How Can Satan Harm Christians?
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:04.000 | Well, we have talked on this podcast about Satan.
00:00:08.000 | Not a lot. We don't fixate on him.
00:00:12.000 | But we do talk about him and his designs, usually to look at what Satan
00:00:16.000 | cannot do to us. There's a lot he can't do
00:00:20.000 | to us as Christians because Christ has disarmed him in two
00:00:24.000 | very important ways. We looked at this back in February in
00:00:28.000 | B.J. 1750. Pastor John, today we're going to flip the question
00:00:32.000 | and ask, "What can Satan do to Christians?"
00:00:36.000 | Peter warns believers that Satan seeks to devour
00:00:40.000 | us, us believers, which raises two questions. One
00:00:44.000 | from Russ in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He writes this, "Hello Pastor John, my question for
00:00:48.000 | you is about 1 Peter 5, verses 8 and 9. Is Peter
00:00:52.000 | saying that the devil seeks to devour us in and
00:00:56.000 | through our suffering, or is he saying the constant
00:01:00.000 | attacks of Satan are our suffering?"
00:01:04.000 | And Steve in Rochester, New York is asking about
00:01:08.000 | this same text. Pastor John, "Hello, 1 Peter 5, 8 says that Satan is our enemy,
00:01:12.000 | and I believe it. But enemies are opposed to us
00:01:16.000 | in very specific ways, and I'm not clear about
00:01:20.000 | this with Satan. My question is, how? How is
00:01:24.000 | Satan our enemy? Thank you." First,
00:01:28.000 | here's what the text says in 1 Peter 5,
00:01:32.000 | 8 and 9. It says, "Be sober-minded, be
00:01:36.000 | watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a
00:01:40.000 | roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Resist him
00:01:44.000 | firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of
00:01:48.000 | suffering are being experienced by your
00:01:52.000 | brotherhood throughout the whole world." So, Russ asks,
00:01:56.000 | "Does the word 'sufferings' refer to
00:02:00.000 | whatever Satan does to us, or does it refer
00:02:04.000 | to actual Christian pain or suffering
00:02:08.000 | which Satan is behind?" I think virtually all
00:02:12.000 | interpreters agree that the second
00:02:16.000 | is the right answer. Peter is referring to real sufferings of
00:02:20.000 | various kinds that Christians are experiencing
00:02:24.000 | throughout the world, and Satan is behind them, making
00:02:28.000 | every effort to use those sufferings to destroy the faith of
00:02:32.000 | Christians. That's what "seeking to devour" means.
00:02:36.000 | He would succeed in devouring a Christian
00:02:40.000 | if he could use those sufferings to cause us
00:02:44.000 | to throw away our faith in the goodness and the wisdom
00:02:48.000 | and the care of God and
00:02:52.000 | turn us against God. I think that's a
00:02:56.000 | right interpretation about what "sufferings" refers to
00:03:00.000 | first, because the other kinds of temptations that Satan
00:03:04.000 | throws at us, like temptations to lust or covetousness
00:03:08.000 | or pride, these kinds of temptations can
00:03:12.000 | indeed devour people, and he's about them. But they're
00:03:16.000 | not called "sufferings." So, not all
00:03:20.000 | of Satan's attacks on us are called
00:03:24.000 | "sufferings." In fact, Satan is very good at attacking
00:03:28.000 | us with pleasures as often as with sufferings.
00:03:32.000 | More people's faith, I would venture, is
00:03:36.000 | devoured by being lured into sinful pleasure
00:03:40.000 | as is devoured by sufferings.
00:03:44.000 | Another reason that I think that interpretation is right,
00:03:48.000 | namely that Satan's particular strategy referred to here in
00:03:52.000 | verse 9 is Christian suffering, is that Peter
00:03:56.000 | had already referred to this in chapter 1, verses
00:04:00.000 | 6 and 7. He says, "Now for a little while, if necessary,
00:04:04.000 | you have been grieved through various trials
00:04:08.000 | so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious
00:04:12.000 | than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may
00:04:16.000 | be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation
00:04:20.000 | of Jesus Christ." So, he has already prepared
00:04:24.000 | us at the very beginning of his letter that our
00:04:28.000 | faith will be tested as with fire through these
00:04:32.000 | various trials, that is, sufferings.
