Looking at the David and Goliath story and thinking about how terrifying that giant looked to most of the soldiers, we can draw a parallel with how the Devil must look to the “natural man” or that person who doesn't have access to God's armor.
Goliath looked impermeable. He was protected from head to toe. There seemed to be no weakness to his protection and he was armed enough to do mortal damage to his foe. The Devil is an even more powerful foe and he is INVISIBLE! How are we supposed to fight him?
Paul says that he is a schemer. What exactly did he mean? The word Scheme means, “to be crafty, or to be a strategist”. Think about it this way, the devil has had a lot of experience with people. He knows how we think. He can’t read our mind but for the most part, he doesn't need to.
Have you ever heard of AI? It stands for Artificial Intelligence. Wikipedia says that “Artificial intelligence is intelligence demonstrated by machines... which involves consciousness and emotion”. The development of AI has stunned many with its ability to act and react to certain stimuli. Recently “Scientists have developed an artificial intelligence system that can translate a person's thoughts into text by analyzing their brain activity. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, developed the AI to decipher up to 250 words in real-time from a set of between 30 and 50 sentences”.
The development of AI, in my simplistic way of thinking (Pun intended), puts a lot of weight on the fact that we humans are creatures of habit. We sit in the same seats when we come to church. We dry ourselves off the same way after each shower. We put our pants on using the same foot first. We repeat a lot of the same activities daily. We are very predictable.
So, put a crafty devil with predictable people and you have a recipe for defeat. UNLESS you put on the WHOLE armor of God. With that armor and only with that divine help, will we be able to STAND against the devil's tricks?
In a talk with Eve, the devil convinced her that God was trying to cheat her out of something good. She innocently stood beside that tree. It had to be innocent because sin had not happened yet. Unless you count the devil’s sin. As Eve stood there talking with that snake she didn't realize that he was going to hurt her. His trick was subtle. Moses in Gen 3:1 put it this way, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the animals the Lord God had made.”
From the beginning, the devil knew how to get into someone’s mind. He knew how to twist things to get a person to buy into his plan. Thus Paul’s warning in Ephesians 6 is very appropriate.
When we put on God's armor we can take a stand against the powerful and invisible devil's tricks. The tricky devil is no match for a person with their armor on. Paul uses the word “stand” three times in these verses. He uses the word “against” five times. It means to stand firm against the right thing.
James, in his letter, says that if we resist (stand against) the devil he will run (stand back) from us. Paul says that we should be ready to defend ourselves against the devil's subtitle attacks. However, to fight an enemy we should know something about him. We don’t have to be near him to know about him. We can look at how he has worked in other people's lives and take our warnings from their stories.
We looked at Eve and saw how he deceived her.
- “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
- “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down.
- “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
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