Satan’s ultimate goal is to get as many people as possible to neglect obeying God.  He knows that only those who obey God will make it to heaven.  Everybody else will be with him in a place called hell prepared for him and his angels (Matthew 25:41).

The importance of obeying God is seen in a plurality of passages.  Jesus Himself preached about it in the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 7:21 (ESV)
²¹ “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
While Jesus is the Savior of the world and tasted death for all men (Hebrews 2:9), only the obedient saint will be saved.

Hebrews 5:9 (ESV)
⁹ And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him,

Since the devil knows this to be true, his will is to get us to disobey God.  There are too many people doing the will of the devil.  He has his way with the majority of people in the world and such has always been the case.  The question is will you go along with the majority and do his will?  The words of Jesus indicate that most people will.

Matthew 7:13–14 (ESV)
¹³“ Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. ¹⁴ For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

Satan uses many methods to get us to disobey God.  Temptation is one of the most common ways he attempts to influence us.  We can all expect to be tempted from time to time.  If Satan dared to tempt the Son of God (Matthew 4:1-11), we can be sure that he will tempt us whenever he can.  He uses the ways of the world (lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—1 John 2:15-16) to tempt us.  The good news is that we, with the help of God, can overcome all of his attempts.

1 Corinthians 10:13 (ESV)
¹³ No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

The caveat here is that we must take advantage of the way of escape that God gives us.  Only then will we overcome temptation and escape doing the devil’s will.

Another way that he gets us to disobey God is through false teaching.  Some would have you believe that obeying God is not essential.  While they might say it is a good thing to obey God, and that we should all do it, by teaching that we are saved by faith alone, they take away the essentiality of obedience.  Remember, only those who obey will enter the kingdom of heaven.

The devil wins when we do his will.  God is disappointed when we choose Satan’s will over His, and the salvation of our souls is put at risk.  Let us not allow Satan to win.  We must refuse to do his will.

As you wind down for the night, think about these things.