August 26

Our Enemy

The Bible frequently reminds us that we are involved in a daily spiritual battle. It is critical that every Christian understand the exact nature and scope of this conflict.

I heard a story about a prayer meeting in a church. It was testimony time and a woman rose to her feet and said that she had a terrible fight with the devil last week. It was an awful conflict and she was requesting prayer from the church. As soon as she sat down her husband who was seated by her side rose to his feet and said in rebuttal, "Well, she is not easy to live with either."

Many people have no idea about the spiritual conflict that we are engaged in. They believe that the whole world consists only of what we can see with our eyes and feel with our hands. The idea of another world that is invisible to the human eye is simply preposterous.

Ezekiel’s description of the ruler of Tyre contains oblique references to Satan. You can see Satan’s dirty little paws all over the actions of this human king. What the ruler of Tyre had in common with Satan was the sin of pride, which in Satan’s case apparently was based on the fact that he is the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. Most often we picture Satan as grotesque and hideous, but in reality he is beautiful. Because of a misunderstanding of his form we misunderstand his tactics. Satan tricked the King of Tyre not with wickedness but prayerlessness. He whispered into the king’s ear, you don’t have to pray today, you are so wise and have such great skill you can do this by yourself. Why take the time to pray when you can work?

Beware of the oldest tactic of Satan, tempting us to be hard working and prayer slackers.

I have this little motto pasted up in my office to remind me about the importance of relying on God in prayer.

“The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying, The devil fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, prayerless religion. The devil laughs at our toil, mocks our wisdom, but Satan trembles when we pray.” Samuel Chadwick (1860-1932)