The Fight of Faith
Once a month on a Friday night, we have a men’s gathering at my house. About a dozen or more guys get together for fellowship and study. When we started this group, we did one of my favorite books—JC Ryle’s Holiness. However, one fateful week, I came home to find one of my dogs had taken a bite out of the book. The dog is now nicknamed ‘the Antichrist’ or ‘Satan’s Beast,’ especially given the chapter he devoured. It was entitled ‘The Fight.’
It is an apropos name, not so much for the strife that ensued with my mut, but for the conflict all Christians face. Ryle says, “True Christianity is a fight.” There must be exertion, self-denial, and wrestling because the fight of faith is an “absolute necessity.” There is no sitting still for the Christian. The fight of faith is a “universal necessity.” Young and old, rich and poor, the mature Believer and new Believer—all must battle. It is a “perpetual necessity.” There are no holidays or cease fires in this fight. (1)
Who is this fight against? The most dangerous of foes—the world, the flesh, and the Devil. For both pastors and parishioners, Christianity is a fight. What do we need in order to fight the fight of faith? The temptation narrative from Luke 4:1-13 helps us begin to answer that question. We need the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, and the sympathizing Savior. Each of these are deserving of an article on their own. Observing Satan’s schemes against the faithful is necessary for this fight.
Understanding Satan’s Strategies
At the close of Jesus’s forty days in the wilderness, the Devil came to him and tempted him. It was the climax of over a month’s worth of attacks. In this narrative, it is as if a portion of the Devil’s manual has been given to us. (2) Here are seven strategies of Satan gleaned from Christ’s temptations.
#1. Satan Loves to Tempt in Weakness
As Christ’s time in the wilderness continued, described in Luke 4:1-2, he became weak. Roughing it in the desert was hard enough and on top of that Jesus had not eaten for over a month. He was physically sapped. To argue otherwise poses problems for our understanding of the communicatio idiomatum. In Matthew 4:11, when the temptations were over, Jesus needed angels to come and minister to him because he had been weak. It was in that weakness when Satan came to him.
We must remember that temptation often hits when we are tired and hungry. The Devil loves to sucker punch us when we are physically or emotionally down. We must be watchful and not let our guard down just because we are spent. Even in weakness we are not safe. We are like wounded animals and the roaring lion is on the prowl. We must stay awake. As William Gurnall said, “The saint’s sleeping time is Satan’s tempting time.” (3) We must know that when we are weak the Devil loves to tempt. That gives us ample reason to be watchful.
#2. Satan loves to tempt with want.
In Luke 4:3, the Devil said to Jesus, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” Knowing that Jesus was starving, Satan appealed to his physical needs. In themselves, physical needs being met are not necessarily bad. It wasn’t wrong for Jesus to eat. He will eat plenty later on. This temptation was to make his physical wants preeminent. It is as if Satan was saying, “Jesus, you can snap your fingers and make raviolis out of rocks. Do it. Satisfy your wants. Have your needs be primary.”
Satan plays the same game with us. As William Jenkyn put it, “He had an apple for Eve, a grape for Noah, a change of clothes for Gehazi, and bag for Judas.” (4) According to Thomas Brooks, Satan’s method in this temptation is summarized as, “Whatever sin the heart of man is most prone to, that the Devil will help forward.” (5) We must remember Satan desires to ‘sift us’ (Luke 22:31). He “presents sin’s bait but hides sin’s hook.” (6) This is why we must train our wants with the Word. Elder and congregant alike must yield their desires to Scripture so that our desires are shaped by Scripture.
#3. The Devil loves to tempt using the world.
After the first temptation, Luke 4:6 tells of how the Devil took Jesus up a mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and said, “I will give you all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will.” Satan tempted Jesus with Vanity Fair. He employs the institutions and energies east of Eden that are opposed to God to topple us.
He may tempt us with the world’s pleasures, positions, or possessions. He may tempt us with the world’s hate or happiness. The world can be a sword in Satan’s hand to scare us into submission. More deviously, it can be the sweet poison he gives to kill us. Thomas Brooks again is helpful when he says, “Where one thousand are destroyed by the world’s frowns, ten thousand are destroyed by the world’s smiles.” (7) Like a siren from Greek mythology, the world sings to us. If we listen, it will sink us. The world will kiss us and then betray us. And behind the world is the Devil, pulling its strings like a puppeteer all to ruin us.
#4. Satan loves to tempt regarding worship.
