If you ever have the time to study this passage from Ephesians 6, Mike Ratcliff’s post is a useful summary of each of the pieces. And where’d fight takes place. John Bunyan illustrated an example of this when Christian encountered the direct attack of Satan on the journey in Pilgrims Progress.
He attacks believers through doctrinal confusion and falsehood. Remember he cannot attack God so he attacks the church. He wants to destroy unity in the Body of Christ. What better way to divide God’s people than over doctrine? He also attacks God’s people by hindering their service to Him. I have a great deal of experience in this. It seems that every time I would have a role to play in some ministry at church, there would be things that would go wrong. These things could be anything, but many times it was people who seemed bent on thwarting our efforts through non-cooperation or some other method in which we could not follow through in what we needed to do. Through this, divisions in the body would become apparent.
He attacks believers by persuading them to trust their own resources. This is an area in which we can all testify I’m sure. If we are trusting in our own abilities then we will be an easy target for one of Satan’s fiery darts. He also attacks believers by leading them into hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is a fruit of pride and no believer is where they should be if they are functioning from pride. Humility, knowing who we are in Christ, functioning within His Lordship, and obeying Him as servants to all is where we should be, but our enemy will convince some that their righteousness is somehow earned. This is the beginning of hypocrisy.