PT-2 "Be Watchful" (1 Peter 5:8-9)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/22/2017 9:05 AM

My Worship Time                           Focus:  PT-2 “Be Watchful” (Respect him—he is dangerous)

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  1 Peter 5:8-9

            Message of the verses:  “8 Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world.”

            As Dr. Wiersbe begins his commentary on this section he tells the story of an electrician handling wires with the power on, as sometimes they have to do such things.  The electrician answered the question posed by Dr. Wiersbe of how he can handle things like this and the electrician told him “Well, the first thing you have to do is respect it.  Then you can handle it.”  The same is true with our dangerous enemy.  I suppose that when we look at Jesus’ encounter with Satan in Matthew chapter four when Satan was tempting Him that Jesus did respect his power, but also knew that he could not go against the Word of God, but yes there was respect.

            As we look at the different names that Satan has in the Word of God we can better understand how he works.  He is a serpent, and snakes can bite us when we least expect it.  Revelation 9:11 tells us “They have as king over them, the angel of the abyss; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in the Greek he has the name Apollyon.”  Both of these words describing Satan mean destruction.  Zechariah 3:1-5 and Rev. 12:9-11 both speak of Satan being an accuser.  Satan has great power and also intelligence, and he also has a host of demons who assist him in his attacks that go against the people of God.  Because he does this we have the Spiritual armor to put as described in Ephesians 6:10 and following.  Dr. Wiersbe writes that “he is a formidable enemy; we must never joke about him, ignore him, or underestimate his ability.  We must ‘be sober’ and have our minds under control when it comes to our conflict with Satan.”

            We cannot blame every bad thing that happens to us on Satan as this also is a part of us being sober.  When I first became a believer there were those who would say that Satan is behind every bush, and everything that is going wrong with me came from Satan, things like flat tires to headaches or other physical problems.  Dr. Wiersbe reports “One lady phoned me long distance to inform me that Satan had caused her to shrink seven and a half inches.  While I have great respect for the wiles and powers of the devil, I still feel we must give our information about him from the Bible and not from our own interpretation of experiences.”

7/22/2017 9:26 AM