Paul writes, “finally, be strong in the Lord and the strength of His might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the SCHEMES of the devil,” Ephesians 6:11. The word that the ESV translates “schemes” is the Greek word that sounds out as “methodeeaws.” You would think of the English word “methods” when you hear it. Satan has his methods. They are real. They are slippery and seductive. They are limited. But they are very successful. Jesus teaches us that the Devil or Satan exists to “steal, kill and to destroy,” John 10:10. Satan does not have good designs in our lives or good desires for our lives. What he wants is for us to get to the place where we think that we possess something that we do not possess because he has stolen it, to have enough of the things of this world that we appear to have life when we are in fact dead, and to see us enjoy enough success with its benefits to think that we are “blessed” when in fact we are bankrupt. Jesus sets before us in John 10 the goal with which Satan operates. Paul puts before us that he has his limited methods with which he operates. Go to the accounts of the temptation of Jesus recorded in the Gospels and you will see clearly the goal and the deceptive and destructive methods with which he operates. But there is one most strategic weapon of his that has stolen many hearts, destroyed many souls, and will devastate thousands upon thousands on the final day of judgment. It is this weapon that in our day and in our world needs to be exposed for the spiritual nuclear warhead that it is.
This spiritually destructive weapon consists of several components that he mixes together, gets us to affirm, accept and act on which will in time lead to our devastating judgment before God. First, he must get us to focus our attention on ourselves. We must see ourselves as the reason that God is. He is God to give us what we need to get to where He is when we die but to bless us to pursue our own dreams and desires until we die. So, we exalt ourselves as good people with good desires doing good things that please God. Second, we have to reduce salvation to an event that happens once in our lives. It happens as an experience that we have in which we decide in the moment to get saved. We go through whatever rituals are required to get saved. We are told that we have been secured for heaven when we die. Step two is finished. Step three seals the deal: life is about us and what we desire, we have done what we were told we needed to do to get saved and third, we celebrate as the only real attribute of God His great love for us that provides what we need to live the good life while requiring very little from us. We love words like: grace, love, and forgiveness which are all very critically necessary words for the Christian life; but they become the only words in our vocabulary. And the phrase that pictures our lives is, “I am only human; do you expect me to be perfect?” And we speak these words or similar words as an excuse for our patterns of sinful living while not experiencing any real sense of the greatness of the glory of God that should cause us to fear Him and to fall before Him in repentance of sin and in great thankfulness for His mercy. The third step is the neuter God of His central attribute of holiness while exalting any and all attributes that enable us to keep on living in ways that make us, and how we want to live our lives the focus of God’s attention and affection. What we lose in the process is any sense of what it really means to fear God.
I am reading daily now as a part of my quiet time each morning very slowly, carefully, prayerfully and meticulously through the Greek text of Romans. I am following that time by reading the appropriate section from the brilliant commentary by Tom Schreiner, perhaps the leading New Testament scholar in America today. I had worked my way through Romans 1:18-32 the other morning, my soul again deeply grieved over how much this passage reflects the dark depravity of our times. I finished it. I prayed for my own soul. I felt again the sting of my own sin. I then read Schreiner’s comments where he is getting at the reason for the kind of living that is described in Romans 1:18-32. Here is his conclusion, “the purpose of life is to fear and reverence God so that He is esteemed as holy and majestic and mighty. Sin at its heart decenters God; it degods God; it rejects His rule over our lives . . . the root and basis of all sin is the failure to fear and reverence God.” Do you want to know what Satan wants for your life? There it is. He wants you to decenter God in your life. He wants you to come up with your own understanding of what it means to have a right relationship with Jesus. He wants you to profess a relationship with Jesus based on what you did ritually to accept Jesus while your life for the most part is marked by however you desire and decide to live. Here is a question for you and me: Do thoughts about the greatness of God and His goodness to you in Jesus come to you more than a few times every day? Are you compelled to worship Him with His people and to spend time with Him daily? Does your sin destroy your soul; does it create aches that make physical pain feel like nothing at all? Or do you simply go about your day finding your assurance in some event in the past when you did what you needed to do to get saved and then be assured by others that you were saved forever. I have a good friend and brother that has a phrase that I love, OTWT; “only time will tell.” I would only add that time and ongoing experience tells. The right fear of God does not diminish in the soul of the believer over time, it grows. I know that I am a sinner who sins. I did not deserve the grace of God to day i received Jesus as Lord; And I am overwhelmed right now that a God so great could be so gracious to a sinner like me. “Thank you” is not enough. The real “thank you” is to bow before Him even now in worship and then go to witness and to work for His glory.