v. 8 The exhortation to be to be sober or clear-headed, which is another way of rendering the term the NIV translates "self-controlled", and to be alert, is common in the NT and especially in two contexts. We are to be alert in view of the coming return of Christ who will reward the faithful and punish those who are not ready; and, as well, in view of the attacks upon our faith and godliness that come from our own sinful desires within, from the world, or from the devil and his demons. The Lord is warning us not to be spiritually drowsy and lethargic, unaware of what is going on around us and of the attacks being made on our faith.

"prowls around" reminds us of Job 1:7 where we read that the Devil, by his own admission, had been "roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it."

v. 9 The idea is not that misery loves company, but that any good soldier is nerved and strengthened by the idea that everyone else in the army is fighting as manfully as he, everyone else is being tested in the same way, that, in other words, he is not alone in the struggle.

Peter has just encouraged his readers by reminding them of God's tender and faithful interest in them and their welfare. But that does not mean that they can relax. There is another who is interested in them, but with evil intent. The Devil is always seeking their harm, their destruction. They must be watchful and ready to resist him at all times

Now the Bible is, at one and the same time, forthcoming and reticent about Satan and his demons and their influence in the world. Holy Scripture certainly emphasizes the malignant role that these fallen angels play in the life of mankind. Satan -- also called Apollyon, Beelzebub, Belial, and "the ancient serpent" -- is described as "the accuser of the brethren," "our enemy," "the evil one," "the father of lies and the murderer of men's souls," "the prince of demons," "the prince of this world," "the ruler of the kingdom of the air," and "the tempter."

He is said to "rage against men," "to work in the sons of disobedience," "to blind the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ," "to turn men away from God to serve him," "to make men captive to do his will," "to deceive the nations," "to sow tares in the field of this world," "to obstruct the witness of the gospel (1 Thessalonians 2:18)," "to masquerade as an angel of light" so as to deceive the church and lead her into error, "to inspire false religions (1 Corinthians 10:20)," "to make war against the saints," "to throw Christians into prison," "to oppress with physical and mental illness," to lie and murder, and to hold in his hand the power of death (Hebrews 2:14).

It was Satan who tempted Eve and so led Adam to sin and the race to fall into sin and death; it was Satan who accused Job and afflicted him with physical and mental misery, who sought possession of the body of Moses (Jude 9), it was Satan who incited David to sin by numbering the people, it was Satan who accused Joshua the high priest of sin (Zechariah 3:1), who tempted Jesus to sin, who crippled a woman for eighteen years, who incited Peter to contradict Jesus' teaching about his approaching death, who put it into Judas' heart to betray Jesus, who requested permission to sift Peter like wheat and so tempted him to deny Jesus, it was Satan who filled Ananias' heart to lie against the Holy Spirit, and it was Satan who tormented Paul with a thorn in the flesh. [This summary from Reymond, Systematic Theology, 659-660] And here, it is Satan who seeks to devour the saints and, Peter's implication is clear, it is Satan who stands behind the opposition and persecution that they are suffering.

Sometimes the Bible speaks of the demons as a collective force for evil in the world, as when we read of "the powers of this dark world," "principalities and powers" or "spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." And we read, in a most intriguing reference in Daniel, of particular demons having some special role in the life of individual nations.

We are even told something of their method of working. The Devil is a deceiver, an accuser, a tempter. We read of his wiles and schemes and traps. It was his cunning, his craftiness that beguiled Eve in the garden and led to the fall. And we are told that he often disguises himself as an angel of light and so recommends evil to human minds as something that is good. In other words, his chief method of working in the world seems to be to persuade people to believe what is not true. As an asside, it is said that he has two chief lies, two lies above all his others. The first is the one he told Eve: "you surely shall not die." He teaches men and women to believe that their sins are not serious and that they have nothing to fear from the wrath of God. And his second, as the accuser of the brethren, once his first lie has failed, is to convince believers that their sins are too great, too offensive to God for them to find forgiveness. And is it not the case that we are always struggling somewhere around those two lies -- we are taking our sins with far too little seriousness or we are taking them to be greater than the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ.

