A Threefold Test

I. Introduction

Our Savior warns us that the devil is the father of lies, and that when he so speaks he is speaking his natural language. Furthermore, Jesus explains that Satan is a murderer—a killer (Jhn 8:44). It it is but a short step to recognize that deceit is one of the prime weapons he uses on his killing fields; he lies so he can kill (e.g., Gen 3:1-5). But kill how? Primarily spiritually; that is, he seeks to deaden the soul’s natural longing for, and tender sensitivity to, Jehovah God. A soul that is thus dull to Jehovah our God is dead. Though the heart may yet beat, unless that soul is resuscitated through faith in Jesus Christ, by the grace of Jehovah God, it will be in Satan’s bosom forever—the devil’s goal from the start. Such a possession by Satan then serve’s his ultimate goal—to deeply grieve God, whom he hates and of whom he is intensely jealous—by killing that which is intimately a part of God and dear to Him (Gen 2:7). But what dead soul has the power to resuscitate itself [1]? Hence the treasure of grace.

Some tactics Satan uses to deaden a soul are:

1. He proffers alternatives to Jehovah God by pushing idolatry (celebrities, icons, images, nationalism, power, religiosity, self, status, wealth, etc.). What we see here is that he deflects focus away from God.
1a. He pushes the occult, superstitions.
1b. He intimidates with/through fear, all manner of fear.

2. He crushes a sinner or an unbeliever with guilt or a sense of unworthiness to come to Christ (though Christ’s arms are wide open to all who seek Him).
2a. He seeks to extinguish hope, pushes a sense of futility—personal, societal, spiritual.

3. He encourages pride, self-righteousness, each a sin-hemorrhage on its own.

4. He blames God for human disappointments—appearance, career, human tragedy, relationships.

5. He ridicules or minimizes the reality and significance of the Cross, divine intervention, heaven and hell, miracles, revelation.

6. He presents himself as an angel of light, a “good ‘ol boy,” enjoyable, fun, “with-it” presence, an earthy, pleasurable alternative to Jehovah, on the one hand; on the other, he suggests that he is nothing more than a manifestation of neurosis or a weak mind and psyche in hyper-religious, weak fools; an imaginative fancy, just like the pages of Scripture that describe and delineate him in the first place.

7. He seeks to bring shame to the Name “Jesus“ and all it represents—shame to speak it—in private circles, in public; shame to confess it, by maximizing sundry aspects of human cowardice.

8. He directs attention to this moment, this day, this world, minimizing and camouflaging the surety of death, the grave, the judgment, eternity.

9. He couches human endeavor as self-achieved, self-directed, self-earned: science, art, humanities, technology; he pushes self-accreditation, self-determination, self-will, dependence on self, not on Jehovah God.
9a. He connects human existence to chance and random spontaneity.
9b He devalues, disdains, and scoffs Jehovah’s creation, especially human life in which resides the Creator’s Spirit; by thus eliminating the possibility of a holy Creator in the mind, he then attempts to breed moral irrelevance, pushing covetousness, deceit, dishonesty, disunity, hatred, jealousy, killing, lusting, mutilation, both emotional and physical. He psychologically arrays the person or people before one another, masking his own evil nature in them, and heightens each camp’s enmity toward the other (instead of toward him and his evil nature).
9c. He brings God down to man’s level and rationalizes Him away—out of the picture—with human reasoning, then fills that God-sized void with sweet morsels that pamper; sweet morsels that justify unrighteousness; he tells folk just what they want to hear, and encourages more of the same; he sends forth false prophets in Jehovah’s name that tell lies, that tickle people’s ears, that preach non-Scripturally.

10. He paints Jehovah as cruel, detached (esp. relative to Old Testament Scripture).

11. He suggests that the Christian Bible is not inspired, just another book among countless books, just another religious book—he fights biblical truth with popular feelings and opinions; he shunts and deflects biblical and theological scholarship off target.
11a. He pushes ignorance of the Scriptures; he seeks to split the Church (which is God’s very expensive handiwork) along embarrassing inconsistent, multivariant, doctrinal lines.

