There is a story that comes out of the Korean War involving a few American soldiers who rented a house and hired a local boy to do their household chores for them.  Apparently this was not an uncommon thing during that time and could be done very cheaply.

At first, they did not show a lot of respect to the young native and gained a lot of pleasure from making him the brunt of their practical jokes.  They would do things like nail his shoes to the floor- - grease the knobs of the stove- - and balance water buckets over the doors just to watch him get drenched.  However, they were surprised that the young guy never seemed to get mad.  While they laughed at the success of their pranks, he would just smile along with them and go about his work.

After a while, the men started feeling a little guilty over all these antics and decided to come clean.  They called the young man in and told him that they had decided not to play any more jokes on him and commended him for being such a good sport about it all.  He asked, “No more shoes nailed to floor?”  “Never again,” they answered.  “No more greased knobs?”  “No more,” they replied.  “And no more water buckets over the door?”  “None of that!” they assured him.  He paused for a moment and then stated, “Okay then, no more spit in soup either!”

This is just one more example that teaches us that what you see is not always what you get.  Satan, being the master of deception, plays this game extremely well.  He often puts some ungodly thing before us and tempts us by smiling and offering the soothing message, “Go ahead, it won’t hurt you.”  But what we fail to see is that he is “spitting in our soup all along.”

Peter warned us of Satan’s devices with these words: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (I Peter 5:8).  Truly what we see and what we get from him are never the same!