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Welcome to the Cross References podcast on the Book of Ezekiel. In this study, you learn how every small piece of the Bible tells one big story- and most importantly, how they all connect to the cross and Christ.
Whether you’re a newbie Christian or a veteran Bible reader, my goal is that God’s Word will make more sense to you after every episode.
Host: Luke Taylor
The Devil and the Full Court Press
or: How to Fight the Devil- and WIN
The Full Court Press
In II Corinthians 2:11, Paul says that we are NOT ignorant of Satan’s devices.
Now “devices” is an interesting word. In the Greek, it’s the word “noema” (no-ay-mah), and it doesn’t have a direct English equivalent. It means “a mental perception,” “an evil purpose” or “that which thinks.” It’s talking about how Satan can twist the mind. Satan has his ways of warping our thoughts for his own evil purposes.
Now, if Paul was writing this letter to modern Christians in America, I wonder if he would say it this way. I think he might actually say: “You Christians are very ignorant of his devices.”
You need to listen today because this will teach you his tricks.
Listen today because you have an enemy who wants to destroy your life and everything you love and he won’t lose a wink of sleep over it. We call him Satan, or the devil, the serpent in the garden, the dragon, or that guy who wrote the last season of LOST.
Whatever you want to call him, he’s real, and the Bible warns us about his devices, and we’ll be studying them on this episode of the Cross References Podcast.
[theme music]
(Continued)
Welcome to the Cross References podcast, where you learn how every small piece of the Bible tells one big story- and most importantly, how they all connect to the cross and Christ.
Whether you’re a new Christian or a veteran Bible reader, my goal is that God’s Word will make more sense to you after every episode.
My name is Luke Taylor, and I know almost nothing about sports, but I did help with a local community basketball tournament over Christmas break. Sometimes the teams would use something called a Full Court Press.
I’m not a sports guy, so I’m not going to explain this the best. In basketball, typically, when the other team gets the ball, a couple of players bring it down to their end of the court and you start playing defense against them on their side of the basketball court. But a Full Court Press is an aggressive defense tactic that when the other team gets the ball, you are in their face right from that moment. You don’t even try to let them dribble the ball back to their side of the court, you are trying to steal it and slow them down and wear them out before they even get to the other side to play some offense.
I don’t like the full court press myself. I think it’s a little mean. I’m not a sports guy so my opinion shouldn’t count for too much on this, but I just think it’s poor sportsmanship not to let the other team get down to their own end of the court.
But my opinion didn’t matter. I wasn’t even a commentator, I was a camera operator. All I had to do was watch. And as I watched, I kept thinking about how the devil is just like that. He is constantly hounding us. He goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. He does not let up. He’s the wolf going after the sheep. He is constantly looking for an opening. He is constantly looking for a chance to bring you down. The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. And what are thieves always looking for? An opportunity.
The devil comes at you with a full court press. And today, I want to prepare you for the fight so that you can stand against him and even fight back.
Defense
So I have two main sections today: defense and offense. I will try to keep them quick so we can move right along because at the end of today’s lesson, I have a warning for you that you need to remember when you decide enough is enough and that it’s time to start fighting back against the demons.
But first let’s talk about shoring up our defenses. One of the first ones to remember is to close any open doors you have in your life to the demonic. If you are living in sin- like blatant, obvious sin- you need to stop that or your prayers are not going to be as effective. You can’t be living in agreement with the devil in one part of your life and expect to be effective at fighting him in another. So if there’s any part of your life that’s in rebellion to God- if you’re hooked on porn, if you have an honesty problem, if you’re having sex outside of marriage, anything that’s just an obvious sin- you need to get that under control first. Don’t tell me you’re serious about fighting the devil if you’re not even going too have some self-control. OK? Ok. Nothing else I need to say about that.
I mean, if you want help with a specific thing, email me or something. I’ll pray with you. I’ll pray for you. Because that’s step one if you’re going to get Satan out of your life.
Step two: witchcraft and the occult. Spiritists and mediums and trying to talk to the dead or to spirits or ghosts or whatever. The Bible says to stay away from it. Not because it’s fake, but because it’s real. If there’s something in your life and you aren’t sure if it’s something you should be involved in, pray about it.
