It seems like Christians love telling other people that God has a plan for their lives. This is something we particularly like to turn to when things are going bad - it's okay, God has a plan for our lives. He is all-powerful, He is in control, He is going to work everything out for the good of those who love Him. He is working in our lives, and He can do amazing things. And this is true. And this is wonderful. And this is GOOD.
However, I think Christians neglect to look at the other side of this whole plan-for-our-lives thing. Satan also has a plan for our lives. Satan is also working hard in our lives, and Satan can also do some pretty amazing (in a very different way from the kind of amazing we relate to God, of course) things. 1 Peter 5:8 describes Satan's work by saying:
Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
And just three chapters into the Bible (Genesis 3:1-7), we see Satan already prowling around, already influencing and corrupting and speaking lies to the first woman.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”“You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
The serpent is described here as "crafty," which can be defined as "skillful in underhand or evil schemes; cunning; deceitful; sly." And we see that he really does exhibit these characteristics with the woman - he doesn't just come out and say "I know God said this was wrong, but I want you to do it anyway." No, instead, he lures the woman into a conversation and confuses and deceives her into thinking that to eat the fruit will actually enable her to better fulfill her role as helper (my new book obsession, Pure Heart, talks about this a lot). The woman got so lost in the thought of having something that would make her even better at fulfilling her role that she forgot that God had already provided her with everything she needed, and that He would not withhold something that she needed to fulfill her role as helper (how often are we guilty of this?!?). So the woman took and ate, and the man also ate, and thus was mankind's lifelong struggle sealed. Here we see that Satan makes us question whether or not God has sufficiently equipped us to do the work He has prepared for us. His tactic here does not consist of directly telling the woman, who KNEW God, to disobey Him, but instead he confuses and deceives her into thinking that God has not provided enough for her. Satan tries to trick us into believing that God is not sufficient for all of our needs, and also that He does not want what is best for His children.
Let's look at Job now (you can read it here). Here's this righteous man, who is actually described as "blameless and upright," and who "feared God and shunned evil," and Satan comes after him. Job was a threat to Satan's work, and so Satan launched his attack. I think what's awesome in this story is that we see that Satan is still subject to God's authority, even though he's Satan. Satan, many versions tell us in a footnote here, means "accuser." And that's exactly what Satan does - he stands before God and accuses Job. Now, Satan doesn't really have anything to accuse Job of - he's a good guy! - so he basically tells God that if Job wasn't so blessed, he would curse God to His face. So God gives Satan PERMISSION to do what he will with Job's possessions, family, etc. And so the story goes. Revelation 12:10 sums up this role of Satan pretty well - it says that he accuses us before God day and night! Now, I would definitely say that in addition to standing before God and accusing us, Satan accuses us to our own faces. Fortunately we know that God is never going to be swayed by Satan to see us as anything other than what we are - bought and saved by the blood of Christ, but we ourselves often fall prey to his accusations. Based off of my own experience and those of some people I've talked to about this, I think the accusations Satan whispers in our ears are very often reminders of our own sins. The thing is...in a sense, he's right - these are things we are guilty of. However, that doesn't mean that we STAY guilty of them. Satan tries to trap us into false guilt, which pulls us into vicious cycles of self-loathing and insecurity, while God calls us to conviction, confession, and redemption! Once again, Satan is telling us that God is not enough...and yet we believe him!
Fortunately, God does not leave us alone in this struggle against Satan's schemes. Ephesians 6:10-18 talks about the armor of God, which is given to us so that we can resist Satan's schemes!:
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 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. 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. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 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.
God provides us with truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, and the Spirit, that we might not be consumed by the lies and treachery of the devil. Hallelujah! This language of war and armor is no coincidence - people, we are at WAR with Satan and his followers! Let us not forget this!
I remember learning in my ninth grade doctrine class (taught by a wonderful man who changed my entire conception of who God is and what the Bible is all about, and who has since gone to be with God) about Genesis 3:15 as the protoevangelium, or "first Gospel."
"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers;he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
In this verse, the entire history of mankind is summed up - there is enmity between mankind and Satan, but One (Jesus) will come who will crush Satan's head, even as Satan is crushing His heel. And so, three chapters into the Bible, we find out that we have already won the war! Praise the LORD! This certainly doesn't mean that battles against Satan aren't difficult...we've already seen that he is good at the evil he is working in the world. But how awesome to know that we have already won - that Christ has already conquered! Not only is there hope, there is certainty of our victory in Christ! Hallelujah!
Going back to Revelation 12, here are verses 9 and 10 that pretty much sum up Satan's defeat:
The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ.For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.
I guess all this is to say....let us REJOICE that Satan has already been defeated, but also let us be on our guards for the ways that Satan tries to work in our lives. We have no room in our lives for his lies or his work or his plans. To God be the glory forever and ever! Amen.
I never know what to think about the true guilt/false guilt thing. Even false guilt is still essentially true in that it is an accusation of a real thing, but it's turned the wrong direction (as you said) into hopeless accusation rather than hopeful and loving correction.
ReplyDeleteMaybe another way of looking at it is to put in the context of the fall's implications for our nature. In the Garden, there was room for at least a concept of true guilt; a command implies the possibility of its being broken. And if guilt is part of our unfallen nature, it is a very good thing. The brokenness of our guilt that appeared in the fall turned this very good element of our nature from focus on God to focus on the self.
A few years ago, someone gave a really good devo in Chorale about true and false guilt, and I got them to send me their notes on it. For a time in my life, and for many of the people I've talked to about this kind of thing, false guilt has been really debilitating. True guilt is from God. It is when the Holy Spirit convicts us, and we feel alienated from God, but through it we are lead to repentance and restoration. The false guilt Satan tries to put us through doesn't allow us to be restored, and it only gets worse and worse the longer it remains unresolved. It is characterized more by the person believing that THEY are bad, instead of acknowledging that it is what they DID that was wrong.
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