Satan’s Strategies: 14 Ways the Devil Deceives You
In this journey called life, we also face hidden dangers. Satan’s strategies are designed to deceive, distract, and destroy, but God has given us His Word as a map to reveal the traps ahead. Understanding Satan’s strategies helps us recognize the traps he places along our journey and avoid the consequences of deception.
Let’s assume that you are going on a journey, and you don’t have the option not to go. This will be a dangerous trip. There will be landmines, explosives, and quicksand.
These dangers will not be obvious to you throughout the journey. But after being told this disappointing news, someone gives you a map. On this map are the locations of every danger ahead. It shows you where every landmine is and where every explosive is.
So, the question is, how are you going to treat this map? Will you ball it up and put it in your pocket? Will you ignore it? Will you read it once a week? Will you reference it occasionally?
I think that map is going to become the most precious thing in your life because you want to make it to the other side alive.
Satan Makes You Think You Don’t Need a Guide (The Bible)
Once you were born, you started this journey, and it’s a journey you must take. You do not have another option. If you are alive, you’ve got to take this journey called life. In this journey called life, there are minefields and explosives, all designed to keep you from completing your journey.
God has given you a map—His Word. His Word is designed to reveal the pitfalls ahead so that you can complete the journey safely. How you treat the map will affect how well you do on the journey.
You might decide to ball it up, put it in your pocket, and ignore the fact that it’s there. Or you might decide to look at it but not pay attention to it. Or you can decide that this map is absolutely essential because you want to complete this journey.
All of us have faced consequences at some level, and there is no one who hasn’t made a decision that turned out to be unwise—one that you have paid for or are still paying for. I’ve had more than one inquiry from people saying, “Oh Pastor, tell me what to do because I’m bleeding from the consequences of whatever decision I made.”
If you stay with what is written here, you will view consequences differently and more deeply. You will stay away from future ones and learn how God meets you in the consequences you may be dealing with today.
Satan’s strategies: Satan Has Game Film on You
Every football team spends the week watching game film of its opponents. They study the team they’re about to play. They want to learn their tendencies. They want to understand their movements. They want to become fully acquainted with the group they want to defeat.
Satan watches you throughout your life. You’ve been assigned a demon, and that demon knows your every move. He knows your every moment. He knows your orientations and sensitivities. He knows your inclinations and weaknesses.
As a result, there is a report on you at every step of your life. There is a tailor-made strategy designed to take you down.
Even as a believer, Satan wants to defeat you and bring negative consequences into your life. He puts you on a spiritual tape. There is a contract out on you to keep you from finishing your journey.
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Satan Chooses Things That Are Consistent with His Agenda
Genesis 3:1: “Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, ‘Has God indeed said, “You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?”‘”
Crafty means sneaky, clever, or shrewd. When Satan wanted to make his move, he chose something that was consistent with what he wanted to achieve.
He wanted to operate through craftiness, so he chose a crafty creature. Satan knows what to choose and whom to choose to slither into your world and capture your undivided attention. He knows how to maneuver. He knows how to wine and dine you in order to get you into a conversation with him.
“The serpent said, ‘Indeed, has God said, “You shall not eat from any tree of the garden?”‘”
Notice a missing word: “Lord.” The serpent said, “Has God said,” not “Has the Lord God said.” That missing word is intentional.
The word God speaks of God’s power. The word Lord speaks of our covenant relationship with God. So, the serpent is basically saying, “Let’s talk about God, but let’s leave out the relationship. Let us be religious, but not relational.”
The conversation was designed to promote religion while leaving out relationship. The devil doesn’t mind you going to church as long as you don’t have a relationship with the Lord. He doesn’t mind God-talk. He doesn’t mind invocations or benedictions, as long as there is no relationship with God in between.
Satan’s strategies: Satan Uses God’s Stuff
The creature Satan used to bring death and consequences to the human race was a creature over which man and woman were supposed to rule. The creature itself was good because the Bible says that everything God created was good.
The snake wasn’t bad. Satan’s strategy is to use something good to produce something bad. He doesn’t go looking for something bad because there is nothing bad to find other than himself.
Satan takes something good that humanity was meant to rule over, and he uses it to produce something evil. That is how he works in our lives.
