Have you ever gone fishing? I have, and most likely you have too. It used to be fun for me until one day my Dad and I were fishing, and he told me, “It’s kind of demeaning to us to be out here trying to outsmart a fish with an IQ lower than the water temperature.” I thought about that for a while. He was right. We were sitting out here as smart humans, trying to outsmart a fish, and for the most part the fish were winning.

Now apply that to the devil, who was once known as Lucifer. The Bible tells us about Lucifer in Ezekiel 28:2-19. Now you may think this is referring to an earthly man, the prince of Tyrus, but that cannot be, because the LORD said this prince has been in heaven as the anointed cherub, covering the throne of God. No, this wasn’t a man, it was Lucifer the archangel. He was the most beautiful, smartest, the chief of all that God had created up to that time. But in his pride of his perfection, he sinned, having wanted to be God himself. Let’s look.

2 Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God:
3 Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee:
4 With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures:
5 By thy great wisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches:
6 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God;
7 Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness.
8 They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas.
9 Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth thee.
10 Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
11 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
12 Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
16 By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
17 Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.
18 Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.
19 All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.

We know that Lucifer, that is Satan, had deceived a third of God’s angels into siding with him, and they battled against God’s angels and lost, and were cast out of heaven unto the earth. OK, now going back to comparing mankind trying to outsmart lowly fish, well, in comparison, we humans are like fishing in a barrel full of fish, we are of no comparison in wisdom and power with Satan.

We’re easy pickings, to say the least, even though we think we’re pretty smart. Shoot, if we were so smart, we would know how the pyramids of Egypt were built thousand of years ago of stones that fit so perfectly together that you can’t even slip a piece of paper between them. But we don’t. They had help from someone MUCH smarter than we are today, even though we’ve put men on the moon and sent spacecraft to other planets.

Now, it takes a LOT of intelligence to put someone on the moon, and we’ve done that, and have made great strides in technology with many inventions, so yes, we’re pretty smart at that, but compared to Lucifer and his fallen angels, we’re about as smart as fish, and that isn’t very complimentary to us. We are dealing here on earth with spirit beings that have been around for God only knows how many thousands of years, perhaps millions of years, and those beings are fishing with us every day for entertainment.How is that? Well, let’s look in Genesis chapter 3:1-6.

God created Adam in His own image and put him in the Garden of Eden and put him charge of the earth, later creating Eve from one of Adam’s ribs. I’d assume they were pretty smart, seeing how Adam named all the creatures. That is, until the serpent, that is, Satan decided to go fishing in the Garden one day. It sure didn’t take long for him to get a nibble on his bait. And he not only caught Eve, but with the same bait, Eve used it to catch Adam, and that bait caused them both to disobey God and get themselves cursed and thrown out of their position of authority.

1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

You can go on and read further and see how the devil made a fool out of Adam and Eve, and it was apparently no hard task for him to do so. Oh, but Adam and Eve we too smart to fall for his lies? Nope, and neither are we. It happens every single day. The devil lies to us, and we take the bait. How so? Here’s just a few examples:

I have a dear friend facing health issues right now. He knows he is healed by the stripes of Jesus. God the Father knows it, Jesus knows it because He took the stripes. The devil knows it, too, but he’s trying to convince my friend that he’s going to die of cancer, and in fact has tried four times to kill him of cancer, and every time, the LORD has healed him. And just yesterday my friend got the doctor’s report, and said that the report is a death sentence unless God intervenes. You see, the devil has taken my friend fishing, to see if he will take the bait.

He has tried that on me MANY times in the past 28 years, but I’m not biting. I know that even “nibbling” can be fatal, because there’s a HOOK in the bait. The devil can and WILL hit you with symptoms in your body and whisper “CANCER”, or “ARTHRITIS”, or, “DIABETES”, or, whatever else, and all he has to do is whisper, he doesn’t have to shout, and our imagination will go to work RIGHT NOW until we are so convinced we have whatever bait he’s presenting to us.

Oh, we as God’s people for the most part know God’s Word, and we’re too smart to take the bait. ARE WE? Now, either we are healed by the stripes of Jesus, or we aren’t. Either God is true, and the devil is a liar, or He isn’t. Either God is good for His Word, or He isn’t. Listen, my brothers and sisters in Christ, either you can take God at His Word, or He’s just a liar like Satan. A SMART LIAR, but still a liar. And we’re the fish in the barrel.

Well listen, I’m not a fish in the barrel, and even if I am figuratively, I’m not taking the bait. God has given us of His Holy Spirit, and we should by virtue of the Holy Spirit, be able to recognize the lies of the devil and NOT TAKE THE BAIT! Adam and Eve had not received the baptism of the Holy Spirit like has been available to us since the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, which, by the way I hope YOU have received. I have, and I’m so glad the Spirit of God lives inside of me to warn me when there’s a bait of Satan being dangled in front of me.

There are many forms of bait the devil uses to get us to bite: pride, envy, jealousy, strife, love of material possessions, lust, love of money, just to name a few. They’re all equally effective, and they ALL have a HOOK in them, and once you’re hooked, the devil is going to reel you in. And he has no limit, and everything he catches he keeps, unless they cry out to Jesus and they get saved. You may be one of them on the hook right now, and even enjoying it. You may be on the hook and NOT enjoying it. There’s a way to get off the devil’s hook. You can cry out to Jesus right now, His blood will get you off the hook and KEEP you off the hook. We’re not smart enough on our own to avoid getting caught, but Jesus can and will save all who call upon His name.

The blood of Jesus is the ONLY way to our salvation. If we will continually keep the Word of God in our heart, in our thoughts, in our mouth, we won’t have an appetite to take a bite of Satan’s bait, and we will stay free.

So what do you say? Do you want to be free, or do you want to end up in the devil’s frying pan? The choice is yours. You really don’t have any choice in getting caught in the first place, we’ve ALL taken Satan’s bait. We ALL got caught. Only a few will get away, and they are those who cry out to Jesus. I cried out to Jesus and Jesus set me free. I’m not going to take the bait anymore. Jesus gave me His Holy Spirit to wise me up and keep me free. He will do the same for YOU!

Don’t go fishing with the devil, or you’ll lose!