Halloween: Resisting Satan, Part 1
Note: I’ve developed this two-part mini-series from Chapter 7 of my book, Soul Physicians.
“I have so many names,” John Milton tells his protégé, Kevin Lomax, in Taylor Hackford’s movie The Devil’s Advocate. Al Pacino plays John Milton, the Devil incarnated as the head partner in a New York City law firm, while Keanu Reeves plays Kevin Lomax, the brass, young small-town Florida lawyer recruited by Milton.
Taking Kevin to the top of his fifty-story law office, Milton waves his hand across the horizon as he tells Kevin, “Life is rich with possibilities for those who are unafraid to sample them.” Throughout the intense drama, Milton lures Lomax to sell his soul, tempting him with evil’s best—lust, ambition, drive, pride, ego, vanity, gluttony, and power.
Indeed, the Devil has many names and many temptations. The Bible exposes Satan’s seducing strategies.
Kevin Lomax swallowed the bait from Satan’s hook. Dazzled by all that John Milton offers, Lomax ignores the warnings of his church-going mother, neglects his beautiful but terrified wife, and silences his conscience by defending a man he knows is guilty. He succumbs to the temptation to rebel against God and everything godly.
The results, however, are far from what he expected. Rather than feasting on the fruit, he faces fear and frustration. He’s wracked with guilt over his neglect of his suicidal wife. He’s shocked by his mother’s revelation of her past relationship with Milton. And he’s tormented by Milton’s mockery. On every level, he experiences condemnation for his wicked ways. Kevin Lomax learns the hard way what we can learn the biblical way:
• First Satan tempts us to sin, then he condemns us for sinning.
Satan mounts his mutiny through a powerful lie: God is untrustworthy. In subtle and not-so-subtle ways, he places God’s heart on trial whispering, “God is no Rewarder; he’s a Hoarder.” To counteract Satan’s challenge to God’s good heart, we need to expose his seducing strategies.
Seducing Strategy Number One: Enticing Us to Distrust God’s Good Heart
Satan’s kryptonite is separation through slander. He slanders God to us and us to God. His devious design lures us away from God. The original lie reveals the nature of all his lies—Satan wants us to doubt God’s generous goodness (Genesis 3:1-6).
Moses warns his readers with his opening words, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made” (Genesis 3:1, emphasis added). “Crafty” suggests brilliant malevolence—a being who is clever enough to package his venomous hatred in sugar coating. He simply wants some information, right? “Did God really say?” He is only after a little conversation, right? “Hath God said?” He seeks simple clarification, right? “You must not eat from any tree in the garden?”
“Hath God said,” seduces Eve to ask, “Why is God a ‘Must Not God?’” Serpent is not simply saying, “Do I have it right?” He is implying, “God said what!?”
God, of course, had said, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17). The Serpent ignores God’s generosity and twists his one prohibition—a protective prohibition meant to teach God-dependence and intended to spare planet Earth and its inhabitants from the natural consequences of self-sufficiency.
The serpent is not finished. He blatantly calls God a liar: “You will not surely die” (Genesis 3:4). Then he shoots the poisoned arrow: “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). “God is withholding! God is terrified that he might have to share some of his glory. God hoards his gifts, squirreling them away so he alone can enjoy them.”
Satan wants us to see God as our Enemy, thus disconnecting us from God. Rather than seeing God as our gracious Creator who dares to create beings in his image with a will empowered either to obey or rebel, Satan deludes us into seeing God as our cruel Task-Master who suppresses our freedom and demands that we grovel. The cursing narrative of “God-Against-Us” becomes the dominant lens through which our flesh interprets life. We no longer give our Lover the benefit of the doubt. We view every event as one more evidence of God’s againstness.
Sin is like a computer virus that attempts to erase our memory of our trusting relationship with our trustworthy God. What if Adam and Eve had reminded each other that every good and gracious gift comes down from the Father of lights? What if they had recalled that God gives us richly everything to enjoy? Because they did not, they became susceptible to Satan’s second seducing strategy.
The Rest of the Story
Return tomorrow, Halloween day, as we explore Satan’s seducing strategies # 2 and # 3.
Join the Conversation
How can clinging to God’s good heart help you to overcome Satan’s seducing strategy?
