I hate to even give the creep any credit here, but we must realize what we are up against. It is not profound that we all waging war in a constant battlefield of the mind. "Happiness is a state of mind". In the book The Art of War, most likely written during the 4th century BC Sun Tzu writes, "All warfare is based on deception. An indispensable preliminary to battle is to attack the mind of the enemy." Guy Chevreau's book Spiritual Warfare Sideways expounds on this and is quite enlightening:
"This is precisely how our enemy works against us; he is continuously attempting to deceive us and attack our minds. The devil's first ploy was to dishonor the character of God, and it is that which he ever hopes to perpetuate. In the Garden of Eden, the devil manifests as the serpent and asks Eve, 'Is it true...?' Those three words shake creation to its very foundations, and eternity hangs in the balance. 'Is what God said true?'
In answer to the question, Eve repeats what she has been told. 'God has forbidden us to eat the fruit of that tree;...if we do, we shall die.' With compelling assurance the serpent responds, 'Of course you will not die.' The sly one promotes himself as the truth teller and subtly implies that God is the one who misleads. This is ever the deceiver's method of attack: He attemps to erode our faith in the faithfulness of God.
'Why is there victory for everyone but me?'
'Why do God's promises come true for everyone else?'
'God doesn't love me. He doesn't care what I'm going through. He's deaf to my prayers.'
The strategems of the evil one are such that we will be tempted in all sorts of ways to believe that the Kindgom has not come near, at least to us. Lying voices try to convince us that we're still strangers to God's love, grace and mercy, that we must still be bound in our sins, that we are still under condemnation, that we are still unworthy.
Sun Tzu was right. 'All warfare is based on deception.' Our enemy is ever whispering lies about God, lies about our soulds and lies about our spirits, our minds and our self-images. We're lied to about what's most important in life and lied to about what we really need. We're lied to about our past and our futures. We're lied to personally, corporately and socially.
Our enemy uses a second strategy against us, one that is also based on deception. It merely has a different focus. Regrettably, it's not an either/or attack but rather a both/and attack. While the devil is attempting to cause us to find fault with the nature and character of our heavenly Father, he is also ever drawing us to find fault with one another. It is the essence of the distorted promise he makes to Eve: 'You will be like God himself, knowing both good and evil.' This deception is the telling of two half-truths. One is an understatment, the other an exaggeration. Firstly, the serpent lied, for we are not 'like God': we are made 'in his own image.' Secondly, while we know both good and evil, it is an imperfect knowledge, something considerably short of God's full understanding. This partial knowldge is the source of the fault-finding and judgementalism that tears at our relationships. Interestly, the origin of the Greek word daimon-'demon' mean 'to disrupt, to rend and tear.'
The enemy attacks our minds and seeks to rend our relationships through fault-finding, often with and by those closest and dearest to us. Our spiritual forebears were victimized by this very strategy. Before the Fall, Adam and Eve enjoyed perfect freedom with one another and presumably took complete delight in one another's nakedness. But once 'the eyes of both of them were opened,' they could no longer be so vulnerable to one another.
Perhaps it went something like this. Adam looked down at himself and then looked at Eve. He looked down at himself and looked at Eve again. Then he said, 'Eve, what's wrong with you? Why don't you have one of these?' She looked at Adam, looked at herself, looked at Adam and said. 'I don't know, but I'd rather have two of these than one of those silly-looking things." And with those accustaion, they wounded each other so profoundly that they had to hide themselves from one another.
The third deceptive strategy comes agsinst us as the consequence of the second. After Adam and Eve find fault with one another, they try to hide, not just from one another but from God. When the Lord comes calling, Adam defensively answers, 'I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.' The enemy's influence profoundly distorted Adam's self-understanding so that a sense of fear and shame pervaded.. In this Belial, the 'unworthy one,' ever attempts to impart feelings of unworthiness to his victims.
Just as we each find someting of our 'original' self in the account of Adam and Eve's creation, temptation and fall, so we also find something of our deepest self in the parable of the prodigal son. When he finally comes to his senses and heads for home, his confession is a mixture of both truth and distortion, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'
The lie is preempted by his dad's unconditional love and unfailing mercy: 'Quick! Fetch a robe, the best we have, and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us celebrate with a feast. For this son of mine was dead and has come back to life, he was lost and is found.' Because the Father's love so competely restores all that sin destroys, the feeling of unworthiness have no place or grounding.
The dynamics of the Lord's high priestly prayer can appropriately be applied at this very point, not only for the prodigal but to the prodigal in each of us: 'I do not pray you to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one...Consecrate them by the truth; your word is truth.' It is but one aspect of divine mystery that Adam and Eve's eyes were 'opened' when they succombed to decption, yet it is a revelation of truth that redeems, restores and sets us free."
- Guy Chevreau
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