Enticing Lures that are Used to Snare Us!
... there are only has a few of them ...
... and the way to recognize and defeat them Paul uses fishing terms to describe conceptually that Satan likes to fish and that he has specific types of lures he uses to try to catch us (“the fish”). As with any fisherman, not all lures work on all fish all the time. If one lure doesn’t work, he then switches to another lure and sees if that works. He will use variations of the few basic lures in his tackle box until he finds one that we bite and then he tries to real us in. Once you are on a hook, you’ll be bombarded with more and more lures as his goal is to drive you away from following the Holy Spirit. How do we know that Satan is a fisherman (literally fishing for men) and the type of lures he uses? Paul tells us in Eph 6:11 where Paul says “Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”. That word “wiles” that Paul uses originates from a Hebrew word that refers to a hook or something that is barred including any type of trap. Our word fishhook comes from this Greek word. Satan therefore has different hooks he uses in order to entrap us. God loves us dearly and tells us in advance Satan’s favorite hooks he uses and how to counter each so that you do not get snared. Let’s look at the lures in Satan’s tacklebox: · Lure #1: Satan’s strategy of deception and lies ü Satan is the master liar, and in fact, the father of hate and lies (John 8:44). The two are tied hand in hand. That is one of the reasons that if we do not forgive those who have wronged us then our Father will not forgive us as we have been hooked with this lure (Matt 6:15). Satan’s lies most times are half-truths so that we tend to believe the lie part because we are not familiar with it and we are confident the truth part is right, so we accept all of it, leading us down a path of destruction. In the end, in which we are quickly approaching, Satan deceives the whole world (Rev 12:9). ü The opposite of deception and lies is truth. Ps 119:142, 151 defines truth as being the word or the scriptures. Satan is therefore teaching something against the scriptures. In Matt 24:12 Jesus tells is that in these last days, “lawlessness” (ie, against the scripture) will abound. In 2 Thes 2, Paul refers to the antichrist as “the lawless one” (ie, against the scripture). ü To identify this lure and not bite, we must know the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears Christ’s voice (John 18:37-38). We must therefore put on the “belt of truth” (Eph 6:14) and study the scriptures as the Bereans (Acts 17:11). · Lure #2: Satan’s strategy of temptation ü To be able to identify Satan’s first lure and know the half-truth’s or lies is not enough as a must now avoid and not bite the lure! Obvious right? Well, maybe not so obvious. Not biting the lure requires that we not accept the lie and obey the Scriptures which showed us the truth. By following the scriptures, we become righteous in God’s eyes (Luke 1:6; Rom 2:13). ü Satan used our pride to tempt us (1 Thess 3:5); pride and temptation go hand in hand. The scriptures never have anything good to say about pride. Pride is to be eliminated from our lives as we put on God’s righteousness as we have none of our own (Rom 3:10-12). ü Satan can’t make us do anything, but this lure is extremely powerful and leads many astray as James tells us that we are tempted when we are drawn away by his own lusts and entices (James 1:14-15). Satan isn’t stupid, he knows what you want and is more than happy to fashion that into a lure to snare you. ü Your unsaved “friends” can also be used to spread half-truths (lure #1) to you in passing conversations and tempt you with desires (lure #2) and that is why the scriptures tell us that we are not to have fellowship with unbelievers (2 Cor 6:14) and those that are unrighteous. Our purpose is to tell them about Christ and what He has done for us and can do the same for them. ü Obeying the scriptures makes us righteous (Rom 2:13). In ancient times if you entered into a blood covenant (as in the shed blood of Christ), you exchanged garments. If we put on God’s garment, or the “breastplate of righteousness” (Eph 6:14), we can identify and avoid this lure of Satan by obeying the scriptures and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. · Lure #3: Satan’s strategy of Oppression ü Since we have avoided the above two of Satan’s’ strategies to snare us we are then walking with the Lord and in walking, we are required to spread His Word to others (Matt 28:16-20). As we walk with the Lord and spreading His Word, Satan doesn’t like that, so he puts minor irritants in our path and tries to oppress us to try and prevent us from reaching others about Christ. ü Oppression is different for everyone, but its effects are not short term but long term. It typically is a series of hundreds of nagging small issues over time that distract you from your primary goal of reaching others. Most of the resistance will be from those you are trying to reach themselves. As Christ says, you will be hated for His name’s sake (Matt 10:22). ü In our walk, God has given us a peace that passes all understanding which will keep our minds and hearts focused on Christ Jesus (Phil 4:7). It is through this