Be self-controlled and alert.
Your enemy the devil prowls around like a
roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.
Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because
you know that your brothers throughout the world
are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.
Now remember who it is that is telling
us this.
And who is it?
Peter, of course.
And what is there in Peter's background that
makes this something to be underlined?
In the 14th chapter of the Gospel according
to Mark, and remember behind Mark the author
there stands the strong personality of Peter who
is dictating his reminiscences of his life with
Jesus.
In the Gospel of Mark, remembering that it's
dictated to Mark by Peter for the most
part, the words of Jesus are recorded.
Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation.
And before the 14th chapter of Mark is
over, we have that shameful episode where a
Peter who failed to watch, a Peter who
failed to pray, fell into temptation and denied
his Lord not only once, but again and
again.
It's out of that kind of experience that
Peter now tells other Christians, be alert, be
self-controlled, keep a firm grip on yourself,
have the eyes of your understanding wide open
to the risks and the dangers in a
non-Christian world.
I failed to watch, I failed to pray,
I fell into temptation and denied my Lord,
and now out of that bitter experience, I
am telling you, be self-controlled, beyond the
alert, because your enemy the devil prowls around
like a roaring lion looking for someone to
devour.
So the exhortation of Peter is not some
abstract advice, it comes out of his own
personal experience.
He encourages us to do what he failed
to do, and for that, he experienced heart
-breaking repentance.
So he says, be self-controlled, keep a
firm grip on yourself, and be alert, have
the eyes of your understanding wide open to
the dangers that you face in a non
-Christian world.
Remember that the enemy, who sometimes masquerades as
an angel of plight, also prowls around like
a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
Resist him.
Resist him, standing firm in the faith.
Now what does the devil do?
Let me suggest that according to the scriptures,
there are several things that he does and
does with a great deal of expertise.
First, he loves to insinuate doubt.
Isn't that the way that he approached Lady
Eve?
Has God really said that something terrible will
happen to you if you disobey?
In other words, doubt what God said.
And that is where it always begins.
Doubt concerning what God has revealed in his
word.
To insinuate doubt in the mind is the
beginning of the driving of the wedge to
separate us from God.
Then there is the spread of heresy.
You begin by denying or doubting the authority
of the Bible, and then you begin to
be fascinated by weird ideas and deviations from
sound doctrine.
The third tactic of the devil is to
sow discord.
For he knows that if Christians remain together,
they can encourage one another in fighting the
enemy.
But if he can divide, he can more
easily conquer.
Divisions in churches among those who claim to
believe in the same Lord, those divisions are
works of the devil.
For the devil not only insinuates doubt and
encourages deviation from sound doctrine, but he sows
the tares of discord among the weak in
the field of God.
And if there is anything that the devil
loves to do more than all of these,
it is to displace the centrality of Jesus
Christ.
If he can get the eyes of our
faith off of Jesus and onto something else,
he's already three-quarters of the way onto
victory.
We must behold no man save Jesus only.
To keep the eyes of faith fixed on
him, that is the way to resist the
devil.
Notice that Peter says that we stand firm
and we resist the devil in the faith.
What does that mean?
It means that when the enemy would insinuate
doubt, we keep on believing the promises of
God.
We keep on taking seriously the commands and
the warnings of God.
We remain bound to him by faith in
his promises, in his precepts, and in his
person.
Well, that is, of course, the statement of
Jesus to Peter, who was advising him that
there might be a way to glory without
going the route of the cross, and our
Lord would have nothing at all to do
with a deviation from his Father's will.
So, we can resist the devil, according to
Peter, if we have our eyes wide open
to the dangers that we face, and if
we are onto the devices of the devil.
As Paul puts it, we are not ignorant
of his devices, of his mode of operation,
of his tactics and his strategies.
We will fight doubt.
We will refuse to deviate from sound doctrine.
We will be onto him when he seeks
to sow discord among brothers and sisters.