In this sermon, the preacher focuses on the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and how Satan deceived them. He emphasizes the importance of recognizing Satan as our adversary and understanding his tactics to draw us into sin. The preacher outlines six devices that Satan uses to tempt and deceive believers. He encourages listeners to maintain a close walk with God and seek repentance for their sins. The sermon emphasizes the need to rely on Jesus Christ for forgiveness and restoration.

Picture in your mind the Garden of Eden in all its pristine beauty, a place free from sin, a place where God walks in the cool of the day, a place where God the Creator makes man out of the dust of the ground and breathes life into him, a compassionate and loving God who sees that it is not good for man to be alone, so he creates a woman, a helpmate for Adam. There, Adam and Eve not only enjoy each other, but they delight in the presence of God and his fellowship with them. But this perfect scene in paradise becomes a tragedy because of Satan, the serpent, Satan, the beguiler, Satan, the deceiver. Listen to these words taken from Genesis 3, 13. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. My message today, friends, is entitled The Beguiler, and it's a study on how Satan, our great adversary, will beguile a believer. Beguile means to deceive. We will look at his evil stratagems and his wicked devices that he uses to deceive us and tempt us to sin and draw us away from God. To draw us into sin is to rob God of his glory. O Satan, the beguiler, the enemy of our souls. This may be the only message I ever alliterate. I feel the art of sermonic alliteration is overdone in our day. But in this particular case, I feel I must use alliteration to bring my points across. So you will better remember what I will say about the great adversary of our soul. Let me give you my outline, and you may wish to write it down before we begin. Satan will use the following six devices to draw us into sin. I will use the number six particularly, for the man of sin is 666, and there are six major avenues which Satan will approach a Christian. After you write these six words down, I will elaborate upon them. These six avenues of deception from Satan are 1. Providence, 2. Provision, 3. Protection, 4. Presumption, 5. Pleasure, and 6. Perception. I will tie these six points together with biblical examples from Adam and Eve, the life of King David, and Jesus Christ, and I will demonstrate how Satan uses these six major strategies to beguile a believer into sin. Let us look at the first one, Providence. When Christ was in the wilderness and tempted of the evil one, what was the first tactic Satan used against Christ? Let us turn to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 4, verses 3 and 4. And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command the stone that it be made bread. And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. Notice that Satan's assault on Christ is to get Jesus to doubt his Father's providence, that God is not in control, that God has placed Jesus in this wilderness of temptation and has deserted him there. This, my friend, is a strategy of Satan. He will get you to doubt the providence of God in your life. Satan will beguile you into believing that God has somehow forgotten you, that your situation is so desperate, so far gone, that you must not look to God or His promises, for they no longer apply to you. Satan will tell you that God is unfair to place you into this wilderness, that this trial, this affliction, is so great that you will never get out of it. The providence of God is not for you, but against you. Look at the life of Joseph and how he was thrown into a pit and then cast into a prison. Both the butler and the chef, the butler and the baker, get out of prison, but Joseph is left alone in there for another two years to wonder about the providence of God. Had God forgotten about him? But yet, when all of Joseph's life is seen from a total perspective, we hear him utter to his brethren, But as for you, ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good. See how Joseph saw the providence of God as good in his life. To save much people alive, God had a divine purpose behind the trials and afflictions of Joseph. And friend, God has a divine purpose behind your trial and your affliction. Do not doubt the providence of God in your life. What Satan intends for evil against you, God means it for good. Do not allow Satan to beguile you into doubting the good providence of God in your present circumstance. Although you cannot see a way out of your deep trial as of yet, God is in control. God sits upon a throne and He takes care of His own. Oh friend, your personal storm of affliction is God's opportunity to demonstrate His power, His purpose, and His glory in your life. Do you believe that? It is true. Many have been the afflictions in my own life, some overpowering, some overwhelming, to the point all I could do was to climb to the rock higher than I. The providence of God is never unkind, but always compassionate. The providence of God is always for our good and not for our harm. Listen to this promise of the word of God from Jeremiah. