The Tempter traffics in thinking patterns

A good Bible trivia question would be to name all the men Satan’s actually come against himself. The list would include Job, Moses, Jesus Christ, Paul.

“The reality is there have only been a handful of people in human history Satan’s deemed important enough to intervene directly into their lives,” explains Preacher Richard Jordan. “We’re all pretty insignificant individuals who don’t deal with the devil; humans encounter his emissaries, his cohorts, his fledglings, his dupes.

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“Job is a primary example of someone who gains Satan’s personal attention. God asks Satan in Job 1, ‘Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?’ He then informs Satan, ‘Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand.’

“Satan says to God, ‘Go and touch what Job has and he’ll curse thee to thy face.’ You know what he’s really saying? ‘Job serves you because you’ll bless him. He’s serving you for profit. If you really knew his heart you’d know he’s doing it for some other reason than what he tells you.’

“You’ve got a Bible passage here where what Satan knows about Job is put in contrast with what God knows about Job. God says, ‘I know his heart,’ and it’s obvious from what Satan says about Job that he doesn’t know the real motives of Job's heart. He falsely accuses Job before God. He didn’t really know what was in Job’s mind; he just knew what he thought he could put into Job’s mind.

“Satan says, ‘I know what I can put into his mind,’ but it’s pretty obvious in the passage Satan’s not really capable of looking into Job’s mind and reading it.

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“We could talk about Paul, Peter, Eve, and it’s clear Satan can’t read their minds.

"Satan tempts Jesus Christ in the wilderness after He’d fasted 40 days and 40 nights. Matthew 4 says, 'And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread . . . If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.'

"In the passage, Satan’s not a tempter among tempters, but The Tempter; the No. 1 guy.

“Satan’s whole business is that of tempting and that’s why James 1:13-14 says, ‘Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.’ God is not tempting any man and a lot of people misunderstand this.

“A lot of people make the mistake of blaming God for things when they come along. They ask, ‘Why did God allow this happen to me?’ Or, ‘Why did God allow that to befall me?’ The verse is clear God doesn’t tempt men; that’s Satan’s whole purpose and program. That’s his whole business, job, activity.

"In Satan’s tempting of Jesus Christ, it’s crucial to understand he’s tempting the humanity of Christ, and as the God-man; a man who was hungry, thirsty, tired, weary, in need of sleep.

“But you know what was consuming the mind of Christ? The Word. Like David said, ‘Thy word have I hidden in my heart that I might not sin against thee.’ What was in Christ’s mind was not feeding himself, but it was the Book.

“Notice Satan quotes Scripture to Christ? Don’t get upset, folks, if Satan and his ministers can read to you right out of the Bible. Satan is a better Bible student than any of us will ever be. They know what’s in the Bible and they can pick it up and read it as good as you can.

“Don’t be amazed if you say, ‘It is written,’ and (Satan’s dupes) say, ‘It is written,’ right back at you. That’s the way Satan operates.

“In Matthew 4:7, we see Jesus say, ‘It is written again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’ It is amply evident Satan doesn’t know what’s in the mind of Christ and he can’t get into His mind. He doesn’t have access to the mind and body of Jesus Christ in order to read His mind.

“The way Satan is tempting Christ is by making suggestions to Him—to try and have outside suggestions go into His mind and lead Him. It’s to try and affect His thinking from the OUTSIDE.

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“Your body is the temple where God the Holy Spirit dwells in this earth today and the very idea that Satan would be able to have access into your body as a Believer is ridiculous. It’s the height of absurdity to believe Satan could have access into the mind or body where God Almighty’s Holy Spirit dwells.

“At the same time, it’s quite clear from Paul’s epistles that Satan does understand and know the minds of unsaved people. It’s quite clear that he has access into their thinking processes. I’ve told you repeatedly that the very creative genius of unsaved people is satanically inspired. Unsaved men can have more than one demon in them.

