11 Lest Satan should take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices. ~ 2 Corinthians 2:11 (NKJV)
By Bro. John L. Cash
When I was a very young preacher, a very old preacher came to preach a revival, and he stayed overnight in our house. He gave me a lot of good advice based on years of experience. One thing he said was, “John, in the Christian life, be very careful. We have an enemy who wants to destroy us and everything we have done for God. And Satan is very patient. We have an enemy who will set a trap for a person and then wait 40 years for the 
person to step into it.”
I’ve quoted those words from that wise pastor many times in my preaching over the past 30 years. And something I’ve noticed is that it always “strikes a chord” with my audience—or maybe it’s more like “hitting a nerve.”
People are always coming to me to tell them how the Devil set a trap for them years and years ago and then waited for them to step into it. Sometimes they tell me how they almost became entangled. More often, I’m sad to say, they tell me how they were deceived by the enemy and ensnared. Always, they tell me that what the elderly preacher said is the absolute truth.
Since we know (from the Scriptures and personal experience) that this is true, how can we keep ourselves from being entangled and enslaved?
Well, the best defense against any sort of trap is just knowing that the trap is there. Since we know a trap has been set for each of us, we are wise if we are always on the lookout for it.
Let’s remember the words of the Lord Jesus:
“Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation.
The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Mark 14:38)
Dr. John L. Cash is the “Country Preacher Dad.” He was raised in Stuttgart, Arkansas, and has spent the last 30 years being a country preacher in the piney woods five miles south of the little town of Hickory, Mississippi. (On week days has a desk-job at a public school, where he used to teach Latin on closed-circuit-television.) He and his lovely wife, Susan, live in the parsonage next door to the Antioch Christian Church (where Stephen Brown found our missing cat “Dub” four miles from the house this week and brought him home where he ate a very large bowl of cat chow.) Their kids include Spencer (age 24), his wife Madeline (age 24), and Seth (age 21). You can send him a note at brotherjohn@ilovechurchcamp.com .
