Introduction
Martyn Lloyd-Jones once said, “Why believe the devil instead of believing God? Rise up and realize the truth about yourself, that all the past is gone, and you are one with Christ, and all your sins have been blotted out once and for ever. O let us remember that it is a sin to doubt God’s Word, it is a sin to allow the past, which God has dealt with, to rob us of our joy and usefulness in the present and in the future.”
As beautiful and necessary as this truth is, the hard part is to live consistently with the truth. This is why we must continue to study spiritual warfare and Satan’s devices that he uses to hinder our Christian experience.
Recently, GRN General Council Member Clif Daniell wrote a fantastic article called The Fight of Faith: 7 Devices That Satan Uses To Tempt Christians. This current article serves as a follow-up to Clif’s previous article. Satan has two main devices: 1) He tempts us to embrace sin. 2) He tempts us to doubt God’s grace. Because Clif did a wonderful job providing seven devices that Satan uses to tempt Christians to embrace sin, this article provides seven devices that Satan uses to tempt Christians to doubt God’s grace.
Device #1: Satan hounds us to replay our past sins.
When we get in this mindset we can easily have our sin eclipse the sufficiency of Christ. It is one thing—and a very appropriate thing—to have regular biblical self-examination (2 Cor. 13:5). It is quite another thing to let sinful fear drive us to obsess over replaying our past sins. These sins might seem insignificant to some. These sins might seem unthinkable to others. Satan skillfully pinpoints an area of sin and tempts them to regularly replay the event over and over.
Often this leads us to embrace half-truths such as: “Nothing can for sin atone…nothing can for sin atone…” We fail to say to finish the sentence and say “…nothing but the blood of Jesus.” When we succumb to this satanic device of the dark lord we can develop some intense side effects. Our memory of the sinful event can betray us. (1) As we think about our sin or someone else’s sin against us, it certainly is true that some events are genuinely traumatic. It is also true that other events aren’t traumatic but nevertheless are very painful memories. Whether the event is traumatic or not, the obsessive replaying of the event can be in itself so painful that it could rise to the level of trauma. Satan will use this device to eclipse the sufficiency of the Person and Work of Christ.
Device #2: Satan harasses us with false repentance.
There is no Christian who does not repent. Yet, repentance is not penance. As our Confession of Faith says in chapter 15, in no way whatsoever should our repentance “be rested in as any satisfaction for sin, or any cause of the pardon thereof, which is the act of God’s free grace in Christ” (WCF 15.3; Ek. 36:31; Gal. 2:16). It is very true that we do not “content ourselves with a general repentance” but rather “endeavor to repent of particular sins particularly” (15.5; 2 Sam. 12; Lk. 19:8). At the same time, this is qualitatively different than Satan’s use of false repentance.
Satan employs this device by tempting us to think that true repentance is “enough” repentance. “Is your repentance sincere enough? Can you look to God and genuinely say that you’ve repented enough for such a sin? Have you felt sorry enough for what you’ve done?” These are whispers of hell. The direction he wants us to look is strictly inward and not at Christ (2 Cor. 3:18-4:6). We must remember that there is a grand difference between true repentance and enough repentance. Satan tempts us to think that we must reach an “enough-ness” level of repentance before we can rest in Christ’s work for us. In reality, this is a disguised form of works-righteousness.
Device #3: Satan will tempt us to obsess over our sins so that we fail to have faith in Christ.
These can be sins of the past or sins of the present. It can be sinful actions or our sinful nature. The grip of this device is like a python that seeks to choke faith out of us. When we sink to a level of despair over our sin, we can respond with identifying ourselves by our sin. “This is just who you are. You’ll never change.” Our sin becomes the predominant life narrative. This often leads to responses of legalism or, most often, antinomianism. I am my sin. I am the temptation I face. Union with Christ might be true but I am the sin that I struggle with.
The response to this is often a felt powerlessness in the face of our sin. We no longer remember the truths of Romans 6 and the riches of our identity in Christ. We neglect the power and grace of the Holy Spirit to enable us to fight sin. We even forget the comforting truths of Romans 7 and the reality that Christians do struggle and fight against sin. If we embrace this device, there is no longer any fight. There is surrendering unto the identity and power of sin. Eventually that leads to us taking the glorious truth of Romans 8:1 that “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” and we re-word it to sound like, “Sin is now no longer condemned so you don’t need to worry about fighting it.”
Device #4: Satan will utilize that deadly word “enough”.
