The Scheme of the Enemy

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.” (Ephesians 6:10-11 ESV)

Wow wow wow! This is good stuff. Tough to hear at times but God loves me enough to tell me the tough stuff! As the senior demon in The Screwtape letters said to the minion Wormwood about man:

"Best is to let him read not at all but rather to give him a grand general idea that he knows it all and that everything he happens to have picked up in casual talk and reading is the result of modern investigation" . (C.S. Lewis, “The Screwtape Letters”) Think about it friends, the scheme of the enemy is to discourage you from reading, studying and investigation for yourself and rather get you to rely on your own ideas and casual interpretations of what others have supposedly investigated. I was contemplating a conversation I entertained not too long ago about the "unholy practices" of another church. How it made me question so many things and unsettled me in many areas of my walk. For weeks I fretted and was filled with confusion. See I received the information as "wisdom" and entertained the information as valid because it was written in a blog; but it was not valid, it was digital gossip.

I had never seen any of the activities mentioned and I had never personally met or talked to the leaders being disparaged. How could I entertain it to be true without seeking God and being personally called to discern the practices of that church? Instead, I allowed the Scheme of the enemy to creep in and rob me of joy, rob me of steadfastness and rob me of truth. Boy have I seen this so much lately! Listening to the supposed wisdom of false teachers using incomplete or out of context scriptures, gossipers, reading disparaging blogs (digital gossip), entertaining conversations that discourage rather than encourage, all rather than doing the work and digging in to discover what God is really saying to you and where He is truly leading you. Pursue God through His word, by reading, studying and praying over it and resist the schemes of the devil. Not everything people tell you, not everything you read, not every bit of so called wisdom is worth following. As P. Zach Sutton said this Sunday in his sermon, are you close enough to God in relationship, through study of His word, through prayer and through Godly fellowship, to know the difference between His wisdom and the schemes of the enemy?