Step three: let’s talk about some of the more subtle ways that we give the devil a foothold in our lives. There are probably more than I could cover in one episode, but I basically just got my Strong’s Concordance and looked at all the times “Satan” or “devil” shows up in the New Testament. And very quickly, here’s what I found.
Luke 13:16
And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?
There was a woman with back problems. Back problems, of all things! The doctors didn’t know what to do for her. And Jesus said she was bound by Satan. And He got Satan to let her go.
So sickness, disease, those things can come from Satan. Even back issues. Probably any kind of issue. So I would say, if something is ailing you, ask God that if it’s a spiritual attack, that He would set you free from it. She was bound, but Jesus said “be loosed.” Ask your pastor or a fellow Christian to pray for you and set you free. But first finish this podcast because there might be some other stuff going on in your life that you have to take care of first.
Acts 5:3
But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land?
If you’ve got a lying problem, Satan has probably filled your heart. Don’t like it? Too bad, that’s Bible. Next.
I Corinthians 7:5
(This is talking to husbands and wives, by the way)
Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
This verse is talking about the sexual relationship between a husband and a wife. Paul’s advice is that they should keep the marriage bed hot. If you have a sexless marriage, the Bible tells you to fix it asap. Why? Because when a husband and wife aren’t having regular sexual relations, it gives Satan a foothold, and open door. He starts messing with their heads. If you’re in a sexless marriage right now, do what you need to do to fix it, and cut that opportunity off for Satan. If you’re having sexual disagreement in your marriage, both of you read the whole chapter of I Corinthians 7 and see if it answers any of your questions.
II Corinthians 2:10 and 11
(This is the verse I actually read at the start of the program, but let me give you full context now)
10 Now whom you forgive anything, I also forgive. For if indeed I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven that one for your sakes in the presence of Christ, 11 lest Satan should take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices
So a lack of forgiveness can be a root of bitterness in your life, and this issue can give Satan a foothold. What do I mean when I say Satan has a foothold? It means he starts sticking his thoughts into your head, and you’re not even going to recognize them as coming from Satan because you’ve got this gaping hole in your defenses called unforgiveness. Whatever unforgiveness you’re harboring is creating resentment, bitterness, and the enemy uses these things to make a portal right into your brain. And then he can exert a lot of control over you. Close the hole, figure out what you gotta do to forgive the person. I could do a whole podcast on forgiveness but I’m just trying to hit the bullet points today. Figure out what you gotta do.
BTW, unforgiveness is not an actual word. It’s one of those Christianese-words that someone made up and we just keep using, and I hate myself for using it, but I think everyone knows what I mean by unforgiveness. Fertile ground for a root of bitterness.
II Corinthians 12:7
So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.
This is the most shocking verse of all that I found today. This is Paul writing. Paul had been given a lot of unique revelation from God. It’s the kind of thing that could make one prideful. But Satan- or a messenger, perhaps a demon or fallen angel- was released to harass Paul.
So, the purpose of this harassment was to keep Paul from becoming prideful and conceited. Now, who wanted humble Paul? Did Satan want to keep Paul humble? I doubt it; Satan wants to make us more prideful, not less prideful. So this was sent or allowed to happen in Paul’s life because of God. God is the one who would be interested in keeping Paul humble. So He sent Paul a thorn in the flesh.
It’s a weird, strange thing. I mean, God allows Satan into our lives sometimes. Jesus told Peter, “Satan has asked to sift you like wheat.” And Jesus didn’t tell Satan to take a hike; Jesus allowed Peter to go through it. So God will give us over to Satan’s testings for a time. But God is also on our side and rooting for us to get through it.
Very interesting; it’s like God sent Satan to send a demon to test Paul. Very strange how that all works out. But I’ve been covering this concept of God using Satan for various purposes on my other podcast: Weird Stuff in the Bible, and we can add II Corinthians 12:7 to the list. Next:
II Thessalonians 2:9
The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders
Now that’s a verse about the antichrist, but it’s saying right there that he’s powered by Satan, and that Satan can do false miracles to deceive people. So that’s another thing to keep in mind. Just because you see something miraculous or supernatural doesn’t automatically mean it’s from God.
