Street Smart
. "And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ" (2 Cor. 4:3-4).
. "The Lord's bondservant must not be quarrel some, but ... patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will" (2 Tim. 2:24-26).
It may not have occurred to you how complete the enemy's penetration into the minds of men has been, but these passages make it unmistakable. According to the New Testament, the entire world is in the devil's deathly grip. He holds people captive to do his bidding by trickery and deceit, blinding the minds of those who are perishing, keeping them from coming to their senses and seeing the world the way it really is. Not surprising, then, that the very first step in arming ourselves for battle against the devil is to gird our loins with truth (Eph. 6:14). When we fight with God's weapons of warfare that "are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses," we attack those lies and lay waste to them, "destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God" (2 Cor. 10:4-5).
The principal weapon at the enemy's disposal allowing him to gain ground in the spiritual conflict, then, is not power but deception. If the basic strategy for Satan's spiritual assault is spreading lies, then our most potent countermeasure in the battle against him is its opposite: spreading truth. The response to lies, the answer to deception, the antidote to deceit is truth.
We are at war battling otherworldly forces in the unseen realm with weapons that are effective to oppose the spiritual strategies and demonic plans in play against us. Our job is to resist those schemes by exposing them, doing everything we can to stand firm by countering lies with truth. There is another angle, though, a key insight you must not miss, a clue that will allow you to unveil the unseen schemes, making them visible to you. A person who can see will not easily stumble into a ditch, even a small one. He'll walk around it. A blind person, on the other hand, will walk off a cliff because no matter how deep or wide the abyss, he will not know it is there. In the same way, Satan can impose and palm off a very big lie on the world, one so obvious that thoughtful Christians easily see through it, yet the world at large will be oblivious to it because they have been blinded. And here is the clue, the "tell," the giveaway that reveals the scheme and helps inform our own counteroffensive against it in battle. Look for the big spiritual lie that seems completely transparent, the obvious ploy that appears ridiculously heavy-handed, the massive ditch that can't be missed but the world doesn't seem to see, the abyss the blind masses fall into without giving it a second thought. Find that, and you will find the scheme.
If you wonder why anyone would buy into such an obvious spiritual error, if the gullibility of the multitude perplexes you, if you catch yourself saying, "This makes no sense," then you have probably stumbled onto a scheme. You have identified a maneuver in the battle since the only explanation for such lack of spiritual perception is spiritual blindness. and we now know who is responsible for that.
