In 2 Corinthians 2:11, Paul wrote this about Satan: "for we are not ignorant of his devices." The Living Bible phrases it thus: "for we know what he is trying to do." Paul was writing to a church whom he had taught extensively and was referring to the many sermons that he had preached about the methods of Satan. The devil is predictable and so part of our job as Christians is being able to identify the tricks that he uses to try to get people to fall away from God.

Maybe some of you are NOT aware of the devices that Satan constantly uses and reuses and if you are, let me point some of them for you. There is nothing new under the sun and in the twenty-eight years that I've been in church, I've seen over and over people fall for the same old lies and "devices" that were designed to get them to fall.

In context, Paul was warning against harboring grudges and the sin of unforgiveness. It's one of the most common devices that the devil uses to sidetrack the saints of God. The reason that the devil puts so much effort into influencing people to harbor unforgiveness, is that it is the only sin that can actually bring back your past from under the blood of Jesus and from being washed away. Jesus said that if you won't forgive others, then He won't forgive you and will hold you accountable for everything in the past. The only way that the devil can undo what is done at an altar of repentance and in the waters of baptism is to get you to harbor unforgiveness towards somebody and so he tries with all of his might to get you to fall into this trap. But many people fall into this trap over and over again because they never learn that it's a trick of the devil. Hear this preacher today: unforgiveness is a device from Satan to get you to fall, don't be ignorant of it! Now that you know where it's coming from, guard yourself and refuse to give in to it!

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I could go through many more "devices" of Satan, but I really want to focus on and preach about another of his main tricks. In fact, for the sold out Christian who has made up their mind to serve God no matter what, this device that I'm going to preach about is really the only shot the devil has at getting them. For the lack of a better name, let's call this device "the great exchange."

You remember when you were a kid and your parents had given you coins to put in your little pockets or purse or whatever and you felt like you were rich because you had "real money" in there? Does anybody besides me remember some "scumbag" who came and took advantage of your child-like gullibility and got you to trade all your dimes for nickels because they were "bigger?" For the record, they got me a few times, but I quickly realized that at the store, those little silver things would buy more candy than the nickels! And so when "brother so and so" would come around offering to give me "better" money for what I had, I quickly learned that the worth of something is not completely judged by it's size or what it looks like!

That's an example of someone making "a small exchange." (no pun intended) A "great exchange" is when it's not nickels and dimes, but rather your soul and the will of God involved. And the devil specializes in trying to get people to exchange the perfect will of God for what is not.

We see this in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve had every fruit tree in the world to eat from except the one forbidden. I want you to notice that the serpent did NOT come in and say "rebel totally against God and kick the hedges down out of the garden and get outta here." Satan did NOT come in all gangbusters and try to get them to stop eating from the other trees and ONLY eat from the forbidden. He only tried to get them to taste an alternative. To partake of a substitute to the perfect plan of God. In their minds, they didn't realize that to eat of it would cause them to be driven from the garden. In their minds, they could go and continue to eat from the tree of life and all of the other blessed trees in addition to this forbidden. In their minds they could have the best of both worlds! And so Satan came with just a "little taste" temptation. Just a little compromise. Just a little of the forbidden. "You can still partake of the goodness and blessings of God but just eat a little of this also."

But you see what to us and the devil might seem "a small thing" and "a little bit" is -- to God -- a great exchange! Any compromise on God's Word, no matter how small, is a cheap substitute for the genuine and the real. Most of you know the story how that God kicked Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Paradise because of their sin. What the devil termed as just a "small taste" God labeled as rebellion and disobedience that was worthy of judgment! What was just a little compromise to them, was actually trading truth and power with God for sin and death and rebellion. In our other text, Paul summed up the fall of Adam and Eve and their offspring into sin by the following phrase:

What was going on in the Garden of Eden was really a great exchange of settling for a compromise on God's Word that had already been established! God's Word had said that you can eat from every tree in the garden, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. And they did die a horrible death spiritually that day and were forever banished from the presence of God! But the devil got them to take the great exchange by trying to convince them that God's Word was not to be literally obeyed in every way.

There is a spirit that has risen up in these last days which is really just the old voice of the devil in a new generation and that voice says that the Word of God is not all that precise and to be obeyed exactly. And as long as you sort of obey some of it and parts of it, that you are okay and everything will really be alright. The same devil is speaking to this same generation! And he knows that he can't get you out of the garden of God's blessings by force, so he's trying to get you to compromise just a little and not take the Word of God exactly literal and just deviate a little bit.

