Studies Through 1 John- Lesson 7
Satan's Ploys
1John: 2:15-17
15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. 16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.
How do we reconcile vs. 15 telling us not to love the world and if we do we don't have the love of God in us with "For God so loved the world" or God created the world in 6 days and it was good? Obviously it is understood by the different meaning of the word world. (Fortunately it doesn't have as many meanings as the word set) In the first case it refers to the population or people of the world and we are certainly to love them. The second case is the creation and we are definitely to love this and care for it. The meaning of the word world in verses 15 - 17 is Satan's system for opposing the work of Christ on the Earth. Therefore worldliness is being drawn into that system to the extent that you lose your enjoyment of the Father's love and you lose the desire to do the Father's will.
Before we go into detail describing what these three ploys are, it is important to notice that Satan is using things inside of us - the flesh, the eyes, and our pride so it is probably more an internal problem than an external. Satan knows what is inside of us and from the beginning with Adam and Eve to the temptation of Jesus to our daily temptations Satan uses the same schemes he used 4000 years ago. James describes this in chapter 1 verses 14,15
" but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death."
I like to picture this as resonance. I learned about this phenomenon in physics class. Check out the videos below;
Picture Satan holding a tuning fork vibrating the lust of the flesh up to our chest. Inside our hearts the lust of the flesh starts vibrating and it starts us in motion. Jesus talks about this in Matt. 15:16-20 when He says,
“Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. 17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”
There is something inside of us that irrationally is drawn to these devices of Satan as illustrated by the unexplainable need to go after squirrels in this clip from Up.
Lust of the Flesh
What is the lust of the flesh? First of all let's look at lust - what is this? It is basically an over-desire or a hyper desire usually for an acceptable thing that becomes a passion or something that directs our life rather than what should be which is Jesus Christ. The flesh refers to our lower or baser appetites such as sex, food, thirst, rest, comfort. These appetites are good until they start running our lives. The craving for sex drives us to immorality. The hyper desire for food drives us to gluttony. The over-desire for rest drives us to lethargy and so on. How does this show itself in our world? Have you ever seen a Hardees commercial?! Enough said. How is it demonstrated in the Bible? Probably the poster boy is Samson (Judges 13-16) driven by sex, food, fighting, his body - he reeked havoc on anyone who came in contact with him
Lust of the Eyes
Did you know the eyes have an appetite? Have you ever heard "feast your eyes on this"? The eyes are more refined than the flesh. They focus on sophisticated and intellectual pleasures. They plunge us into dissatisfaction and covetousness. The modern day examples would be car commercials where suddenly our car is a piece of junk. HGTV, I'm convinced is primarily geared toward this. People walk through houses and say, "Gross, wallpaper" or "Iiiishh, carpet" or, "No gas stove - deal breaker!" All this time we are watching and saying, "Oh no, we have carpeting, wall paper, electric stove and horror of horrors - dark cabinets". The Biblical example of this is Achan (Joshua 7). After being told by God to destroy everything in Jericho, Achan saw a Babylonian garment and 200 Shekels of silver and took them. Why? It can only be explained by the lust of the eyes. After all, he couldn't wear it -"Hey Achan, where did you get that awesome Babylonian garment?" "Umm, I made it?" Or where was he going to spend that money? They just destroyed all the Wal-Marts. It was just stupid but don't we all relate? Why? Because it is inside us all to varying degrees.
Pride of Life
The pride of life seeks to elevate ourselves over everyone else. I like what Warren Wiersbe says about it in his book "Be Real" a commentary on 1 John which I have gotten many of "my" thoughts from. "The Greek word for pride was used to describe a braggart who was trying to impress people with his importance. Why is it that so many folks buy houses, cars, appliances, or wardrobes that they really can't afford. Why do they succumb to the travel now pay later advertising and get themselves into hopeless debt taking vacations far beyond their means? Largely because they want to impress people with their pride of life. They want folks to realize how affluent or successful they are." Nebuchudnezzer is the prototype of this. One day he looked out on "his" kingdom and stated how wonderful he was and God caused him to crawl around on all fours like a wild animal until he admitted that God was the one in control not him.
These three temptations are nothing new; Satan has used them from the onset. In the garden, when he tempted Eve with the fruit in Genesis 3:6;
"When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it."
You see the lust of the flesh - "good for food", it met the bodily needs.
You see the lust of the eyes - "pleasing to the eyes". It brought dissatisfaction with all the other fruits that they were eating day after day.
You see pride of life - "desirable for gaining wisdom" I can be as wise as God.
Also we see it in the temptation of Jesus in Luke 4:3 - 12
4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’
5 The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. 7 If you worship me, it will all be yours.”
8 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’
9 The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. 10 For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you
to guard you carefully;
11 they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’
to guard you carefully;
11 they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’
12 Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.
You see the lust of the flesh - feed yourself
You see the lust of the eyes - look at all these kingdoms you could have
You see the pride of life - jump off and show everyone how amazing you are
Lastly, how do we fight against these? With the Word of God. Jesus quoted three passages in Deuteronomy to fight off temptation in these areas. How would one stop the tuning fork in the second video from resonating with the one beaker? Fill it up with water! Change your frequency. Abide in the Word of God and fill yourself up with Him and His truths and the devil's schemes wont have quite the attraction to us.
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