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Peter has a helpful and important statement on resisting the devil:
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist steadfast in the faith, . . . (1 Pet. 5:8-9).
Here we are given the features of our resistance: (1) Soberness (being seriously conscious of Satan and his desire for our souls), and (2) vigilance (being both wide awake and watchful—on guard for Satan’s attacks).
Here we are given the fact of our resistance. We are ordered to resist him, for such resistance will cause him to flee (Jam. 4:7). Some saints think the devil and his agents are not so bad after all and they compromise (or worse) cooperate with him. To resist means to oppose, to fight against. Those who oppose those of us who resist the devil’s doctrines and practices (and their advocates) reject this plain command. Contrary to the belief of many disciples, religious controversy is not only permissible, it is required when the Truth is under assault. Those who shelter the Lord’s enemies and oppose His defenders are traitors to the Christ.
Here we are given the facility of our resistance. We are to resist the devil “steadfast in the faith.” To be steadfast is to be firmly positioned or solid as a rock. Our firm position is to be “in the faith.” The faith refers to the Truth, the Gospel, the whole Law of Christ. It embraces both the Gospel plan of salvation (Acts 6:7) as well as principles of Christian conduct (1 Tim. 4:1–3). We are to contend earnestly for it (Jude 3), which involves resisting the devil by use of it. One cannot steadfastly resist Satan apart from the faith. To oppose error, one must know the Truth.
It becomes immediately obvious why many saints have fallen for the “social agenda” approach to religion, along with the latest fads, “ministries,” and assorted other gadgetry, instead of crying out against them. These brethren know so little of the faith that they could hardly know what it authorizes and what it does not authorize. They are incapable of discriminating between things of the devil and things of the Lord. When they hear Gospel Truth forthrightly proclaimed, it is so strange to their ears they think it is false doctrine.
The great need of the hour in the Lord’s church is more men and women who are grounded in the Truth like the Rock of Gibraltar. Such cannot be “carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive” (Eph. 4:14). Such will not only be prepared to or have to be reminded to resist the devil and his emissaries; they will instinctively resist him. All others are doomed to be swallowed up by him.
[Note: I wrote this article for and it was published in The Lighthouse, weekly bulletin of Northpoint Church of Christ, Denton, TX, February 14, 2010, of which I was editor.]
Attribution: From thescripturecache.com; Dub McClish, owner and administrator
