Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. -- 1 Peter 5:8
Whatever the devil may be, he is no idiot. Just as people can be talented, clever,
knowledgeable, and even intellectually superior without being good or wise, our
enemy is a genius of tactics and strategy.
He has been working the underground angle for a long time. The forces of evil are like a guerrilla band that thinks they have won the hearts and minds of the general populace and are
ready to come out and go conventional.
It has happened a lot over the centuries in and among
various nations. Now it’s about to come
to the whole world. The devil can take
the platform of international news, the internet, and social media and make his
proclamation of victory to nearly everyone on the planet simultaneously. The enemy thinks he has won.
This is where mere intellectual power fails. The devil lacks wisdom, as do his ministers
and his minions, regardless of the world’s high opinion of them. Together they have laid a trap for the
faithful. They have dug a pit to capture
us, but they will fall into it.
That doesn’t mean there won’t be suffering among us. There always is. Peter acknowledges that in this same fifth
chapter, but he also reminds us that we are on the right side – not of history
but of truth and righteousness.
It is time, once again, to remind ourselves that our
struggle is not against creatures of the flesh but against the spiritual powers
that dominate and control the thinking of those trapped in a carnal mind.
The enemy can be defeated.
The mouth of the lion can be shut.
Resist him, firm in the faith …
No comments:
Post a Comment