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“We Are Not Ignorant of the Devil’s Devices.”
Pastor Walt Stowe

Preached at a Preachers’ Fellowship in May,6,1986

Bible Baptist Church of Puyallup, Wa. At the Invitation of the then Pastor, Jim Nolan

Text: 2 Corinthians 2:10-11

To whom ye forgive any thing, I forgive also: for if I forgave any thing, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it in the person of Christ; Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.”

Now it seems that what Paul is inferring in verse 10 is that one of the devices Satan uses is an unforgiving spirit, wouldn’t you say? That’s not the message, but it’s interesting. I had never really thought about it that way before, but I’ve seen case histories where I know that was the problem. Somebody had an unforgiving spirit, so they themselves couldn’t be right with the Lord. And it contributed to their problems.

Then he said, “Lest Satan should get an advantage over us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.” Now I know the devil gets blamed for a lot of things that would have happened whether he was around or not, amen? But I also believe that he takes advantage of certain things, like he did with the Lord Jesus Christ on the Mount of Temptation. Jesus had fasted for forty days and forty nights, and the Bible said he was hungry. He was real hungry. His flesh was crying out for food. Satan appealed to the lust of his flesh and said, “If you are the Son of God turn these stones into loaves of bread to satisfy the legitimate lust of your flesh”. And Satan will use the things that we have, that we carry around with us all the time. You know our three enemies. The Bible refers to them as the world, the flesh and the devil, right? So he will work out situations and opportunities for these things to come into play; and he’ll use these things to bring about your downfall if he can.

I hope I do not embarrass Brother Jim today. I count it a higher privilege than I can put into words—the fact that he felt impressed to have me come and speak. I hope I do not embarrass the church here today, the Bible Baptist Church—one of the great churches, I believe, in the Northwest. You have a great pastor and a great people. But Brother, I have a message for you. I think the preacher before came with a message. And I have a message for you. Preacher, I have a message for you. I would just as soon that we had no one but preachers here today. It might help a layman or two; but, especially you preachers, I have a message for you. And I believe if I did not share this message with you I would be remiss at what God would have me to do. I may not ever preach this same message again; in fact, I hope I don’t. But I have to share it with you.

How many of you pastors here are, say, under forty years old. Would you raise your hands? You I especially have something for. God bless you! It’s like getting married, right? If you had known the things that faced you in that marriage, if you had known all the heartaches and trials, you might not have gotten married. If you had known what God was going to do with your life when you surrendered to preach, all of the heartaches and trials you were going to go through … you’re still finding out about it. But, brother, most of us wouldn’t have surrendered to preach, I’m sure.

Satan likes to blind us to certain truths. I’m talking to preachers now. He can blind you just like he can blind anyone else. You are the most vulnerable of all men. You have the greatest resource for strength and power, but you also have the greatest vulnerability because of the position that you are in. The only hope you have is to stay close to your Savior. The only hope you really have is to stay immersed in God’s precious Book, God’s precious Word.

If you were to take every preacher that ever failed and could trace it back yonder to the beginnings of it, you would find that somehow he got away from God’s Book. He got away from that personal thing he had going with the Lord Jesus Christ. He did not immerse himself in God’s Word and in the things of the Lord Jesus Christ. He got preoccupied with other things—and maybe they were legitimate things, but they did not deserve the place that they began to have in his life. And when you get like that, Satan can blind you.

He can blind you to the true character of sin. Even a preacher … he can blind you to the true character of sin. There’s no way in the world you can justify your wicked conduct. No way! But everyone that ever got into trouble justified it some way or another to himself. That’s right. You will justify it one way or another. He has a way of making the worst and the vilest of sins justifiable. Ask your homosexual about it: “I’m born this way, so it’s all right!” Amen?

He will bring you to the place where you will look around and say, “There are giants falling all around me They are falling all around me!” And it seems like the ones who are the least likely to fall are the ones who fall. It seems like those who seem to be the strongest are the ones who fall. And so you come to a place in your life and you look around and say, “If the giants are falling all around me, who do I think I am?” It begins to give you a little justification for what’s in your heart to do. It’s “Everybody else is doing it” with a new twist. Well, I’ll tell you, preacher—you haven’t done it, and you don’t have to do it!

You’ll say, “Hey, you’re thinking about it … go ahead and do it! It’s just as bad to think about it as it is to do it! Just go ahead and do it!” That’s a dirty lie out of hell! Sure, you’re guilty! Jesus said, “If you look upon a woman to lust after her you have committed adultery in your heart.” And you go down right that moment as an adulterer. But, brother, the consequences are nowhere near the same! You can quit thinking about it! Hey, preacher! You can quit thinking about it! You don’t have to think about it!