It starts off looking good, but once Satan infiltrates it with his purpose, what was once good becomes bad.
Satan’s strategy is for you to miss him. If you’re looking for someone with horns, a red jumpsuit, and a pitchfork, you’re looking for the wrong creature. Satan will never tell you upfront that he is here to destroy your future.
Satan’s strategies: Satan Is a Counterfeit
Satan loves counterfeits. He has counterfeit doctrine, counterfeit miracles, counterfeit spirits, and counterfeit teachers, all designed to deceive. Have you ever been duped because the deception didn’t look like deception?
I once received a letter from a credit card company that said, “Congratulations! Congratulations! You have been awarded a $5,000 increase on your credit limit.”
They make you feel good before they dupe you. Who doesn’t want a free $5,000? I felt like I was a preferred customer. They made me feel good about myself.
But behind all of that were consequences—consequences that some people who fell into that same trap are still paying for year after year, even decade after decade.
Satan will give you a platinum view of yourself, and before long, you start seeing yourself as a big man. He wants you to miss him, and sometimes he will even make “God” part of the conversation.
He Wants You to Think God Is Holding Out on You
“Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?’”
Satan never references all the trees Eve could eat from. He wants to talk about the one tree that God said, “No!” to. He doesn’t talk about all the freedom she had. God said, “From every tree of the garden you may freely eat.”
Satan wants to focus on what God said you can’t do. He wants to paint God as someone who is trying to keep you from having a good time, and he does it magnificently. He reduces a command and turns it into a question.
God said, “I command you not to eat.” But Satan said, “Has God indeed said…?”
When we reduce God’s command and turn it into a question, we lessen its impact. God’s “No” allows us to enjoy His “Yes.” When He says we should not eat from one tree, it is so we can freely enjoy the other 99 trees. But when you eat from that one forbidden tree, you lose the other 99. His “No’s” protect His “Yes.”
God tells every single men and women, “I don’t want you to have sex outside of marriage.” Satan responds, “God is holding out on you.” Suddenly, it looks like God is being unfair.
God wants us to enjoy all the good things He has provided. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 7 that single men and women should be happier than married people.
If you don’t believe it, ask the married people next to you.
It’s like a child who complains at Christmas about the one toy they didn’t receive and never enjoys the many toys they did receive.
Satan says, “God is trying to hold out on you. He doesn’t want you to enjoy everything that’s out there to be enjoyed.”
That is a lie. Don’t listen to him.
God’s purpose in restriction is to increase freedom.
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Our Decisions Are Influenced by Him
Many people are confused, like Flip Wilson, who famously said, “The devil made me do it.” The devil cannot make you sin. He doesn’t have that kind of power.
In Colossians 2, the Bible says that Christ’s death defeated him. Since Satan can’t force you to sin, he tries to make you want to sin. Because he can’t impose sin on you, he starts working on your mind. He deceives your thought patterns so that you begin thinking differently.
As a result, the decision becomes ours—one that Satan influenced, not one he enforced.
That means we can no longer blame the devil from the standpoint of force. What he does is plant his thoughts into your mind until they become your thoughts. He influences your actions.
Satan’s Strategy: God’s Word Cannot Be Trusted
“He said to the woman, ‘You surely will not die.’”
Satan twists the Word of God and tells you there won’t be any consequences. He tells you that what God said isn’t going to happen.
Satan has convinced many people that they can no longer trust the Bible or live according to it. Many say, “You can’t trust the Bible because it was written 2,000 years ago,” or even “4,000 years ago.” Some have completely rejected the Old Testament.
But the Bible says in Romans 3:4, “Let God be true and every man a liar.” Everybody who disagrees with God is lying, even if they are good lairs.
The Bible also says in John 8:44 that Satan is a liar and the father of lies. Satan is the original liar, and he produces more lies. He gives birth to deception.
He says God’s Word cannot be trusted like Don Cornelius and the Soul Train scramble board, Satan rearranges God’s words and skips all the warning signs.
He lies by saying, “You’re not going to die. It’s not going to hurt. You’re not going to get a disease. You’re not going to spend a lifetime in debt.”
You have to examine whoever is speaking to you and determine whether they are a child of the Father of lies.
