The Cunning Of Sin

Seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment.

Sin is cunning, clever, astute and more creative than any human mind can ever be or ever hope to be. If we all agree that sin is not of God and that sin has real, live servants and angels on earth, then should we not live in constant awareness and totally depend on the only Person who can save us from the cunning deceiver?

Whether or not you want to believe the passionate calls about you not being smart enough, holy enough and blood-washed enough to be taken in by the enemy deceiver, does not in any way curtail his powers over you. Come on! Satan even tried to seduce and induce Jesus, God’s Holy Son, to bear Satan’s fruits, as it were. Satan never came with a gun to Jesus’ head, threatening and demanding Jesus to do as he said, or else. He never ever once told Jesus that He was not God’s Son and that He must stop thinking such erroneous thoughts. He never told Jesus that God was a liar, a deceiver and a cheat. O No! Absolutely not! The devil is too clever for such an ordinary path to take with God’s Son. Have you even looked seriously and closely at how he came to deceive Jesus, seizing the opportunity of Jesus being in the wilderness, weak and hungry from fasting?

Jesus was obeying His Beloved Father in heaven, and had just completed the required forty days and forty nights of fasting, when Satan seized that opportunity. He never came to Jesus during that tremendous Spiritual power-fast, but as soon as it was ended, he was there. Yes, the devil waited until Jesus was weak and hungry, to tempt Him into submission to him. Satan has not changed and he still comes to Jesus' people, you and me, as he did to our Master, not with evil, for He is evil. He comes with God’s good, I tell you. Never be deceived and daily live in perfect ignorance about this fact. Satan, the devil, Lucifer or whatever name you call him, is evil, the embodiment of all evil. He does not have to come with evil. It’s as simple as this. When darkness comes to a person, it does not have to come with fear or dread, for they are already who darkness is to many, most of us, if we are honest. The devil comes to God’s children with the things of God, to entice us and fool us who refuse to believe that without the Holy Spirit, we will be deceived.

Perhaps some of you heard the news out of Jamaica, where a man sold sweets to children from a school and hundreds of them came down ill. It was discovered after the fact, that the candy was all laced with cannabis. When I heard the news, my first thought was how easily we all are desperately deceived, just because some things look good to our carnal eyes. Whether you care to accept it or not of yourself, be it known that the enemy uses good to deceive us.

When we are given hearing ears to hear and listen to the Spirit and seeing eyes to see and perceive the wisdom of the Spirit, we understand fully that the deceiver can only seize opportunities afforded by God. Listen again, carefully. Seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment. Who seized? Sin seized. What did sin seize? Sin seized an opportunity. Who provided the opportunity? God did.