12. He seeks apathy and burn-out by pushing legalism, regimens of self-imposed, perfectionist piety, all a slight to the Cross.

13. He seeks to break the faith of a believer, to prevent it in an unbeliever, faith in Christ that is, for that faith is a staff of life; he knows that without that faith no one can withstand him; ”faith-busting” is one of his key goals; he will persist to wear his target down to get at their faith—and whatever vicious means are available to him, whether flesh and blood or spiritual, he will use them to break his target’s faith; he will persist for a long time to accomplish this; he wants to hear his target say: “this just isn’t worth it, I’m going back/ sticking with my old more familiar and popular ways; I’m just going to ease back and forget about all this.”

In all of this he employs half-truths, smoke and mirror tactics, that can be recognized with prayer, Scripture knowledge, and patient observation.

So whose soul does the devil target for deadening? Everyone’s, but especially those with a predisposition to taste, swallow, and enjoy his red herrings. And the reddest of all his herrings is the diminution of Jesus Christ as humankind’s redeeming Savior, as mankind’s sole means of eternal life. Indeed, the great tragedy is that he has convinced much of humankind that Jesus Christ is not the only way to eternal fellowship with Jehovah, the God of the universe, having convinced them that they can choose their own way to God, the defiance of which is little different than saying to them they are under no penalty to choose their own gods, any of which, then, are just sundry manifestations of Satan himself. Thus he deadens the soul, redirects its devotion to himself, and thereby, in fellowship with himself, damns it to everlasting separation from God. Now since this and all sin was paid for at Calvary by Jesus Christ, it is not necessary that anyone end up thus separated, therefore, those that end up that way do so because they would not turn toward a believing fellowship with Jesus Christ—the devil sows unbelief in Christ [2].

The devil is a vicious enemy not to be taken lightly; he has legions of demons and flesh and blood stooges at his disposal to carry out his hellish, anti-God designs. Like a boxer in the ring must stay on his toes throughout his struggle, we must stay on our knees throughout ours, for if we allow ourselves to be rocked back on our heels, that is, feigned into thinking we don’t need Christ, we are sure to suffer an eternal knockout.

This pulpit will Scripturally illustrate three tests that expose the devil’s tactics, hands down.

Before we begin, lest there be any doubt that human beings are in the devil’s cross-hairs, consider our Savior’s words here:

“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you [plural] like wheat” (Luk 22:31, NASB).

II. A Threefold Test

Satan typically comes to tempt us in three areas, and typically when we are most vulnerable there, as evidenced by his tactics with our Lord when he tempted Him. These areas are captured by an easy to remember alliteration: Trusting, Testing, True. Each of these areas is as the tip of a wedge that angles open widely with methodological specifics for his choosing.

1. Trusting God?

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. And the tempter came and said to Him,

“If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God’” (Mat 4:1-4, NASB).

When Satan strikes in this area he is endeavoring to leverage natural material and/or physical needs, which we all have, in such a way as to disrupt our focus on God as our Source. He does this quite astutely by magnifying both the present need and his opportune answer/s to the same; the latter are usually quick fixes that involve no personal sacrifice. Once our focus on God is thus disrupted, it is but a short while before our trust in Him is quenched. Satan knows human nature; he knows that once our trust is not in God, even once, it will more than likely not be in Him subsequently when other needs arise, particularly if Satan’s answers seemed to satiate a former need. It is highly important not to cave in to his suggestions in times of need, so we will discuss this aspect presently. In the end, without trust in God, a person is in spiritual free-fall. Why? Because that person’s trust will go somewhere, and wherever it ends up it will always leave them wanting, for nothing can in the end satiate their need like God can, and so they will of necessity put there trust in who knows what, as often as necessary, to satiate themselves—exactly what Satan is after. That is, he has managed to deaden that person’s tender longing for and sensitivity to Jehovah God by redirecting it to mundane gods providing who knows what. It is not hard to appreciate that Satan can exploit mundane human need quite effectively seeing that we are all need-prone to some extent.

