Your Enemy the Devil

The Bible teaches us that Satan, our enemy, is sneaky, deceptive, and ruthless. So how do we recognize and respond to his schemes? We'll find out today on Truth for Life weekend. Alistair Begg is teaching a message titled, Your Enemy, The Devil.

We're studying 1 Peter chapter 5 verses 8 and 9. Let me give you where we're going. We're going under three headings. First, to pay attention to our enemy. Then, to our activity.

And then finally, just in a moment, to our solidarity. First of all, then, our enemy. It's interesting, is it not, that Peter identifies the fact that Christians do have an enemy. The whole Bible is replete with the exhortation to make sure that we don't make enemies of one another. Sadly, the Christian church has been adept at making enemies out of its own. And the times when we are most conscious of the enemy factor in relation to our brothers and sisters in Christ is probably directly correlative to the times when we are least aware of the enemy factor in relationship to what the Bible has to say.

That the devil is our enemy. The reason that he is our enemy is because of a radical transformation having taken place in our lives. We were not by nature enemies of the devil, although he has always been, about our discouragement and destruction. But we were never so radically removed from him until such times as God redeemed us by his grace. And indeed, unless we are redeemed by God's grace, we will live in that darkness throughout all of eternity, which the Bible, which Jesus said, is hell.

But according to God's great mercy, he came and transferred us from darkness to light. What we need to realize this morning is this, that the Bible says that men and women outside of Christ help to fulfill the agendas of the evil one. They may do so willfully. More often than not, they do so unwittingly.

And unless the great transfer takes place, then we find ourselves in that department. And if we were in any doubt as to that fact, we need only to listen to the words of Jesus himself, John chapter 8, as he speaks to the religious orthodoxy of his day. And in the course of a dialogue with them, as they claim their various rights as per their background, claiming that their father is God himself, in verse 42 of John chapter 8, Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you would love me. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him.

When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Now, his schemes are vast and varied, and it's not my purpose this morning to give him any publicity at all. But I want to tell you where I believe one of the most sinister dimensions of demonic influence exists in our country. It is in the area of sexuality. Not the question as to whether people are engaging in sexual involvement at the wrong times, but the whole question of human sexuality per se.

And it would be fine if the church of Jesus Christ was prepared to embrace the biblical record, to recognize the wiles of the devil, to stand up for godly role models of masculinity and femininity, to say that a father is a father, qua father, that a mother is a mother, that a boy is a boy and a girl is a girl, but take Christian periodicals and listen to the articles capitulate in the realm of role relationships and trace the line through. And I put it to you this morning that men and women, unless they are self-controlled and alert, are going to be suckered by the devil's schemes. Well, let's proceed with this this morning and notice that in matters of his identity, we are made perfectly aware of the fact of who he is. He is our enemy.

That's his identity, okay? So if we're looking at our enemy, let me give you three words underneath. Word number one is his identity.

The word is antideikos. He is described in Revelation 12—check it up, you'll see—verse 10—as the accuser of our brothers who accuses them before God night and day. His identity is as enemy and diabolical slanderer.

His strategy is equally plain. Notice what we're told in the verb, to prowl. He prowls around. It's a very graphic word, to prowl around. It's not the same as to walk around.

It's not the same as to run around. It's a very clear word, to prowl around. Do you remember the encounter between God and Satan recorded for us in the first chapter of Job? The Lord encounters Satan, and he says to him, Where have you come from? And Satan responds, Job chapter 1, verse 7, from roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it. Roaming through the earth, prowling around. And the picture is of one who is restless in his search for victims, restlessly looking for someone that he may gather up into his group. Only the naive and the foolish and the skeptical will treat any notion of the devil as if he were some large, friendly dog that we could pat on the head and play with for a wee while and then send him away.

He is not. He is a roaring lion. And those of you who are tempted, as it were, to pat the dog on the head by reading your horoscope, and pat the dog on the head by buying your nephew a Ouija board, and pat the dog on the head by opening your mind to all kinds of things, believe me, loved ones, you are dealing with a roaring lion. Not only does he roar, but he devours. What does he eat? He eats people. The devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. He comes to undermine our confidence. He comes to silence our confession. He comes to disintegrate our faith.

And his quest is absolute decimation. Now not contained in this passage, but a factor that I think we ought to feed in at this point, is this truth, that not only does the devil roar, not only does he devour, but he also smiles. So we ought not to fall into the abyss of believing that we're dealing with somebody who has big forks coming out, who carries a fork and has horns coming out of his head and whose face flashes on and off of the press of a button that he has in his inside pocket. The devil is a created being. He's not omniscient. You do not have two equal powers in the world. We don't have the power of God and the power of Satan at war with one another, and everyone holds their breath to see who will win.

