Careless or Alert?


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. 
1 Peter 5:8-9

There is an old story of a king and his clown or “jester” who sometimes said very foolish things. One day the jester had said something so foolish that the king handing him a staff, said to him: “Take this, and keep it till you find a bigger fool than yourself.”

“Some years later, the king lay on his deathbed. His courtiers were called: his family and his servants also stood round his bedside. The king, addressing them, said, “I am about to leave you. I am going on a very long journey and I shall not return again to this place: so I have called you all to say goodbye.”

Then his jester stepped forward and addressing the king said “Your Majesty, may I ask a question? When you have journeyed abroad visiting your people or paying diplomatic visits to other courts your heralds and servants have always gone before you, making preparations for you. May I ask what preparations, your Majesty has made for this long journey that he is about to take?”

“Alas!” replied the king, “I have made no preparations.”

“Then,” said the jester, “Take this staff with you, for now I have found a bigger fool than myself.”

Life is a spiritual battle. If we are going to succeed in the Christian life, we’ve got to realize that we are in a battle, every day. Peter gives us this warning here as he brings this book to a close in 5:8-14, that we need to be on the alert every day:

Peter wants us to realize that we have a real spiritual enemy. There is a real, spiritual enemy who is actively working against us as Christians. Now, the enemy doesn’t wear a red suit and have pointy ears and a long tail, like many cartoons picture him. The Bible says he disguises himself as an angel of light. He is a deceiver. He is an accuser. And he is against us. The very word “Satan” in Hebrew means “adversary.” He is the adversary of God, and if you are God’s child, he is an adversary to you too.

When we look in the bible we see him in Genesis 3 in the Garden of Eden, tempting Eve to take the forbidden fruit. He tried to undermine God’s word, asking Eve: “Has God said you shall not eat from any tree in the garden?”  He wanted to entice her into disobedience, to spoil both God’s paradise and the people that God had created.

We see him again in Chapter 1 of the Book of Job, accusing Job before God: “Does Job fear God for nothing … You have blessed the work of his hands … put forth Your hand now and touch all that he has; he will surely curse You to Your face.”

We see him in Matthew 4, when Jesus is about to begin His earthly ministry, and Satan is there to try to tempt Him; to get Him to doubt who he is, and what God wanted Him to to.

What Peter says here tells us something important about the nature of Satan’s attacks.Especially in our times of suffering:

Satan wants us to think we’re being “picked on” by God. Peter says NO: your brothers in the world are experiencing this same suffering. He tempts us to think:  “Oh, this is just going to last forever.” Peter says, NO it won’t; in :10 he says it will just be a “little while.” Satan will whisper in our ear that God has abandoned you and given up on you. So Peter says NO: God loves us and has called us to His glory; He Himself is working with you, to perfect and strengthen and establish you!

So how do we resist the devil? How do we combat that? Peter says it is by being “firm in (our) faith.”

First of all, like Peter says here, we need to be on the alert for the devil’s spiritual attacks. Do not just live life as if you don’t have an enemy. That is foolish. “Be on the alert.” Realize that Satan will attack you with lies, doubts, and temptations.

Also we need to build up our faith, and be ready to combat the lies that the devil will throw at us, with the word of God.

Dear friends Satan (or one of his minions) is going to throw the “darts” of thoughts and lies and temptations at us, all day long. If we’re going to stand against it, we’ve got to be “on the alert,” and we’ve got to use the spiritual weapons God has given us.  We’ve got to answer those lies with the truth of what God says in His word.

This Lenten Season let us be aware of the spiritual battle going on, and try to be under Jesus’ spiritual umbrella of protection by being in the hands of Jesus, who will hold us forever and guard us and help us against the real adversary who is working every day to destroy us.

God Bless You

Location: Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India

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