Spiritual Warfare Strategies of Satan
Brother Andrew
I’ve been too naive in many ways. I’ve been like a simple, trusting farm boy who wanted to live just his own simple life and believe that I could trust people and that they were simple to understand. I could see that the good ones, they were kind and nice and in church, behaved nicely. They must be good because they were in church. On the other hand, the bad ones were obvious too. They did bad things and they were outside church. But I have come to realise that this isn’t the reality and we face many spiritual dangers, even from within the church. The Lord has been teaching me that there are many ways that we can be fooled and deceived by the enemy. Resisting the enemy is not just speaking to the devil, but it is being aware of the spiritual realities of the strategies he uses.
We often think of the spiritual warfare as something that is very powerful, very demonic and very evident through all sorts of frontal assaults. But I want to present you some thoughts that I think might be helpful to understand that might get us to understand a little bit more deeply. And yet even as I give this, I really want to also urge you with a special caveat, a warning, don’t fall into this trap. You might read this and start to think, “Oh, I know what this is about. It’s about this person that I’m facing or this situation.” And I want to put it to you that I think that could be very misleading. The whole point of what I’m talking about is that it’s going beyond what you think, what you already understand. And in many ways, that was the basis of what I understood the Lord was showing.
I share is not because of my own goodness or wisdom, but it’s hard-won understanding, because I’ve fallen for many of the devil’s schemes. And I share this because the Lord made it clear that many of you also are falling for the same schemes of the devil. As you read this, don’t be quick to judge and think “ah yes … this is that person I know”. If it was obvious, there would be no need for him to speak this message, but that’s the very issue. It’s not obvious.
If you already can identify the traps and the deception that is great, but the Lord has called us to minister to multiple people in recent times who were exhausted by their battle and bewildered as to what to do next. These problems often had been going on for years without resolution, despite many prayers and the guidance of many. The Lord graciously showed us how to understand the hidden nature of what was happening and, in each case, the people were completely blind to the deception and yet had tried everything they understood without success. I believe the Lord is guiding me to write this for the benefit of many.
In the natural world deception is commonly used. We see it in the animal kingdom, in insects, viruses, and in wartime conflict. It can be used in offensive and defensive ways. It is often very effective and can allow one side to overpower the other, even when they are weaker than their opposition. Does this sound like what we see in the spiritual realm?
What I see is that the devil uses schemes to deceive people that are very similar to patterns we see in the natural world, except that we are speaking of spiritual deception, not natural deception. We can look at the world through the understanding given in God’s word in Galatians 5 and 6. That is, in the flesh or the spirit. In this case, the flesh refers to our own earthly, human ways of thinking and living. Yet we are called to live by the Spirit if we are to see life. The works of the flesh are made evident in Galatians according to these verses –
“Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
Gal 5:19-21 (NKJV)
These however are not exhaustive, but a picture of what it looks like to walk according to the flesh. For the most part they are obvious and visible. But let’s go back a few verses, because this is the key I want to bring. We read
“I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.”
Gal 5:16-17 (NKJV)
This is pointing towards the way in which we follow our own thinking. Instead of looking towards the Lord and seeing what he is showing, we follow what we think. The enemy knows that we are likely to follow what we see in the natural, and so he gets us to follow not the Lord, but what we think is so obvious. This is following what we think, what we desire, what we choose – the lust of the flesh. The obvious things are obvious, but the issue I believe the Lord is calling us to see is even more subtle. The enemy will try to lead us into spiritual traps that we can avoid, but it requires us to be very careful we are not deceived by the things we see in the natural realm. The natural world of things that we can see, things that are evident, things that we assume, things that we build up in our own understanding. The spiritual realm is the one that we really need to pay attention to however, if we’re going to win this battle.
What I’ve understood is that there are different ways that the enemy attacks us, but particularly he can attack us in the spiritual realm. We usually expect that spiritual attacks will be obvious. But perhaps the most insidious form of attack that the enemy can use is to misdirect us so that we expend our energy in the wrong places, fighting where and when we should, and then not fighting where or when we should.
