When we don’t stand our ground,

we give in, and

we go along with the crowd.

Satan watches and he is amused.

He knows our weaknesses.  He and his team figure out the easiest way to entice us to rebel and disobey God.  And, when we give into temptations, Satan smiles.

I see Satan working all through the historical account of the Israelites waiting at the bottom of the mountain when Moses left them to go to the top to speak to God.  The Israelites became impatient with how long Moses was gone (does that sound like you and me?) so they asked Aaron to “make us some gods who can lead us”.

They asked Aaron – who was supposed to be leading the people with Moses.   Aaron – whom God was intending to anoint as head of his holy priesthood.  Aaron – who crumbled immediately to peer pressure and made a golden calf for the people to worship.

Can you visualize the big smile on Satan’s face as he watched all of this go down?

When Moses came back down the mountain, Aaron made the bad situation worse by lying to Moses by saying that he simply threw the gold the people gave him in the fire and ‘out came the calf”.

Read this next sentence which is in the Bible with me: ” Moses saw that Aaron had let the people get completely out of control, much to the amusement of their enemies.”

The Israelite’s main enemy – and our’s – is Satan.  He whispers half-truths into our ears – things that are just believable enough to get us to rationalize away the lies.  He confuses us as he twists the truth.  One of his biggest and most effective strategies is to distract us – anything to get our focus off of God.  He’ll even use good things to fill up our calendars, preventing us from spending time with God.  He wants us to spend out time and energy on anything that is not our relationship with God.  Even ministry can be used to lure us from God if it keeps us too busy to grow our relationship with him.

And Satan is amused every time this strategy works.

I don’t know about you, but this makes me mad.  It makes me mad when I read how the Israelites gave into Satan’s ploys.  And it really makes me mad when I realize that I am listening to Satan’s lies when he whispers them in my ears.

It makes me mad and I am determined to tell him to “take a hike” next time he tries it.  Out loud – so he can hear it.

He will not be amused.

Please help me close my ears to the lies of Satan, Abba Father.