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minds that are contrary to God's will for us -- to steal, rob, and finally destroy God's promised future. How few in these hours can discern his ploys, how subtle are his actions. To Eve, in the garden, Satan became a serpent, asking questions filled with rhetorical doubt: "Yea hath God said ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" (Gen. 3 v. 1) Lying from the very start, Satan implanted skepticism, and the lust for the forbidden. Later we saw how Eve took the bait when:
(1) She saw that the tree was good for food -- being the "lust of the flesh"
(2) That it was pleasant to the eyes; being the "lust of the eyes"
(3) That it was a tree to be desired to make one wise; being "the pride of life"
Later, in the temptations of Jesus, we see a similar pattern of scripture twisting, as the devil tried to tempt Christ to:
(1) Satisfy His personal desires; by using the power of God for self satisfaction, by turning stones into bread; the "lust of the flesh"
(2) By offering Him worldly power and adornment; wealth, security and prestige; the "lust of the eyes"
(3) By offering Him religious wisdom; Taking Him up to the pinnacle of the temple and trying to trick Him into presumptuously tempting God -- a position antithetical to man's position as creature rather than creator ; a position Christ in His human side would never take; being the "pride of life"
You see, Satan loves to quote scripture; he loves to wear religious robes; he loves religious tradition and loves to distort the truth. He knows he cannot stop all Christian activity so he allows some ministries to even flourish, if they contain enough acceptable error. As we explained earlier, Satan's modus operandi is to get man outside the will of God, by hook or by crook; by either tempting us off God's path into sin, or by tricking us into self will. Many, many Christians are treading a religious path for themselves of personal ambition that God never laid out before them. Through their own religious conceit, they charted their own destinies, asking God to bless them on their way. These forms of self ordained effort will never pass through the fires of Christ's judgment, but will be burned as wood, hay and stubble. Sometimes, the Lord actually starts a work, and then moves on, while we Christians stand abandoned, but immovable at our posts: Some become so hell bent on "doing a work for God" that they fight to do it whether God wants them to or not. Let us be able to go when He leads, but stop when He leaves, and not become so indoctrinated that we become inflexible and finally unusable.
There is a prosperity and personal spiritual ambition, which comes straight from the pit of hell, and there is an exaltation (even within the church) which is conceived by the devil himself.
In addition to trying to thwart God's plans completely, Satan also tries
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