Avoid Temptation: The Snares of Satan

Genesis 39:4-12

2 Corinthians 2:11

What are Satan's devices?  Satan can get an advantage over believers if we are not aware of his devices (snares, subtle schemes or traps).  Satan is also called the Tempter.  When he attacks the people of God it is usually not obvious.  If he went around like a roaring lion all the time no one would be deceived by him.  The bible tells us that he is the Tempter.  The church of Christ should not be ignorant of his devices because he wants to lure Christians into sin.  Many Christians are deceived into wrong thinking and actions.  Subtlety is his method, and traps are not easy to get out of.   Some evangelical leaders are so lacking discernment of Satan's devices that they take everything at face value, and anyone that says they are evangelical, they believe it.  There are so many men and women who are not aware of Satan's devices.  They are naive, living in the past, thinking that evangelical means the same thing now as it did in the 60s. But sadly, it does not.  Now, its not the biblical gospel, its the bible plus other things.  "make a decision"  "raise your hand". 

Sometimes Satan presents the bait and hides the hook.  Just do this thing and you will enjoy it but there are consequences which are hidden.   Sometimes Satan makes sin look small, he belittles sin, he presents God as all love and no justice.  Sometimes he says go and sin you can repent after.  That shows how Satan has snared Christians with his subtle schemes and many don't even know it.  Many Christians do not really want to know what the bible says.  Someone can prove from the bible that a church is disobeying God and it won't make any difference at all because people will just ignore it and pretend that it was never said.  They won't put it right because most professed Christians are determined not to obey the word of God and yet they still cling to the myth that they are saved, saved in their sin, clinging to a little profession.  Wanting, hoping to believe but Jesus said that it was only those who DO the will of my Father who will get to heaven.  Its a sad, sad situation when a professed Christian is content in their disobedience to the word of God.  

Satan's tactic will be that he will make a Christian confident to venture into the very place where they are going to be tempted.  He fills them with the notion that they can go to a place of temptation but they will be strong and not sin, they will be able to resist the temptation.   Satan says that you can resist temptation that is put in your path.  When you get tempted to think in that way, remember that Christians are to avoid temptation and all appearance of evil "lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory."   Don't think that you can put your finger in the fire but not get burned.  Enter not into the path of the wicked.  You are not going to get victory over sin if you don't avoid the temptation.