peace we have in Christ that enables us to ignore all the minor oppressive issues and keep us on the right path. ü The word “peace” used here is far more reaching than our English word of peace, but means to be whole, complete, healthy, to be at peace, and to “finish” something. By having peace and a final goal of going to heaven in the end (Matt 10:22) we can easily overcome this nagging lure of oppression. ü Our feet walking (shoes) with the Lord should be grounded in the “gospel of peace” (Ept 6:15). The analogy of Peace to shoes makes sense in a battle. A soldier running into battle can’t be distracted by sharp rocks on his feet as he runs since he must focus on the battle. Having God’s Peace internally allows you to focus on the task at hand instead of being worried about the circumstances around you. Peace lets you focus on the big picture instead of all the minor distractions. And that picture is “he that endures to the end shall be saved” (Matt 10:22b). · Lure #4: Satan’s strategy of accusation ü Now that you’re walking with the Lord, learning truth in His word, refusing to yield to temptations, and being able to ignore oppressions because of the peace God provides you as you spread His word, Satan pulls out the next lure in his tacklebox which is to accuse you of sin and not good enough to go to heaven! This is a half-truth and a variation of Lure #1 but personal and attacking. ü It is a half-truth because Satan is correct in that we are no good and cannot please God (Rom 8:8), and will continue to fall and sin even when we try our best to follow the Lord. What Satan doesn’t want you to remember is that God tells us that when we fall and are truly repentant, that God is faithful and promises to forgive us from our sins and clean us from all unrighteousness and make us righteous again in His eyes. ü Yes, we will sin on occasion, and will be truly repentant, but we must know the scriptures that God will absolutely forgive us. Therefore, we must BLOCK, the thoughts that come into our head that we are not good enough as Satan accuses us. We must block these thoughts as we would use a shield which puts up a wall between us and these thoughts. ü Paul uses the analogy of a “shield of faith” (Eph 6:16). The Hebrew word used here for faith has been assigned multiple English meanings including belief, faith, and trust. Of these three English meaning, faith here would mean to trust in the Lord. In Gen 15:1 we know that God is a shield to those that trust in Him. Prov 30:5 tells us that He is a shield unto them that put their trust in Him. ü We know that even Satan even accuses prophets of wearing filthy garments (being unrighteous) in Zach 3 and in Rev 12:10 we know that Satan is bringing up accusations against us day and night. ü The shield of faith is a shield of trusting the Lord knowing that the Lord is pure and will always keep His Word. If we continuously and steadfastly follow Him, he will give us a crown of life and we will be His adopted heirs in Heaven. Through trusting in Him, we have no fear of the world nor of what man can do to us. · Lure #5: Satan’s strategy of distracting our thoughts ü By now, we are on the right path following the Lord, rooted in the scriptures, and knowing that we are not worthy, but God forgives us of our sins, and we trust Him that He will take us to be with Him in Heaven as we dedicate our lives to following Him. ü The battle seems all but lost for Satan for your soul but that’s not quite true. He has one other very powerful snare to entrap you. He can influence you with countless thousands of worldly thoughts in hopes that eventually you’ll give under the pressure and pleasure that these might provide you if you were to only give into a few of them. As you can see, this is a variation of lure #2. ü In today’s high-tech society, we are bombarded daily with hundreds of such worldly views and enticements. Songs on the radio popularize morality against the scriptures. TV and Movies that you might watch encourage violent behavior, including taking God’s name in vain, profanity, adultery, murder, lying, stealing and every imaginable sin. By “enjoying” watching these shows we are condemned by God. ü We are not of this world and should not enjoy the sinful entertainment and thoughts this society freely distributes to everyone (John 17:16-26). We are drawn away from following the Lord through three variations of this lure: (1) the lust of the flesh, which includes sexually promiscuous material; (2) the lust of the eyes which includes the overwhelming desire to have “things” that God has not given you such as money, homes, or even the next generation iPhone; and (3) the pride of life and not realizing that all we have and are, are because of, and from the Lord. ü In order to defend against this strategy or very powerful snare we must protect our thoughts (or head) knowing that we are not of this world and bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor 10:5). By doing this we put on “the helmet of the hope of salvation” (1 Thes 5:8) which Paul calls the “helmet of salvation” (Eph 6:17). ü The assurance of your salvation is your helmet which you should equip to counter the adversary’s strategy to distract our thoughts away from following the Lord and redirect them