We trust when we shouldn’t, we don’t go into battle when we should, we can be fooled and let the enemy come in without any fight at all. We might fight the wrong battles. We might waste our time and exhaust ourselves so that we don’t really fight at all. We are like I was – naïve and unprepared for discerning the true nature of the battle, and so we get attacked and we don’t even know it. The Lord is showing me that, just as in the natural world, the most effective attack is the one where we don’t even know we have been attacked.
There’s business tactics like this where instead of having a straightforward meeting, the prospective business person comes in, and is delayed. There’s time wasting things. There’s physical exhaustion. There’s meetings that don’t go anywhere. There are all sorts of interruptions, frustrations and wrong pathways until finally the agreement is made, the business person doesn’t realise that all along this has been the whole strategy.
So perhaps there’s a place for us to also understand the way in which we need to be aware of the strategies and tactics in a spiritual realm that the enemy can have.
So set aside what you might have already believed. Hold on to what the Lord is showing and look more closely, look more deeply. I believe the Lord showed me that there are two types of spiritual deception that can be used against us. I call them type 1 and type 2 spiritual deception.
Type 1 Spiritual Deception.
This form of spiritual warfare tries to get you to fight and expend your weapons in the wrong place into things that you’re not called to. It gets you to reveal yourself, to expose yourself, to give away your heart, your obedience, placing you into spiritual bondage when you didn’t even realise it. It is a form of witchcraft in disguise.
It aims to deceive you in deep ways that are very clever and cunning. And strangely, this can involve people that are or may seem to be genuine in their faith. It can involve people that are believing they’re doing God’s work and yet in some way they go into places, go into situations and start to do things that God hasn’t called them to do. In many, if not most cases, the person has decided either on their own or in cooperation with the enemy in some way to speak and act in ways that is not what God is calling them to do. An example of this is given when Jesus tells Peter –
“Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offence to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.” Matt 16:23 (NKJV)
It doesn’t automatically mean that the person is a wolf, or somehow deliberately conspiring to act in traitorous ways and subvert God.
John Paul Jackson in his book, Needless Casualties of War, describes the issue where well-meaning people, even pastors, missionaries, go into spiritual battles they shouldn’t and then suffer because of it. It’s rather controversial and yet there’s been many evidences that this has indeed been the case where people go into battles that they don’t have authority to deal with. At the heart of this, the issue that I see is that we should be obedient to the Lord.
In John 14:23, Jesus calls us to keep his word in obedience that that the Father will come and make his home with us. This obedience is crucial. It’s non-negotiable if we’re to go in and understand the tactics that the enemy would use against us and how to stand successfully in spiritual warfare.
The Lord showed me situations where we might go into a place and come across somebody who’s very uncooperative outwardly, a nuisance and really causes all sorts of issues. And so sometimes in this situation, a person can discern this, although it’s not really discernment, it’s quite plainly obvious, and then go after them and they do this in the flesh, but this is itself a spiritual battle. It can be a tactic of the enemy to put somebody in our way and whether they know it or not, whether it’s deliberate, intentional or otherwise, we start to then do what we think we should do and somehow address them, deal with them, confront them or go after them or whatever it might be. And of course there are many situations where this is plainly and evidently what the Lord would call us to do. But what I’m speaking about is something different.
This is where the Lord is actually not clearly involved, but it’s us that are going ahead and assuming ever so subtly that we know what to do. And so we start to confront the person or deal with them and handle them in our own way. But that way, if that’s of the flesh and not led by the spirit of God, then we’ve fallen for a strategy of the enemy. And you think, how can this be? The person’s not doing the right thing or they’re causing some problems and yet we don’t realise that if God is not clearly showing us what we should do and we go into battle and we start to do this, then it is a battle in our flesh and that means that we’re losing. We’ve actually fallen for a strategy of the enemy. This requires, I believe, extra special wisdom and discernment from the Lord.
I’m not sure that it’s going to be easy to put it into clear parameters that you could check off and say this is this situation or not, but it really comes down to the simple principle of seeking the Lord, his guidance and following what the Lord said. There are numerous examples in scripture of this teaching, this very thing. Jesus didn’t call us to go into battle against the authorities.
