Beware of Satan’s Plans for Believers. The bottom line is that if we are going to be on guard against our adversary, we need to know how to recognize his presence, face his onslaughts, and overcome his attacks against us, in the ways that God through His Word instructs us.
In Revelation 9 we will be taught an immense amount about the unseen and horrifically powerful kingdom of darkness that is shaping everything around us, more each day, against the God we love, serve, and belong to. But, before we dive into all that, we need to see why we even need to know all this.
Join me in 1 Peter 5 this morning, as we enter into the cosmic conflict; and understand what we are going to face more of each day, as we live in these times God calls the “last days”.
1 Peter 5:8-9 (NKJV) Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. 9 Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.
Each of us faces a very dangerous, clever, and powerful foe. He is the smartest, most powerful, and highest of all the angelic creatures God ever made. He is fallen and wants only to damage anything that is attached to God.
Peter here warns us that Satan can devour us. Like a lion he pounces and swallows us up. Peter knew that from personal experience.
Jesus had warned Peter to watch (be vigilant) and pray in the Garden of Gethsemane using this very same word (gregoreo, “vigilant”) three times (Matthew 26:38, 40, 41). Peter heard, did not obey, and ended up denying Christ three times.
Peter got devoured. If Satan can’t devour us, he also tries to attack us like he did Eve when she listened to the serpent whispering lies, that Paul describes in 2 Cor. 11:3, 13-14 as the “angel of light”.
Satan’s Playbook
Are you aware that this morning Satan wants to poison your thoughts and emotions away from the purity of God’s truth? His attack centers on our mind and emotions.
As the Father of lies wants to snatch the Word of God from us, so we think that sin is not so bad. As the Devil wants us to learn to laugh at sin on television or at the movies, to dull our conscience, so it will no longer warn us of God’s displeasure with sin. As Satan, he wants to entertain us with sin so that we become very tolerant of it. Then he wants to fill our minds with doubts, lies, and false doctrine to debilitate our will, confuse our emotions, corrupt our desires, and drawing our affections to the wrong things.
Understanding Satan’s Strategy
So Peter taught the churches to be on constant guard for Satan’s attacks. This morning what exactly can Satan do? Paul warned in 2 Timothy 2:23-26 that Satan could “snare” believers. Turn there with me to see one way that Satan is at work every day among believers, trying to snare them.
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