“By the way, the Greeks, when they use that word ‘demos,’ it’s translated in our Bible ‘devil.’ The Greeks looked at the word as a word that was good and not bad. They didn’t consider it necessarily bad to have a demon. They looked at a demon as that which gave a man the ability to be a genius.

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“When you trust Jesus Christ and God, the Holy Spirit comes and takes up residence in your body and all the demons are cast out. Now, because Satan doesn’t have access into your mind, he comes against you and seeks to tempt you and influence you the same way he did the Lord Jesus; that is, by outside suggestions.

“May I say something to you, the battleground between you and Satan is in your mind; it’s in your thinking processes. The mind’s the most important part of you. Proverbs 23:7 says, ‘As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.’

“Isaiah 26:3 says, ‘Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.’ He takes his mind and fixes it on the Person of God Almighty and it stays there. His thinking capacity, his ability to perceive and know and think is focused and directed and flowing toward God Almighty. If it flows toward God, it has to flow toward His Word. And it’s just like Jesus Christ said, ‘It is written.’

“II Cor. 10:3-5 says, ‘For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:
[4] (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)
[5] Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;’

“You know where imaginations come from? You know where those vain thoughts and dreams come? In your mind. Casting down the imaginations means casting down the vain reasonings.

“Please underline these two words from verse 5: ‘EVERY THOUGHT.’ You want victory? You’ll have to bring ‘EVERY THOUGHT to the obedience of Christ.’ You’ll never have it any other way. You’re not trying to bring every action, every emotion, every response—but you’re thinking first. You see, my friend, you sin with your mind, not your body. Sin begins in the mind.

“When you study in theology what’s called the Doctrine of Pecability, pecability is that accountability for sin that takes place in the thinking—when the decisions are made. What you do with your body is decided by your mind. And Satan’s pattern is to attack our minds from the outside by outside suggestions being poured into us.

“Paul emphasizes in I Timothy 4:1 that some Believers ‘shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits.’ This bad information and doctrine is pumped in from the outside, and from the outside these teachings bombard us at all times through teachers, preachers, books, TV and radio, etc.

“We’re being bombarded by Satan’s doctrine constantly and he’s forever trying to lead our mind down a path of thinking that’s his thinking and not God’s thinking. And you, my friend—right here in the technological age in which we live, in which communication is the name of the game--are more susceptible to this than at ANY other time in human history that we know anything about.

“There’s NO time in your Christian life you’re ever going to have a respite from Satan attempting, from the outside, to govern your thought patterns. You see, my friend, he’s after your mind and he never quits being after your mind! He has ‘seducing spirits’ incessantly trying to entice you from proper thinking so he can teach you ‘doctrines of devils.’ It’s just a constant bombardment.

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“You turn that stupid TV on and what are they doing? There’s that old mess on right in the background where you don’t even notice it. And you just sit there like that.

“Ephesians 6:11 says were to ‘stand against the wiles of the devil.’ Now that word ‘devil’ there—I’ve told you this time and again—the Greek word is ‘diablos,’ and that word is a compound. It’s the little preposition ‘dia’ which means ‘through’ and the verb ‘to throw.’ You put together the preposition ‘through’ and ‘to throw’ and you get a word that means to throw through something; the word ‘balos.’

“We say bowling. It’s to throw that ball. That’s a description of his activity. He seeks to throw something and separate you and God. His purpose, his aim, his strategy, his goal is to throw something between you and God that will separate you.

“The No. 1 way he does this above everything else is by false doctrine that seeks to separate you from the position and standing you have in Christ.

“Paul says in Ephesians 4:14, ‘That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.’

“That word ‘craftiness’ is that word ‘wiles’ over there in chapter 6—it’s those crafty, tricky strategies. What does he do? He comes in here with this ‘every wind of doctrine’ to toss you back and forth.

“And listen, folks, they’ll come in and teach right out of the Bible to you. They’ll give you chapter and verse. Satan doesn’t care how much of it you believe as long as it keeps you off-balance; as long as you never take your stand in combat readiness in who God’s made you in Christ.”