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Satan's number one strategy is to get you to doubt the providence of God in your life. Do not believe his lies. He is a beguiler, a deceiver. Your circumstance is God's circumstance. Your adversity is God's opportunity to show Himself strong. Listen to God as He declares to you, Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for me? Now, friends, let's look into the second great deception of Satan against us, and that is provision. It is to doubt God's taking care of us. Notice, Satan tells Jesus to command this stone that it be made bread, that God the Father would not provide food for Jesus, that if Jesus needed substance, He would have to take matters into His own hands because God was not going to provide for His Son. This wilderness of temptation was for forty days. The Bible says that Jesus was forty days tempted of the devil, and the text from Luke states, And in those days He did eat nothing, and when they were ended, He afterward hungered. Jesus had been in a wilderness, and in His humanity, He hungered. He had a real, legitimate need that had to be met, and God the Father was not going to meet that need, so the beguiler tells Jesus to meet that need Himself. That's a lie. This, friends, is how Satan comes to you to entice you to sin. He will take a legitimate need of your body and get you to meet that need through sin. Satan will tempt you to meet your need through reliance upon yourself and not reliance upon God to meet that need. Satan will deceive you into believing that the only way to meet that need of yours is through self-reliance through sin, so you go to the world, the flesh, or the devil to meet that need, and you doubt the provision of God to take care of that need. Oh, what a great line this is, my friend, to meet a legitimate need of your body through sin. Dear friend, Satan will get you here easier than many other ways. Look what he did to Eve in the garden. Satan tempted Eve. He beguiled her to eat at a forbidden tree. He got her to doubt of God's provision for her, that God was not providing everything for her. He was holding back this tremendous blessing of the fruit of this tree, which would open her eyes. He was holding back this tremendous blessing. Dear friend, do not doubt of God's provision for you, either financially, physically, or emotionally. God looks upon our feeble condition, and He has a grace for it if we only look to Him. God looks upon our hungry heart, and He has a grace to fill it. God looks upon our destitute state, and He has a barn full of plenty to meet our material needs more than we can ever imagine. If only our faith was stronger. We are in financial trouble, so we buy a lottery ticket hoping for a big win and an answer to our dilemma. We turn to cisterns of our own devices rather than looking to God and waiting upon God to deliver us. So Satan will deceive us into not trusting God's provision for us, either in things financial, physical, or emotional. But don't believe that lie. The next devilish avenue that Satan approaches us on is to beguile us to doubt God's protection of us, that God will not protect His own. When we doubt of God's protection over us, we demonstrate our lack of faith. Look at Jesus' words to His disciples when they awoke Him in the midst of a storm-tossed sea, and they launched forth. But as they sailed, He fell asleep, and there came down a storm of wind on the lake, and they were filled with water, and they were in jeopardy. And they came to Him and awoke Him, saying, Master, Master, we perish. Then He arose and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water, and they ceased, and there was a calm. And He said unto them, Where is your faith? Notice that the disciples were in a very dangerous situation. The text states they were in jeopardy. They were in danger of losing their lives. They evidently realized this and believed it to be true. So they awoke the Lord with their desperate cry, Master, Master, we perish. Now, these were experienced seamen. They knew how to ride out a storm, but their faith failed them. They did not believe that God would protect them in the midst of a storm. That is what Satan will tell you, friend, that God will not take care of you in the midst of your storm, that you will perish because God will forget about you. Don't listen to his lies. Turn your eyes upon Jesus and ask Him for the grace to get you through. Ask Him for the grace to believe, the grace of a stronger faith, the grace of patience to endure your trial until He sees fit to arise and rebuke the wind and raging in your life until they cease and there is calm and clear skies once again. Oh, friend, never doubt God's protection over you. Now, notice the next plan of beguilement that Satan comes to us with. He attempts to get us to sin against God through presumption. Listen to how the evil one comes against Christ in the wilderness to get Him to presume upon His Father's protection. And He brought Him to Jerusalem and set Him on a pinnacle of the temple and said unto Him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence, for it is written, He shall give His angels charge over thee to keep thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. This is an area where Satan will come against a minister of the gospel. He will attempt to get you to presume upon your relationship with God to act outside of God. But he will get you to build a larger church building based on your previous favor from God. But Satan, the great beguiler, will get you to build on your own reputation without consulting God first. How many times in my own life have I acted