I believe down deep in my soul that right here the battle is won or lost in most cases: what you allow yourself to be preoccupied with. Is there a person you think about more than you think of your wife? You’re in grave danger! I don’t care what the thoughts are—you are in grave danger! Is there some other occupation in life that you think about more than you think about your ministry before God Almighty? You are in grave danger! You are not going to stay in the ministry for very long. That’s right! But you don’t have to think about it! Somebody says, “Brother Walt, I try not to think about it.” You don’t just have to try not to … you don’t have to think about it!

A woman called me one day. She and her husband got saved out of a swinging life. I mean, they swapped partners, they had sex parties, she had been a lesbian; and she didn’t have it entirely whipped. She took a trip to Arizona. (I’m sorry … we’re going to get some dirty linens thrown up here.) She took a trip to Arizona; and when she came back, she called me on the phone. “Brother Walt … oh my God,” she said. “I’ve failed God.” I said, “What happened?” She said, “There was this girl down there…” She had an affair with this girl when she went to Arizona, so she called me. It was like calling a priest, I guess, confessing. She said, “Preacher, I just can’t get these thoughts out of my mind!” I said, “Yes, you can! Yes, you can!”

Preacher, you can, too! I’m talking to somebody here this morning. These thoughts keep coming into your mind, but you don’t have to entertain them. Do you know the best way to get those wrong thoughts out of your mind? Right here! The Word of God! The Word of God! First of all, just confess it as a filthy, dirty sin. “God, I’m sorry!” Then start quoting Scripture in your mind. Start quoting Scripture. You say, “What Scripture?” Any Scripture! It doesn’t matter what Scripture! Just any Scripture; because that dirty, wicked thought cannot stay in your mind with the Word of God. It cannot do it. Now, I make it a practice in my life that when these thoughts; and brother they come before you even know it! You are thinking these thoughts before you are even aware of them. But when you become conscious of them—right then, RIGHT THEN, RIGHT THEN—you say, “God, I’m sorry! Forgive me!” Then start quoting the 23^rd.Pslam, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…” Any verse, any part of the Word of God will cleanse your mind.

He blinds you to the true character of sin. He blinds you to sin’s binding power. I know we preach on the binding power of sin all the time, don’t we? The outline on Samson: sin blinds, binds and grinds, right? Amen? I don’t know where the outline came from but it’s a good outline. And we stand and we preach it. “But WE will never be bound by sin!” “Brother, he’s a man of the cloth! He stands behind the sacred desk!” Pastor’s wife, your husband would never be bound by sin, would he? Ladies, you’re vulnerable, too! And so, every old drunkard never dreamed he would become a drunken alcoholic. He was just going to take one little drink. Every dope addict never dreamed he’d become a dope addict. He was just going to see what it was like, experiment. Sin’s binding power! Dear God! O my God … O my God! God help me never to find it out experimentally.

I had a preacher friend who had just come out of a mess—he’d run off with his secretary. They finally found him—the church found him. They begged him to come back. He came back. They said, “If you’ve gotten right with God, we still want you to be our pastor.” He said, “Only if we take a secret ballot and I get a 100% vote.” That’s what they did, and he got a 100% vote. I was out golfing with him a week or two after that—a big old fellow, a strong man. His body began to rack with sobs; he just shook. He laid his head on my shoulder and sobbed. He said, “Walt, it was a nightmare … it was a nightmare … it was a nightmare. I prayed and asked God to kill me time and again.”

You get out there, you mess around. The devil says, “Yeah, you can mess around. You can still be your own master.” That’s a dirty lie! You’ll get out there, and you’ll mess around and you’ll mess around. Then you’ll start to say, “Well, I’ve had enough. That’s it!” And the devil laughs at you! Have you ever ridden a rollercoaster? As a kid, I rode a rollercoaster—it must not have been a very big one. I had all these romantic ideas about roller coasters. (The last time I rode one was probably twenty years ago). And I got on—I couldn’t wait to get to the carnival and ride that roller coaster. I got on, and the ride—it was so nice. Chug-a-chug-a-chug … you know, going way up there. “Wow! This is great! I’m ready to get off…” You can’t get off. You can’t get off. That’s right. You go up and you say, “Wow! Look how high I am!” But it won’t last. VROOOOOM! “O God, let me off! Let me off!” You can’t get off.

