Saturday Devotional

Know Your Enemy

Be wise and aware. When you obey God in a matter that requires courage and blind faith, you will be lied to by the enemy.

Oh the wonderful plans the Lord has for us. Oh how the enemy wants to step in and thwart those plans. How? He does it by attacking our minds. There’s a fascinating story in the Bible that I think depicts perfectly what Satan does to us. It’s the story of Jacob and Laban.

After 20 years of being a servant, make that slave, hmmm…it’s probably more accurate to say prisoner to Laban, his uncle as well as his father-in-law, Jacob decides to obediently follow God’s plan for him by packing up and escaping. Well, Laban was not gonna sit back and let that happen. After several days, Laban caught up with Jacob and family, and here we find him using a classic mind game.

Laban knew the truth, but he didn’t want Jacob to know the truth. He wanted Jacob to believe a lie. Jacob was already being falsely accused of stealing Laban’s livestock. Now Laban’s opening statement as he catches up with the man who once was his prisoner (just as we can be Satan’s prisoners), is yet another lie. Jacob is accused of kidnapping Laban’s daughters. Well let’s see. These women were Jacob’s wives. Marriage is ordained by God. Their loyalty belongs to Jacob, not Laban, and by the way, they were thrilled to get away from dear ole dad. Still, it was a perfect way to begin his little scheme of convincing Jacob that he’s a horrible person.

Naturally, the next step for Laban is to ridiculously build himself up confirming even more how horrible Jacob is, “Oh, don’t you know,” Laban begins, “you were never a prisoner of mine. I would have let you go sending you off with a going away party!” This and the next pitiful statement that poor Laban makes about never getting a chance to kiss his grandchildren good bye paints this enemy into a picture of a saintly father in law who is kind and selfless only wanting the best for everyone, and who of course is really the victim at the hands of mean, horrible Jacob. He does his best to convince his son in law that he’s a fool for thinking otherwise.

Then finally, to top it all off, he states that he has the right to harm Jacob as if punishment was deserved by the judgment of the victim himself. But oh no, because supposedly Laban’s such a godly man, he’s going to obey God and not harm Jacob…at least that’s the way the story is spun by this fast talker. It’s meant to cause guilt on Jacob’s part for not receiving the punishment he so deserves…NOT!

But wait! There’s more! There’s yet one more false accusation against dastardly Jacob. However, the way Laban speaks about it, it sounds more like a pathetic plea from a poor old man, “Why? Oh why oh why oh why Jacob? Why would steal from me? Why would you do that to me when I’m so wonderful to you?”

WOW! This is surely a script written by Satan himself. It’s a tactic used by him countless times over millennia probably to every one of us with a variety of words custom made for our own hearts plugged into the sentences. By the time the last blow hits, many of us are convinced of our guilt and we pitifully answer with, “I just don’t know how I can be so bad.”

Even Jacob was taken back at first admitting his vulnerability to this man and then declaring vengeance on whoever caused harm to his uncle/father in law. How was this great patriarch of the Israelites so deceived? He didn’t fully assess his enemy. You would’ve thought that he had after 20 years, but then how many years go by with us not even realizing how our enemy does this to us?

It’s so important to know our enemy, to know his tactics, to evaluate the situation in light of what we know, and finally to remind ourselves of God’s Word when confusion sets in. Jacob received word from God. He was told to leave this jailer and come into the land promised to him where he would be blessed. If he had been prepared, expecting this very tactic from this enemy, he would have known that this was the perfect time to replay those words from God over and over and over again until the fog cleared enabling him to see the situation clearly. Now maybe that’s exactly what he did, for we read several verses later of a man of courage who sets the record straight with his evil uncle Laban.

Be wise and aware. When you obey God in a matter that requires courage and blind faith, because it looks as if all is stacked against you, you will be lied to by the enemy. Know his tactics and fight with the Word of God that’s sharper than a two-edged sword. It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the attitudes and the motives…even the motives of Satan.

Amie Spruiell 2/24/2012