This relates to an earlier device mentioned but is more expansive. “Have you done enough good works? Have you apologized enough to that person? Have you prayed enough today? Have you loved Christ enough?” The word “enough” is Covenant of Works language. It directs its bow at our hearts to launch its poisonous arrows. We can respond to this device in sinful pride by thinking that we are enough. Or, when pride is crushed, we sink in despair and despondency.
We must remember what the nature of faith is. It is looking to Christ and resting upon Him alone as He is offered to us in the gospel. It is believing Him, receiving Him, and appropriating Him to my life. Faith is truly Christ-focused. Faith, by the very definition, looks outward at Him. This by no means takes away the necessary times of self-examination (2 Cor. 13:5) but it does remind us that Christ must be far-and-away the overwhelming examination of our lives (2 Cor. 3:18). Only Christ is enough. Only Christ fulfilled the Law and the Covenant of Works. Only Christ atoned for our sins once-for-all. We are never enough. We want a true, authentic, and genuine Christian life but that must never be confused with “enough”.
Device #5: Satan will seek to cripple us with fearful thoughts of “what if this happens in the future?”
This is a deadly dart that he shoots at our conscience. When we see physical ailments, chronic illness, life-altering mental illness, tragic and public sinful failures, people abandoning the faith, divorces, death of children, natural disasters destroying homes, and unfair job terminations—Satan often tempts us to think that because these horrible things happen that the worst possible of them will inevitably happen to us. This fear is powerful when there is a lack of gospel contentment.
Satan wants us to picture God as if He needs to “rough us up” or “toughen us up” to get us ready for Heaven. That means that He will surely send Job-like suffering to us. “You better not let your guard down nor should you ever embrace happiness or else God will really make you suffer.” The regular scrolling on social media or constant reading of bad news certainly adds to the temptation. Satan knows that God could allow these things to mysteriously happen to us so he loves to make God look like a monster of a Father and scare us into not trusting our future being in God’s hands.
Device #6: Satan paints God in Satan’s own colors.
As mentioned above, Satan loves to make God look and act like himself. He will tempt us to remember the moments of ungodliness from our earthly fathers and portray those onto God Himself. Satan will even tempt us to picture God as if He were like us. This is often why people say, “I can’t forgive myself.” The problem is not that they can’t forgive themselves—they don’t have the right to do that (Mk. 2:7)—but that they won’t embrace God forgiving them solely because of Christ. They treat God as if He were like them—staunchly unforgiving and waiting for them to do “enough” before they can be worthy of forgiveness.
This is why theology is crucial to the Christian life. It is true that the most important aspect about us is what comes into our minds when we think about God. We must re-train our minds to think rightly about God. Satan preys upon bad theology. Even when we might have right head knowledge, he will still tempt us to “feel” differently about God. He tempts us to only think about the mentioning of God’s “harsh side” in the Bible.
Device #7: Satan will tempt us to doubt the work of God’s grace in our hearts.
It might be true for other people but we are a different case. “Don’t you realize that people can have false assurance? Haven’t you seen hypocrites before? How do you know you’re not one? Can you really trust that this ‘fruit’ is legitimate? Can you really be sure that you’re elect?” These are truly troubling thoughts. They are like splinters that are so difficult to pry out. He wants us to look at any work of the Holy Spirit and conclude that it is either a figment of our imagination or merely our own efforts. He wants us to think that we are the next Judas.
One of the more harmful thoughts is that none of our progress matters because we’ve probably committed the unforgivable sin. Even if it might not be the unforgivable sin, we are tempted to think that we have hardened our heart from believing God’s grace for so long that now that sin is the unforgivable sin. Satan will do anything to tempt us to give up and conclude that God’s grace must not be for us. That mindset is what opens the door to thinking: “Well, I might as well not care anymore and indulge in sin since I’m probably not saved.”
Conclusion
Martyn Lloyd-Jones again leads us to the sufficiency of Jesus as he says, “Indeed, He said it Himself, did He not, on the Cross? He said: ‘It is finished’, absolutely finished. In what sense? It is finished in the sense that not only all the sins committed in the past were dealt with there, but all that sins that could ever be committed were also dealt with there. It is one sacrifice, once and forever. He would never come back to the Cross again. All the sins were dealt with there finally and completely, everything.”
We must always champion the sufficiency of Christ Himself. He is sufficient to justify us once-for-all and to progressively sanctify us over time. It is a ministry that proclaims the sufficiency of Christ that bolsters Christian soldiers against Satan’s devices and empowers them by God’s grace to pursue holiness.
(1) While memory is very important, let’s not forget that even it is affected by total depravity.
