“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” 1 Peter 5:8
The emphasis today seems to be for a “motivational evangelism” rather than teaching to overcome the world through the vigilance of faith. The idea is, as long as you believe that God is for you, you don’t have to worry about the devil, because God is bigger than the devil, right? But is this the vigilance and sobriety that God says one needs to prevent being devoured by our adversary, the devil?
Where in God’s Word does God tell us that as long as we believe that God is a power greater than the devil, that this will prevent the devil from broad siding us? The devil knows God’s power is greater than his, but that doesn’t slow him any. It just inspires him to be more deceitful in beguiling with his wiles.
In the Garden of Eden, it wasn’t a matter of whether Eve or Adam believed that God was greater than the devil. Nor was it a matter of believing that God could do great things for them. But what happened was, they were too self-confident to be spiritually vigilant against Satan.
The Bible doesn’t say if we develop a victory mentality of thinking, we will win because God is for us, that we will be safe from the devil. Rather, God warns, “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” 1 Corinthians 10:12 Positive psychology is no substitute for real spiritual vigilance.
God being for us is not going to keep Satan away. Jesus was for Peter; and Peter had a victory mentality: “Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended.” Matthew 26:33 Yet neither Christ being for Peter, nor Peter’s victorious complex, prevented Satan from sifting him as wheat.
Satan doesn’t have to go through God to get to a Christian. The fact that our soul is saved by God’s power, that we have a new nature within, doesn’t seal us off from Satan’s access. Satan’s access is through sin that dwelleth in the fleshly nature, Romans 7:20,23. We can have God for us, and believe that God will do great things for us, but that victory mentality does not eliminate the “…law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” Romans 7:23
Only after we are glorified with Christ will we be out of Satan’s reach (or absent from the body, to be with the Lord in physical death.) Until then, “Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” Ephesians 6:13 While God will not permit us to be tempted above that which we are able, Satan can and will defeat us if we drop our guard.
SHARING