And, of course, we are taught in many ways that Christ has conquered the Devil and that his power and reign are now subject to the will of the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus, the seed of the woman, has, in the language of the most ancient promise in the Bible, crushed the head of the serpent, or, perhaps more accurately, as Paul writes in Romans 16:20, he has, by his death and resurrection, made it certain that he will soon and finally crush Satan under our feet. The battle has been fought and won, it remains only to do what commanders call the "mopping up," bitter though that fighting can be! Christ came, we read, to "destroy the works of the Devil," and to that end the Lord Jesus "tied the strong man up and plundered his house" and "disarmed the powers and authorities, exposing them openly, triumphing over them by the cross." And so we read that "the ruler of this world has been judged," "will be driven out," his dominion, authority, and power will be destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:24-26) and so, finally, the Devil himself will be destroyed (Hebrews 2:14-15).

So it cannot be denied that the Bible speaks clearly and emphatically about Satan's role and the role of his subordinates in opposing the kingdom of God in the world and seeking the harm and the failure of Christ's people in the world. It is clear that a great deal of evil happens at his instigation and that his power is always at work in the world ranging itself against the purposes of God and seeking the destruction of men's souls. We have the impression, in Holy Scripture, that the Devil is no one's friend, his rebellion against God, and his own judgment has poisoned his heart against all other persons. He seeks only harm. All of that we know and it is, obviously, a part of reality of the greatest importance. The Devil and his devils clearly are a force to be reckoned with in the world. Much that is evil and destructive and harmful comes from them and results from their actions among the world of men, even if, at the last, they are doomed and are subject to the rule of Christ.

But, when all of that has been said and been given its due, there is a great deal that the Bible has left completely in the dark, a great deal we do not know about the Devil and his demons or their work in the world. Nothing is said about the creation of the angels, nothing specifically, apart from what many take to be allusions in Isaiah and Ezekiel, about the fall of the angels who sinned. It is never explained why there is redemption for human beings but not for angels. We are never told precisely what their powers are. We know that they are powerful, but clearly they are not divine. They are not omnipresent or omnipotent. It is not clear that they know your thoughts. Rabbi Duncan, who thought a lot about angels and devils, concluded, "No single heart-secret is known to any single devil." What they can do and what they cannot do is never explained in the Bible.

What is still more practically significant, we are not given to understand how to distinguish the devil's hand in any particular event or tragedy or evil in life. Sometimes in the Bible such things result from our own sin, sometimes from the purpose of God to test and try us, and sometimes from the evil designs of the devil. And, sometimes, from all of those things together at the same time. It is clear, in any case, that the devil can do nothing that God does not permit him to do. He couldn't have troubled Job had God not given him permission to do so, and sometimes the devil's work is actually said to be God's own work, so much does God use the devil to test, to try, even to punish his own people for their sins. Such was the case with David you remember. In Chronicles we read that the Devil tempted David to number the people; in 2 Samuel we read that God incited David to do it. Even as he seeks our harm, Satan, finally, is only serving the interests of God. Like Nebuchadnezzar, whom God used to punish his people, and Cyrus, whom he used to punish Babylon, he thinks his triumphs are his own doing. We have that deep and difficult thought here in 1 Peter as well. These persecutions which these Christians are suffering, which here in chapter 5 are said to be the work of the Devil, are said in chapter 1, verse 7, to have come to test and try and purify their faith. That was not the Devil's interest or intention, of course, but God used his evil intention to accomplish something very holy and good. Or, as a former minister of mine used to put it, in this, God uses sin sinlessly.

What is more, nowhere are we given any spiritual technology for dealing with the devil and his demons. In some churches today, you may be given such a technology: how to bind the devil, what words to use in resisting him, with what devices you can make him flee from you, but the Bible never teaches such things.

Indeed, the sense of verse 9 is that the way one resists the devil is to stand firm in one's faith. And that is the impression we are given everywhere in the Bible. One resists the Devil by resisting temptation, by practicing obedience, by living a faithful Christian life. This can be put in a dramatic image, as Paul does in Ephesians 6, when he has the Christian dressed up in armor to stand against the devil's schemes and to extinguish his fiery darts, but when one considers what that imagery of the Christian in full armor means, it amounts simply to a Christian living a faithful, godly life of obedience to God's Word and trust in God's grace. And so in Revelation 12:10-11, where we read that the saints overcame the Devil by their faithfulness to Christ, and their trust in him, even unto death.

I mean this. In the Bible, a Christian does not respond differently to a temptation because it comes from the devil instead of from his own sinful desires or from the world. In fact, though good and spiritual men through the ages have argued that it is sometimes possible to tell whether a temptation originates with the devil or his demons and not from the world or the flesh, I am not myself convinced of this, especially since the Bible never teaches us how to make such a distinction and since the greatest part of the power of any temptation, the Bible does say, comes from the sin within us, not the suggestion that comes from without.

