Satan’s Strategy for Your Life #18: Distortion

“The devil said to Him, ‘If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone’”—Luke 4:3-4.

Satan is a master at distorting truth. Several years ago, I was recently saved and at dinner with some friends who were not Christians. I was talking about sin and had mentioned homosexuality in particular, to which my unsaved friend replied, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” I was stunned! I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! Never had I heard this woman quote Scripture and never had I ever heard her talk about God. She was using Scripture to rebuke me, but she was using it incorrectly. The Scripture is to help bring an awareness of sin and the need of a Savior, but she was using it to condone a sin that the Bible explicitly condemns (Romans 1:23-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9; Leviticus 18:22). Just like Satan, she was distorting it for her own purposes rather than that for which God intended it.

Our passage for today has the devil tempting Jesus. Anyone who would come to Jesus—the divine Son of God, author of salvation, creator and sustainer of the universe, truth and love incarnate—and then attempt to use the very words that Jesus authored against Him is one sick, demented, and horrible being. But, rather than quote the verse correctly, he attempts to use it for his own purpose, to get Jesus to use some other means at His disposal, thus preventing Him from identifying with man (Hebrews 4:15).

Israel is labeled God’s “son” in Exodus 4:22 (cf. Deuteronomy 8:5), and came out of Egypt in the exodus, which prefigures the coming of God’s Son, Jesus, and His call out of Egypt (Matthew 2:15). Israel was in the wilderness for forty years and failed to be faithful (Hebrews 3:16-19), while Christ as God’s Son went to the wilderness for forty days and remained faithful, by His steadfast dependence upon the Spirit of God and adherence to His Word. He was able to resist Satan’s schemes and come forth as a faithful Son that was able to be a light to the nations and procure salvation by His atoning sacrifice on the cross. By His life and willingness to undergo temptation, He gave us an example how we may be able to escape temptation—by quoting the Word of God. But we must not just quote the Word of God; we must read it, meditate upon it (Psalm 119:15), study it (2 Timothy 2:16; 2 Timothy 3:16) and make it apart of us (Psalm 119:11). If we are faithful with these disciplines, we are able to recognize how Satan distorts the Word of God and uses it against us.

Distortion is one of the devil’s many schemes that he uses against the saints of God. And since he is a master theologian, he knows the Bible in and out, trying to find a loophole. We must constantly be in God’s Word so that we might be able to resist the devil’s schemes by being able to quote Scripture by saying, “It is written…” When we say, “It is written,” we are drawing on the living Word of God, that is sharper than any doubled edged sword (Hebrews 4:12) and will endure forever (1 Peter 1:25; cf. Matthew 5:18). May God give us the discipline necessary to know the Word of God and resist Satan’s schemes so that Christ might be seen through us to the honor and praise of His glorious name. Amen.