He didn’t call the people in his realm to go in and try to overthrow Rome, though that’s what they though was going to happen. On the other hand, he called out the Pharisees for their evil and their wickedness where many of us wouldn’t call out those religious leaders or people in authority. So we need to be careful we don’t fall for the trap, that we become deceived in the natural, that we become deceived, not in the natural so much as in the spiritual. We need to be careful. It is similar to what happens in many of the situations in our current climate of global conflict.
The more electronics are involved, the less we can really understand. And yet deception has been long a part of wars and different conflicts causing us to go in the wrong direction, the idea of decoys and so forth. Only these days it can become electronic and it’s very similar to the idea of spiritual decoys, spiritual attacks that are causing us to go into conflicts and into battles that we weren’t called to go into. So seek spiritual wisdom, not earthly wisdom. Be careful that you don’t just simply see something and then go after it. We need to walk in love. The whole point of this type one spiritual warfare is to cause us to expend spiritual energy and physical energy in the wrong place. It’s outwardly fleshly, outwardly natural, and it will exhaust us because we’re not winning the battle. We’re chasing in our own flesh. And if you find yourself feeling exhausted, feeling tired, that you’re going to battle and not really gaining ground, then it’s almost certainly because you’re fighting in this fleshly realm, not in the spiritual realm.
Type two Spiritual Warfare
And bearing in mind, this is a place where we ourselves may be going into spiritual warfare, but we’re encountering spiritual warfare. This is what I’m really talking about, us encountering spiritual warfare against us. So the type two spiritual warfare is trusting in the wrong spirits and not fighting when we should. It’s not expending our energy, dealing with the true wolves or spiritual enemies. They may appear as angels of light and do good and pray, and so we give them a free pass. So in the first type one spiritual warfare, this is where we go out and we go in aggressively after some things we’re not called to. Type two is when we might do nothing at all. We allow wolves, we allow the enemy to come in and attack us. So how do they work and how do they operate? Lord has shown me, I believe,
12 different ways that we can end up fighting in the wrong dimension.
1. Spiritual battles that we fight in the flesh.
This is just what I’ve spoken about. Battles that we’re not called to fight. They’re things that we start to then walk in our own wisdom. We do what we think we should do. We’re not really truly focusing our eyes on the Lord and understanding what we should fight. If you would like an example of this, think of Stephen being stoned. Did he fight back or did he look to the Lord? He looked to the Lord. So the first spiritual battle is one that we fight in our flesh.
2. Plain lies and deception.
This can be things like ‘God told me’, but with no discernment. It can be things that appear good, but secretly are evil, things that hide behind masks. It’s just simply deception, deceiving spirits, things that are out to appear good but aren’t, pretend that they’re from God and they’re not, speak words that are going to deceive us and pay attention to the trickery and deceitful use of language.
This is rather subtle and until you start to pay attention, you may not even see it. So be careful. Look out for what God is saying, not what people are saying. This can be a place where words are spoken, curses are given, and we should be not allowing those things to come upon us. Pay careful attention to the way that words are used and that they can mean one thing but are spoken and said differently. False religions will do this. They’ll use words that you think you understand the meaning, but instead they’re not. They’re speaking falsely, deceiving and even cursing.
3. Flattery, greed, power, money, sexual sin.
These are things that appeal to our flesh. They’re very common in churches and we might even give a con man a pass because he brings in money or has power. People are deceived for the love of money, become greedy. They fall into obvious sexual sin. They use flattery to achieve what they want to achieve, and yet all of these things oppose God.
4. Fighting spiritual battles in the wrong dimension.
In this area, we face things that mess with our mind. Here we have confusion, accusation. It is not obvious, and you may face all sorts of tricky tactics. You may go in to battle thinking you are doing God’s will, but yet face accusations of being the devil. This area includes the activities of cults such as JWs, Mormons, groups that twist the scripture. They can mess with our mind because they will say things that are very close to the truth, sound right, and yet they change the meaning or they don’t tell the whole truth or they deceive in different ways. And so you can find yourself thinking, I’m becoming more and more confused. And the more you listen, the more you’re confused and the more deceived you are. Language gets used in ways that changes the meaning of words. It can include areas where there’s some truth, there’s some value or there’s something that is of substance. So you get taken in by that self-motivation, self-help, humanistic type of teachings, religions that blend in all sorts of things involve these.
