“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour.”
Peter gave a solemn warning in this text. He merely stated what the Bible has revealed from the Garden of Eden to the New Jerusalem. The devil is after you. We already know that the devil is the enemy, the deceiver and the father of lies. I want to show you three other ways that the devil is after us. The devil is the accuser. Revelation 12:10b: “For the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.” The devil delights in making accusations against us. He does this in order to make us feel that ware defeated and useless. One way he accuses us is through guilt. Jesus forgive us for our sins, but the devil does not want us to accept that. We ask the Lord for forgiveness and receive it, but the devil reminds us again and again of the sin for which we have been forgiven. As a result, we continue to feel guilty and useless and we cannot be effective servants of God. Another way he accuses us is through failure. We know that it is human to fail, but the devil reminds us of our failures and keeps us from persevering in serving the Lord. Someone might demean and make us feel ridiculous when we witness to them. The devil takes that and convinces us that we cannot witness for the Lord. Don’t let this accusations fool you. The devil is the neutralizer. (I am indebted to Lloyd Ogilvie for this insight.) For example, the devil tried to neutralize Jesus when he tempted Him in Matthew 4. All three temptations were designed to make Jesus do something that would neutralize His mission to save us from sin. The devil tried to neutralize Peter through his denial of Jesus. Surely Peter felt worthless after he denied Jesus three times. Earlier, Peter was so confident that he would stand up for Jesus when the time came, but he did not. Thank God that the devil’s ploy did not work on Peter, for Peter went on to become a great servant of the Lord. The devil tries to neutralize us through compromise with the world. He wants us to feel at home in his version of the world and uncomfortable in the kingdom of God. The devil knows that this will make us indifferent to the lost and suffering around us. The last thing the devil wants for us is to witness and minister to people. Don’t let the devil neutralize you. The devil is the sifter. Luke 22:31-32: “And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not: and when you are converted, strengthen your brethren.” this is reminiscent of the time when the devil asked God’s permission to attempt to destroy Job. What did Jesus mean by “sift you as wheat”? In Jesus’ day, farmers would toss wheat into a sheet and the chaff would be carried away by the breeze while the wheat fell back into the sheet. The devil wanted to convince Peter that he was chaff. He wants to do the same with us. He tempts us and tosses us around until we feel that we are no good. A Christian who feels like chaff is not likely to do much to serve God. Don’t let the devil sift you. The devil isyour accuser. He will try to neutralize you. He has asked to sift you as well. God allows this because He knows that when we defeat the devil, and do not let him “devour us,”we will be stronger for it. Do not let the devil make you feel useless and helpless, for you surely are not if you are saved.
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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