No, no, no, no. The Satan is a created being. God is the creator, and his destiny is made perfectly plain.

That's the third thing to notice—his identity, his strategy, and his destiny. Turn for a moment to Revelation chapter 12, verse 9. And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray.

That's what he does. He leads the whole world astray if he could. And he was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. Jude—you only need to go back one book—Jude and verse 6. And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home—namely, heaven—these he—namely, God—has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great day.

And finally, Hebrews chapter 2, verse 14. Since the children have flesh and blood, he who shared in their humanity—that is, Jesus—so that by his death he might—now, notice this—destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. So, there are two great fears in addressing the question of the evil one. One is that we so become preoccupied with the evil one that we cannot think of anything else other than he, and that we ascribe all of our poor experience to him.

That is manifestly not the case. However, the other extreme is that we pooh-pooh the whole notion of satanic activity exclusively, and we so remove it from our minds as to deny what the Bible says about spiritual warfare. In both cases, the devil is pleased—i.e., he is pleased when we believe him to be an illusion, because then he can do his work of prowling, and he is pleased when we become so consumed with his presence, because then he has an increasing hold on our minds. So we need to know his identity, we need to understand his strategy, but we must also be very, very clear about his destiny.

He is, if you like, out waiting for the garbage truck of eternity to finally come by and take he and all his gang with him into a Christless experience forever. Okay, if that's our enemy, what then of our activity? What are we supposed to do, given that we have this enemy?

And once again, Peter is very, very helpful. First of all, we need to stay awake, and we need to stay alert. That's what the two words mean at the beginning of the verse—be self-controlled and alert. It's possible to be awake and not to be alert. We are to be both awake and alert. In verse 13 of chapter 1, we found him doing the same thing, prepare your minds for action, be self-controlled. Chapter 4 and verse 7, the end of all things is near, therefore be clear-minded and self-controlled.

Here he is back towards the end of his letter, be self-controlled and alert. Incidentally, this is the whole thing about music, if I might just say a word in passing to our young folks again. Everywhere I go, I have a number of questions that I always ask young people, and I meet them in the mall and everything else. And one of my questions is, So what are you listening to today? So what are you listening to today? So they tell me, Well, I'm listening to this or I'm listening to that. And then I say, And do you listen to the words? And some say, No, I never listen to the words. And some say, Oh yes, I know all the words. And I try and share with them just in passing, and they think I'm the most amazing creep that ever walked the malls. But I try and tell them, I said, You know, you fill your heads with that. It's garbage in and garbage out.

Do you know what you'll do to yourself if you keep flushing that in? Do you hear me? He's old. He's weird. Forget him. The moment slothfulness begins, said an ancient commentator, that moment dangers stand thick about us.

The moment slothfulness begins, that moment dangers stand thick about us. So where are you going tonight? I'm going to my friend's house. What age are you?

Seventeen. And what are you going to do? I'm going to listen to CDs. And what CDs are you going to listen to?

Oh, you wouldn't understand them. And what are you going to do when you listen to the CDs? I'm just going to lie around on the floor.

I tell you what, go before them, send a fire brigade, climb up ladders, fire water hoses, do whatever you like. But I am telling you, the danger that attaches to that whole scheme of activity is phenomenal. And I don't care if you think I'm old and cold and settled in my ways.

Because remember, I laid around on the floor and listened to those albums. When slothfulness comes, dangers stand thick about us. That's why he says, our activity must be to be self-controlled and to be alert. Think about it for a moment. Think about who's saying this. Peter. Think what it cost Peter. What did Jesus say to the group? He said to them, watch and pray so that you may not enter into temptation, right? And Peter neither watched nor prayed, and in a moment, bam, he's bowled over by a servant girl and a bunch of people standing around a fireplace.

We say, but I'm not like Peter, you know, he didn't watch and pray, and neither do I, but I can handle it. No, you can't. Neither can I. Self-controlled and alert first. Second, mount your own resistance movement. The resistance movement.

Here we go. You want to be a revolutionary? Now's your chance. You want to be a rebel? Now's your chance. Here is a way to channel those rebel instincts of adolescent life. K-O-K-T-D. Keep on kicking the devil. That's it.

Go for it. Resist him. Now think about it. Of all the things the Bible tells us to run away from, we're not told to run away from the devil. We're told to run away from sexual immorality. We're told to run from idolatry, from false doctrine, from a desire for riches, for the evil desires of youth. But when it comes to the devil, he doesn't say run. Instead, he says, resist.

