Note: A few weeks ago I gave a Sunday
School message on the sixth petition in the Lord’s Prayer: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us
from evil (Matt 6:13). At the time I
made mention of a 2010
message I did on the same topic in which I made use of Thomas Watson’s
peerless study of the Lord prayer in which the Puritan father lists no less
than 27 of Satan’s subtleties in tempting men to sin (see Thomas Watson, The Lord’s Prayer [original 1692; Banner
of Truth, 2009]: pp. 262-282). Here are my notes from that 2010 sermon in
which I summarized and adapted Watson’s list.
In this list it is as though he had discovered Satan’s playbook. Here are some of Satan’s strategies noted by
Watson:
1.
He knows our
natural temper and constitution.
As a farmer knows the proper seed to plant, Satan knows
just the right temptations to sow in our hearts. “Satan tempts the ambitious man with a crown,
the sanguine [passionate] man with beauty, the covetous man with a wedge of
gold.”
2.
He chooses the
fittest seasons to tempt in. Watson lists
six such seasons:
First, in our first initiation and entrance into
religion. He attacks most sharply at the
first signs of conversion.
Second, when he finds us unemployed [not meaning here
without a job but without spiritual employment]. The hunter shoots the bird that sits still,
so Satan aims at the man who is not active in spiritual life.
Third, when a person is reduced to outward wants and
straits. He hits us when we are on hard
times and hungry. Esau traded his
birthright for a bowl of stew. Satan
came at Jesus after he fasted for 40 days.
Fourth, after an ordinance. After hearing a sermon or a baptism or the
Lord’s Supper.
Fifth, after some discovery of God’s love. As a pirate likes to attack a ship laden with
treasure, so Satan seeks to rob us at just the times when we are full of joy.
Sixth, when he sees us at our weakest. He likes to break over the hedge at the
lowest point. This often comes on two
occasions: (1) when we are alone; this
was when Satan approached Eve in the Garden; and (2) when the hour of death
approaches. Like a crow, Satan likes to
peck at the weak saint on his deathbed with temptation. He tells the saint he is a hypocrite. Like a coward, he strikes us while we are
down.
3.
He often baits his
hook with religion.
He sometimes tempts men into sinful and unwarrantable
actions by making them think that they are honoring God all the more.
4.
He tempts to sin
gradually.
He tempts first to lesser sins, that he may bring on
greater. Think of the addict who begins
with drinking and moves on to “recreational drugs” and then moves on to hard
drugs.
5.
His policy is to
hand us over to temptations by those we least suspect.
He can use friends, family members, even religious
friends to ensnare and entice.
6.
Satan
tempts some persons more than others.
He “tempts most where he thinks his policies will most
easily prevail.”
Five types of persons that Satan works on most often:
First, Ignorant persons.
Second, unbelievers.
Third, proud persons.
Fourth, melancholy persons. He works on those who have a discontented
spirit.
Fifth, idle persons.
“The devil will find work for the idle to do…. If the hands be not working good, the heart
will be plotting evil.”
7.
Satan might give
some respite but he does not completely go away.
He lulls us into complacency. Just as a man who wants to scale a wall has
to run back a bit to make a greater jump, sometimes when he is quiet he is just
preparing for a more bold attack. Thus,
we must always be watchful.
8.
He either tries to
make men leave off the means of grace or to miscarry them.
He tells men that they are not worthy and that they are
not making any progress to discourage them and make them stop.
Or he causes them to miscarry by being distracted or
slipping into formalism or pride (doing acts of piety to be seen by men—see
Matthew 6).
9.
Satan can color
over sin with the name and pretense of virtue.
“He can cheat men with false wares; he can make them
believe that presumption is faith, that intemperate passion is zeal, revenge is
prudence, covetousness is frugality, and prodigality is good hospitality.”
10. He
labors to ensnare us by lawful things.
Example:
“Relations are lawful, but how often does Satan tempt us to
overlove! How often is the wife and
child laid in God’s room! Excess makes
things lawful become sinful.”