00:04:36.000 | So, in answering Russ's question, I think
00:04:40.000 | we're already in the middle of answering Steve's question, because
00:04:44.000 | Steve is asking, "Well, what are the specific ways
00:04:48.000 | that this satanic lion
00:04:52.000 | opposes us? How is he our enemy in
00:04:56.000 | this text?" Now, the main answer we've seen is
00:05:00.000 | by causing Christian suffering, which he
00:05:04.000 | hopes—I mean, his aim in causing that suffering is to deceive
00:05:08.000 | us into believing that God is against us and not for
00:05:12.000 | us, that God is helpless, perhaps,
00:05:16.000 | can't stop the suffering, poor God. In other words, by this
00:05:20.000 | suffering, Satan aims to undermine our faith
00:05:24.000 | in God's goodness or God's power or God's wisdom
00:05:28.000 | or God's kindness. And if Satan can do
00:05:32.000 | that, we will be devoured, destroyed
00:05:36.000 | as Christians. We will make shipwreck of our faith
00:05:40.000 | and he will have won a tactical
00:05:44.000 | victory. But we can be more specific
00:05:48.000 | now in how Satan does this, because that's
00:05:52.000 | what Steve is asking. I'll give
00:05:56.000 | four examples of how Satan opposes
00:06:00.000 | Christians through suffering. First,
00:06:04.000 | Satan is behind much, though not all,
00:06:08.000 | sickness. For example, after
00:06:12.000 | Jesus heals the woman bent over for 18 years, he
00:06:16.000 | defends his action to the rulers by saying, "Ought not this
00:06:20.000 | woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan
00:06:24.000 | bound for 18 years,
00:06:28.000 | be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?"
00:06:32.000 | In other words, Satan is behind this disease, this
00:06:36.000 | bent condition that this woman is in for 18 years.
00:06:40.000 | We see an example of this in the lives of Christians
00:06:44.000 | in 2 Corinthians 12, verse 7, where Paul had
00:06:48.000 | been given those amazing visions, remember? And Paul explains
00:06:52.000 | how God designed, planned
00:06:56.000 | to keep him from getting conceited by these visions.
00:07:00.000 | Here's verse 7 of 2 Corinthians 12.
00:07:04.000 | "So to keep me from becoming conceited
00:07:08.000 | because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations,
00:07:12.000 | a thorn was given to me in the flesh,
00:07:16.000 | a messenger of Satan to harass
00:07:20.000 | me, to keep me from being conceited."
00:07:24.000 | This is especially important because here we
00:07:28.000 | have both the activity of God and
00:07:32.000 | the activity of Satan. We know that Satan did not
00:07:36.000 | aim at preventing Paul's pride. He wants
00:07:40.000 | Paul to be conceited. He wants to destroy his faith with pride.
00:07:44.000 | Saving Paul from conceit was God's purpose.
00:07:48.000 | God aimed to keep Paul humble and holy.
00:07:52.000 | And yet, the instrument of God's
00:07:56.000 | sanctifying work is called a messenger
00:08:00.000 | of Satan. That's amazing. So what we learn
00:08:04.000 | is that even when Satan is bringing about
00:08:08.000 | some kind of thorn or suffering
00:08:12.000 | in the life of a Christian, he's not sovereign.
00:08:16.000 | He's not ultimate. He's under God's supervision. And while
00:08:20.000 | Satan's design is the destruction of Paul's faith,
00:08:24.000 | God's design is the strengthening of Paul's faith and the preservation
00:08:28.000 | of his holiness and his humility. But there's another
00:08:32.000 | way that Satan brings about the suffering of Christians.
00:08:36.000 | He sometimes throws them into prison.