This voice of the serpent is still speaking to people:

And so we have churches that instead of Godly conviction bringing Godly sorrow through the preached Word of God, they tell cute little stories with three points and a close and everybody goes home to their same old sin and nobody lives according to the will of God nor seems to care about what the Word of God might have to say about their lifestyle. They can live like hellions throughout the week and be a deacon on Sunday morning for their forty-five minute, streamlined, Spirit-less, impotent service and think that they are all right.

And so we have churches that instead of opening their altars for people to sincerely repent and get things right with God and pour themselves out to God Almighty directly, they teach them to confess their sins to a priest, or just lead them in a rehearsed, group "sinner's prayer" -- both of which are just cheap substitutes for you really going to God and asking Him for forgiveness and asking Him to change your life! And neither confession to a priest nor a repeated sinner's prayer ever saved anybody and you can't find an example of either in all of scripture! Where did they come from, then? They came from the traditions of men that gave into a voice that said "just compromise a little." "The Word of God isn't THAT literal!" "That's not what God really meant when He said that unless you repent, you will die in your sins!" But the scripture instructs clearly "let us come boldly approach the throne of grace" and that the man Christ Jesus is the only go between that you will ever need!

But you see, what seems to some as "a little compromise" God views as "the great exchange!" Because a half-truth is a full lie and it puts you in the category of the unsaved of Romans that Paul said "exchanged the truth of God for the lie!" According to God, if it's a little wrong, then it's completely wrong and His Word really means exactly what it says! But the devil wants to get people to exchange the truth for a lie so he offers a cheap substitute! It's fruit just like all the others, and it had a semblance at casual first glance of being the same, but if you look closer, you will see it deviates from the Word of God!

It's an old device and one that Satan has used for years, but people are still falling for the great exchange:

And so many churches don't even teach that water baptism is necessary for salvation, anymore. I say "anymore" because the original church and a man named Jesus Christ taught that it WAS necessary! Jesus said in Mark 16:16 that "he that believeth AND is baptized shall be saved." He told Nicodemus "you MUST be born of the water and of the Spirit" (John 3:5)! He commanded His disciples to go throughout the earth baptizing people. If it was not necessary then why did He "command them." The New International Version says that Peter "ordered" the Gentile believers in Acts 10 to be baptized. Peter later wrote that baptism was "for the remission of sins" (Acts 2:38) and then wrote that "baptism doth now save us" (1 Peter 1:21). Paul wrote that it was for "the washing away of sins" (Acts 22:16). These men said it was necessary, so what voice is it that says it is not? The serpent still speaks!

And for those who do baptize, the devil tries to get them to settle for a substitute from the scriptural method. Every time someone was baptized in the Bible, they were fully immersed and went completely under the water and they were baptized when they were old enough to have faith themselves in Jesus Christ!

Sprinkling is never found in scripture and is a cheap substitute for the real thing and trick from the devil. Jesus went "down into the water." John the Baptist baptized there in the Jordan because "there was much water there." The very word for baptize in the Greek is baptizo which means "to completely immerse and submerge and cover with water." If all you were was sprinkled in baptism, you weren't baptized at all but were "had" by someone who had been listening to the voice of a tradition that didn't start with God! You were a victim of the "great exchange" tactic of Satan. Paul wrote the church in the book of Colossians that we are "buried with Him in baptism." You don't bury someone by putting a few drops of dirt on top of them. But you totally cover them up! It does matter the method of how you are baptized!

And in scripture there is NEVER an infant baptized ever! Jesus said that "he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." For a baptism to be valid, the person being baptized must be able to understand what they are doing and believe themselves in Jesus Christ. An infant can do neither. And when you study church history, it was the erroneous teaching of infant baptism that introduced sprinkling. And, furthermore, who said that an infant NEEDED to be baptized to be saved? Not the Bible. They have not yet reached an age of accountability where they can no the difference between right and wrong and that they can believe for themselves in the message of Calvary. In their innocence, they are saved whether they are baptized or not. When they reach an age of accountability they will need to believe and be baptized on their own! And moreover, since I'm here and preaching it straight, let me point out the inconsistency of the Catholic Church from which all of this heresy started: the same Catholic Church that teaches against abortion because that unborn child is a life also teaches that for an infant to be saved, they must be baptized. Does that mean that according to the Catholic Church that all aborted babies are going to hell!? We know they aren't, but isn't it easier to believe the truth taught by the Bible than to have to deal with the complications of believing a lie!?