to following the world. Satan will employ this strategy intensely during these last days. The helmet is to protect your thoughts and keep them on the Lord. The focus of all our thoughts must always be to serve and follow Him. That’s it! God has told us in advance Satan’s strategies, snares, and lures, and has told us what we must do to recognize when one of these strategies is being used and how to defend against them. The message is clear that we must prepare ourselves and equip ourselves with God’s preparations. We can’t pick and choose, as you can see we need all the above defense measures to withstand the snares that Satan will use against us. We are told “… take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” (Ept 6:13). God has also given us a weapon which we MUST equip ourselves with. He has provided us the Word of God, or the Bible, which He calls a “sword” (Eph 6:17). It is the only offensive weapon we have. Purchasing Bibles and having a few laying around you doesn’t mean anything. We must study them and learn God’s Word as the Holy Spirit will direct our path as we read His Word. While we study, we pray to the Lord asking for direction; asking through the Holy Spirit while we are watchful and patient till the Lord takes us to be with Him. We must also quote God’s Word exactly. We are also instructed not to change, delete, or add to it in any way. Many people go out with only a partial Word of God, and hence, part of the sword is missing which makes it rather useless in battle. The problem is that there is no such thing as a perfect English translation that tells us exactly what God’s word is. There is always a discrepancy between the original Greek (NT in this case) to English. The best thing you can hope for is to find a translation that mirrors as closely as possible the original meanings of the scriptures. The Pure Word is a Resource All Christians Must Have! The Pure Word is a word-by-word EXTRACTION from the Textus Receptus Koine Greek (the exact same text that the 1611 KJV scribes used) to English and it also incorporated the original Greek Parsings which the King James scholars mostly ignored because they didn’t understand them at that time. Before now, the King James Version is the best translation we have had for over 400 years but the KJV scribes could not precisely define what each Greek root used in the NT meant. That is why you have hundreds of words all having five or more english words assigned to them because they didn't know what it actually was. It took another 260 YEARS before the Greek words were separated into their root components which was published by Strong in 1890. Without identifying the root words, the meanings they assigned to words in different verses constantly varied and had little to do with the true meaning of the individual words. Not only that, but the scribes had no clear idea of what the Greek parsings were that were assigned to over 115,000 of the words (of the 140,745 total words). The purpose of the parsings is to provide text that could not be misinterpreted which then resulted in a crystal-clear message. Since they didn’t use the parsings, the context and meaning of the English words they assigned constantly varied between verses and that gave rise to hundreds of denominations and disagreements which fragmented Christianity we see today. Their own letter to King James clearly states their frustration and their limitations in not knowing the words and their inconsistency in the final English text and they chalk it up to their “creative freedom or liberty”. It wasn’t until 260 years after the King James Version was compiled that the parsings of each of the 115,000 words were clarified and released in 1894 by Dr. Scrivener using upwards of 100 scholars spending decades of work on the task. The Pure Word has taken each of the 5,624 Koine Greek root words and took the single primary meaning at the time of Christ of each word and directly substituted it into each use of the same root word. In addition, the precise parsings of each of the 115,000 words that were mostly ignored by the KJV scribes and nearly all scholars since, was applied to each word. This process removed all known discrepancies and provided a clarity of meaning that was never before possible. I would strongly suggest that every Christian obtain a copy of The Pure Word and use it alongside your favorite Bible version to see the original meanings and open your eyes like never before. The Pure Word is NOT a translation as verses were not “translated” by man, and the process by which it was created over 22 years made it impossible for even a single verse to be altered by man. It is simply a Pure extraction from the Greek into English using the original meaning of each root word as closely as possible as it existed at the time of Jesus Christ and the Apostles along with the original parsings applied to each word. Please check out what thousands of scholars, pastors, and theologians, and Christians are saying about how it opened their eyes and understanding of God's Word and the New Testament: Latest Reviews of The Pure Word - Click Here Revealing the Original Depth of Meaning as Written by the Apostles Over 1,900 Years Ago! | 
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