Deception

The first and most used device the devil employs is deception. Jesus teaches that Satan’s treachery is his opposition to truth.

You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it (John 8:44).

Our Lord connects Satan’s murdering schemes to deception. Why, he first lied to himself, which led to his own demise! Isaiah gives us a hint to the self-deception of Satan.

For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High (Isaiah 14:13-14).

The devil led one third of his fellow angels to destruction by deception. He lied to them, making them to believe they could overthrow God.

He lied to Eve in the garden, leading her down a path made of untruths. In Genesis his deceptive approach is recorded. He began by planting doubt in Eve’s mind about the validity of what God had told her husband, “Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, ‘Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1).