The Attacks Of Satan
Scripture: 1 Peter 5:8, Job 1:1-5
Introduction: Two worldy men saw an elderly churchgoer coming down the street. One man pointed toward her. “I’ll bet you can’t mention anybody that old Miss Thompson can’t find something good to say about” The other fellow called the bet. Miss Thompson he said, “what do you think of the devil?” Miss Thompson replied, “Well she said, there is one good thing I can say about him, he’s always on the job?
I don’t know if that’s good or not but the ladies right in one regard the devil is always on the job. 1Peter 5:8 says he is constantly seeking who he may devour. His work includes destruction, distraction, discouragement, depression,disillusionment, division, despair, and despondency among just a few.
If you are not a Christian, he is doing all that he can to keep you that way. He wants you to stay in the pew and not make a decision for Christ. He wants to furnish you with a million excuses as to to why you shouldn’t He wants to keep you unsaved til you die and then he will have you eternally in hell with him.
If you are a Christian he wants to tempt you with sin and cause you to fall so that you will be out of fellowship with God and worthless in your service to Christ. He wants to just keep you in the pew and prevent you from committing to serve him. He wants you to live a life of mediocrisy. He will do his best to keep you from giving and witnessing.
Perhaps this is a pretty good way to sum up his word among believers….
Illust. Satan called a worldwide convention. In his opening address to evil angels he said…..”We may not be able to keep Christians from going to church. We may not be able to keep them from reading the Bible and knowing the truth. We may not be able to keep them from their conservative values. But we can do something else. We can keep them from developing an intimate fellowship with Christ. If we can do that then they will have no power in their life. This is what I want you to do angels….Distract them from gaining hold of their Savior and maintaining that vital connection throughout the day. How shall we do this shouted the demons ? Keep them busy in the non-essentials of life and invent unnumbered schemes to occupy their minds. Tempt them to spend, spend, spend, then borrow, borrow, borrow so that their wives will have to go to work and the husbands will have to work 6-7 days a week 10-12 hours a day to suppot their lifestyles and keep them from spending time together as a family. As their family fragments. Soon their homes will offer no escape from the pressures of work. Over stimulate their minds so that they cannot hear that still small voice. Entice them to play their radios and CD players. Keep their tvs and dvd players constantly playing in their homes. See to it that their minds are jammed with the images on the computers. Keep the newspapers and books readily available to read in their homes. Pound their minds with the news 24 hours a day. Invade their driving moments with billboards. Flood their mailboxes with junk mail. And even make their recreational time excessive so that they are too tired and exhausted to engage in spiritual things. And when it comes to Sunday if they do go to church lt them engage in gossip and small talk so that they leave with troubled consciences and unsettled emotions. If they happen to engage in any good work make it to where their lives are so crowed with good causes that they have no time to seek power from Christ. Soon they will be living in their own strength and we will be victorious. At the end the demons shouted in glee because they knew that it was a good plan and they went eagerly to start their assignments. Has their work been successful ? You be the judge.
Today I want to look at 5 ways that Satan attacks Job.
I. He attacked Job through his faith. Job 1 V.11
Job was a man of great faith Yet Satan accuses Job of only having such a great faith because of all that God has blessed him with. Satan says put forth your hand and touch all that he has and he will curse you to your faith.
Satan wants to blind you to the truth of God. He wants you to become skeptical about God and your faith. He wants you to deny that you need God. He wants you to doubt as to whether God can save and forgive you. He want to turn you angry and bitter against God. Job had a strong faith V21 but Satan tried everything in his power to wrestle that faith away from him.
II. He attacked Job through his funds. Vs 14-17
Job was a wealthy man. Satan stripped him of all that he had.
Satan will get to people through money and possessions. If they don’t have any then he will make that their gold to accumulate as much as possible. If they do have riches then he will make them proud of it and make it their motivation and goal to accumulate more than the next fellow.
Satan attacked Job by taking away all that he had from a financial perspective. He thought that if he did this that Job would turn his back on God.
What happened to Job should be a warning to all of us especially with the uncertainty that we have today. We can seemingly have it all. We can financially set one minute and lose it all the next. What would happen to us then ? How would we react ? Is our faith strong enough to endure such a thing ? Job’s was.
III. Satan attacked Job through his family. Vs18-19
This may be the most devasting attack of all.
Personal note: December 3rd 2005 I lost my 24 year old Son. He was my first born and perhaps out of all my children he was the most like me. I have never been so devastated by anything to this day. I will never get over it. When I preached his funeral and laid him to rest I feel as though I buried a part of me along with him. I know personally how easy it would be to become to become skeptical and angry and bitter. I have fought against those things.
Yet my sufferings pales in comparison to Job’s because he lost all of his children in one day. I can’t imagine. His wife turned bitter and Job lost her support because she said why don’t you just curse God and die ?
If there is one area of life in which I see Satan focuses much of his attention it is through the family. Every day Satan batters the family with more and more temptation. Everyday parents are being turned against each other and the hearts of the children are being turned against them. You can see the victims of Satan’s attacks laying everywhere ! We must be vigilant because he is liking a roaring Lion and his is roaming back and forth seeking whom he may devour
IV. Satan attacked Job through his flesh.
When Job still would not turn against God, Satan was certain that if he touched Job himself that he would be successful. And so he brought pain and humiliation upon Job. His body was covered with sores.
We live in a society which is constantly trying to fine tune this body. The goal is to look better, younger and live longer. Yet no matter what we eat, what we take, how much we exercise or how well we take care of this body. We can be all be stricken in a minute with pain and affliction. No matter what we are destined for some kind of sickness and disease. Is our faith strong enough to withstand the pain ? How will we react ? As strong as Job had been he now questions the reason for his birth and though he does not curse God he does curse the day he was born.
V. Satan attacked Job through his friends.
Though these friends were miserable comforters at least they showed up. Job was in such a terrible condition that they didn’t even recognize him. All they could do was just weep and heap dirt upon their heads…..and they didn’t know what to say so they just sat with him for 7 days and didn’t say a word. Job would have been better off and they have too if they had kept it that way. For once they begin to speak they begin to sermonize and make false accusations against Job concerning his sufferings. Satan will use the best of your friends….lifelong ones to say negative things and possibly damage your faith and turn your back against God.
It is not a question as to whether you and I will face the attacks of Satan but it’s only a matter of when and how ? It is essential that you an I be sober and vigilant because they are coming. How can we stand against and after the attacks of Satan ?
Paul gives us some scriptural advice in Ephesians 6
We must be prepared by evaluating our enemy . Vs 11-12
We must be prepared by equipping ourselves with the armor of God. Vs 11-17
We must be prepared by enabling the word of God to be our weapon V 17
We must be prepared by expressing prayers constantly for ourselves and each other V 17-18