And, of course, for those who press through the traditions of men and insist on baptizing by immersion, the devil still tries one last ploy of exchanging truth for a lie. He tries to get people to leave out the powerful, saving name of Jesus! In Matthew 28:19, we find that Jesus told His disciples:

It's important to understand that this is the commandment and to find someone actually obeying the commandment, we must go into the book of Acts. In other words, there was nobody standing in the water being baptized when Jesus spoke these words, but rather He was giving instructions to the disciples. When you read in Acts 2:38, you will find that Peter in obeying this command ordered them to "be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ." In Acts 8:16, Philip baptized the Samaritans in the name of the "Lord Jesus Christ." In Acts 10, the NIV says that Peter "ordered them to be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus." In Acts 19:1-6, Paul won some men to God and thought that water baptism in the name of Jesus was so important that he rebaptized some believers of John the Baptist who had not had the name of Jesus called over them and they were rebaptized in the "name of the Lord Jesus." In Acts 22:16, we find that Paul, himself, was baptized "calling on the name of the Lord." In Acts 4:12, we find that only the name of Jesus can save you. In 1 Corinthians 1, we find that the entire Corinthian church had been baptized in the name of Jesus. In James 2:7, we find that the entire church at Jerusalem had been baptized in the name of Jesus. Paul wrote that "whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of Jesus" (Colossian 3:17). When the Early Apostolic Church of scripture baptized someone, they were fully immersed with the person saying "in the name of Jesus Christ." There is NEVER anyone in scripture that was baptized with someone saying "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." In fact, in church history, you can't find records of anyone being baptized "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" until the close of the third century, a full 250 years after the life of Christ!

What gives? The disciples didn't just repeat the commandment of Jesus in Matthew 28:19, but they obeyed it. Jesus said go baptize "in the name." Name is singular. There is only one name that is both the name of the Father, the name of the Son, and the name of the Holy Ghost. And that is the name of Jesus! Jesus said "I am come in my Father's name" (John 5:43). Jesus also said that the "comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father shall send in my name" (John 14:26). The angel told Mary that you she would have a SON and that His NAME would be "Jesus." Son was a title, but the name would be Jesus. "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost" are titles, the name, the one name that Jesus spoke about is JESUS!

Does it make a difference? You'd better believe it does. There is a major difference between obeying the commandment and just repeating the commandment. We are commanded to obey. If you were baptized with someone saying "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," then they didn't obey the commandment, because they just repeated it and they didn't obey the commandment to baptize "in the name." The name is Jesus! It does make a difference. It's the difference between truth and half-truth. And remember that a half-truth is a full lie! There are some that would say "it doesn't matter." But it does matter. God's Word says exactly what it says and it is only the voice of the serpent in scripture that says "it's not exact." Find me in scripture anybody BUT Satan saying that it wasn't important to obey ALL of the Word of God exactly! Jesus, Peter, Paul, Philip, John and all the others of scripture taught that God's Word was exact and to be exactly followed! And water baptism in the name of Jesus was important enough that Paul rebaptized people to get that name involved (Acts 19:1-6)!

Remember that if the devil can't keep you away from church, then he wants to pull the "great exchange" on you and get you to settle for a cheap substitute of what God's Word really said! Just a little compromise. Almost the truth but not completely! But remember that to God a "little compromise" is "big rebellion!" Don't fall for the trap!

And so the voice of the serpent is still speaking and so we have those that teach that people don't receive the Holy Ghost anymore like the book of Acts with the evidence of speaking in other tongues as the Spirit gives the utterance. Peter finished his sermon that day with "ye shall receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you and your children and even as many as the Lord our God shall call" (Acts 2:38-39). Peter fully expected the people that heard him to receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues just as he had at the first of the chapter (Acts 2:1-4)!

But the voice of the serpent is still speaking trying to get people to believe a compromised lie! I was reading a commentary the other day and the commentator said "in reading this particular verse, it's important to understand that in the Early days of the Apostolic church, ALL of them were initiated into the church by being supernaturally filled with the Spirit of God with the evidence of speaking in other tongues." To which I immediately asked "what's changed?" If we are still in grace, and we are still to obey the scripture, then how come people aren't teaching that everybody should receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit?