What did the Devil say Jesus had to do if he wanted the kingdoms of this world and their glory? In Luke 4:7, Satan said Jesus must bow down and worship him. Such a proposal sounds preposterous. Satan clearly laid out his cards. He showed what he really wanted: exaltation. And that’s Satan’s M.O. Worship: Serve the creature rather than the Creator. This temptation can take many forms. It includes the worship of statues, status, and even sports. Anything and everything can be an idol.
If that doesn’t work, Satan will tempt us to worship God in the wrong way. His goal here is that we come to creaturely worship through the backdoor. We dismiss what God says in Scripture regarding how we are to worship him and we substitute it with what we think. The reading of the Word, preaching of the Word, praying of the Word, singing of the Word, and seeing of the Word in the sacraments are replaced in favor of man-made methods. And then, if this ploy fails, Satan’s go-to strategy is ‘distraction.’ He sets out to divert our attention away from God and onto ourselves, our problems, or our to-do list for the week. Even the one leading worship or preaching the Word is susceptible to this tactic. On Sunday’s, distraction during worship is Satan’s most common way of steering us off course.
#5. Satan loves to tempt twisting Scripture.
After the first two temptations failed, Satan took Jesus and set him on a pinnacle of the Temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here” (Lk. 4:9). Audaciously, he even quoted two OT texts, citing God’s protection of the promised Messiah. The Devil wanted Jesus to put his Father to the test and prove he was the Son of God by showing the Father’s guardianship over him.
This is his exact same strategy with Christians. He will spin Scripture to lead us astray. John Flavel said, “Know that the Devil is like a cunning pirate; he puts out false colors and ordinarily comes up to the Christian in the disguise of a friend.” (8) He often carries a Bible but he regularly twists its teaching. We must sit under the Word and submit to the Word. The one who preaches and teaches God’s Word would do well to pray, “Lord, let me not forfeit the benefit of my own ministry of the Word.”
# 6. Satan loves to tempt to doubt God’s goodness.
In each of these three situations, the Devil was subtly tempting Jesus to question the Father’s purposes. Christ’s identification as the Son was bound up with his Cross-shaped mission. The Devil wanted Jesus to doubt the Father’s goodness in calling him to the path of suffering.
That is still a tactic he employs today. When we suffer, Satan’s temptation to us is to doubt God’s goodness. We must fight to hold to the immutable truth that God is good all the time—even and especially when we don’t see it (Rom. 8:28). How do you know he is good all the time? The evidence of God’s beneficence is seen in Christ (Rom. 8:38-39). When Satan comes knocking, we must not open doubt’s door. We must remember the goodness of God in Jesus Christ, who ransomed our souls to God, by giving himself as our Ransom (Mark 10:45).
#7. Satan loves to tempt to forget the Cross of Christ.
In Luke 4, each temptation was an attempt to take Christ’s eyes off the Cross. For us, Satan will set a thousand things before us to lure us away from Golgotha’s Hill. Everything from hardship to happy times are fair game. Brooks says, “Never let go out of your mind the thoughts of a crucified Christ. Let these be meat and drink unto you … sweetness and consolation … your honey and your desire, your reading and your meditation, your life, death, and resurrection.”
Christianity is the fight of faith. We are all in the battle, together fighting arm-and-arm. The way forward is to cry out for the Spirit’s help, take up the sword of the Spirit, and to reflect on Satan’s strategies. Yet, we do so with our eyes on our Captain, who has fought for us and is now fighting with us. The fight of faith is a fight the Believer will win because in Christ we are more than conquerors. It is by keeping our eyes on Christ that daily victories are had. It is by seeing our Savior that we are more attracted to Christ than we are sin.
(1) JC Ryle, Holiness: It’s Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots, abridged (Leyland, England: 10 Publishing, 2014), 84-90.
(2) For a more extensive treatment of the Devil’s schemes see Thomas Brooks’s Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices, William Gurnall’s The Christian in Complete Armour, or John Arrowsmith’s Plans for Holy War.
(3) William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers Marketing, 2010) 286.
(4) Quoted in Mark Jones, Knowing Sin, (Chicago: Moody Publishers: 2022) 172.
(5) Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2011) 16.
(6) Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices, 29.
(7) Simoen Ashe, cited in Ore From The Puritans’ Mine, complied by Dale W. Smith. 605.
(8) John Flavel, Navigation Spiritualized in The Works of John Flavel v. 5 (Carlisle, PN: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1997) 229.
