Our Spooky Enemy - Pt 2

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. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen. By Silvanus, a faithful brother as I regard him, I have written briefly to you, exhorting and declaring that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it. She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings, and so does Mark, my son. Greet one another with the kiss of love. Peace to all of you who are in Christ. (1 Peter 5:9-14 ESV).

It is important for us to understand how the devil can “devour” us. Peter says, "Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour" (v. 8). So the devil's aim is to devour. Devour is not scratch or maul or wound. It's is chew up and swallow. I don't think there is any way to make this mean anything less than bring to ultimate ruin. The devil aims to take people with him to the lake of fire. Now Peter says this is the reason we should resist him, "But resist him, firm in your faith" (v. 9). He's trying to devour you, so resist him. Now what shall we make of this? Is it just a charade? No devouring is really possible? Christians can't get eaten by the devil? They can't go to hell? It's sort of like war games? The bullets are all blank? But let's fight like their real? I don't think so. Devouring is real. And resisting is real. And what is at stake is heaven and hell. I think he is saying we can be devoured in hell versus being merely mauled in prison followed by glory. And this brings us to a dilemma. Can true, born again Christians possibly be devoured by the devil? No they can't, because true born again Christians resist the devil firmly in their faith. That's the meaning of being true born again Christians; they have the Holy Spirit inside moving them to fight the fight of faith. If God says, which Peter does say in the first chapter that God will keep us eternally secure by his power through faith (1:5) then it is foolish and presumptuous to say, I am eternally secure without a life of faith. The promise stands sure in many wonderful passages of Scripture (cf. Philippians 1:6; 1 Corinthians 1:8; 1 Thessalonians 5:23; Hebrews 13:20f; and Romans 8:30): God will bring us safely through the jungle of this world and keep us from being devoured by the devil; and he will do it by his power through faith. Therefore the person who says, I believe I am eternally secure, and so I don't need to resist the devil firm in my faith is contradicting God and throwing away the warrant of his assurance. Those who are called by God do not do that. They fight to the end. And that is their badge of being born of God. That is what we know as “The Perseverance of the Believer.”