1 Peter 5:8-9
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.
Tag: Fight the Liar with The Truth
In the above passage we are told by Peter that Satan is walking around looking for believers to lead astray. His main weapon to lead us astray is the untruth he perpetuates and the lies he uses to lead believers astray. He is the master of deceit. He wants us to follow those lies. We are to “resist him, firm in your faith ...”. The ONLY way to fight lies and liars is with the truth. When our mind is filled lies we must fill it with truth. Our FAITH is based upon truth. When I sin it is because I believe that act of sin will get me something I deserve or can have by the sinning. Eve ate the fruit, even though God told her not to, because she was lied to be Satan and told she “deserved” the fruit and it would make her like god. The Liar (Satan) used a lie to deceive her. When I sin I am believing that this act of sin will give me something God won’t or can’t. Although this is long, I love how John MacArthur characterized this section of Peter in his commentary:
John MacArthur:
Peter commands Christians to have a mind that is resolute and to resist Satan by being firm in their faith. Such resistance causes the devil to “flee from you” (James 4:7). Resist means “to take a stand against, ” and to be firm is to make that stand solid (the Greek is stereos, from which comes the English stereo, meaning “solid, ” or balanced at both ends). That is done by being solidly fixed on the faith (tē pistei), which is biblical revelation. It is the whole body of revealed truth contained in Scripture (cf. Gal. 1:23; Eph. 4:5, 13; Phil. 1:27; 1 Tim. 4:1). This is a call to know and believe sound doctrine, to be discerning in distinguishing truth from error, and to be willing to defend the truth and expose error. Jude’s call is most appropriate in this connection: “Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints” (Jude 3). It is that “once-for-all” faith which is the inscripturated revelation of God and constitutes the faith on which believers stand solidly and from which they continually resist Satan. This strong stand is the result of the faithful leading of shepherds in the church, as Paul indicates in Ephesians 4:11-14,
Since Satan is a liar (John 8:44; cf. Gen. 3:1; 2 Thess. 2:9) and a deceiver (Rev. 20:7-8), the only sure way to stand up against him is by faithful obedience to biblical truth. The battle is a spiritual one, in the supernatural realm, as Paul notes:
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. (2 Cor. 10:3-5)
“Speculations” are satanic ideologies, ideas, theories, religious philosophies, and systems of thought “raised up against the knowledge of God”; that is, they are anti-biblical viewpoints that have people captive as if they were imprisoned in a great fortress. Christians cannot smash those ideas with human ingenuity, but only with biblical truth—“taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” Only when someone has the mind of Christ on a matter is he rescued from such ideas.
Peter concludes this section with a word of assurance to his readers as they persevered humbly and submissively, vigilantly and courageously in the midst of many persecutions, sufferings, and trials—they were not alone. He reminded them that the same experiences of suffering were being accomplished by their brethren who are in the world. Believers in other places could empathize with them because every segment of the Christian community has experienced or will experience attack from the Enemy (cf. Heb. 13:3). God allows this form of painful testing to accomplish His perfect work in the lives of His elect (cf. 1:6-7; 4:19; 5:10; Matt. 5:10-12; John 15:18-21; 2 Cor. 1:6-7; James 5:11).
We “resist” the devil by “believing” in the truth over Satan’s lies.
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