So how does one not cave in to Satan’s suggestions in times of need? We wish not to appear idealistic here; it will more than likely always be pretty difficult, especially seeing that our enemy will strike when the need in us is heightened. In consideration of what to do, we turn now to Mat 4:1-4, the verses that introduced this subsection.

You may say, ‘look, I’m not Jesus…no way could I stand against Satan like He did…’ Let us examine what Jesus did. It is fair to say that Jesus was vulnerable here, being in a state of heightened need—He was without doubt extremely hungry. The important thing to see is that Satan tried to get Jesus to do something that would have shown His distrust in God the Father’s ability to provide for Jesus. All Jesus did was answer with a direct statement that related to Satan that Scripture had the answer that Jesus was going to trust in. Jesus believed the Scripture that said that God ultimately provides for human needs, and then He simply waited for that particular promise to come about—according to the Father’s timing, not the incarnate Jesus’. The lesson would seem to be that in those tough needful moments in our life we need to have Scripture flowing freely in our minds in order to have something credible to put our trust in while we wait. This requires several things—first of all belief; one must believe that Scripture is directly from God, fully inspired by Him (this inspiration, of course, gives it ultimate credibility), and second, one must obviously learn the Scriptures to know what the promises are that go with particular needs (many fine books have been written that outline God’s promises relative to Scripture; also, some Bibles have an appendix that similarly outlines them). Seeing that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, it behooves us to know what those words are, for God will respond to our need in accord with His promises, which are written down in Scripture. One can see here that without a Scriptural foundation, indeed, one cannot stand against Satan. Jesus resorted to Scripture, and in the same was His unmitigated trust, for Scripture is from God—you and I can do that too, with His help and guidance. It is fair to wonder—did Jesus suffer while He waited? No doubt.

2. Testing God?

Then the devil took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him,

“If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command His angels concerning You; and on their hands they will bear You up, so that You will not strike Your foot against a stone.’”’ Jesus said to him, “On the other hand, it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test’” (Mat 4:5-7, NASB).

Having just discussed the import of Scripture in our stand against the devil, we learn here that he knows Scripture too, and so we must now necessarily focus our attention on the Christian and their struggles against Satan, for this test obviously concerns believers exclusively, seeing that Scripture is the justification behind the test, and that only a believer will have dedicated themselves in prayer to Scripture knowledge; moreover, it makes no sense to say someone is an unbeliever, and at the same time say they are testing a God in whom they do not believe. The lesson here would seem to be that not only must we (Christians) believe and know Scripture, as said in the last section, we must know it well enough that it not be used as a decoy against us. There are many things that appear to be Scriptural, but in fact are not. Satan is engaging in “head games” with us here. Many believers are in his cross-hairs in this, from those who would be enticed to use Scripture to serve their own purposes, to the other extreme and those who are deceived through fear and thus so afraid of doing what is wrong before God that they live in near total (legalistic) bondage with barely a hint of the joy of fellowship with God.

Well more specifically to testing God now. There is a current of arrogance about putting God to the test. At least, it places a great value upon one’s insights into Omniscience, to the extent that such a one presupposes they are smart enough to checkmate God into acting. At the same time it is belittling of Him, by suggesting that He is not smart enough to figure out the coercion one is up to; that He is somehow unable to escape from the test by His own self-determined, sovereign route. Arrogance before God and belittling of God, these are devilish motivations. It may seem that God can be tested without a specific Scriptural basis in view, but usually, upon close analysis, Scriptural bases can be found. And so the attacks that come against the Christian in this area will be masked by seemingly Scriptural suggestions which will always contain an element of cavalier, even reckless arrogance.