I Timothy 3:6-7
He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil.
This is talking about selecting leaders for churches. It says not to select a newbie Christian. If you do that, he could become prideful and fall into sin, just like what got Satan kicked out of heaven. So if you have a lot of pride, that can be an open door.
How does this work? When someone offends you, how quickly do you get over it? If you’re just a humble person and someone offends you, you get over it pretty quick. You have a way to work that out in your mind to where you’re not even thinking about it the next day. That’s a good place to be.
If you’re a prideful person and someone offends you, Satan’s right there at the door. He says, “Can you believe what they just said to you? I wonder what they must think of you to make them it’s OK to talk to you like that. I wonder what they’re saying about you when you’re not around.” And then the next morning Satan’s right back: “Man, can you believe how they disrespected you like that last night at church?” Satan won’t let you forget it. Because your pride gives him that access to your mind.
Ephesians 4:26-27
26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil.
Anger gives the devil a foothold in your life. Same as what I was saying before about unforgiveness. When you’re holding onto anger in your heart, in your mind, you keep thinking about that person you’re mad at, what they did to you, that situation they created, how they never said sorry, how you’d like to get even with them, and you keep turning that whole situation over in your head over and over and over, you are creating a wide open door for Satan to stroll into your mind and plant his ideas in your head. You have made it so easy for him to take control of you.
Do you want to hear from the Holy Spirit or do you want to hear from Satan? 10/10 Christians listening right now will tell me they’d rather hear from the Holy Spirit. But if you’re holding onto anger in your mind, you have created a situation where Satan has a megaphone and the Holy Spirit is turned way down. That anger in your mind is going to make Satan drown out your own thoughts and even God’s thoughts.
So that verse says don’t let the sun go down on your anger. It’s OK to be angry for a little while. But you have to be able to let it go as soon as possible, or you open yourself up to spiritual attack. Satan is gonna fill up your mind with all kinds of crazy ideas about the other person.
So as we wrap this section up, notice that a lot of our struggles with the enemy are in our minds. Our thoughts. My friend Daniel Moore is covering this on his podcast right now as well, it’s called Connecting the Gap, and that can be a good resource to you as you are looking to win the war in your mind. Go look at one of the episodes he’s doing right now in January of 2024.
Another good resource is a book by Ken Abraham called Stand Up and Fight Back. Here is what Ken Abraham says:
When the devil plants a thought in your mind that you know is contrary to the will of God, don’t be afraid to rebuke that thought or the source. For instance, if your mind suddenly seems saturated with thoughts of suicide, illicit drugs, sex outside of marriage, becoming involved in occult activities, dishonest business practices, or any other thoughts that you know go against God’s Word, immediately reject those ideas as from the devil.
Abraham, Ken. Stand Up and Fight Back: How to Take Authority over Satan and Win (p. 88). Charisma House. Kindle Edition.
What do we do with these thoughts?
II Corinthians 10:4-5
4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,
Think about what you’re thinking about. The more you are aware of how Satan does this, the more you will start to recognize your own thoughts and recognize that not everything you think comes from you. I have thoughts sometimes that I’m like, That’s messed up, why did I even think that? And then I realize: oh, it didn’t come from me. Well, I reject that thought and I cast it down.
You might go through a day, a week, a month, where you just get tempted like crazy, and you’re like, “What is going on with me? Why am I thinking like this? Am I just this bad evil wicked person, why am I even dealing with this temptation so strongly right now?” And that is probably a spiritual attack. The enemy is probably trying to derail you because he wants to get you off your purpose, he knows God has something good for you right around the corner.
So in those times, don’t get all depressed and wonder why you’re struggling with so much temptation. Recognize those thoughts as from the enemy and cast them down. This temptation will pass, you just have to over come it.
And this merges us into the second section today: how we fight back against Satan.
Offense
And really, I’ve already given you a bunch of ways to fight back. If you’ve got anger or pride or unforgiveness or sexual sin and you get that under control and repent and fix that part of your life, you’re already turning the tables on Satan. You’re already freeing yourself from so many of the ways that he tries to bind you. But here’s a little more to help you stick it to him.
