and entice them away from God, costing 24,000 Israelites their lives (Num. 25:9).

Satan tempted Eve by preying on her curiosity and desire for knowledge (Gen. 3:1-6). He tempted Judas Iscariot by preying on his love of money: “Then Satan entered Judas, surnamed Iscariot, who was numbered among the twelve” (Luke 22:3). And so, for thirty shekels of silver, Judas betrayed the Messiah.

Satan even tried this tactic on Jesus Christ, without success, offering Him the whole world: “Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, ‘All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me’” (Mat. 4:8-9).

Fear and Worry

Whenever fears, worries, and anxieties begin to smolder in our hearts, Satan tries to fan the coals into open flame. He wants us to fear that, even though God always provides for us, He may not this time. To doubt that God has our best interests at heart. To doubt God’s promises.

This spirit of fear is not from God, but from Satan. “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Tim. 1:7). “For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father’” (Rom. 8:15).

Though facing the fieriest of trials — even a literal fiery furnace like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego — we need not be paralyzed with fear. It’s inevitable to be afraid at times, of course, but if we put our trust in God, He will bring us through. As long as we hold fast to our Creator, victory is certain.

“Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Rev. 2:10).

Anger, Bitterness, Jealousy

Anger, bitterness, and jealousy afford still more opportunities for Satan to attack. Now anger and jealousy aren’t bad per se. There’s such a thing as righteous anger, and even Godly jealousy.

God gets angry at wickedness, as we see throughout the Bible. He’s also jealous: “For you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” (Ex. 34:14). Likewise, the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:2).

As Eph. 4:26-27 exhorts, “‘Be angry, and do not sin’: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil.” This passage both confirms the existence of righteous anger, while acknowledging that anger can lead to sin. It can offer an opening to the devil.

Misplaced anger and jealousy lead to the sin of Cain. We read in 1 John 3:11-12, “For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother’s righteous.”

Cain was jealous of God’s favor toward Abel, so he grew angry and bitter. And so, following the way of the wicked one, he murdered him.

Lies and Confusion

In many ways, this life is a hall of mirrors. Deception is everywhere. As the Book of Proverbs warns, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Prov. 14:12; 16:25). If we let our guard down, if we stop praying and searching God’s Word for guidance, if we start trusting our own judgment more than God’s Word, we will be swept off God’s path by a torrent of deception.

The lies and confusion around us stem partly from human nature, and partly from the work of Satan. While rebuking His adversaries, Jesus said: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it” (John 8:44).

Satan isn’t your average liar, though. He makes wrong seem right, and right seem wrong. He’s very, very good at it — so good at it that he “deceives the whole world” (Rev. 12:9).

In 2 Cor. 11:14-15, the apostle Paul warned, “For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.”

That brings up another point: Satan spreads lies and confusion through his human agents. In Mat. 13, Jesus explained that Satan sows tares among the wheat, that is, he plants his own followers among the followers of God. 

The most damaging attacks can come from infiltrators, those we falsely believe to be fellow brethren, and the most persuasive deceptions can come from men who claim to be ministers of God. These are the wolves in sheep’s clothing that Jesus warned us about (Mat. 7:15). I don’t know about you, but some of the most evil people I’ve ever known have claimed to be fellow Christians and fellow brethren.

Doubt

Through lies, through persecution, through temptation, and by any other available means, Satan tries to plant seeds of doubt in our hearts. His key to success in deceiving Eve was planting doubt: “Has God indeed said?” (Gen. 3:1).

“Did God really say that?” “Is that really what the Bible means?” “Surely God doesn’t actually expect us to do that…” These are a few of the thoughts Satan wants to put in our minds.

As we go through hardships in this life, he wants us to doubt. “What about all the things in this world that I’m missing out on? Is obeying God really worth it? Is God’s Kingdom really worth it? What if there’s an easier way? What if I make just a little compromise?” 

If Satan can get us to doubt our Creator, then he can get us to disobey Him. All it takes is for us to let those seeds of doubt take root in our minds. “A little leaven leavens the whole lump” (1 Cor. 5:6; Gal. 5:9).

Discouragement

When the road gets difficult, when it seems there’s no end in sight, we may get tired and discouraged. “Why is God allowing this?”, we might ask. “It’s not fair.” Or, “How can I ever get through this?”

