Power Over The Enemy Series

I’ll start this morning with a personal anecdote. When I was eight or nine years old, our family went to the fair. While we were there, it began to rain, so we ducked into one of the exhibition halls. There by the entrance was a booth where you could test your vision. My dad suggested that we try it out. He and my mom went first, all good, and then my dad turned to me and said, “OK, read the letter at the top of the chart”. And my response was something like, “what is this ‘chart’ you speak of?” I couldn’t see it. And he laughed a little, and said, “no, really, read the top letter”. And I laughed, and I said, “no, really, I can’t see it”. And we went back and forth a couple of times, until he finally realized, “Oh, I guess he really can’t read the chart!” And I realized, “Oh, so everyone else CAN read the chart”. And that is how I learned I needed glasses at the fair.

Now, in our defense, there was no reason to anticipate that there would be any issues with my vision. Neither of my parents wore glasses. And neither of their parents, my grandparents, on either side, wore glasses, or their parents, or their parents. In fact, as far as we know, no one anywhere in my lineage had ever worn glasses. And so it came as a surprise, to all of us, to discover that I was “optically defective”.

But we got over it, and I was scheduled to see an eye doctor, and shortly after that, I was fitted with corrective lenses. Now, getting glasses had an upside and a downside. The downside was that the frames were black and thick. When I look at pictures of myself from that time, I look like a pudgy raccoon. Although, to be fair, the “pudgy” part was not the fault of the glasses. The upside, of course, was that I could see! I went from living in a Claude Monet impressionist painting, where everything was fuzzy and indistinct, to living in a high definition world, where I could see every blade of grass, and every leaf on every tree, and every letter in every sign along the highway. It was amazing. And I have worn glasses to this day. Although I no longer wear the pudgy raccoon glasses. Now I have these fashionable frames that make me look intelligent and sophisticated. At least, that’s what the salesman at the eyeglass store told me.

I tell you that story, not just so you can empathize with a childhood trauma that probably warped me somehow, but because it illustrates an important point about the unseen world. There is a whole world out there, the spiritual world, that much of the time we are only dimly aware of. And we need the lenses that the Bible gives us in order to perceive it. Why is it necessary for us to spend time examining what the Bible teaches on this topic? Because we need to be reminded, on a regular basis, that there is more to reality than what we can see, and hear, and touch, and measure. Yes, I know we all believe that. But the world is telling us something different, all the time, every day. The world’s attitude is summed up in the words of the astronomer Carl Sagan, who famously said that, “The Cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be”.

However, that approach to understanding the world, which rejects the idea of supernatural beings, is in conflict with the Scriptures. Listen to this warning from the apostle Peter:

8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.” (1 Peter 5:8-9)

Peter is warning us against an evil and terrifying creature; one who is constantly on the prowl, “looking for someone to devour”; an enemy who must be resisted with sober-minded alertness. The New Testament refers to him over eighty times, as Satan, or the devil, or the evil one, or simply as the enemy. The Bible tells us that he is always active, opposing God’s works and God’s people. And yet, in most Christian circles, you rarely hear him mentioned. It’s as if we are embarrassed to admit that we still believe in him. Perhaps we don’t want to be mocked by our unbelieving culture.

And so our first challenge is to accept what the Bible teaches, and to reject what our secular, unbelieving culture tells us. Our challenge is to see the world the way Peter sees it, and then to follow his instructions on how to successfully defend ourselves against this powerful and malevolent supernatural foe. Because failing to do so, or pretending that our enemy doesn’t really exist, doesn’t mean that he will leave us alone. Ignoring the life-and-death spiritual battles being waged all around us, ignoring the attacks being directed toward us, won’t make us safe. It simply means that we won’t defend ourselves effectively, using the tools and weapons that God has given us. And the result of that willful ignorance would be for Satan to prevail, for Satan to win. And we cannot allow that to happen.