Exposing The Lies Of The Enemy

I had asked Jef to water our bushes out front and give them a shot of Miracle Grow. The temperatures had reached the 100’s and I knew that the flowering plants would need a good drink to continue to push through the rest of the summer months.  When Jef came inside, he mentioned that one of our Juniper spiral trees was looking sick and that it had begun to put out brown acorn looking cocoons hanging from its branches.   He picked one up and squeezed a green soft gel out of it.  Yuk!   We didn't know what they were, but I began to research.   I found out the name of our trees and quickly saw pictures of the common diseases that they get.  When I saw a picture of it, I knew it was the right one.  Bagworms?!  They are worms that protect themselves by building these branchy leafy cocoons around their soft spider web like sack to grow in.   Little homes to live in so that no birds or gardeners will see them. They are so well camouflaged that they look like they’re part of the tree. They slowly eat the tree around them as they grow and mature.  It’s even hard to pull them from the branch.

By this time, they had done a good amount of damage to the tree.  It looked as if the tree had lost some of its fullness and had a lot of brown, dried out branches, making it look weak.  I rose early the next day on a mission to pick them off, put them in a plastic bag to contain them and suffocate them.  It made me so happy to do this, like the evil gardener killing the poor little bugs.  As I was picking them off the tree one at a time, I saw one worm that peeked out of its cocoon to see me.  I think he knew there was no chance and that they had been found. 

I could not stop thinking about the similarities in Satan and his lies and the Bagworms. Satan lies and hides so that it's hard for us to tell if it's us or a lie we believed.  Something we always had, were born with or was passed down in our family.  Yet it’s not us at all. The enemy mimics our old nature because our old nature is dead with Christ.  We believe the lies and think it's us when it has been him all along.   How many people have died because of these lies?   How many trees have died because the gardener did not care to find out what it was and thought his tree got sick but all along it’s the worm eating it away to its death. The Lord began to remind me of His Word and how it relates to this.

Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. 

John 16:13 The Holy Spirit will lead you in to all truth. 

John 10:10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

When I looked at my tree's enemy I saw that it was a slow, harmless caterpillar looking worm.  I couldn't believe that this little bug had caused this kind of damage?  But it made me think of a scripture that I believe expresses our reaction when we see Satan.   We will point down to him in the same amazement and wonder how we let him get away with so much. You?! You did all of this?

Isaiah 14:16 Is this the man who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble, the man who made the world a desert, who overthrew its cities and would not let his captives go home?

 I picked them off and suffocated them in the heat of a closed plastic.  They were forever cut off from anything that would enable them to live.  We sprayed the trees to kill anything that attracted these bugs.  The blood of Jesus covers us in the same way.   When we pray and His Holy Spirit leads us into all truth, we see where the enemy is.  Through intimacy with God we are to destroy the works of the devil.  He might have taken some territory and caused a lot of damage but the Lord says in His Word, Joel 2:25 I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, The crawling locust, The consuming locust, And the chewing locust .  

Thank you Jesus for Your love, Your Grace and Your mercy.   We depend on You to reveal the lies of the enemy and show us what is hidden and comfortable in darkness.   As You lead us in prayer and into all truth, we ask You to protect us and prevent the lies from spreading.   Come and be our Gardener, landscape us with Your Word, making salvation-gardens of our lives.  In Jesus' Name, AMEN!