can the devil get me?

            Jesus said that the mission of the devil is to steal, kill and destroy - period (John 10:10): “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy”. The Bible also talks about needing armour in order to wrestle with demonic forces in days of evil (Ephesians 6):

12  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

13  Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.

14  Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place,

15  and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.

16  In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

17  Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

18  And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

The Bible further says (1 Peter 5):

8  Be self-controlled and alert. 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 your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

            This can be pretty scary stuff for some new believers. It can also be really scary stuff for people such as abuse and trauma survivors who are in the process of healing from their fears. It can even be scary stuff for any believer who is undergoing suffering and who might wonder if they are in a day of evil and what the outcome of this day will be.

            The really scary part is not just that attack might come. The really scary part is: How will this turn out? Will I fight well and win, or will I blow it and lose. And if I lose, what will my life be from then on? What will God think of the outcome of this battle? Will He help me, or will He stand back and watch, crossing His fingers and hoping I come out of this in one piece? What can I count on? What will be taken from me? Will my life still be good when this is all over, or will it suck?

            While Satan’s mission to steal, kill and destroy seems to include anyone, his hatred seems to be particularly directed at Christians. In the passage about his stealing, killing and destroying, Jesus is talking about His own sheep - believers. In the passage about the armour, again - believers - since only they have the armour of God, which is really Christ Himself (Romans 13:12-14).[1] Ditto for the passage about the devouring lion - also addressed to believers or, as 1 Peter 1:1 says, to “God’s elect”.

            Does that mean that unbelievers have nothing to fear? No. Unbelievers have something worse to fear than the devil. Jesus said that they will hear these words on their judgment day (Matthew 25:41): “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” They won’t be ruled by the devil in this place, but will share the same eternity as is waiting for him.

            And believers? They don’t need to fear eternal damnation. But what about the things the devil might do to them?

            The short answer is that while believers need to be watchful for the devil’s attacks and prepared to do battle (1 Peter 5):

8  Be self-controlled and alert. 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 your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

. . . there really is nothing for them to fear.

            Let’s look again at two of the passages we’ve mentioned concerning the devil’s mission on planet earth. Each of these also contains a divine promise. In the same passage where Jesus warned that the devil is always seeking to steal, kill and destroy, He also said (John 10:10b): “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” And the passage about the devil roaming about like a roaring lion then says this (1 Peter 5):

10  And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

11  To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.

            We also have this promise from Jesus (Matthew 6):

19  “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.

20  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.”

In other words, believers have a treasure that this supreme of all thieves cannot steal. It is perfectly safe. The devil can only get to what we have on earth, and that is going to pass away anyway, whether he steals it first or not (2 Corinthians 4:18): “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

            That doesn’t sound like much of a promise when what we are about to lose is very near and dear to our hearts: a loved one with a diagnosis of a life-threatening disease, loss of our ability to walk following a serious accident, a job loss that threatens us with financial ruin, and so on. How can we be encouraged in those circumstances and continue to fight the devil and hang onto our faith in God? What is our battle when bad news comes, when tragedy falls, when our life begins to unravel at its seams?

            Many would say, “Then it’s time to take on the devil and keep him from stealing from us or destroying what’s ours, or killing our loved ones.” It may indeed be the time for that, but that’s never the first step or where we should start in battle. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7b) is the second part of that verse. We need to do the first part first (James 4:7a): “Submit yourselves, then, to God.” Why is this? Because (1 John 5:4b): “This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.” We need to be sure our faith is secure and we are not wavering. If Satan makes an attack on us to steal, kill and destroy, it isn’t the obvious target of his attack (health, finances, etc.) that he’s really after. He’s after our faith. Why? Because “without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6), and it’s God He’s really after, not us. You and I have only been around a few decades at most, but the devil has been on the prowl since the Garden of Eden, seeking to do all the damage he can - to God. The devil knows that God loves us with the deepest of passions, and it’s God’s heart he most wants to break. We see that very clearly in the book of Job, where Satan did everything he could to get Job to curse God to His face (Job 1:8-11):

8  Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”

9  “Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied.

10  “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land.

11  But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”

Notice what Satan says here. He says to God that as long as people’s lives are going the way they want them to go, sure, they’ll do some religious things and say they love God. But let Satan steal from them what they most value, kill their loved ones, or destroy what’s precious to them, and they’ll show their true colours. They don’t love God! They just enjoy His blessings. Take away those blessings, and they’ll turn on God. They’ll curse Him to His face.

            When hard times come, Satan’s words often hold true. It seems to be natural for us to blame God and cry out to Him to fix things. Then, if He doesn’t fix our problems, we cry out to Him and demand to know why He doesn’t fix them when He is well able to. Doesn’t He love us any more? Did He ever love us? We doubt and then we cry and wonder about where we’ve put our faith. We pray more and try to muster more faith and make promises of what we’ll do if only God will do this one thing for us. And when He doesn’t do that one thing, we may be almost plunged in despair. If God won’t help us, then what good is He to us? This is a serious crossroads in any believer’s life, and we will all come to this crossroads. God allows it. Then He does what must be the hardest thing for Him to do - continues to withhold our miracle.

