1 Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
The Bible is very clear that Satan is the father of lies, the king of deception. The greatest April Fools joke being played on the world today is that Satan is make believe, a made up entity with no power. He is simply a cartoon character, dressed in red, with a toy pitchfork in his hand. He’s a character to be laughed at, dismissed, and really nothing to worry about at all.
Untrue! Untrue! Untrue! His greatest deception is to get us to underestimate him.
We’re in the midst of basketball season. Many great teams have fallen to lesser teams because they underestimated the opponent they faced. They took victory for granted, looking beyond to the next opponent.
Satan wants us to overlook him, dismiss him, and look beyond. He wants us to accept the things we know are wrong. He wants us to overlook immorality, look past greed and manipulation. He wants us to start defining certain sin as “worse” than others. He wants us to believe that hate is OK, as long as it’s directed at a group that is out of political favor at the moment.
But remember what Jesus said (Matthew 7:21-23), “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”
What is the will of the Father? That we follow His commandments. What are His commandments? Summed up: Love God with all our heart, soul, and mind. Love our neighbor as ourselves. Who is my neighbor? Everyone.
Satan’s greatest April Fools joke is getting us to believe that we’re wise enough to determine the state of our neighbors heart, that we need only observe the parts of God’s Bible we feel good about, and that Satan is a make believe character and heaven is real and hell is not. When he is able to get us to underestimate the extent of his evil here on earth, we can unwittingly become a tool of his deception.
He roams about seeking those spiritually asleep – wake up!! We must wake up before he devours our eternity.
