Division:
When we examine the events in the Garden of Eden that caused Adam and Eve to succumb to Satan, we find three prevailing strategies that were used by our cunning adversary.
First, he chose a moment when the couple was separated from each other. This division of the pair made them more vulnerable. Catching Eve alone one day, without her mate at her side, made the success of his tempting them more likely. Together, they would have been a stronger force to withstand his deceitful ploys.
Satan chose a similar time to cause Jesus to experience the most powerful temptations of His life. After His baptism, when Jesus understandably separated Himself from the adoring crowd in order to spend quality time with His heavenly Father, the devil thought it was the opportune time to approach the Son of God with appealing, false claims about His divinity.
Military strategists have also recognized division as a powerful tool in mapping out their battle plans. If you can somehow divide the enemy lines and attack them in smaller numbers, victory can more easily be achieved.
The devil works similarly in all our human environments. In marriage, a couple begins to feel stress in their relationship when they divide by spending less time with each other and follow separate ways to find happiness.
Look at all the Christian denominations there are now. Satan surely finds it easier to operate among God’s people when their beliefs and practices have gone in so many different directions.
On the national and international level of human interactions, sowing seeds of division is commonly used to garner support by promoting a “we versus them” mentality. Instead of looking for ways to come together and be more united, some tend to look for ways to be separate and more isolated from other countries. A tendency toward such nationalism is noticeably growing across the globe.
It’s hard not to recognize that the United States, with its current nationalistic overtones, is feeling much less “united” these days and more polarized and divided than ever. Make no doubt that Satan uses such an environment to facilitate his agenda in the last days of earth’s history, along with distractions and disunity.
Distraction:
It was with overt, intentional distractions that Satan caught Eve off guard and was able to deceive her. A talking serpent first caught her attention—let alone the fruit on the forbidden tree that looked and tasted so delicious.
Appetite comes in many forms. Some people long too strongly for food, power, sex, money…you name it. Satan continues to use appetite as a weapon against us.
We’ve been warned many times throughout the Bible that worldly, carnal pleasures can easily draw us away from God. The first four commandments express God’s desire that we stay focused on Him and keep Him as our number one priority. There are so many disrupting influences that grab our attention. These distractions divert us from the weightier matters of loving each other and lifting up and praising our Creator.
Leaders in government who constantly foster chaotic, disruptive, unpredictable activities are surely working to distract us from the focus of God’s stated, worthy church mission to spread the gospel of salvation to the world.
Distrust:
Satan’s final ploy in tempting Eve was to plant seeds of distrust in her mind regarding God’s love and justice. He suggested that perhaps God was withholding something good from them by forbidding them to eat such appealing, delicious fruit. As soon as she allowed herself to distrust her Maker, she found herself tasting the fruit–something God had specifically warned her not to do, or she would die. Satan boldly suggested that she would not die. Eve’s faith in God then wavered just enough for Satan to gain a foothold and cause her to sin.
Sadly, Satan has promoted that lie of not dying so often and so well that much of the Christian world now believes that we never die, but are instantly transported to our reward, either in heaven or a place of permanent torture and suffering in the fires of hell. This understandably makes many people doubt that God is as loving as He claims to be. However, the Bible and Jesus taught that death is a state of dreamless sleep (like Lazarus–see John 11:11-14, 24), that we rest in our graves till the Second Coming, and that the punishment for sin is to perish and experience total destruction (like Sodom and Gomorrah–see Jude 7), which is called, by the way, the second death (Revelation 20:6, 14).
In these last days, the devil has many ways of sowing distrust, which leads to fear and anger. We are encouraged to distrust the media (calling it “fake news”). Educational, financial, governmental, even religious institutions, just about every other entity we once trusted to some degree, are now questioned. This effort to plant distrust has become so rampant and convoluted that we’re even told by our government not to trust the government. This creates an inviting opportunity for a lone, authoritarian ruler, someone we assume to be trustworthy, to take charge, thus dismantling self-governing democracies that have long tried to grant freedom, however imperfectly, to its citizens.
The Antidote for the Antichrist: Unity, Focus, and Trust
Instead of falling prey to Satan’s agenda that uses disunity, distraction, and distrust to dismantle our humanitarian urges, let’s make sure we are looking for ways to make us more united with each other, focused on our mission, and trusting that God will prevail in the end.
“He who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming quickly.’ Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus! The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.” Revelation 22:20, 21
We surely need His grace more than ever!
