Ephesians 6:18, (NASB), "With all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the spirit and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all saints."

Introductory Remarks:

Two important things that God has given to his church are:

1. The written Word of God (the Bible), that instructs us in righteousness and teaches us his ways.
2. The right and privilege of prayer. The opportunity to lift our needs to the throne of God and receive an answer from him concerning it.

In part one of Satan's Battle Strategy we talked about why he wants to keep the believer out of the Word of God. In part two, we're going to talk about why he wants to keep the believer out of the prayer closet.

Point 1:

The Word and prayer are linked together. Satan does not want you and I to be students of the Word or to practice prayer on a regular basis. Let me give you three reasons why this is so:

1. In his Word, God is speaking to us. In our prayers, we are speaking to God. Satan wants to disrupt these lines of communication between God and ourselves.
2. In God's Word, he has promised the believer provisions for living a successful Christian life. By our prayers, those promised provisions are brought into our life to meet our daily needs. Satan wants to keep those provisions of God from becoming realities in our life by keeping us out of the prayer closet.
3. Satan fights against our pursuing Word knowledge, our practicing the doing of the Word and our praying  the promises of the Word because he knows, better than many believers, how essential the Word is for effective praying. In the Word of God we are told:

• What we should pray.
• When we should pray.
• What we should pray about.
• How we should pray.
• To whom we should pray.

Satan's simple strategy concerning our prayer life is this; if he can keep us out of the Word of God then it's also highly likely that he can keep us out of the prayer closet too. He reasons that the believer who doesn't use the Word of God as their basis for praying, probably won't get their prayers answered. The reason why we won't get our  prayers answered is, because if we're not in the Word to know the will of God concerning what we are praying for, we will pray with uncertainty. The letter of James tells us that "if we pray in doubt" we are not to expect to receive anything from the Lord. James 1:6-7,