Ephesians 6:10-12
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
That’s a good verse that we built up to today! Stand up. Stand strong. The word “stand” appears a lot in these verses. Don’t cower away from the devil. You can protect yourself from his schemes. His devices. His attacks. And we do that with the armor of God.
Ephesians 6:13-14
13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. 14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth
The belt of truth. You fasten truth around your waist. You stand in truth. What does that mean? You figure out the principles, the things you believe, that you know are true, and you stand in that. Your identity, who you are in Christ. You say, “I am not a child of the devil anymore, I am a son of God, a new creation.” Sometimes you feel so down and out and worthless, all you can do is plead the blood of Jesus. But that blood as a covering for your sins is something true you can put your faith in, regardless of how you feel.
So you say, I am a child of God. Satan is under my feet. Greater is He that is in Me than he that is in the world. That is truth right there.
Ephesians 6:14-16
and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,
(Aka: live a clean life. We talked earlier about cleaning up your life)
15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one;
Satan has fiery darts. The opposite of faith is fear. Satan is going to throw everything he can at you to make you afraid. To make you doubt. To weaken your faith. But you throw up your faith as a shield.
Something happens in your life you don’t understand? You read something in the Bible that you don’t understand? That’s going to test your faith. But keep your faith.
I went through a testing period a few years ago and my mother-in-law said something to me I haven’t forgotten, although I can’t remember exactly how she said it, but it was something like: that the greatest act of love you can give God is when you say, “I don’t even understand what’s going on right now, but I still trust you.”
Ephesians 6:17
17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,
The Bible, the Word of God, is your sword. This is the only offensive weapon in the armor of God. But it’s what you can use to fight back. When Jesus was tempted by the devil, he always responded with scripture. You can look it up; every time the devil threw a temptation at Him, Jesus didn’t get into some kind of debate. He just quoted the Bible. And the devil has no answer for the Bible. Because the spiritual realm knows that God’s Word is indestructible. And God has placed it in your hands as a weapon!
And then there’s one more component of the armor of God that usually gets left off, and most preachers stop at verse 17. But verse 17 is not the end of the passage. It’s not even the end of the sentence! Verse 18 finishes the sentence, and it’s the most important part of all.
Ephesians 6:18
praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.
Our greatest weapon is prayer. If you are not praying, all this other stuff isn’t gonna do much good. You can get rid of your sins. You can read your Bible. You can know the truth. But if you don’t pray, your relationship with God is gonna run dry, and you’re going to be ineffective as a spiritual warrior.
What good is it to silence Satan’s voice if you don’t get to know the Holy Spirit’s voice better? Pray!
Matthew 6 is the model prayer from Jesus. The Lord’s prayer. It says in
Verse 13
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
That’s spiritual warfare right there, guys. Some translations even say “the evil one,” referring to Satan. That is spiritual warfare. Some Christians think Spiritual warfare is just something weird, something the super Christians do, something the charismatics get all caught up in. Guys, spiritual warfare is in the Lord’s prayer, the exact way He tells us to pray.
We should engage in it every time we pray. Every time.
Now, before you pause this podcast and starting praying, there’s one more thing I want you to know. One warning you need to keep in mind if you want to do battle with the devil. Before you go charging into the fight, there’s one thing you need to prepare yourself for first. And I’ll share that with you as we close down in a few moments.
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Housekeeping/Mailbag
Next time on this podcast, I have one more lesson I’d like to do about the devil. I want to talk about his fate: where he’s going. The devil’s time is limited, and it’s running out. And so next week is going to be about the devil in the book of Revelation.
Make sure you’re subscribed so you can get it!
I’m also covering the devil on my other podcast: Weird Stuff in the Bible. A lot of the material in that podcast is supplemental to this one. So go check out that one, too, if you want the full scope of what I’ve been discussing here lately.
Email: crossreferencespodcast@gmail.com
Closing Thoughts
Be warned about something when you go to fighting against Satan: he fights back. You’ll face some kind of immediate resistance. If you start praying or fasting against the forces of darkness and you haven’t done that in a while, you’re going to get some kind of initial resistance. You’re going to get a flat tire. You’re going to get sick. You’re gonna get some bad news at your job. You’re going to get into a fight with your spouse. Something is gonna happen.