We see here again that Satan tried to get Jesus to do something, but whereas above the devil simply suggested the stones be turned into bread (the doing), here he attempts to justify the doing with Scripture (in both cases Satan questioned Jesus’ identification as the Son of God, a further taunt to get Jesus to do wrong). Above, Jesus resorted to Scripture that contained an undercurrent of patient waiting on God’s provision, thus glorifying Him through hat aspect of righteous faith; but here Jesus resorts to Scripture that clearly delineates the bounds of faith by calling for not testing God. Jesus thus shows us that testing God involves unrighteous faith.

3. True to God?

Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; and he said to Him, “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only’” (Mat 4:8-10, NASB).

This test is clearly characterized by idolatry. How often Satan comes to kill in this way. And his end goal is that we fall down (the doing); fall down and worship him; yea, fall down before him to our hurt, never to get up again.

Once again Satan tried to get Jesus to do something that would have deeply grieved our Father and cut off Jesus’ fellowship with Him (this sort of killing is what motivates Satan, be it with Jesus, or with you and I). The first and second attempts in that regard were bad enough in and of themselves, but this one is so blatantly offensive to God. Imagine, Satan asking the Son of God to thus offend His Father through worship of Satan (this was an offense to Jesus as well of course); wow. This shows us that no one or nothing is “off limits” when it comes to his self-serving, killing enterprises. But then again, you and I as Christians are sons and daughters of that same Father; there is no difference in the offense and its egregious insult to our God if we comply. When Satan strikes in this area he is aiming for a complete kill, for it is potentially the consummate redirecting of his target away from God, and toward himself. This is what he is after when he strikes, no matter how he tries to do it, and he can accomplish it very effectively in this area. Notice the authority and ownership he claims–‘All this I will give you if…’—his idolatrous enticements may contain anything under the sun.

Notice Jesus’ first course of action in this encounter with the devil: It was a command; in so many words He said: ‘Get thee hence Satan.’ That is the key for us; we too must say: ‘In Jesus’ Name, get thee hence Satan‘ (Mat 8:29-31, Act 16:18, et al.). Moreover, once again our Lord resorted to Scripture in His response. The watchwords for us in that response are worship, and serve. Indeed, worship and serve God only; thus it is written (Deu 6:13-14, 10:20).

III. Concluding Comments

Notice the order of the tests Matthew relates: Physical, psychological, and spiritual—body, soul, and spirit. How vicious; Satan launches a comprehensive attack when he comes to kill; and always he looks for soft spots at which to strike. In concert with this, he strikes when we are most vulnerable; we would literally be decimated were it not for our great savior God. One can appreciate the frightful vulnerability of an unbeliever in that Savior to Satan’s killing motivations. Worst of all, said unbeliever will almost always be deceived into believing that things are just fine, and from a secular perspective they may well be, but from God’s perspective they are not, said individual being headed for an eternity of separation from Jehovah God. Satan would have them think, ‘nonsense, now is reality; now is all that matters, even ultimately…’

Finally, it ought probably be said that Satan has hijacked sundry aspects of the world’s educational systems to serve his purposes. One can appreciate that this is a highly efficient springboard by which he can launch very effectively his plans to attain to his purposes. Many schools (all stripes and at all levels) promote Satan’s lies, effecting a blurring of the line between good and evil; between objective and subjective truth [3]. Many schools plant the devil’s seeds in the mind, which seeds he then masterfully cultivates by and by (as seeds consider tactics 1-13 above; we realize this list is incomplete). Small wonder that the world’s governments, ever more dependent on their educational systems for mundane, multifarious national progress, and sustenance of the status quo, govern with a satanic bent, as evidenced, at least, by the degradation of national value systems that are similarly geared to blur the line between good and evil. But praised be our great savior God Jesus Christ, for He is able to hold back the tidal wave of evil that Satan has unleashed on this good earth until He Jesus returns for us. We shall put our trust in you great savior God until you do come back and purge us of this disgusting evil and establish your righteous reign. Holy Father, won’t you send us our Lord back soon, amen.