How do we defend ourselves against Satan?

Published by Stanley Pouw in 2010 · 29 August 2010

Previously in 1 Peter 4 we considered an attitude of submission, and in chapter 5 we learned about an attitude of humility. The other attitude that we noted last Sunday was an attitude of trust. In 1 Peter 5:7 he says, "Casting all your anxiety upon Him because He cares for you."

So Peter is teaching us then that the necessary spiritual attitudes include submission, humility and trust. Now let's move on tonight to the things that are ahead of us. 1 Peter 5:8, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”

Verse 8 begins with, "Be sober-minded." We find the fourth necessary attitude for spiritual maturity, starting with an attitude of self-control. Peter has made reference to this before. In chapter 4:7, he says, "The end of all things is imminent, therefore be of sound judgment and sober for the purpose of prayer."

Now what does this word "sober" really mean? Well it means self-control. It means to be in control of the issues of life, having the priorities of life in the proper order and the proper balance. It requires a discipline of mind and a discipline of body that avoids the very intoxicating allurements of the world.

In other words, you want to have the right understanding of life so you understand your spiritual priorities. It is as Colossians 3:1 would put it, "Setting your affections on things above," which is another way of saying having that divine perspective.

Through the years we have talked about self-control and about self-discipline and the disciplined life. But for tonight I want us to look at the fifth attitude in Peter's list and I want us to dwell on this a bit.

The fifth spiritual attitude that is essential for growth we'll call an attitude of defense. Look at verse 8. The reason we have to have our priorities right, to trust God, to humble ourselves under His almighty hand and to submit to God Himself is because our adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.

Now trusting in God's mighty hand, trusting in God's care, and casting all of our anxiety on Him does not mean we have become carelessness. It doesn't mean that because we trust God and because we throw all our care on Him that we become lazy and let down our guard.

The enemy is very subtle and therefore very dangerous. According to 2 Corinthians 11:14-15 he disguises himself as an angel of light and his servants as servants of righteousness. He never shows himself for who he is. He almost always appears to be a religious personality, almost always trying to approach you subtly so that you can't recognize who he is.

But let's find out about him. Your adversary is the devil, which introduces us to the enemy in this spiritual warfare. He's not only the adversary of God, he's not only the adversary of holy angels, but he is your adversary as well.

This enemy here is called the devil and is a slanderer meaning a malicious enemy who slanders and also attacks. He is also called Abaddon and Apollyon and both of those terms mean destroyer.

And he's always active and he's always looking for an opportunity to overwhelm us. His aim is to create disagreements, to break up fellowship, to accuse God to men, to accuse men to God, to accuse men to each other, to undermine confidence, to silence confession and to get us to stop serving God.

He is called in John 12:31, “the prince of this world”. He commands the human system and controls the whole world's system. And so from his seat he orchestrates the environment which in and of itself can devour us.

He is also called the prince of the power of the air by Paul in Ephesians 2:2. The power of the air means the supernatural demonic power that exists in the universe. He commands the human system, the cosmos, the world and he commands the air, the supernatural sphere in which demons move.

Remember in Job 1 that Satan came into the presence of the Lord and the Lord said to Satan, verse 7, "From where do you come? Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “from roaming about on the earth and walking around on it."

Really, why is he roaming around the earth and walking on it? Peter answers it. He is prowling about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. He is wandering through the earth looking for victims. It's real spiritual warfare.

Satan's ploy is to move through the world to find somebody he can consume. I would just commend to you Psalm 22:13, that Messianic Psalm talking about how the bulls of Bashan have encircled me, referring to Christ being encircled by those who hated Him at His cross, “They opened wide their mouth at Me like a ravening and a roaring lion.”

That's a picture of evil and hate. That same expression is used in Psalm 104:21, "The young lions roar after their prey." So, Satan is going after his prey. He's going out to devour someone. He's going out to destroy someone, that's his goal.

In Ezekiel 22:25 it says, "There is a conspiracy of her prophets in her midst, like a roaring lion tearing the prey, they have devoured lives, they have taken treasure and precious things, they have made many widows in the midst of her."

And here the judgment of God is coming upon the sins of the leaders of Jerusalem but he says they're like a roaring lion tearing her prey. So, whenever you see that phrase Peter is borrowing it from the Old Testament, every time it's used it's seen as a malicious kind of thing.

The devil wanted somebody like Job who named the name of God. And he goes after people who name the name of God wanting to destroy, tear up and devastate. Even though obviously he cannot take away their salvation, he can destroy their life, he can destroy their testimony and he can torture them.

We find in Revelation 12:3, "And another sign appeared in heaven and behold a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns and on his heads were seven diadems." Suffice it to say that that great red dragon is Satan.

Look at Revelation 12:4, "And his tail swept a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth." What is this? This is what it means when Satan who once was Lucifer, the morning star, perhaps the highest of all angelic beings, when he opposed God and said I will be like the Most High as recorded in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28.

Satan was the covering cherub, who was filled up with pride and wanted to be equal with God. So God threw him out of heaven. But when God threw him out of heaven he didn't go alone. He dragged a third of the stars of heaven, meaning a third of the angels.

