His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord- Ephesians 3:10-11 NIV 

Satan has hopes and dreams just like everyone else.  

Seriously. 

He does.  

If a person is not a follower of Jesus his greatest hope and fondest dream is to keep them from putting their faith in Jesus. He makes this dream a reality by keeping unbelievers squarely focused on the here-and-now so they don’t think about things that really matter like life, death, morality and their eternal destiny (Hebrews 9:27, Matthew 7:13-14). He will enlist Christians to help him by getting them to do sinful, egotistical and thoughtless things that keep unbelievers from taking the claims of Jesus seriously (John 3:16, John 14:6, Acts 10:34-43, Romans 3:9-26). His number one goal is to keep a non-Christian from becoming a Christian and he will do whatever he has to do to make his dream a reality.  

Satan has hopes and dreams for Christians too. If he cannot keep someone from becoming a Christian, he will do everything possible to keep them from becoming an effective, healthy, life-giving member of God’s family. He will distract Christians with materialistic yearnings. He will tempt them to lie.  He will seek to sideline them with addiction, church hurt, lust, jealousy and unrestrained self-indulgence. He knows that if a person is bound up in those things glorifying God will be impossible. 

We are living at a decisive point in human history.  We sit on the precipice of either a complete moral implosion that will lead to God knows what or a great revival that will change the eternal destiny of millions, maybe even billions. Because this is such a critical time and so much hangs in the balance, Satan could use a little help (1st Peter 5:8). He’s hoping beyond hope Christians will be ignorant of his plans and do the following four things:   

Conform to the values of the age-  

Satan loves the values of this age and why not? Today’s values sound awesome, even kind of biblical. What kind of a nutbag would be opposed to wonderful things like tolerance, inclusion and diversity? Seriously? They all sound like the sorts of things Jesus would have been a huge fan of. These values sound amazing until one begins defining terms. Then you discover tolerance demands a wild celebration of every single thing God calls sin.  Inclusion means never saying anything negative about anyone or anything no matter how messed-up it or they are. Diversity is code for embracing insane philosophies designed to pit people groups against each other. It means submitting to the demands of the alphabet soup mafia (Galatians 3:28, 1st Corinthians 6:9-10, Romans 1:24-27).  It is not our job to judge non-Christians. However, we are called to stand firm against the enemy’s schemes (1st Corinthians 5:12-13, Ephesians 6:10-18). This requires we carefully examine the values of this age before simply accepting them as good and life-giving (1st Thessalonians 5:20-22, Isaiah 5:20, 2nd Thessalonians 2:15) 

Believe the culture is innocent fun- 

Satan wants Christians and Christian churches to believe today’s popular culture is no more or less problematic than at any other time in history. It is true that every culture has had issues (1st John 2:15). Sin is not a twenty-first century innovation.  However, today’s culture is aggressively intent on pulling people into sin and the bondage that accompanies sin (2nd Peter 2:19). Porn is more icky, violent and available than ever before. Television, movies and most of the internet is wasteland of stupidity, depravity and woke propaganda.  Promoters of sexual propaganda are not content with acceptance of their sexual “norms”. Activists viciously attack those who refuse to conform to their dogma. The unceasing call for individuals to focus on and serve oneself is flat-out demonic (Romans 2:8, 2ndCorinthians 12:20). It is more critical now than ever before Christians choose to intentionally separate themselves (and their children) from popular culture. We will lose the ability to think biblically if we embrace anything our toxic culture is peddling.   

Minimize the importance of community- 

 Satan wants Christians to feel isolated and alone almost as much as he wants them to feel more comfortable in the company of non-Christians. If Satan can keep Christians isolated from one another he knows they will be more likely to walk away from their commitment to Jesus and into temptation and trouble (Hebrews 10:24-25). We fight this scheme when we are intentional about reaching out to and being available for others. Routinely inviting Christians over for a meal and/or board games, taking a Christian friend a meal or visiting them when they’re sick goes long towards building the kind of community that keeps people connected to each other and the church in good times and bad.  

Avoid the right kind of offense-  

Christians should never be jerks. However, Satan loves it when we are so concerned about “being offensive” we keep quiet about Jesus. Satan loves it when Christians love their friends and family into hell. 

 And finally,  

Satan hopes more than anything Christians will be content with going to church rather than doing the hard work of being the church (John 13:34-35, Romans 15:7, 1st Corinthians 1:10, Galatians 5:13, Ephesians 4:32). His dreams come true anytime our Christian walk is limited to private devotions and church attendance only. We come against his schemes and overcome when we choose to speak truth, love deeply, live righteously and form close and lasting bonds with other believers (Revelation 12:11, John 16:33, Romans 12:21).