Is the Devil a Magician?

I had shared a few day ago how our sound system was having technical difficulties. With the 100th Anniversary celebration for the church on September 13th, we were scrambling to figure out what the cause was. If you have ever worked with sound systems, you realize how hard it is sometimes to pin point the problem. We thought we had the problem nailed down and the fix was going to be about 500-600 dollars. Not what we wanted to do. One of our musicians kept insisting it happened during the sermon, but I hadn’t really noticed. We turned on the whole system, as it was on Sunday, and were trying to duplicate the sound to figure out its source. We were convinced it was in the mixer, the unit that controls the volume and controls. I thought that if indeed it happened when I was preaching, I would start reading from the Bible and see if there was something about that location. As I looked down, I noticed there was an adapter and some cords connected to a CD player to provide music during Holy Communion. I moved my foot and lightly touched the chord. SNAP! That was it! I was the cause. I believe my new robe spread out a little wider, and bumped that ultra-sensitive connection, causing the loud snap. You see, as long as I didn’t pay attention to exactly when it happened, I was content blaming the mixer. It is kind of like a magicians slight of hand. He wants you looking at one hand while he is actually doing something with the other. Once I listened to our musician and duplicated the sermon, I was able to solve the problem. I am 99.9% sure we have it solved, at least for this situation. I couldn’t help thinking about how the Devil does the same thing. With Eve, he told half truths about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Instead of Eve staying focused on what God said, she bought into the distraction and didn’t see what was coming... sin... death... separation from God. Today, I think he gets us focused and complaining about our circumstances, when things started to break down, and grieve because things aren’t as they used to be. He keeps us complaining and not doing anything, like praying, rebuilding, and restoring. Stay focused on God through prayer. Lord, forgive us for the times we allow the Devil to distract us. Keep us focused on You and doing what You call us to do. Praise God for answers! Amen