I remember while I was riding that rollercoaster … GOOD NIGHT! I said, “God, if you’ll let me off this thing, I’ll never get on one again in all my life.” People get on the rollercoaster of sin, and they can’t get off. I mean you have little times, but then there it goes again. You finally find out experimentally what it means when it says in the Word of God that the wicked are like the troubled sea. They have no rest. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked. You know exactly what the verse means because you’ve been to the ocean. You’ve seen the rolling surf. You’ve seen it come crashing in, tumbling in. Then it’s quiet as it goes back out. Then it comes crashing in, tumbling in. And in your own experience you do what you do, and you’re racked with the agony of repentance and your conscience flails you without ceasing. You throw yourself before God again and say, “O God, I’m sorry … I’m sorry … O God, forgive me … I’m sorry. And you get a measure of peace. A few days go by, and a hunger begins building again. You find you’ve become so emotionally involved and so physically involved, that you are bound. And the waves come rolling in again and your peace is shattered, gone all to pieces. And again … and again.

It’s like the old drunk who says, “I quit.” It’s like when you tried to quit smoking all those times, remember? Somebody says, “Have you quit?” You say, “I quit fifteen times yesterday…” It’s the same type of thing, folks. The hunger—the hunger comes back, and you find that you’re bound. He blinds you to sin’s binding power. Don’t you believe that you’re going to mess around with it and remain the master of it! You are not! He binds you.

He blinds you to the consequences of your sin. He blinds you! He wants you to take the short look—the immediate gratification, the immediate results of what you’re going to do. The immediate results! He’s always wanting you to do that, no matter what. That’s his style—he always wants you to take the short look. That’s right. He blinds you to the consequences of your sin. He’ll tell you that it’s not going to cost you anything. You’re a preacher—you know that it’s going to cost you something! And you come to the place and you’re prepared in your mind to pay the price, but the price that you’re thinking about and the price he’s thinking about are worlds apart! You say, “Well, I might have to leave the area, or something like that.” He says, “I see you as a wrecked, ruined man of God, never to be used again. A testimony to what a wicked life can do—to the hurt and the harm and the devastation it can work … in your family, in your church, to everyone that knows you, to the cause of Christ.” That’s what he sees! You don’t see that! You don’t see it! You see a cheap price for this thing you are going to do.

I ask you this morning, let God open your eyes. Let God open your eyes. I don’t know how many preachers we have here this morning; but if you are in any one of these steps, the message I have from my experience and from my God is for you—wherever you are. If this is where you are—if you’re toying with a certain price and you’re thinking, “It’s going to cost me this,” I want you to know it’s going to cost you a lot more than you could ever dream!

I remember in Bible College yonder in Springfield, Missouri, several of us who were students worked at the at the Highland Dairy working our way through Bible college. Just before we would go to work, Brother Harry Vickery and I would get on our knees in my room. We’d pray—just have a season of prayer—just something we felt God wanted us to do. (That’s where the New Testament Baptist Church was born, by the way, in Springfield, Missouri. Now called the Springfield Baptist Temple) Brother Harry said, “I think God wants me to start a church here in Springfield.” I said, “You’re crazy! A prophet never starts a church in his own country, especially without asking Dr. Dowell, and so forth.” You know, that rascal, he started that church and soon Brother Dowell gave him his support. I taught the adults, taught the teachers, and so forth; and Harry Vickery preached. That guy could get things done. This particular student who worked with us always had a sermon outline he was working on. I would hear him tell it during the week and then I would hear Harry preach it the next Sunday.

The student I have in mind was one of the sweetest fellows you could ever know. I think God made him to be a preacher. He had a wife, not her real name but I’ll call her Jill. This is the way I heard the story … He graduated, pastored a church. I don’t know all the details of how long he pastored. But Jill—not the preacher but the preacher’s wife—got roving eyes. She and a deacon got together. The way I understand it, he found out about it and left the church. He went to another place and took another church. Jill had roving eyes. Someone else at that church got together with her. Went to another church. Jill had roving eyes. He knew this was intolerable. He knew he couldn’t pastor, couldn’t preach in a situation like that. I don’t know what your convictions are about this sort of thing; but I’m sure he—in his convictions, in the way he’d been taught all of his life—believed he could not be a pastor. He went home and got a pistol. Jill came in and he shot her dead. Their little kids were with him. He put the gun to his own head and pulled the trigger. It didn’t even knock him out. The way I hear it is that he went over to the mirror and looked at himself; then he blew his brains out. I doubt that Jill thought that the consequences of what she was doing would ever be so severe. And preacher, the devil knows if he showed you all of that you never would take the first step. What I’m trying to tell you today is that he will blinded you to the consequences …

