It is written,
"We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of the age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places."
This is hard to remember. We can see people, not demons. But I believe it is possible, and necessary, to know the schemes of Satan. Then we can effectively resist him, and not people, as our true enemy.
We can recognize demons through their primary weapon: Deception.
Imagine this: A wife misunderstands her husband's intentions. Instead of saying "Thank you," for the gift she bought him and put on the kitchen table as a surprise, he takes it and puts it in the closet. He never calls or acknowledges the gift from work.
The truth is, she does not know why he did this.
It is written, "No one knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man that is in him." It is also written, "From the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks." In other words, unless her husband expresses in words why he put the gift in the closet, the wife simply doesn't know or understand his actions. This, and this alone, is the truth.
But if she starts to open her mind to speculation, then the devil attacks her imagination with deceptions. The husband's "silence" becomes selfishness and ungratefulness. The wife starts to feel anger welling up inside of her. The longer she goes without hearing from him, the more angry she becomes.
Furious!
The phone rings. She looks at the caller i.d. It's "him!"
She answers.
"Sweetheart, I'm sorry I haven't been able to call. As soon as I got to work, my boss called me into his office for an emergency project. This is the first opportunity I've had to call. I saw your gift on the kitchen table. I wanted to wait and open it in front of you so you can see how happy you made me. Just seeing the gift made the thought of the approaching day bearable. I love you so much. You make my life good and easier to live."
Conviction.
Regret.
Earlier that day, the wife went to the closet, took the gift, and threw it away in rage. After this, Satan accused her relentlessly.
Do you see what happened?
When she focused on speculation, the devil introduced deception. She assumed that her husband was her ungrateful enemy. She retaliated.
If she had waited to find out the truth of his action, being quick to listen to him, slow to speak to him, and slow to get angry with him, she would know the truth. The truth defeats the lie.
So we can always know our enemy by deception, and the temptation of the assumption of opposition instead of unification and reconciliation. This assumption of opposition is a primary weapon of the enemy. This is what causes defensiveness. This is what causes us to have imaginary arguments in our heads about what a person will say, verses dealing with what they have said (if they've said anything at all.) This is when we take things personally that were not meant personally.
We can avoid the assumption of opposition when we seek and focus upon "what we know, and testify to what we have seen and heard." We can refuse speculation. If we do this, we will save ourselves many arguments and broken relationships. We will avoid misunderstanding and misrepresenting each other.
We will see our true enemy.
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