Let me just say that you came too late to tell me that God doesn't fill people with the Holy Ghost today with the evidence of speaking in other tongues as the Spirit of God gives the utterance. If you wanted to convince me of that, then you should have come into my life long before the age of nine when I received the baptism of the Holy Ghost for myself But most people that teach speaking in tongues misuse a scripture to say that tongues has ceased. The scripture is found in 1 Corinthians 13:

What those who say tongues have ceased say from this verse is that the tongues were needed while the New Testament was being written, but when the New Testament was written, that it was "the perfect" and so tongues ceased. For support, they will cite church history records that show that speaking in tongues ceased being a common occurrence in most churches when the Catholic Church was formed. And they say "it was because the church began to make available complete copies of the New Testament to everybody that caused the need for tongues to be over.

Let me point out the absurdity of this line of thinking from a logical viewpoint. First of all, you can't just pull out a scripture and make it say what you want it to say and this verse and chapters and the chapters on either side of it for ten chapters or so have NOTHING to do about the writing or compilation of the New Testament scriptures. To say that "the perfect which is to come" is talking about compiling the New Testament scriptures is an interpretation for which you have no other scripture.

Second of all, the scriptures point is that in the future, there will come a time when there will be no need for prophecies, or tongues, or knowledge of the Word of God because time will be no more and everybody will either be saved or lost, but when all that is done, Charity -- or love -- will still be the most important need. One look around the world, let's you know that "that which is perfect" is not yet come and Jesus Christ is no reigning on this earth, therefore there is still a need for prophecies and tongues and knowledge.

Thirdly, if you want to say that the New Testament scriptures are that which is perfect, then when they were established, not only should tongues have ceased, but also prophecies, and knowledge! Knowledge hasn't ceased, but has actually increased since Paul wrote that. We can learn more today and have more knowledge even about the Word of God than we ever have! These three all go hand in hand. If knowledge hasn't ceased then neither has tongues!

Fourthly, Peter said in Acts 2:39 that the promise of the baptism of the Holy Ghost was to "as many as the Lord our God shall call." If God is still calling people to serve Him, then He is still pouring out His Spirit!

It's a lie from the pits of hell that says you cannot receive the Spirit of God today with the evidence of speaking in other tongues. God has not changed but the reason that the church saw a dramatic drop in people receiving the supernatural baptism of the Holy Ghost at the same time the Catholic Church was formed was because they also took the name out of water baptism and changed their belief of who Jesus is! People stopped receiving the Holy Ghost because they were being taught a lie not because God stopped pouring it out!

Recently in the news, there was on official announcement from the Vatican that announced that the Catholic Bible college there was adding a new class on demons and witchcraft to teach priests how to deal with the occult. One of the signs that were given for devil possession by the Catholic church was "speaking in unknown tongues." When I read it I wanted to call them up and ask "so was Peter devil possessed?" Were the disciples?" Was Jesus hooked up to demonic power when He said in Mark 16:17: "these signs shall follow them that believe . . . they shall speak with new tongues?" Was Mary in the occult? Because in Acts 2, we find that she was one of the 120 that was filled with the Holy Ghost and began "to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave the utterance." All of this attack on receiving the Holy Ghost should be proof enough for you that it is real! If the devil was not worried about it, he would not be trying to get people to exchange the truth for a lie! But don't you believe it! God still fills people with the Holy Ghost today and it is ALWAYS accompanied by "speaking in other tongues as the Spirit of God" teaches them instantly how. It's not man's tradition, it's SCRIPTURE that teaches such things! Receiving the Holy Spirit is "being born of the Spirit." The spirit of God doesn't automatically come in when you say a sinner's prayer. The spirit of God doesn't automatically come in when a person is baptized -- I challenge you to find those practices in scripture. In Acts 8 we find that the Samaritans had believed on Jesus and been baptized in His name, but had not yet received the Holy Ghost. In Acts 10, we find that the Gentiles received the Holy Ghost BEFORE they were baptized. And the people with Peter were astonished:

God still fills people with the Holy Ghost, just as He always has, and Jesus told Nicodemus "you must be born again" and "except a man be born of the water AND of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (John 3:5). Jesus never commanded people to say a sinner's prayer. He never commanded people to join a church or shake a preacher's hand. He never said go through confirmation class and then we'll give you a little certificate. But He said "you must be born of the water and of the Spirit!" You are born into the kingdom of God! And don't let the devil pull the great exchange on you by substituting a partial truth for the Word of God! Don't compromise one bit, but get everything that God has for you!