I had a young man call me from ________. He said, “Walt, I have a problem.” I said, “What’s the problem?” He said, “The waitress down at Denny’s—she wants to go to bed with me. I said, “Well, _____ why’d you call me?” He said, “I want you to tell me something.” What are you going to tell him? I said, “____, what are you willing to pay for that?” He said, “What do you mean?” I said, “Well, are you ready to lose your wife, divorce your wife?” He said, “No.” I said, “____, you have a beautiful, three-year-old little girl. Are you ready to let somebody else raise her, be her father?” He said, “No!” I said, “_____, are you ready to lose everything that you have got?” “NO!” I said, “If you are, then go ahead. Have fun! But be prepared to lose everything you’ve got!” ( A tribute goes to the character of this young man in that when the temptation was put before him he #1. Sought godly counsel and #2. He counted his wife and family greater riches than the passing pleasures of sin.) Preacher, be prepared to lose everything you’ve got!

He blinds you to God’s power to keep. See, you don’t have to “fall”. People don’t “fall” into sin. You don’t know anybody who ever “fell” into sin. It starts gradually, very gradually. Some of you guys—if you were out knocking on doors and some gal jumped out stark naked at you and said, “Come on in!”—you’d run screaming down the road. I don’t know one of you who wouldn’t do just that. So you don’t really just “fall” into sin. And you can get out of it.

The man I’m talking to right now, you’re here this morning. You’re involved right now. And you cannot quit. That’s a lie out of hell—that you can’t quit. You CAN quit! And the sooner you quit, the better it will be. Do you hear me? THE SOONER YOU QUIT, THE BETTER IT WILL BE! It gets worse and worse. The bars get tighter and tighter. Even then, you can quit. It will be harder and harder, but YOU CAN STILL QUIT! AND YOU WILL BE BETTER OFF IF YOU QUIT NOW THAN IF YOU DON’T QUIT NOW!! The devil will say, “You might as well play this thing out to the very end. You can’t quit!” You can quit! And every step you go further, the consequences get that much more severe. And you can quit. Quit! God’s power can come into your life.

This goes back to this thinking up here. It’s like the guy setting the pack of cigarettes on the mantle. “I’m gonna’ quit smoking!” He puts that pack of cigarettes up there. He’s quit smoking … that’s great! But you know what he should have done with those cigarettes? Burned them, buried them, or flushed them down the toilet to get rid of them. If you’re willing to take drastic measures, you can quit. And it’s going to take drastic measures. You’ve got to die. I mean, YOU’VE GOT TO DIE! You’re dying anyway! This thing is killing you! It kills you if you do it … it kills you if you don’t! So you’re dying anyway! And whenever you get ready to make a clean break and do whatever it takes, whatever God says you should do- … It might mean packing up and moving two thousand miles away. Some way or other, you’ve got to get rid of that idol. If it does not leave, then you must leave. If you’re serious with God and willing to be thoroughly repentant in your heart and life, willing to do whatever God tells you to do … YOU CAN QUIT!

They tell me a smoker—whenever he quits smoking, the lungs immediately start clearing up. If he quits at forty, his lungs start clearing up. If he quits at eighty, his lungs will start clearing up (if he’s got any left by then). What I’m saying, preacher, is that it doesn’t matter where you’re at … YOU CAN QUIT RIGHT NOW! YOU CAN QUIT! If you’re just back at the stage where, in your mind, this thought has occurred to you … then QUIT! And you need to QUIT! I mean, you quit thinking about it. If the thought comes into your mind, you confess it as a sin and get back into the Word of God. Begin quoting the Word of God in your mind and let it crowd out that wicked thought. The Bible says “Whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are pure … whatsoever things are of good report … think on these things … and the God of peace shall be with you.”

Lastly, he blinds you to God’s desire to forgive. We don’t deserve forgiveness. Brethren, you’ll hear me say, “ … Walt Stowe, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, Roy, Washington, by the grace of God.” By the grace of God. I’m a dead man. I, least of all, deserve to stand here before you as a man of God. I, least of all, deserve to have what God has given us over there in Roy. That’s God—that’s the way God is .

A true story. The preacher became aware he had this idol in his heart. He had gotten the victory over it. He had taken it out and put it upon the mantel. He said, “God, I’m going to go stark-raving mad if I can’t get this settled. God, I’ll go insane if I can’t get the victory over this. God, I’m going to do my best to be what I ought to be and to serve you. I’ll just put that idol on the mantel.” But deep down in his deepest heart, there was still an emotional involvement with that idol. It went on pretty good for about a year, and God was able to bless his work. And one day, unexpected and unplanned, he and the idol were alone again; and it all came back. It all came back.