            The battle is always first of all for our faith, and we must make sure that that battle is well won before we proceed to battle the devil. But what is this faith that we often seem to run short of in our difficulties? Hebrews 11:6 says: “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” Does God exist and is He being good to me? Those are the questions we need to settle. Unfortunately, there is no formula for successfully working our way to “yes” answers to these two questions. Our battle will be uniquely our own.

But there is one comment that may give some guidance. And that comment is this: This faith is not faith in a favourable outcome. It is faith in God’s goodness no matter what the outcome. That was the stance of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego when they were threatened with death in a fiery furnace if they did not worship the golden image of King Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 3):

17  If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king.

18  But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

In Hebrews 11, which talks about people who were giants of faith, we read this (Hebrews 11:13): “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.” Some of these giants of faith saw great miracles because of their faith. But others lived great tragedy with the same level of faith (Hebrews 11):

32  And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets,

33  who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions,

34  quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies.

35  Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection.

36  Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison.

37  They were stoned ; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated -

38  the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.

39  These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.

            The cosmic battle between God and the devil is: Will the people whom God loves so dearly love Him back no matter what? Do we want Him more than good health, more than money, more than being free of our current problems, more than having our wayward kids return to the fold, more than our spouse, more than our own life? Will we hang onto Him no matter what, through thick and thin, despite understanding nothing that is happening to us, and despite seeing more evidence in our lives of the devil’s hate than of God’s goodness?

            But why would a loving Father allow us to suffer? Hebrews 12 says:

8  If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.

9  Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live!10  Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.

11  No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

The Message of that same passage says:

Would you prefer an irresponsible God? We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God’s training so we can truly live? While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them. But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God’s holy best. At the time, discipline isn’t much fun. It always feels like it’s going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it’s the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God.

            To those of us faced with losing something as precious as a loved one or our ability to live independently, this doesn’t always sound like comfort. Then the Word says (2 Corinthians 4):

16  Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.

17  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

And again (Philippians 3):

8  What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ

9  and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ - the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.

            The hardest truth for a suffering Christian to swallow is that, to the extent these Scriptures seem to mock us, given what we are about to lose, we do not know the “surpassing greatness” of knowing Jesus. And God wants us to know that. So He may do nothing to alleviate our sufferings. He may wait for us to come to know the best in life, to understand that this is the life “to the full” that was promised to us (John 10:10).[2] This doesn’t always come easily. Some of us will lose our way at this crossroads. Some of us will wander for a while, crying out and wondering if this God is really so good, and then come back, knowing that God was right even though life as we knew it or wanted it to be is now long gone.

            So when do we fight the devil? When God says to. And how God says to. A careful reading of the Old Testament battles for the Promised Land shows us that sometimes the Israelites were asked to fight, and sometimes they weren’t but were to let God fight for them. Often God gave them the strategy for fighting. But sometimes, there will be no fight, just a quiet acceptance of suffering. Paul gives one example of this (2 Corinthians 12):

7  To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.

8  Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.

9  But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

10  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Jesus in Gethsemane is another example (Matthew 26):

42  He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”

            What the devil does is not always contrary to God’s will for us, as in the case of Paul and Jesus. Does God think evil is good, then? Absolutely not! Evil cost God His own Son. But evil is inevitable in a fallen world. Jesus said (John 16:33): “In this world you will have trouble.” Then He said (John 16:33): “But take heart! I have overcome the world.” In a fallen world, things don’t work like they did in Paradise Lost. Now, sometimes, to have God’s best, we have to walk through the darkness that’s trying to keep us from that best because there is no way around it. But God goes with us, so we don’t need to fear (Psalm 23:4): “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” This is the answer to any question a believer might have about where is God when it hurts this bad - He’s right there with us, walking with us, suffering with us, comforting us - and leading us deeper into the Promised Land. The darkness isn’t dark to Him (Psalm 139:12): “[E]ven the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.” And there is no way the enemy can win over us as we stick close to God (Proverbs 18:10): “The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.”

But what if the worst happens, and we find ourselves dying? Then we cling to the words of 1 Corinthians 15:

55  “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”

56  The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

57  But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And we join our hearts with the hearts of the heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11:

13  All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.

14  People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.

15  If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.

16  Instead, they were longing for a better country - a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

And we wait for the promise of Jesus to be fulfilled (John 14):

2  In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.

3  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

            Can the devil get you? He may get your house, your land, your job, your family, your health - in fact, anything you can see in this life. But he can never, ever touch your true treasure in Christ. Jesus promises (Mark 10):

29  “I tell you the truth,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel

30  will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields - and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.”

John 17

3  Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.