The Enemy's Tactical Maneuvers
So far I have covered the strategy, the weapons, and the battlefield landscape of the spiritual warfare in which the Church has been engaged since Jesus returned back to the Father. On this post, I will briefly address the tactical maneuvers the enemy employs to inflict the most possible damage to the Christian Church. It is of primary importance to note that while the enemy’s tactics are employed against individual Christians, the enemy’s focus is always on the larger objective of demoralizing the Church to neutralize our effectiveness.
When individual Christians fight their battles as if the devil had a personal vendetta against them, they put themselves at the center of the devil’s attention. There is a truth that many Christians do not know, but they should know: the devil’s war is not with any individual Christian. We cannot win any battles one on one against the devil, and it is counterproductive for us to be bragging that we can, or that we will take him head on. We must remember that all our battles are defensive in nature, and we should never attempt to engage the enemy in an offensive battle. If you have deluded yourself into believing that you can take on the devil “in Jesus’s name,” please understand that Jesus did not conferred such authority to you.
Therefore, we should not be trying to assert an authority we don’t have. Do not confuse our ability to defend the Church and our faith in Jesus name with engaging the devil directly. While these two propositions may appear to be identical, they are not. In defending the church and the faith, we have Jesus authority to call upon his name. In venturing on our own to fight a battle that is not ours, we are on our own. In order to understand the tactics the enemy employs, first we need to understand the enemy’s limitations. I will mention two limitations in the enemy’s battle plan.
First, the enemy does not have the power or the power to take the life of Christians. He cannot separate us from God, and he cannot take away our salvation. In this regard, individual Christians should not fear the devil’s ranting and raving lunacy. His bark is certainly more noisy than his bite. While evil things happen all around us all the time, and while many Christians will suffer gruesome and untimely deaths, due to disease, tragic accidents, and violent injustices, the devil still does not have free reign in causing death and destruction without limits. All believers must understand the truth regarding the devil's limitations if we are going to live free from fear. Our lives on this earth are important because we were created in God’s image. But we cannot live as if this world is all there is. It isn’t. The final destiny for all human life on earth is an eternal relationship with God or an eternal separation from God. The Christian has believed God’s promises that in Jesus we have eternal life, and this truth, is greater than any threats the devil might throw at us.
The second limitation in the devil’s tactics is that he does not have the power to destroy the Church. If the Church is going to die, it will be the result of Christians abandoning the faith and following worldly wisdom. But the devil does not have the power nor the authority to stop the preaching of the gospel. Jesus said that upon Peter’s confession that “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,” He would build His Church. Jesus is the one building the Church and since He is the one who created all things, and since all the power and authority in heaven and on earth reside in Him, no one can stop Him from finishing the project He started after His resurrection from the dead. Therefore, Christians should refocus our attention on building the Church, and stop allowing the devil to drive a wedge between us and our LORD. Now, let me discuss briefly, the devil’s most effective and consistent tactic.
The devil's most consistent and effective tactic is discouragement. Jesus said the following about the devil: “He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). Any discussion regarding the devil’s tactics must begin by recognizing that he is a liar and the father of lies. The phrase “the father of lies” means that all lies proceed from him. He is the source of all lies, and he himself is not able to “stand in truth, because there is no truth in him.”
With this premise in mind, Christians should know that any philosophy, ideology, political movement, premise, or presupposition that is not in accordance with Jesus’s character, who is the source of all truths, comes from the devil and must be resisted and rejected. For instance, the most recent discovery that math is racist, is a lie. It's a lie because numbers are abstract concepts that describe reality in relationship to quantities. Numbers do not describe the universe, people, people's skins, level of education, or anything else. Numbers only describe the quantities of a particular thing, like, eight oranges, one million dollars, seventy five peanuts, or three strikes, you are out. The concept that math is racist does not come from God, it does not reflect truth and, as such, is a lie. Therefore, Christians cannot participate, accept, entertain, or otherwise endorse such idiotic statement.
If you, as a Christian, are not able to discern the lie in the statement “math is racist,” you have been ensnared into the devil’s web of deception and have become part of the problem. Let us assume for one second that you accept as true the premise that “math is racist.” Let’s further stipulate that you want to become a businessman and own a small convenience store in your neighborhood. Accepting these two premises as a given, I would like to ask you a few questions. If math is racist, what method would you use to set the price for your products? How would you know if your clients are paying you the right amount? If you do not know the difference between $5, $10, or .05 cents, how would you know you are being profitable? How would you give change from $20 for a product that costs $12.77, if you believe that adding, subtracting, and multiplying are racist? How long do you think your business will last? To believe the statement that math is racist is to set a course for failure for your life at every turn. It is simply not possible to even learn how to drive without numbers, much less run a business.
I would also ask you another question. What could be the motive and the purpose for someone to teach you that the accuracy of numbers depends on the color of a person’s skin? How is the number 100 different for Puerto Ricans and Mexicans? Can Puerto Ricans and Mexicans look at the number 100 a see 127 or 94? If they don’t know how to recognize 100, how can they recognize any number at all? I would suggest to you, that the only purpose anyone can have to teach this garbage is to keep you ignorant, dependent, and enslaved. Ignorance is the fastest road to failure. This means that the person who is teaching you that math is racist, he is the racist trying to keep you ignorant and in bondage. The moment you accept the lie, you have become a slave to the one lying to you, and you have become dependent on your new master’s power.
The truth comes from God, and only the truth can bring freedom. Conversely, all lies come from the devil, and all lies are enslaving. All forms of deception have the same goals—control and manipulation. The devil employs the lies using different tactics such as, deception, misdirection, false logic, biased scientific research, social justice, racial justice, equity, fairness, faulty reasoning that leads to atheism, evolution, eugenics, sexual deviancy, and social engineering, among others. When Christians hear these phrases, we should immediately assume demonic deception or misdirection. If, as a Christian, you are not able to discern the difference between deception and truth, you have already surrendered to the devil’s schemes and your battle position has been overrun. If you, as a Christian, do not have the fortitude to resist the lies, you have already lost the battle, and both you and your Church, are already in decline, even if you are not fully aware of it. Eventually, you will become subservient to the devil’s seduction and power.
What is the devil’s final objective? He wants to demoralize and discourage the Church. Once he has achieved this objective with you, he can move on to someone else. As more Christians fall for the seductive attraction of the lie, the greater the damage to the Church. Why? Because a demoralized and discouraged Christian is a worthless witness of the Christian faith. A discouraged Christian cannot fight the good fight. He has surrendered his guard post and is now prey to the world’s manipulation and control. I do not want a discouraged Christian in the same foxhole with me. All he is going to do is bring negativity and a losing attitude to the battlefield. The discouraged Christian is a defeated person who can be controlled and manipulated easily and does not have the will to stand on his own two feet because his fighting instincts have been crippled. When the lies propagated by the world begin to influence your Christian mindset, and when they alter your Christian worldview, in essence you are working for the devil. At this point in the battlefield, the rest of us might as well treat you as an enemy combatant because you are no longer fighting on the Church’s behalf. In effect you have already taken the 30 pieces of silver and are making behind the scenes deals with Caiaphas to betray Jesus.
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