11. He jostles our
callings (to vocation and Christian service).
So, some spend all their time in spiritual activity “and
under a pretense of living by faith, do not live in a calling.” “Others, Satan takes off from duties of
religion, under a pretense that they must provide for their families; he makes
them so careful for their bodies that they quite neglect their souls.”
12. He misrepresents
true holiness so as to make others fall out of love with it.
He tries to make religion seem like a most melancholy
thing. He tries to make holy men seem
like dour, unhappy, kill-joys. He
“paints holiness with a deformed and mis-shapen face as he can.”
13. Satan
draws men off from the love of the truth to embrace error.
He comes as an angel of light. He loves to spread error. He glories in division in the church. “The devil dances at discord.” His “policy in raising errors is to hinder
reformation. He was never a friend to reformation.”
“Satan tempts to error, because error devours godliness.”
14. Satan bewitches
and ensnares men by setting pleasing baits before them.
“The pleasures of the world are the great engine by which
Satan batters down men’s souls. His
policy is to tickle them to death, to damn them with delights.”
15. Satan in tempting
pleads necessity.
He tells us that our case is extreme and thus he entices
us to justify ungodly behavior.
16. Satan
draws men to presumption.
He makes men think, I can do this and God will forgive
me. At one point in his book, Watson says
there is a difference between a soldier who is taken captive while actively
fighting and resisting and one who willfully defects to the other side or who
acts a traitor.
17. Satan often comes
under the highest pretenses of friendship.
He comes as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He makes us think that the wrong he tempts us
to do is for our good.
18. Satan persuades
men to keep his counsel.
That is, he would rather we conceal and hide our sin
rather than deal openly with it.
19. He
“makes use of such persons as may be the most likely means to promote his
designs.”
He can use men of renowned and seeming dignity and
authority. “He carries on his designs by
men of wit and parts, such as, if it were possible, should deceive the very
elect.” He also makes use of bad
company. He uses men high and low.
20. He
strikes at some graces more than other; and he aims at some persons more than
others.
Watson says the thing he attacks most is faith. He knows he cannot take away our faith but if
he can disturb it he can rob us our peace, comfort, and joy in Christ. By this he can also make us lame and invalid
in the other graces.
21. He encourages doctrines that are
flesh-pleasing.
He “tells man there is no need for strictness; nor so much
zeal and violence; a softer pace will serve.”
22. His policy is either to hinder us from duty, to discourage us in our
duty, or to put us too far in duty.
He does not want us to meditate on the Word, to mortify sin,
or to engage in self-examination.
He discourages us by telling us we are hypocrites.
He takes us too far.
Not only do we wade into the waters of repentance but we are drowned in
the gulf of despair.
23. He tempts to sin also by urging a “speedy repentance.”
He makes us think long-standing habitual sins can be easily
or quickly overcome and we fall right back into them after brief victories.
24. He puts us upon doing good things but unseasonably.
Watson gives the example of a man who stayed home to read the
Bible, but in so doing he missed the gathering of the church to hear preaching
and teaching and to partake of the Lord’s Supper.
Likewise, I knew a man who would come to mid-week meeting and
read his Bible in a room but not join with the gathered church in study and
prayer, and a man who did not attend the evening services of a church where he
was a member because he was doing family devotions.
25. Satan persuades men to delay repentance and turning to God.
“Many now in hell purposed to repent, but death surprised
them.”
26. Satan assaults and weakens the saints’ peace.
If he cannot keep them from heaven, he will try to keep them
from heaven upon earth.
27. He even tempts men through plausible arguments
“to make away with themselves” (take their own lives).
Watson concludes his list of these 27 subtleties by noting
that once there was a story of a plot against the life of the Reformer Martin
Luther. It was learned that a man wanted
to poison him, but a friend sent to Luther a picture of his would-be assassin
so that he might recognize him when he saw him.
In these 27 traits, Watson says, “I have shown you the picture of him
that would murder you. Being forewarned,
I beseech you take heed of the murderer.”
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