What are the devil's schemes (Ephesians 6:11)?

We have now, in closing, a look at the hindrances that there will surely be to the filling just such a position as the epistle gives us. The highest position is that which will be most strongly contested. That in which we are most distinctly Christian, the enemy will oppose with all his power. The conflict in Ephesians is not conflict with the flesh. There is no question that Satan must work upon the flesh if he is to succeed in it. That is true, but we are never exactly called to conflict with the flesh. The lusts of the flesh war against the soul. We are not to war with them, but to abstain from them. If we are "dead to sin" and to reckon ourselves dead, that is not fighting. If there be conflict, it is the result of not having reckoned ourselves dead. Here, however, it is an enemy who is contemplated, and we must not think that the height of our position and the blessedness of the things which are set before us here will bring us upon ground unassailable to the enemy. When Israel got to Canaan, it was just there that they had to fight, and fight for the possession of that which God made their own. We have to remember what is the great point of the conflict here therefore, a conflict which we shall little feel if we are not bent upon possessing ourselves of what is our own. On the other hand, if to lay hold of these heavenly things is the earnest desire of our souls, we shall find, nevertheless, that we need all the strength which is ours and all the resources of God for us, in order to prevail in the conflict. The very first point here is that strength is to be "in the Lord." We are to fight "in the power of His might." How comforting is that title which is given to Christ here! He is, in fact, the Lord of all, and though Satan may seem to have things here entirely under his sway, yet after all, he is a beaten foe, and only part of the "all things" that "work together for good to those that love God."

That does not mean that we can afford to be careless in the least with regard to it. On the contrary, we must "put on the whole armor of God that we may be able to stand." It will not do to have part of it firmly on and some other part wanting. Satan will be keen to observe the deficiency, and we cannot be rightly for God if we are not for Him in every way. It is, in fact, — as we shall see directly, — this being for Him in every respect, that is our armor to withstand the enemy. Let us notice that it is "against the wiles of the devil" that we have to stand, not against his power, for he has none in the presence of God, but his "wiles" are things that test us. We must have the wisdom of God to meet them with. We must be able to discern "things that differ;" error in its nicest shades and its closest approximation to the truth. It is the devil we are meeting, and that gives character to his assaults. He is the accuser, the accuser of the brethren, the accuser of God, surely, to the brethren. His whole aim is to put distance between the soul and God. If he cannot do that, we are safe. But the struggle then is not against flesh and blood; it is not such a struggle, after all, as Israel under Joshua had. Kings seemed to swarm in Canaan. There were abundance of principalities with which they had to deal, all of which have a correspondence in our case. Against us are principalities and powers, "the rulers of the darkness of this world." Here is a hint, — more than that, — of the method of attack. The darkness is the "darkness of this world." It is the world which Satan knows how to use and which he will bring in to cloud our perception as Christians, our realization of the things that are our own.

Further, we are instructed as to the character of the opposition. It is not simply persecution, or a direct denial of the truth; it is the far more subtle and dangerous opposition described as “the wiles of the devil”. A wile is something that looks fair and innocent, and yet beguiles the soul from the path of obedience. How often, in this day of confusion, the devil seeks to lead those who have the truth into some by-path, which at the beginning deviates so little from the true course that to raise any objection to it might seem fastidious. There is one simple question we can each ask ourselves by which every wile may be detected, “If I pursue this course where will it lead me?”

In Ephesians 6, we are especially warned against the wiles of the devil. We are to stand against the wiles of the devil. Elsewhere we read that he transforms himself into an angel of light. The Gibeonites illustrate these wiles of the devil. Not alone had they their mouldy bread and old wineskins, as a kind of credential to back up their lies, but they talked very piously. What are these wiles of the devil? We have to turn to the so-called "religious world" to find them. The "religious world," which speaks piously of God and Christ, is at best hypocrisy, phariseeism. Ritualism, Galatianism, manmade ordinances, belong to the wiles of the devil. Philosophies, traditions of men, delusive doctrines, cunningly devised fables, all these belong to the wiles of the devil (Colossians 2). Such systems as Christian Science, spiritism, Russellism, Bahaism, higher criticism, theosophy and others belong to the wiles of the devil. So does "social-reform." These world reformers, "Christian" socialists, talk piously like the Gibeonites, but the devil's wiles are underneath.