Job felt that way. No matter what Satan did to Job, he couldn’t shake him — or so it seemed. But as he sat there in the ashes, having lost everything and now reduced to scraping his boils with a potsherd, Job got very discouraged. How could God have allowed so much trouble in his life? It wasn’t fair. And so he began to justify himself more than God. God must have wronged him. Satan got Job to sin by cultivating discouragement. Of course, Job repented when God corrected him, but the story shows the power of discouragement.

Whenever we feel discouraged, Satan is there whispering, “You aren’t worthy. You’ll never be good enough. You’ll never make it. It’s too hard. Just give up.”

In 1 Corinthians, the apostle Paul exhorted the Corinthian brethren to put an unrepentant sinner out of their congregation. In 2 Corinthians, we learn that the man had finally repented of his sin, and so Paul told them to “forgive and comfort him” (2 Cor. 2:6-7). He warned that otherwise the man might “be swallowed up with too much sorrow” (v. 7), “lest Satan should take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices” (v. 11).

Pride, Ego, Self-focus

The final fiery dart that I want to mention today is pride. Satan loves to play on our egos, to make us self-centered and self-focused. Over and over again in the Bible, we see Satan playing on people’s pride.

This attack even worked on King David, a man after God’s own heart: “Now Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel” (1 Chron. 21:1). The account in 2 Sam. 24:1 words this quite differently: “Again the anger of the LORD was aroused against Israel, and He moved David against them to say, ‘Go, number Israel and Judah.’”

So did God play on David’s ego and cause him to sin, or did Satan? The answer should be obvious, but if it isn’t, here’s Jam. 1:13-14: “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.”

God didn’t cause David to sin; He allowed Satan to do that. Similarly, He also permitted a lying spirit to persuade King Ahab to do battle against the Syrians and meet his demise (1 Kings 22:20-22).

Satan tempted Ananias and Sapphira through their desire for praise and recognition. They sold their property, brought some of the proceeds, and laid it at the apostles’ feet (Acts 4:34-5:2). But they claimed to have brought their whole proceeds, as others had done. They lied. “But Peter said, ‘Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself?’” (Acts 5:3). And so they died for their sin (vv. 5-10).

Everyone is susceptible to the sin of pride. If King David was, then you and I certainly are! For this reason, the apostle Paul warned that pastors and elders of God’s people must not be new converts, but men who are mature in the faith. One must not be “a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil” (1 Tim. 3:6).

Satan even tried to stoke pride in Jesus Christ, albeit without success. “Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, ‘If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread’” (Mat. 4:3). “Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, ‘If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: “He shall give His angels charge over you,” and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.”’” (Mat. 4:5-6).

“IF you are the Son of God…” That’s quite the dare, and one that many of us would probably fall for. It’s quite the appeal to ego. But Jesus passed the test, as He did throughout His life.

Spiritual attacks are regular. If one of Satan’s attacks fails, he’ll try another. He’s constantly prowling about, stalking us, looking for an opportunity. He will never tire nor cease until the day God removes him from our lives.

As we read at the beginning, Peter exhorted us, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8). Even when Satan’s attacks on Jesus Christ failed, he didn’t give up: “Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13).

We aren’t wiser or more cunning than Satan; we can’t outsmart him. We aren’t stronger than he is; we can’t make him go away.

And yet, we need not fear him. Nowhere in the Bible are we told to be afraid of either Satan or his demons. We must be appropriately respectful of beings that are so much “greater in power and might” than we (2 Pet. 2:10-11; Jude 1:8-10), but we need not be afraid of them.

“Our God will fight for us” (Neh. 4:20). As Jam. 4:7 tells us, “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” Submission to God comes first, and then the devil will flee for he cannot withstand the power of God. Again, we read in 2 Thes. 3:3, “But the Lord is faithful, who will establish you and guard you from the evil one.”

Therefore, let us remain vigilant and constantly on the lookout for spiritual attacks that may lure or drive us from the path. Stand guard! Keep your eyes peeled.

Be observant of distractions from God’s way; of temptations and lusts; of fears, anxieties, and worries; of anger, bitterness, and jealousy; of confusion and deception; of creeping doubts; of discouragement; of pride, ego, and self-focus. When you notice these things creeping into your life, then know that Satan is at war with you. Be mindful of Satan’s attacks, and remember that you can defeat him through prayer, Bible study, and the power of God!