The cunning of the devil and his strategies act exactly like a net set by a fowler to bring down birds in mid-flight. The greatest weapon the devil uses as a net is cunning; and the bait is none other than the content of the concept: “the things of the world.”

Cunning is a way for him to hide his designs by presenting what most catches the eye of your flesh. The human anatomy is made of senses: hearing, touch, smell, taste, and sight. The devil uses the corresponding organs to excite the senses and thus pushes you to fall into a chasm. The devil knows exactly that the only way to be more conscious of the flesh is to make you taste the world through your organs and senses.

“The serpent was the most cunning of all the animals of the field, which the Lord God had made. He said to the woman: Did God really say: You shall not eat of every tree of the garden? … The woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and that it was desirable for gaining wisdom; she took some of its fruit and ate; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.” Genesis 3: 3, 6

The devil knows exactly that you walk in the spirit when there is no interference between the flesh and the spirit. In the Garden of Eden, the serpent used cunning to excite the lust of Eve’s eyes; because what you see is a potential point of interest.

For a long time, Eve saw the tree and the fruits of the tree but never thought to touch or eat them; but the devil came with false information to draw the eyes of Adam’s wife to meditate on the nature of the fruit.

Thus, it was through sight that Eve’s sense of taste was activated: the woman saw that the tree was good for food and understood that it was desirable for gaining wisdom. The fact that vision was affected directly led to the materialization of disobedience to God’s will.

Understand here that vision is just a sequence of image information, the devil will always come with bad information to deceive your sight; you must learn to rise against him by presenting the word of God to not yield to his advances.

What happens with Jesus Christ at the beginning of his ministry teaches us many things about the fowler’s nets. The Holy Spirit led him willingly into the desert to be tempted, in Matthew 4, the tempter who is the devil comes with 3 nets that to this day are effective against heroes, the anointed of God.

“After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter approached and said to him: “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered: “It is written: Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Matthew 4: 3-4

Let’s observe some details together, if the Bible draws our attention to forty days and forty nights, it is not to show us the diet and discipline that the Holy Spirit had imposed on Jesus Christ but the purpose is for us to have an idea of what his body had endured. Because the Bible specifies that after the forty days and nights: JESUS WAS HUNGRY. Hunger refers to the sensation that appears after a certain time without eating, which drives a living being to seek food, hunger is a vital need of the human body.

According to science, a human being can survive between 30 and 50 days before dying of hunger, depending on the person’s constitution. In three days, the body will have exhausted its glucose (slow and fast sugar) which is its main source of energy; At most 15 days later, it will have finished its fat reserves and will have consumed its muscles which will therefore have atrophied (they have decreased in volume).

Once the muscles and fat are consumed, the body will turn to proteins for energy, specifically the proteins of the cells. At this stage, and if the person does not feed, they will die in the next few days.

That is why the devil does not ask Jesus Christ to turn one stone into a loaf of bread but stones into loaves of bread because he knew that divinity was at that time under the limits of the human body and needed food.

The first net is that of the vital needs of the body or physiological needs: hunger, thirst, elimination, maintenance of body temperature, breathing, housing, sleep, sexuality.

Jesus Christ replied that man does not live on bodily needs alone, since man is not only body but also spirit, but also on every spiritual resource hidden in the word of God.

“The devil then took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: He will command his angels concerning you and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” Jesus answered him: “It is also written: Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” Matthew 4:5-7

To better set the scene for his second net, the devil transported Jesus to the highest point of the temple, a building or sanctuary dedicated to the worship of a deity.

The second temptation of Jesus Christ took place in a sacred place, a sacerdotal place. Pride related to service in the temple. For the Jews, the Temple is the sacred place above all, the place God chose to dwell. The temptation for Jesus would be to use this place to attract people’s attention to himself or to use God’s power to serve himself while his entire life is about pleasing his father and fulfilling his purposes.

The second net is not in the battle to have but to appear. Due to the pressure of the outside world, many follow illusions just out of the desire to appear.

Here the goal is to impress the gallery, to reign over minds seeking honor and recognition from them. The aim is no longer to be pleasing before God but to expose our potentials to the eyes of men…

This text is an excerpt from the book “How Did the Heroes Fall?” written by Paul Zozo Minu.

We invite you to read the following article “Everything Starts in the Mind!”