There is a story about a hunter who was duck hunting. He spotted a duck, raised his gun, and shot it out of the sky. The duck landed on a farmer’s property.
When the hunter went to retrieve it, the farmer said, “That’s my duck.”
The hunter replied, “I shot it.”
The farmer answered, “But it landed on my property.”
The hunter said, “Well, there’s a way we can settle this. You hit me as hard as you can, then I’ll hit you as hard as I can. Whoever screams the least gets the duck.”
The hunter was younger than the farmer and assumed he would win.
The farmer agreed but insisted on going first. He struck the hunter so hard that the hunter fell to the ground with a small groan. After a few moments, the hunter got back on his feet, gathered himself, and said, “Okay… nice. My turn.”
The farmer smiled and said, “That’s okay. You can have the duck.”
One lesson many of us have learned is that when we play with sin, sin eventually starts playing with us. One moment you’re in control of it, and the next moment it’s controlling you—for months, years, or even decades.
Satan’s Strategy: God Doesn’t Want Anybody to Be Like Him
“For God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God.”
Satan deceives us by saying, “God doesn’t want anybody to be like Him but Himself. God is selfish. He knows that if you eat from this tree, you will know as much as He knows. You’ll be as smart as God. He’s trying to keep you from becoming like Him.”
That was Satan’s own goal in Isaiah 14—to become God’s equal.
What was the one thing Satan wanted more than anything else when he rebelled against God? He wanted independence.
He no longer wanted to answer to God. Our own rebellion is often driven by that same desire for independence. Because if I’m equal to you, I don’t have to submit to you. If we hold the same position at work, you don’t get to boss me around.
If man can become like God, or if government can become like God, then they no longer have to answer to God because they believe they are like Him.
During Michael Jordan’s heyday, everybody wanted to “Be Like Mike.” People wanted the commercials. They wanted the shoes. They bought Air Jordans regardless of the price. Parents went into debt to buy Jordans for their children. They bought jersey number 23 because they wanted to be like Mike.
But wearing Jordans doesn’t make you like Mike. Wearing jersey number 23 doesn’t make you Michael Jordan. Saying, “I like basketball,” doesn’t make you play like him.
There must be an ability that matches your shoes.
You can’t simply look the part and become like Mike. In the same way, you can’t act the part and become God. He is in a class all by Himself, and He will always resist anyone who seeks independence from Him.
God doesn’t want anyone trying to become like Him because no one ever could.
God told us, “You shall not make a graven image of Me.” Don’t create something you think looks like Me because anything you come up with will be a poor representation.
When cameras first came out, the photographs were often blurry and unattractive. Sometimes people looked at those pictures and rejected their own photographs because the photos were ugly.
In the same way, any image we attempt to make of God will always fall short.
God says, “I AM WHO I AM. I’m not who you want Me to be.”
Satan’s strategies: He Promotes Your Independence
This tree in the garden was like a “Google tree” because it contained the knowledge of good and evil. You could “Google” all the information necessary to know what God knows. You would have comprehensive knowledge without God. You wouldn’t be God, but you wouldn’t think you needed God. You would be able to determine and define good and evil while leaving God out of the equation.
At this point, evil had not yet entered the world because, apart from Satan, there was no evil.
It’s like teenagers who think they know everything. They talk like professionals. One reason there is so much conflict in many homes is because teenagers want to be like their parents. They want independence while still remaining dependent.
In other words, “Don’t tell me what to do—just feed me. Don’t tell me what to do—but buy me clothes. Don’t tell me what to do—but take me where I need to go because I don’t have my driver’s license yet.”
They want independence while still expecting you to provide for them.
We’re living in a world that insists on independence, and God says, “You can have it—but you will also have the consequences.”
Away from God, you are going to die.
Death is not the cessation of life. Death is an illegitimate separation. When a body dies, it is only dead because the soul has left. That separation makes the body inactive.
There is economic death, social death, environmental death, relational death, and many other forms of death. Many of us are dying in one area or another because we ate from the tree of independence.
Muhammad Ali was once on an airplane when a flight attendant said, “Mr. Ali, please buckle your seat belt. We’re getting ready for takeoff.”
A little later, she returned and noticed he still hadn’t fastened it.
She said again, “Mr. Ali, I really need you to buckle your seat belt. We need to take off.”