I would also put forward that much of human psychology falls into this as well. It’s not that all psychology is somehow in error or wrong. It’s usually supported by scientific method, various studies and so forth. However, the problem becomes when we try to take hold of human wisdom, human understanding that doesn’t address the spiritual realities and use that to then try to correct or teach or bring someone to know and draw closer to God using human wisdom. Many books have been written that blend God’s truth with human wisdom. The mark of error seems to be that the mixture of the two ends up changing God’s word to say something different to the true meaning.
5. Distraction and subtle misdirection.
Think of the trick movements in soccer or in other forms of football, where a player feigns a movement to misdirect others. This form of attack causes us to fight the wrong battles. Some of these things can be well-meaning and even have forms of good attached to it or worthwhile aspects. And yet we need to be relying on what the Lord is calling us to do. I think of areas such as social justice. There’s so much good that we as believers can and need to do for the good of the world, and yet what is God calling us to do? Men’s hearts are the true battlefield. It is misplaced or naive spiritual warfare, again, this is the sort of thing that was written in the book by John Paul Jackson, cited above.
We can easily get diverted into things that will take us off what God says. So what is he calling us to do? It’s not about laying down a law that says you should never do this or only do that, but rather what is God saying? These areas require clear obedience to what the Lord calls us to.
6. Bitterness and anger.
This is like hard and heavy blows. It leads to discouragement and burnout and giving up.
7. Witchcraft and rebellion.
This is involving infighting pride and deception, causing us to rebel against God, to try to gain things for ourselves, to have our ways are the ones that.
8. A lack of holiness and godliness.
We’re kept busy and we don’t have discipline to pray, to wait in God and to understand the word. Our calling is to holiness, to live godly and holy lives, to live lives worthy of our calling in Christ.
We are called to be prepared and ready, to equip ourselves, to study the scripture, and to invest ourselves daily to hear what God is saying. We are called to know and to give time to God so we’re not expending our lives in the wrong places. Ultimately this deception is to cause us to rely on our flesh, our strength and our abilities, instead of spending time with the Lord.
9. Wrong company, friends and teaching.
We listen to wrong voices, wrong and misleading teaching that takes us astray. We become a friend of the world, not of God. We deceive ourselves not seeking godly people.
10. Not hungering after God, but giving into fleshly desires.
We need to be ruthless with sin, die to ourself and seek to have the mind of Christ. We’re to stand and fight. We’re to seek and live in purity and honour. This understanding of hungering after the Lord in all purity, and not following deception is at the heart of the psalmists call to us:
Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord?
Or who may stand in His holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol,
Nor sworn deceitfully.
Psalm 24:3-4
We’re to give our thoughts so that we follow the living God and not things of the world and the flesh. We let our weakness rule without any godly submission and yet the Lord is calling us to be hungry, thirsting after righteousness. So we get drawn into spiritual battles and yet we’re ill-equipped because we’re doing it in our flesh instead of hungering and thirsting after the Lord so that our total dry, total drive is to seek the Lord and hunger after him and only do battle when he calls us to.
So many believers seem to battle whenever they get the chance and then give a minuscule effort, a minuscule effort to hungering after God.
11. Test the spirits.
There can be so much noise in the world from social media, our thoughts, people’s opinions. The devil will use this noise to whisper into our ears something that sounds right and lead us in the wrong direction. Many can be misled by spirits because they do not test the spirits, and instead simply believe what comes into their minds. We might think that we will be able to easily discern false spirits, but if this was the case, then why are we called to test the spirits? Because they will mislead many. But this means that they will appear very much the same as true spirits. We need to pray for discernment and keep close to the Lord. This is a particularly insidious problem, because if we go in a direction we think is of God, but it is of the enemy, think of how much damage this can lead to.
We live so much by our thoughts and our opinions – our flesh. Yet God continually calls us in scripture to live by the Spirit. This means putting aside our flesh and seek the Lord.
12. Courage
A strategy of the devil is to cause us to be in fear. This can be plain old fear, but it can also be fear of man. We want to be thought well of by men. So we do things that feed our pride. No – we are called to be strong and courageous even when faced with opposition. All the previous points lead to this.