Know Your Enemy

Do you know who your enemy is and how to spiritually recognize him? Do you have the discernment to sense his presence and know when he is seemingly speaking through others?

April’s Awakening, Day 28

The one concern of the devil is to keep the saints form praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies/work/Christian activity. He laughs at our toil, mocks our wisdom, but trembles when we pray.

 —Samuel Chadwick  

The devil is aware that one hour of close fellowship, hearty converse with God in prayer, is able to pull down what he hath been contriving and building many a year.

 —Flavel 

Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. Revelation 12:7–11 NIV 

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. Ephesians 2:1–2 NIV 

You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. John 8:44 NIV 

And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. 2 Corinthians 11:14 NIV  

            Your spiritual enemy is Satan and all the fallen angels under his command—they are the rulers of the kingdom of the air, this world, and the authorities, powers, and principalities are part of Satan’s hierarchy of the evil spiritual forces of this unseen realm. As God is pure light, holiness, and righteousness, by contrast, Satan is pure darkness and evil, and he is also the great masquerader, counterfeiter, and ultimate deceiver. Remember, created as Lucifer, the day star or morning star, he was probably the most beautiful of all God’s created angels, hence he may appear as a beautiful angel of light—one more in his unlimited repertoire of deceptions. [Refer back to January, Day 10 in this devotional, Worship Combats Original Sin, and the Fall of Lucifer, Ezekiel 28:12b–19 and Isaiah 14:12–15, for more on Lucifer’s transformation into Satan.]

            Prepare yourself spiritually, for the pure evil and lying nature of Satan will bring up every sin, mistake, failure, error of judgment, insecurity, doubt, shame, guilt, and every temptation from deep within your past to thwart your efforts. When he brings those to the forefront of your mind you must be ready to stand and counter with the knowledge and fact that you are a beloved child and heir of the King, free from the power of sin, death, and your past, and you are the new creation in Christ. The battlefield of spiritual warfare is a battlefield of the mind—your mind. You conquer by the blood of the Lamb, the word of your testimony, and the Holy Spirit within you. “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4 NIV).