In 1943 a Spanish fisherman pulled a corpse from the sea. He was dressed in a Royal naval uniform. Attached to his body was a briefcase containing top secret papers indicating that the Allies were planning to invade Greece. But it was a ruse, a deceit and the German High Command fell for it, ‘rod, line and sinker.’ So the Germans fortified Greece and took their eyes off Sicily. Within a few months the Allies had successfully invaded Sicily.

Operation Mincemeat was conceived by Flight Lieutenant Charles Cholmondeley, and Lieutenant Commander Ewan Montagu. They were confident that the deception would work, because while the British thought in corkscrews, the German’s thought in straight lines.

The God of the Bible is the God of the corkscrew. While he deceives no one, he is always one step ahead; with the devious, he shows himself shrewd (Psalm 18.26). Richard Dawkins can only think in straight lines.

When Satan had Christ nailed to a tree, there was no way out. Jesus could curse God and die or he could try to save his people and die anyway. But the deceiver of the world had deceived himself. Far from securing victory, he had secured his own defeat and ultimate destruction. He was caught in his own cleverness. In bruising Christ’s heal, his own head was crushed and he didn’t see it coming!

Who would have thought that the way to the crown lay through the cross; that exaltation would come through humiliation. It never entered Satan’s mind that the death of death would come in the death of Christ.

And so today he rages from his bunker. The great deceiver deceived by his own deception. The biter is bit. The dragon of seemingly limitless power and cunning, defeated by one suffering, bleeding man, dying alone under the curse of God.