“Who are those who fear the Lord? He will show them the path they should choose. They will live in prosperity, and their children will inherit the land. The Lord is a friend to those who fear him. He teaches them his covenant. My eyes are always on the Lord, for he rescues me from the traps of my enemies.
Psalm 25:12-15 NLT
When we think about traps, what springs to mind? A nasty-looking man trap, with a strong spring and bone-crushing teeth? A snare designed to catch an animal? A hole in the ground, disguised for the unwary to fall into? A minefield sown with explosives designed to kill and maim? Or an ambush with an enemy hidden but able to suddenly assault the oncoming soldiers? There are many physical devices that constitute traps and David was probably aware of them all. In those years after David despatched Goliath, Saul attempted on many occasions to trap him and kill him, but God always rescued him. And Saul wasn’t his only enemy. But it is rare to have a physical enemy in the UK today. We live in a time of relative security. There is no occupying force such as European countries outside Germany experienced in the last world war. There are no bands of marauders intent on harming us. There are, of course, those who are more subtle in their attacks, in the office with their snide comments and gossip, and in our schools using social media to denigrate and curse those less able to protect themselves. But traps for the unwary and naïve are commonplace, as ubiquitous as human beings.
We also have a spiritual enemy, as we are aware. 1 Peter 5:8, “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour“. Paul also warned us, as we read in Ephesians 6:12, “For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places“. Just because we cannot physically see these “evil rulers” and “evil spirits” doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. There is much that we experience that we cannot see. For example, take the love of a family member, perhaps our spouses. We cannot weigh that on kitchen scales or box it up and pop it into our briefcases before we travel to work. Jesus said in John 3:8, “The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit”. We can’t see the air around us, or the winds that are so prevalent over most of Scotland, where I live. But we know that the air we breathe is there, invisible but ever-present.
Our enemy the devil has a number of weapons at his disposal. He is a master at finding within us our weak spots and, once there, he will pick away bringing depression and destruction. And even more so in the case of believers, because he wants to destroy our relationship with our wonderful Father God. There are many ways in which he can do this, but three come to mind.
Think about past hurts. The effects of things that happened in our childhood. Perhaps an abusive parent caused us harm. Or being brought up in a one-parent home, yearning for a father. In our fostering days, my wife and I saw at first hand the impact of alcohol addiction in families, with children in care physically harmed by their parents’s excesses and addiction. Or more recently, perhaps a broken friendship or schism in family relationships left an indelible memory in our minds. On that topic I know of four siblings who fell out over something trivial and because of it one of them never spoke to his three sisters for the rest of his life, a time period extending for over thirty years. He died a bitter man. Past hurts linger in our memories, and impact our behaviour and emotions, if we let them. Thank God that He has redeemed our minds through the blood of Jesus. The memories may remain, but they have been redeemed because we are children of God. Jesus said, “ … Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
Another common attack from the devil is through pride. Have we ever been wronged or have wronged someone else, and, because of our pride, we wait for the other party to make amends? Proverbs 16:18, “Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall“. Another Proverb, “All who fear the Lord will hate evil. Therefore, I hate pride and arrogance, corruption and perverse speech” (Proverbs 8:13). The kind of pride that stems from self-righteousness or conceit is sin, and God hates it because it is a hindrance to seeking Him. Those who are proud individuals, so full of themselves, will find themselves tagged as “wicked”, as we read in Psalm 10:4, “The wicked are too proud to seek God. They seem to think that God is dead“. Pride will divert us from God’s ways because it is a sin. Pure and simple.
Here’s another way the devil will attack us. Anger is something that he will use to destroy us. We may be in a discussion with someone, but the conversation isn’t going our way, and we suddenly explode in anger. Or another driver cuts in front of us in a traffic queue and something inside us wells up in anger. Sound familiar? James 1:19-20, “Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires”. Of course, there are times when we must get angry, particularly when God’s name is being discredited or an injustice violates His world. Jesus got angry, as we read in Mark 3:5a, “He looked around at them angrily and was deeply saddened by their hard hearts …”. We too must use our feelings of anger to motivate us to correct the injustices of life, by prayer and deed. At the moment the Scottish and UK Parliaments are discussing a law to approve assisted suicide, something that we pilgrims should become angry about, but we must channel our anger in a righteous way by perhaps writing to our lawmakers and in prayer that God will correct the wrongs being perpetrated by godless men and women. But what we must do is never let anger control us, because it will lead us into sin with potential and terrible consequences.
There are many ways in which the devil will attack us, setting traps for the unwary. But we must regularly examine ourselves and turn to Ephesians 6, where we will find a blueprint for rebuffing the attacks and traps of the enemy. And as David did, we keep our eyes fixed firmly on the Lord. We read in Philippians 4:7, “Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus“.
Dear God. We pray for Your protection to hedge us around, keeping us safe from the attacks of the evil one. And in our prayers we pray for the protection of our families as well. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Being a Pilgrim 