Resist him. Victory in resisting the devil is not on the basis of our personal tenacity. Rather, it is upon the basis of the faith, which is ours in Christ. In adhering to the work of Jesus upon the cross, where he defeated the devil, and if you like, holding up that standard.

Not our ability to hold it, but our willingness to hold to it. We resist him firm in the faith by putting on the helmet of salvation. So when the devil comes and attacks us with doubts, we say, listen, I know that you're here to make me doubt, but Jesus died upon the cross for me, and I'm wearing the helmet of salvation.

So be gone. That when he comes to pierce into our innards, we wear the breastplate of righteousness. No armor for the rear.

None for the rear. We're not to be caught running, except running at him, resisting him firm in the faith. His gates, the gates of hell, cannot hold back the onrush of the people of God as they begin to take from him that which he has garnered as his own. In other words, it is our theology which gives us a basis for our resistance. It is as we know the Bible that we can resist him. He will come. He will make us doubt our salvation if he can. He will make us so disgruntled and dispirited. He'll take from us our joy if he may, and we must resist him firm in the faith. And finally, recognizing that our resistance movement is part of a great solidarity. And that's at the end of verse 9.

Notice what he says. When you resist him firm in the faith, realize that you do so, and you are experiencing things that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing. So you can go to America, you can go to Africa, you can go to the UK, you can go halfway around Southeast Asia, it doesn't matter. You will meet believers, and every time you meet believers, you will discover them engaged in spiritual warfare. It is a fact of our Christian experience. We might ask ourselves this morning, if our experience and enjoyment of freedom is finding us as Western Christians seizing the opportunities that it affords. Here we are this morning in freedom. We're worshiping in freedom. We're hearing about the devil taking a toll.

We look at it and we wonder. Let us end our service this morning by affirming the great debt that we owe to those who in earlier generations resisted firm in the faith. In 1729, a French girl called, maybe Dutch actually, Marie Durand, was imprisoned with a number of Huguenot women in the Tower of Constance, which overlooks the Mediterranean Sea in the south of France. She was fifteen years old. The reason she was imprisoned was because she held true to the doctrine of justification by grace through faith.

The authorities of the day said, Stop it! And she, along with others, said, No. At the age of eighteen, her older brother was hanged at Montpellier. In 1745, she was offered freedom if she would agree to renounce the faith of the Reformation.

She refused all such offers, and she remained captive for thirty-eight years. A fifteen-year-old girl resisting the temptations to despair and to suicide and to betrayal. And if you and I were to visit the tower room where they were held, there is a stone coping which goes round a hole in the floor and carved around the opening in the floor is one word, resisté, resistance. And whether we are smart enough to realize it or not, it is the commitment and faith and struggle of the Marie Durands of the past that allow us to witness in freedom today.

And it will be the courage and faith of another generation of Marie's that will make it possible for these little children this morning to live in freedom in this nation if the Lord tallies. But of course, if we are so stupid as to believe that we may fall asleep on the jaw and pass truth to our grandchildren, God may have to intervene in ways that we cannot even imagine, for he will preserve his own. We have an enemy, we have activity, and we have solidarity. Satan's strategies are vast and varied. We have to stay alert and be self-controlled so we can recognize and resist him.

You're listening to Alistair Begg on Truth for Life weekend. In today's message, Alistair said it's as we know our Bible that we can resist the devil. And that's why we teach the Bible every day here at Truth for Life. Our mission is to teach the Bible clearly in a way that is relevant for daily life. We do this knowing that God will work in the hearts of many listeners so that they would know him and trust him, and as Alistair said, so they can keep on kicking the devil. You've probably heard family members or friends say something like, you know, the older you get, the faster time goes.

Or you may have said that yourself. The truth is life is a vapor, it's fleeting. These words were the sentiments of the preacher in the book of Ecclesiastes. So if life flies by and we're here just for a brief stay, how do we make the most of it? How do we use our time wisely? The book Living Life Backward explains how to make every moment of life matter and how to find sustained contentment by reordering our priorities.

You can find out more about the book Living Life Backward when you visit our website at truthforlife.org. And if you don't currently subscribe to Truth for Life, the daily devotional, you can sign up for free. When you do, each day you'll receive a passage of Scripture with a corresponding commentary from Alistair in your email inbox. The daily devotional is a great way to start and end your day reflecting on God's Word. To subscribe, go to truthforlife.org slash lists. I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for listening this weekend. Be sure to join us again next weekend when we'll learn how to suit up for the continual and irreconcilable war with the evil one. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.