That is just the devil trying to throw you off. Trying to get your mind on something else. Or he’ll start tempting you like crazy because he’s trying to weaken you spiritually. If he can get you to sin, he can derail your prayers.
So buckle down when you go to war against the devil. Be ready for the fight and what he’s going to throw at you to wreck your faith. You can’t let that distract you or make you give up. You’ve got to press through. Because he wouldn’t be doing this if your praying wasn’t effective.
I have a story from back when I was working with youth- and this might be a little more dramatic than what you’re dealing with in your struggles against the devil, but I think it illustrates this point pretty well-one of the kids in the group said he was having demonic manifestations in his house. Now, this kid was into a lot of darkness in his life. And it seems that his whole household was that way. It was not a Christian home. So it was not surprising that one time as we were talking about giving open doors to the enemy in your life that he was like, yeah, at my house we have objects flying off the walls and he said he’ll sometimes walk into a room and see a ghostly apparition. And he didn’t know how to make them leave. So I said, let’s start praying against it right now. Lets ask God to make these evil spirits leave. And he started praying and I started praying. And two days later he comes to find me and he’s like, “ever since we started praying, things got so much worse.” He said he’ll walk into a room and a demonic face will just appear in front of him. He said he’s hearing all kinds of strange sounds throughout his house. Everyone is mad, everyone is at each other’s throats. And this teen boy is scared about what’s going on. I said, “Our prayers are working and these spirits don’t like it. We are not backing down, we’re going to keep praying.” And that’s what we did. We pressed forward. And it took a few weeks and he said finally, they left him alone. Peace came back to the home. No more apparitions or things falling off the walls. This is what you’ve got to do sometimes to get the demons out. There’s an initial fighting back. And that’s your test right there: will you back off, or are you going to press forward? And you keep pressing forward until the demons are gone. Because they’re going to give you the full court press. They’re going to fight you every step of the way. They’re gonna make unfortunate things happen to you that look like bad luck. They’re gonna tempt you like never before. They want you to sin so it will hurt your confidence and weaken your prayers. They’re gonna put distraction after distraction out there to derail you. And I’m telling you: stick with the fight.
When I started into this series about the devil about a month ago, I got sick. If you remember, I missed recording new episodes for a week or two there around Christmas and New Years. Picked up a bug. It made my throat raw. I tried recording an episode with the sore throat and it sounded terrible, I re-recorded it after I got better.
Now, it could have been coincidence. There were bugs going around. Sickness is not always from the devil. I’m not trying to be superstitious, I’ll never know if it was the devil. But I knew I was picking a fight with him by doing this series of episodes here on the podcast, and so I knew to expect resistance in some way from him. And my encouragement to you is to press forward.
Let’s talk about Jesus’ temptations before we wrap up. It’s almost humorous to me how extreme Satan gets with his temptations.
Jesus has been fasting for 40 days in the desert. He is at His weakest. He is at His most vulnerable. And that’s when Satan comes. Not when we’re strong, but when we’re weak. And he tells Jesus that he should turn stones into bread.
Now, if you hadn’t eaten anything for 40 days, I can see how that would be pretty tempting. To be honest, I’m not even sure what’s wrong with it, except that Satan was suggesting it. So that would have probably got me if I hadn’t eaten anything for 40 days. But Jesus said no.
So then the next temptation was that he told Jesus to jump off a tall building. Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t think Jesus was suicidal. I don’t think He was much interested in that one. So He turns that down, too.
And then the third temptation of Christ was that he told Jesus to bow down and worship him. He actually asked the Son of God to worship the devil. That was even more extreme than the other two! I don’t think Jesus was inclined for even a second to drop down and worship Satan. I think He probably would have thrown Himself off that Temple before He did that!
So here’s what I’m saying: I think Satan was getting desperate. And that’s Satan’s weakness. We’ll talk about this next week. Satan is on a ticking time clock. His time is running out.
Satan gets desperate and when he gets desperate, he gets stupid.
You don’t be stupid. Be smart. Be informed. Don’t be ignorant of his devices.
Thanks for listening to the Cross References Podcast. This has been Luke Taylor, and I hope the Bible makes more sense to you after this episode.