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I finish with this:

For those who press through and truly repent of their sins and are baptized by immersion in the name of Jesus and receive the infilling of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues, and are born into the kingdom of God, the devil still tries to pull the "great exchange." He does so by getting you to compromise on the perfect will of God for your life! By settling for a cheap substitute for what God has for you. By getting you to take the easy road out rather than sacrificing to be what Jesus wants you to be.

In Luke chapter 4, we find the familiar account of Jesus being tempted by the devil. All three temptations were a version of the "great exchange." The devil tried to get Jesus to compromise by giving in to his fleshly desires of hunger. He tried to get Him to compromise with reckless faith and taking one scripture out of context with the others. But the real test was when the devil took Jesus to a high mountain and showed Him the world and offered to give it to Him, if Jesus would but worship him.

The devil had every right to do this and many people don't understand that fact. It wasn't that the devil is more powerful than Jesus, but rather that God respects and honors His Word. The devil only has as much power as we give to him in our lives, and when Adam was created God gave to him the gift of ruling the earth. It was authority given to him by God. When Adam fell for the "great exchange" and obeyed Satan and rebelled against God, he transferred that authority and gave it to the devil. That's what sin and disobedience really is: giving the devil authority in our life. And God respects His authority and His Word. His gifts are "without repentance." That means that God didn't just come and take His authority back because Adam misused it but He allowed the devil to keep possession of it. You see, God lives by His Word even if no one else does!

So the devil had every right to show the world as his own to Jesus. Jesus had come for one purpose and that was to pay the price of sin on the cross, thus providing man an opportunity to come under God's authority once more and to break the curse of sin. ANd this was the real test, because Jesus' flesh didn't want to die any more than yours or mine does. Here the devil offered a cheap substitute for Calvary. No suffering, no humiliation, no pain and no dying. No abandonment of the disciples. Jesus could have what He wanted, mankind, without the cross! But He would have to exchange His sovereignty for worshipping the devil.

You know the outcome, Jesus didn't fall for it, but many Christians do! Jesus said this:

To truly follow Jesus means that our fleshly desires and will have to die! It means sacrifice. It means that we must endure some hardships and some pain. It means that we must be willing -- if need be -- to lose our life for His will and plan! And the devil knows that, so he offers the "great exchange." "You can have an easier life and less stress and less sacrifice if you will just compromise a little bit on selling out everything to God!" That's what he says. "You can have a whole lot less persecution in your life if you won't be so adamant at living for God in every area of your life." "To be all that God wants you to be demands too much and it would cause you to have to change from what your flesh wants to do and it's too much sacrifice, just take a short cut here and don't quite dive in all the way." That's the voice of the compromiser. That's the same old voice trying to get you to exchange the happiness and contentment of being in God's perfect will for the pleasure of sin for a season. To get off the strait and narrow for the wide and easy path of life. But it's a lie! It's the great exchange! It's the devil trying to get your baptism to become "taking the Lord's name in vain." It's the devil trying to get you to not allow the Spirit of God that you have received to have liberty to lead you and guide you into all truth! It's the devil trying to get you to fall and take the easy way out, but that ends up being the hardest road of all -- the road to destruction.

If you are going to give in to any exchange at all, then take Jesus up on His program of exchange. The scripture in Isaiah that He used to introduce Himself to the world was:

He takes ashes and gives you beauty! He takes mourning and gives you the "oil of joy!" He takes a spirit of heaviness and gives you a "garment of praise! That is the greatest exchange of all! But you've got to be willing to give up your rags of doing things your way and your rags of sin in order to get what He has to offer -- it's an exchange! But it's not a trick, but rather the best thing that can ever happen to you!

Jesus takes the broken pieces of lives and puts them together into vessels of honor. Brokenness for healing -- that is the greatest exchange! Jesus puts us on a strait and often hard road of life but in the end the trials of life that it is paved with turn to gold! That is the greatest exchange! Jesus takes people who are depressed with no point in life and makes them mighty warriors that will be kings and priests and rule forever with Him one day! He takes sinful man who was on their way to a devil's hell and forgives them and gives them eternal life! That is the greatest exchange!

So when the devil comes and tries to offer you an alternative in exchange for truth, tell him "no thanks" because you've found a greater exchange program! Don't listen to the lies of Satan, living for Jesus is the greatest exchange that you could possibly have!