The devil, Part Two: his tactics

Let us return to the Gospel story from this past Sunday to see how the devil operates.  Pay particularly to the words underlined in the story this time.  After each underlined section, I will make a brief comment.

We read Luke 4 1:13:

Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan
and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days,
to be tempted by the devil.
He ate nothing during those days,
and when they were over he was hungry.
The devil said to him,
"If you are the Son of God,
command this stone to become bread."

The devil here is trying to divert Jesus from his mission of turning human hearts into using his power on matter much less important.

Jesus answered him,
"It is written, One does not live on bread alone."
Then he took him up and showed him
all the kingdoms of the world in a single instant.

The devil said to him,
"I shall give to you all this power and glory;
for it has been handed over to me,
and I may give it to whomever I wish.
All this will be yours, if you worship me."

The devil here is trying to deceive Jesus into thinking that a great reward will be given him if he does something for him.

Jesus said to him in reply,
"It is written:
You shall worship the Lord, your God,
and him alone shall you serve."

Then he led him to Jerusalem,
made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him,
"If you are the Son of God,
throw yourself down from here, for it is written:
He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,
and:
With their hands they will support you,
lest you dash your foot against a stone."

 

The devil here is trying to discourage Jesus into thinking that he should throw himself down, give up, and he will be OK.

Jesus said to him in reply,
"It also says,
You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test."
When the devil had finished every temptation,
he departed from him for a time.

There are four common tactics the devil likes to use, and they can be easy to remember because they all begin with the letter "d".   We saw three in the Gospel passage above: deception, diversion, and discouragement..  There is also a fourth, division.    I think we can see in our times how the devil uses them all in our own individual lives, in the world, and in the Church.

Warning… sensitive material ahead

Deception   The devil deceives us into thinking bad things are good.  Things that used to be bad are now considered OK or even good; for example, contraception, abortion, pre-marital sex, extramarital affairs, homosexual sex, religions that teach other than the Divinity of Christ, all things society used to frown on are now considered OK.    Words that used to describe those things have been replaced by nice-sounding terms such as “reproductive rights”, “casual sex", and “gay”.  I am convinced the devil is involved in this re-wording.   I think he is also behind the false religions of the world that make deceptive afterlife promises for doing bad things (i.e. marrying 72 virgins if you die for Allah), which motivates many terrorists.  He also deceives many with the allures of riches and power.

Division  Instead of fostering patience and fortitude to work as a community through issues, the devil instead says, "The Church is corrupt, look at all the scandals; leave her. “  Or to others “Your spouse is bored and flawed, leave him or her. “  Or to others  “Your nation with its materialism and corruption is flawed; leave it, join a sect, fight against it"  When people leave a noble group or cause struggling to persevere, like the Catholic Church, our own families, or our nation,  it is a sign that the devil is successfully fostering division.   He also fosters division within ourselves by trying to incline us to sin to foster disunity between our bodies and souls.

Diversion  The devil likes us to divert our attention away from the real issues to focus on lesser ones.  For example, we see the violence and unrest in the world today. The big issues are a relaxation of our moral standards, a lack of a spiritual life, and a lack of reverence and awareness of the just, yet merciful God.  However, rather than trying to solve this problem, via conversion of ourselves and evangelization of others with the Gospel message, we focus on turning to government laws and social programs to solve our problems.  I think the devil likes this.  He also likes it when in our personal life we get anxious about many things that we should not be as much, like finances or having power and material things, or even health, but fail to pay attention to what matters most, our moral decisions.

Discouragement  He wants us to be discouraged and give up.  He wants us to give up on ourselves, each other, family life, our nation, and the Church.  All the violence in the world, all the scandals in the Church, our children who may have strayed, personal tragedies, and/or our own sins, may be making us sad.  That is exactly what he wants.  He wants us to be anxious.  He wants us to fear raising children in a world such as this, and not even consider starting families.   He loves the fact that our birthrate is so low.  He loves broken homes,  and crumbling churches.

Yes, the devil is at work all over the place.  If you are reading this, you can probably think of other examples of the devil using one or more of the tactics above in your own life, or in the life of the Church or our world.   You are not alone, he strives to afflict all of us, from the most devout believer to the most hardened atheist .   He is the enemy of every man, every woman, and every child.   He truly despises all mankind.

How can we fight him and overcome him?  That will be the topic of the final post of this series.

Joseph, pillar of families, pray for us.