Muhammad Ali replied, “Superman don’t need no seat belt.”
The flight attendant smiled and answered, “Superman doesn’t need a plane. You need to buckle your seat belt.”
You aren’t all that.
I don’t care how much education you have, what degrees you’ve earned, what success you’ve achieved, how much money you have, where you live, what you drive, or what clothes you wear. You cannot be like God.
He is in a class by Himself, and you must submit every area of your life to His will.
If you don’t, the consequence is death.
Many of us are dying with regret, dying under debt, dying in broken relationships, and dying spiritually without even realizing it. Some people’s lives seem filled with bad luck, sickness, and poverty. All of us have experienced the consequences of sin on different levels.
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Satan Makes You See Only the Good Part
“When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband with her, and he ate.”
Satan caused Eve to see the tree through different eyes. Before this, she had passed by that tree every day. But now she looked at it differently because the evil—the consequences—had been removed from the conversation.
It was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Now she saw only the good part of the tree.
Isn’t that how deception works?
You only see the attractive side. You don’t see the outcome.
If someone showed you what your future would look like after years of marijuana use—damaged health, broken dreams, weak bones, or sleeping in the streets—you would probably walk away. If you could see the consequences in advance, the temptation wouldn’t seem nearly as appealing.
If you could see yourself raising three children out of wedlock, struggling as a single parent, and barely making ends meet, you might avoid the sinful choice that led there.
The devil erases the evil, and you fall in love with the good.
Satan Exploits Human Desires and Pride in Knowledge
The devil increased Eve’s physical appetite. That’s what he does. He increases our physical appetite, our emotional appetite, and our intellectual appetite. He makes things appear more desirable than they really are.
Many people have allowed their degrees to rule over the Word of God. They have allowed human wisdom and intellectual achievement to take precedence over God’s truth.
There is nothing wrong with becoming educated or developing your skills. But whenever human knowledge contradicts divine revelation, that knowledge becomes ignorance.
The Bible calls it foolishness.
It is the knowledge of a fool to believe you are smarter than God.
Friedrich Nietzsche once famously wrote:
“God is dead.” — Signed, Nietzsche.
Years later, Nietzsche died.
Someone later responded:
“Nietzsche is dead.” — Signed, God.
We should respect all people. The Bible tells us to give honor to whom honor is due. If someone has accomplished great things, we should recognize and appreciate those accomplishments.
But we must never turn people into idols.
Many people have eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and yet we admire them simply because they are intelligent or successful.
Too often, we become impressed with the wrong people.
Satan Weakens Spiritual Discernment
One of our greatest problems today is the lack of spiritual discernment.
If I had to summarize one major issue facing many believers today, it would be this: we cannot discern.
We become impressed by what looks good on the outside because we fail to examine what lies beneath the surface.
According to Hebrews 5:11–14, spiritually mature people develop discernment. They learn to distinguish between good and evil.
Satan’s strategies can be summarized in one word: deception.
He deceives all of us at one point or another. None of us is exempt.
But once you discover where the trap is, you don’t keep stepping into it.
You identify the trap, avoid it, and move forward.
Yet many people continue repeating the same destructive choices over and over again.
Satan’s strategies: The Devil Switches the Price Tags
Two mischievous boys once walked into a department store looking for trouble.
They removed the price tags from the expensive clothing and placed them on the cheap clothing. Then they took the tags from the inexpensive garments and attached them to the expensive ones.
Now the expensive clothes carried cheap price tags, while the cheap clothes carried expensive price tags.
Customers unknowingly bought expensive items for very little money while paying premium prices for things that were worth very little because the tags had been switched.
That is exactly what Satan has done to us.
He has switched the price tags.
He has convinced us to spend our lives, our energy, and our time chasing things that have little eternal value.
Meanwhile, we overlook the priceless things God freely offers us.
We work tirelessly to obtain things that God has already provided by His grace.
Do you want to avoid future consequences?
Do you want to experience as much of God’s mercy as possible?
If you’re tired of living with the consequences of sin, then you qualify for God’s abundant grace.
When we understand Satan’s strategies, we become more aware of his schemes and more dependent on God’s Word for guidance.
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Inspired by Tony Evans’ Sermon