We don't know how many there are. In Revelation 5:11 it says there are ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands. The problem is in the Greek language there was no word for any number higher than ten thousand, “murian”. It was really an expression of infinity.

All of the one third fallen angels can be put in two categories. Some are temporarily bound. According to Revelation 9:2, during the time of the Tribulation, hell is going to be opened up and belch forth some vicious wicked demons. Some are bound permanently. The temporarily bound ones won't be released until the time of the Tribulation so they're not running around now, so the one third is depleted even more.

So as far as the number of angels compared to the demons, they're certainly in our favor. Two-thirds of the holy angels remained holy while one third fell. So, who are the participants in spiritual warfare? The answer is Satan, the dragon, and his fallen demons.

But they're not alone because they do their work through human beings. It says in the middle of Revelation 12:4, look at this, "The dragon stood before the woman who was going to give birth." Who is the woman? Israel. "So that when she gave birth he might devour her child."

Who is the child? Christ. The Messiah was about to come out of Israel and Satan is poised to devour the child. Why? He goes throughout the whole earth like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. He wanted to chew up Job too. And there he was poised to destroy the Child.

And how did he try to do that? Through demons? No. He worked through a human being. What was his name? King Herod, who went and slaughtered all of the infant children under two years old. And so we see a third participant in the spiritual battle: Satan, demons and men who are pawns of Satan.

In John 8:44, one of the very important passages in the New Testament which gives us insight into this. Jesus said to the Pharisees, "You are of your father the devil and you want to do the desires of your father."

Now what is Satan's strategy? Remember now, he works his strategy through the demons and through people in the system. Through the demons he controls the supernatural. Through the people he controls the cosmos, the world system. Those are the participants.

There is a warfare going on in the air and it comes all the way down to us as we battle with the agents of Satan who are the human beings in this world who serve his kingdom. Now we've seen the participants, what's the strategy?

The first strategy in Satan's warfare is to oppose Christ (Revelation 12:1-5). The second target of Satan is Israel as we can see in Revelation 12:6. And the third target of Satan is the angels, Revelation 12:7says, “And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back.”

But the fourth target in the spiritual warfare is us, believers. And so in Revelation 12:17 it says, "And the dragon was enraged with the woman, Israel, and so he went off to make war with the rest of her offspring, those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus," which are the believers.

How does he do it? He deceives them through ignorance, unbelief, false religion, love of sin and fleshly gratification. He deceives them by developing a cosmos and a system that looks alluring, inviting, pleasurable and fulfilling. And he comes at them through the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life.

And the things that we see in our culture today: insanity, mass murder, occult involvement and suicide are very often related to demonic involvement. When a man becomes wicked, and does not have of the Spirit of God to restrain him and who is filled with demonic power, there's no telling how bad that man can become.

One of the most frightening statements in all of the New Testament we find in John 13:27, after Jesus had given a piece of bread to Judas at the last supper. It says, "After the bread, Satan then entered into him." Dear friends that is the most tragic occurrence ever to take place in that man's life. Satan entered into him.

Sometimes God allows Satan to attack a believer although he can never enter a believer. Job was the best man on earth and Satan was allowed to have at him. So Satan departed and took everything he had. He killed his family, took away everything. And still Job said Job 1:21, "Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked I shall return. The Lord gave and the Lord's taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord."

What was God's purpose? John MacArthur says it was two-fold. Number one, to show Satan how strong salvation is. Job lived in the patriarchal time, back in the time of Genesis. So very early on in the redemptive plan God wanted to show Satan how strong faith was. And it was a lesson to Satan. You see, sometimes God is doing things against Satan that involve us.

There was a second reason here also. He was strengthening Job. When it was all said and done, Job was a greater man than ever he would have been. So sometimes God allows Satan to come after a believer just to put him through various testing that afterwards make him all that much stronger.

What about Peter? In Luke 22:31 Jesus looks at Peter and says, "Simon, Simon, behold Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat." Satan can't do anything unless he has permission. And just like Job, God knew the strength of Peter's faith, He said have at Peter.

Now Peter didn't do as well as Job, right? On three occasions Peter denied Christ. But Satan was not victorious and in Luke 22:32 Jesus continues, "but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail and when you have been converted, strengthen your brothers.”

When you've come back from your denial, you'll be strength to your brothers." Why? Because you will have been through a struggle with Satan and you'll be able to show them how to win the victory. See, God has His purposes for releasing Satan sometimes in our lives.

So, God has some purposes in mind and His ways are higher than our ways. Sometimes He turns Christians over to Satan to punish them and to chasten them. So by God's holy, sovereign design, Satan and his demons do get involved in our life. Sometimes to prove us true, sometimes to punish us.

Don't forget that we're in combat with these spiritual beings, because we always are. Just remember Romans 8:31, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”

Our proof is in what we are celebrating tonight, the Lord’s Supper where we know that our Lord Jesus has paid the price for our salvation. And where we are reminded that God has defeated Satan and he can never take our salvation away, Amen?