00:08:40.000 | Revelation 2.10, "Do not fear what you are about
00:08:44.000 | to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw
00:08:48.000 | some of you into prison, that you may be tested,
00:08:52.000 | and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful
00:08:56.000 | unto death, and I will give you the crown of life."
00:09:00.000 | And we ask, "Well, how might
00:09:04.000 | Satan do that? How does Satan do that? How does
00:09:08.000 | he throw Christians into prison?"
00:09:12.000 | And one answer is, the same way he threw Jesus
00:09:16.000 | under arrest in the garden. The same way
00:09:20.000 | he threw Jesus on the cross.
00:09:24.000 | How did that happen? Here's John 13.2,
00:09:28.000 | "During supper, the devil had
00:09:32.000 | already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot,
00:09:36.000 | Simon's son, to betray him."
00:09:40.000 | Then verse 27, "After Judas had taken the morsel,
00:09:44.000 | Satan entered into him.
00:09:48.000 | And Jesus said to him, 'What you are going to do,
00:09:52.000 | do quickly.' And he went out and betrayed Jesus."
00:09:56.000 | As it were, threw him in prison. Worse.
00:10:00.000 | We can assume that sort of thing happens regularly
00:10:04.000 | to cause Christians much suffering.
00:10:08.000 | Satan puts it in the heart of people to betray
00:10:12.000 | Christians or to lie about Christians
00:10:16.000 | and so bring them into suffering, whether prison or some other consequence.
00:10:20.000 | So I conclude that
00:10:24.000 | in 1 Peter 5, 8, and 9, the lion's
00:10:28.000 | roar, this roaring lion going about trying to devour people,
00:10:32.000 | the lion's roar is the roar
00:10:36.000 | of Satan's effort to strike fear into Christians
00:10:40.000 | by the suffering he brings into their lives. He aims for that fear
00:10:44.000 | to destroy their faith. We know from 2 Corinthians 12
00:10:48.000 | and from the story of Job 1 and from the fact that
00:10:52.000 | Jesus commands demons and they obey him that Satan is not
00:10:56.000 | sovereign. God is.
00:11:00.000 | Wherever Satan is acting, he's acting
00:11:04.000 | by permission, not because he has ultimate control.
00:11:08.000 | Nevertheless, he's real. Oh, he is
00:11:12.000 | real. He is strong. He's evil. He's on a
00:11:16.000 | long leash. Under God's providence, he does
00:11:20.000 | terrible damage. Therefore,
00:11:24.000 | Peter does not say, "Ho-hum.
00:11:28.000 | God is sovereign." He says,
00:11:32.000 | "Be sober. Be watchful. Resist.
00:11:36.000 | Resist. Firm in your faith.
00:11:40.000 | Fight. That is, take up the sword of the Spirit,
00:11:44.000 | the Word of God, and stick Satan in face
00:11:48.000 | with it. Believe God's promise
00:11:52.000 | and stand your ground. Do not
00:11:56.000 | be sucked into Satan's temptation that God is evil or
00:12:00.000 | that God is weak. Let the fires of suffering
00:12:04.000 | purify and strengthen your faith,
00:12:08.000 | not destroy it." Stick Satan
00:12:12.000 | in the face with the Word. So good. Thank you, Pastor John. And thank you for
00:12:16.000 | joining us today. We're going to break for the weekend now, and when the weekend is over,
00:12:20.000 | we will get back to work. And back to work, thinking
00:12:24.000 | about work and how we can be most fruitful by leaning on
00:12:28.000 | good administrative structures. We've never talked about this angle of leadership
00:12:32.000 | in the podcast. We should. It should be interesting. How do we build
00:12:36.000 | the structures in place that we need so that we can maximize our
00:12:40.000 | fruitfulness to our calling in the world? That
00:12:44.000 | question is relevant for ministries, relevant for Christian business leaders as well, and it's on the table.
00:12:48.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you then on Monday.
00:12:52.000 | (end)
00:12:54.000 | (music)
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