This time, remembering all the battles he had fought before and all the hell he had gone through before, he said, “I’ll do God a favor and get out of the ministry. I’ll do my wife a favor …” And he got on his knees before God. It seemed like the idol was standing over here. And it seemed like his Lord was standing over there. And on his knees he looked at one and then the other; and he remembered all the hell he’d gone through before. He said, “Lord, I’m sorry. I guess if it’s a choice between you and the idol, I feel helpless, Lord. I guess the idol wins.” And he got up, with a heart that was stone cold, frozen like an Alaskan glacier. He did what he felt he had to do.

His next year was a year of awful, awful, awful exile. Tears upon buckets of tears. Not the kind that are caused by getting right with God, but the kind that are caused by self-pity and remorse. He toyed with suicide, even to getting a rifle and sticking the barrel in his mouth and seeing how easy it would be to pull the trigger with his toe. Even to putting the gun to his head and pulling the hammer back, saying, “I wonder if you’d hear the hammer when it hits.”

Heart, stone cold. You know you can’t convince me that the apostle Peter felt like Jesus could ever forgive him. “Well, you’re one of His, aren’t you?!” “No! No! Not me! I don’t know Him.” “You are one of His disciples, aren’t you?!” “No, I’m not! I don’t even know the guy!” “Yes, you ARE one of His!!” “Well, blankety-blank-blank-blank! What do I have to do to convince you! I DON’T KNOW HIM!!” Can you imagine how he felt? The Bible says that he looked over and saw Jesus, their eyes met. Then he bowed his head and wept bitter tears, and went out. Do you think for a moment that there was any hope in Peter’s heart that … “one day, he’ll forgive me?” No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It was over. It was done.

A year goes by, and the family situation changes. Another year goes by, and the heart’s still cold. Cold. hard as stone. But he says, “There are kids involved now … they’ve got to be in God’s house. They don’t have a chance if they’re not in God’s house.” So he starts going to church regularly, mechanically going through all the motions. He’s out on visitation. He tithes. He does all these things with a heart that’s cold as ice and hard as stone. Never giving any thought to the idea that God would ever speak to his heart. The only reason to live now is these kids. The idol now has lost her status as an idol. Still there, but not the same status.

And one day, he sits and listens to Brother Ozzie Wicker. There’s not a better man of God anywhere, but there are better preachers than Ozzie Wicker. He doesn’t even know what Brother Ozzie is saying, but all of a sudden he feels something in his heart. It seems like somebody begins fingering around in his heart a little bit. He remembered that same feeling in years and days gone by! “God, this can’t be You!” And the ice begins to thaw. And he looks up, and there He is again. And He’s saying, “I love you! I want you! I can’t give you up!” And the dam bursts. And the tears flow like buckets of water. And he is laughing and crying at the same time because God spoke to his heart. God spoke to his heart again. Remember the verse that says, “Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone.” But if you read further, He says, “How can I give you up? How can I give you up?”

I don’t know where you are. I hope to God that you haven’t even started on that trip. I hope to God that this would be a help to you this morning as a preacher. It may be, though, that you are here this morning and your heart’s as cold as stone. He can’t give you up. He’s still there. He never went away. Isaiah says, "In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment, but with everlasting mercies will I gather you unto myself. No, you will never be what you could have been. You will never have what you could have had. You will never even have what you had; but, bless God, you can know His grace and you can know His love.

I suppose that a husband and wife can be very much in love, and one or the other trifles. They patch it up and they get along—they stay married. That may be your case this morning here. You lost something. You lost something you’ll never, never, never get back. There is a certain sweetness and an innocence and so forth that you had as a clean married couple that you lost, sir (or lady), when you did what you did. But you got back together. You’re doing the best you can under the circumstances, and you have a measure of joy and a measure of peace. And you thank God for it, though you know you’ll never have what you had before.

It starts when you begin to neglect God’s Book. You open the door when you begin to allow unclean thoughts to find in easy chair in the living room of your mind. I beg you, get back to the Book. Not for your Bible class, not for your sermon but for you! Refuse to dwell on even the least unclean thought by flushing it out with John 3:16. The Devil wants to blind you to the true character of sin, the consequences of sin, God’s power to keep you from sin, and if he has already destroyed your ministry, he wants to blind you to God’s desire to forgive and restore.