first and then asked God to bless it? How many times have I ended up in a ditch of my own making? Dear brother pastor, one of the easiest avenues of Satan's approach to you will be to try to get you to do something for God without the help and assistance of God. For you to presume upon your relationship with God to act in the flesh rather than in the spirit, this sin of presumption is a deadly evil. Many ministers are in a financial hole. Many congregations are in disorder because the leadership has presumed upon God's favor without consulting Him first. The next area of attack comes in the form of pleasure. Look at King David as he walks about the rooftop of his palace while he is in peace and prosperity. David is no longer hiding in caves from the pursuit of King Saul. He is now king and victorious over his enemies. Peace and prosperity are plenty to him now. And the word of God says, And it came to pass in an evening tide that David arose from off his bed and walked upon the roof of the king's house. And from the roof he saw a woman washing herself, and the woman was very beautiful to look upon. O friend, sin is a pleasure for a season. How soon that season ends! How soon we, like David, are sorry for our foolish entry into the pleasure of sin. Satan will present you with a desire. He will then stoke that desire by making that sin appealing. The woman was very beautiful to look upon. It was true. Bathsheba was a gorgeous looking female, but she was another man's wife. But David was king. He could have anything or anyone he desired, and he looked upon her and desired her, and he sent for her, and he lay with her, and he sinned against God. For the text in 2 Samuel reads, But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord. How easy it is to be led astray by the evil one in our walk. If our walk with God is weak, if we have become self-indulgent, if we have become self-reliant, we are easy prey for the sin of passion and pleasure by fulfilling a lust outside of the will of God. Paul warns us in Galatians, Be not deceived. God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, he shall also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. Oh friend, how we need to maintain a close walk with God. If Satan gets us anywhere, he gets us here in our lack of a vital walk with God through an intimate love relationship with Jesus Christ. Satan is a thief, a destroyer, a beguiler, a deceiver. If we confess our sins, Jesus Christ is faithful to forgive us our sins. God says, Return to me and I will return to you. Return to him, friend. Go to him now and ask him for the grace of repentance. Ask him to forgive you, to cleanse you, to restore you to a right relationship with him, to restore you once again, to restore the joy of your salvation. And stay in a red hot love relationship with Jesus Christ every minute of every day. The last major area and battleground which Satan attacks us is in our mind. He will get us through our perception of things in our minds. He will attack our thought life with thoughts of anxiety, hopelessness. He will try to convince us that God no longer cares about us or our welfare, that we no longer have any hope in God. Satan will attempt to get us to doubt the word of God and the promises in the word of God to us. Satan, the great deceiver, will try to get us to believe that God has given up on us, that God has deserted us, that God has let us down. Satan will beguile us to a mental depression or an emotional despondency in order to sidetrack us or even destroy us. I know many suffer from depression. Charles Spurgeon used to call his bouts of depression the black dog. Oh friend, life is hard, the world is cruel, and people will disappoint you. But God is faithful, God is kind, God has not forgotten you. God loves you with an enduring love. We are his workmanship. He formed us, he created us, he has great plans for you. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. God will never forsake us or forget us. Satan will attempt to use a trial, a tribulation, perhaps an illness or a financial adversity to cast you into a deep depression or despondency. Pastor Brethren, a person in your congregation can be used of the enemy to so upset you and depress you and discourage you that your perception of things is altered. And you may perhaps enter a time of deep discouragement and even a deep depression. But look up, look up to the one who is our rock, our refuge, our redeemer. His vantage point is different from ours. He sees our end, he sees our trial, he sees the result of what he is accomplishing in our lives. Keep looking at Jesus, keep looking at Jesus. Oh dear friend, keep looking at Jesus and stand on his word. Rely upon his spirit and rest in his grace. Satan is a beguiler, an enemy who is relentless. He is a relentless adversary who has no honor and he keeps no boundaries. He is malicious in his attempt to thwart us and do us harm. But Christ Jesus is our victory. We are under the blood. Therefore put on the armor of God and stand against the devil and he will flee from you. Be on your guard every day. Stay in a close walk with God and keep pursuing a red hot love relationship with Jesus Christ our Lord. We hope this little study on the stratagems of Satan has been of some help to you. May you experience victory in Christ in your daily walk with him. And may you bring forth fruit that remains and multiplies all to the glory of God. Amen.