An Intense Spiritual Enemy

"Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour."  I Peter 5:8

There are official or sanctioned realities that are proscribed by others as necessary or vital for our lives.  However, experience and time have a way of playing at the edges of official beliefs, and even perhaps fraying our theological, and or our philosophical superstructure.

Usually when this happens it is time for us to grow up, and move on to a new level of spiritual maturity.  The great theologian Abraham moved out of Ur of the Chaldees because Yahweh summoned him elsewhere. Yahweh offered him no physical map, but he led him by the spiritual map of faith.  The greatest theological insights are given in this manner.

In II Kings 6:17 the prophet Elisha prays that the servant whose eyes are only limited to seeing the physical phenomena of  "an  army with horses and chariots... surrounded the city" may see anew with spiritual perception.  "And Elisha prayed, O Lord, open his eyes so that he may see the Lord's Army" and the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and he saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha." The servant was granted spiritual perception by the Lord through the prayer of Elisha.  The servant could then see that God's presence was greater than the presence of the enemy.

And so it is with us today because we live in a time that has banished the real enemy to the outer boundaries of the faith.  The Diabolos is less real or not real at all to our narcissistic culture.  Some may not think that he is not real because they do not believe in immaterial realities.  For them only what is visible is real.  The enemy of our souls does not care whether or not he is seen as real because unbelief in his existence does not diminish his power to havoc the souls of people.

Peter, the wise and spiritually mature under-shepherd, tells the constantly believing ones that spiritual discretion is mandatory in the life of faith.  We must also watch or be ever on guard because the Antidikos which is another name for the Diabolos is very real.  As the Antidikos the Diabolos is our tenacious adversary in a lawsuit, or one who seeks to overthrow our testimony of faith.  He is looking for grounds of impeachment against us.  He follows us as a devoted companion gathering information for a case against us.

He desires to swallow down whole the spiritually unwary.  His intent against us is cunning and sinister.  Therefore we must counter his activity with a radical devotion to the appropriation of the Word of God.  The  intake and metabolism of the truth is the consummate weapon of our warfare.  On the other hand, those who do not will find themselves causalities in the war for our souls.  Their lives will be characterized by passive mediocrity.  They will have little or no strength to fight the good fight of faith.  They will depend upon mere shallow outward conformity while inside their souls they are in a state of present conflict.

I say these things in love and truth because the Diabolos is not seeking to take prisoners of war.  He is walking about as a roaring lion seeking those who he may swallow down whole.  Get serious about your spiritual life. Be on guard for our intense spiritual enemy-Diabolos.

Blessings to you.

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