The wiles of the devil, not his power, we are exhorted to stand against. His wiles are all aimed at getting us away from the enjoyment of the fellowship into which God has called us, the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. If he succeeds in that he has dislodged us from our stronghold and then is able to attack us. The world over which he rules is at his disposal and he uses it to accomplish his sinister purpose. Many pages could be written on his tactics and not the half would be told. It is not so much by the gross things of the flesh and the world he works, though he also uses them; errors of all descriptions becoming more subtle and more cunning, are the chiefest wiles of this great being and the wicked spirits under his control. And how well he succeeds in our present time!

To turn the Galatian believers from the truth of the Gospel, the devil used the law as a wile to entrap them in legal self-importance. To turn the Corinthian saints from the truth of the assembly, the devil used the world as a wile to lead them into carnal self-indulgence. To turn the Colossian saints from the truth of the mystery, the devil used the wiles of “enticing words”, “philosophy” and superstition to entrap them in religious exaltation. These are still the wiles we have to face.

Now the devil takes a hand in this business, he has set himself to mar these days of the espousals. He has been beaten in his efforts to blind you, and he cannot prevent the marriage day, but if he can BEGUILE you from your wholehearted devotion to Christ, to whom you are espoused, he will do it. "I fear," wrote the Apostle, "lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from your simplicity as to Christ." He will come to you with enticing words, and "a besugared mouth": and shrewd old John Bunyan tells us that he is never so dangerous as when he comes like that. He will insinuate that you may have something else as well as Christ, and that your Christian life will be none the worse for it, indeed it will be all the better; he may even use doctrine, and make you into a theologian; or service, and make you into a preacher — proud of yourself, your knowledge and your work. Then it will be self and not Christ. He will get the world into your heart if he can; it is this he desires above all things, and here his subtlety has full play; it will not seem to be the world at first, it will be the thin edge of the wedge that he will insinuate, but having accomplished that he will handle the beetle with force, and drive home the wedge, and thus he will separate you in your affections from your great Lover. It was thus with the church at Ephesus, to whom the Lord said, "Thou hast left thy first love." Oh, what a fall was there, my brethren, and what a grief to the heart of Christ; and how did it come about? Satan who beguiled Eve had beguiled them from their devotion to Christ. Are you safer from his wiles than they were? Are you stronger than they? In no wise. If Christ is the absorbing Object of your love, the devil is watching for an opportunity to beguile you; if Christ is not your absorbing Object, he has found that opportunity and has succeeded in his effort, and you too have fallen.

The devil is an enemy; he tries to deceive us, he lays snares, he seeks to act upon us by means of our lusts. He may also indeed raise persecution to arrest us in the path of faith, but in ordinary life he deceives us by the things that suit the flesh.

THE Devil's dupes. Many have yielded to go a mile with Satan, that never intended to go two. Thus Satan leads poor creatures down into the depths of sin by winding stairs, that let them not see the bottom whither they are going: first, he presents an object that occasions some thoughts, these set the affections on fire, and these fume up into the brain and cloud the understanding, which, being thus disabled, now Satan dares a little more declare himself, and boldly solicit the creature to that it would otherwise have defied. Give not place to Satan! no, not an inch in his first motions; he that is a beggar, and a modest one without doors, will command the house if let in.

It is by his wiles that the devil works: he allures the saints of God by what is popular. He entices them from their stand for Christ and the truth by some specious doctrine, or by some element of worldly religion that is not Christ. How he must hate the Ephesian Epistle, and one of His wiles is to make Christians think that the truth in it is too high for them.

Eph. 6:11. "The wiles of the devil." I should myself press that, name given to him here — "devil." In two scriptures Satan takes the particular form of accuser; in Numbers, where he accuses Israel, he brings up a number of things, many of them true. God had taken up Israel on the ground of what was in Himself, and He did not behold iniquity in Jacob. But the people did not know that. In Revelation the accuser of the brethren is cast down. He accuses still: the weakest and the strongest will find it out. It is one of his great ways to take the eye off Christ and His work, to bring up our inconsistencies, and then we are confounded. God's answer is in Numbers 6. Ceasing from the life in the flesh is the answer. If Christ be risen, then I am accepted. But then it comes to our mind, "I am living as I did before; I do reckon myself dead, but, alas! Satan is too strong for me." Nevertheless I say, "Take a knife; let the Lord Jesus cut what He will. Christ has come into the world to destroy the works of the devil, and He will destroy them in me. I have got this old man, a horrible old man, but I, will reckon it dead, because God says it is dead."