So, knowing that the devil is a roaring lion, prowling about seeking whom he may devour, does not in any specific way alter the way we are to live as Christians, it doesn't change our tactics or our strategies. One could, I think, on the strength of the Bible's teaching about the Christian life, argue that it would be lived the same way and the Christian's responsibilities would be the same, and the means of grace in a Christian's life would be the same if there were no devil at all.

So, what then is the burden of Peter's warning here? He doesn't draw from what he says about the devil that these Christians are to do something different. He doesn't give them a set of new tactics that are designed just for the temptations of the evil one. He simply warns them of the devil's prowling and urges them to stand firm in their faith. What is his point then with this warning?

Well, taken with the rest of the Bible's teaching, I think Peter's point is two-fold.

First, the information we are given about the devil and his malevolent purposes and his vicious and destructive schemes, his hatred of the saints and the kingdom of God, is given to us to remind us of and to demonstrate to us the terrible contest between good and evil that is going on in this world.

We are all far too disposed to think entirely too banal and simplistic and sentimental thoughts about our lives in this world and to see our lives in altogether too pedestrian and too narrow terms. Our own business, our own happiness, our own comfort and well-being, our own personal and narrow interests take up almost all our time and attention. Serious devout Christians too can do this and do do this. Even in thinking as Christians our sights are far too seldom lifted up above the immediate horizon of our own individual existence and experience. We do not see the role we play on a far larger stage. We can be oblivious to the battle being waged around us every day, to the carnage of that battle as bloodied and battered souls slip away to hell in far larger numbers than to heaven. We do not see the hand of the evil one making human beings miserable, blinding their eyes so that they cannot see truth when it stands right before their eyes.

We make too little, far too little of our lives. We do not see the perpetually violent moral warfare being waged always and everywhere in our world. But this is the great story of this world and its history. This violent confrontation between good and evil, in which we have a place, in which our lives are to be lived out.

Why do you suppose, after all, that human evil takes on such monstrous shape, even in an educated, sophisticated world such as that of our time. And why do you suppose that the most vicious evils of all have been perpetrated by people who claimed to be seeking the good of the human race. Pol Pot and his top associates have been a reminder to us of this lately. When asked about the upwards of 2,000,000 Cambodians who were killed by the Khmer Rouge in their so-called "people's revolution" these Jean Paul Satre-trained Marxists can now only say that while they are sorry it would be best if everyone would "let bygones be bygones." That was the apology of one of these three men given last week.

And whether we are talking about mass murder for political purposes, about abortion, about racism, or more pedestrian matters such as government sponsored gambling, we have the evidence before us everywhere that the power of evil in the world is a positive thing, that it is very great, and that it has the capacity to blind otherwise intelligent people so completely that they will do terrible harm to other human beings in the confidence that they are going them good. How can human beings, all with a conscience, all agreeing on so much that is right or wrong, do so much evil and be so blind to that evil?

Perhaps, nowadays, with thousands of people taking seriously claims of so-called "channelers" regarding 25,000 year-old spirits, perhaps it is not as necessary as it was twenty years ago to argue for the devil's existence. But, in our still very secular age, it is worth reminding the world that the Bible's doctrine of evil spiritual beings is entirely worthy of respect and for this reason especially. It helps explain and in a most important way, the virulence, the indestructible quality, and, at the same time, the almost insane foolishness of evil in this world and in human hearts. Where does its power, its destructive quality, and where does man's infernal blindness to it come from? Why does he never learn? Why has this last century -- a century of remarkable human progress in some ways -- been more cruel and more evil than all of the centuries before it? The Bible tells us that there is a great contest underway in this world and mighty powers are arrayed against one another on both sides and will fight to the death of either good or evil. And, really, when one opens one's eyes on this world and looks at it with an honest heart, what else may we believe, what else really explains what we see, but that there is a devil, a roaring lion, a crafty and subtle liar and murderer of souls, prowling around seeking whom he may devour?

In any case, the reality of the Devil puts paid to the nonsense so widely preached today in our culture, championed by Carl Rogers and his ilk, that human nature is basically trustworthy and holds within itself the answers to life's problems. What one needs most of all is simply getting in touch with oneself. Hogwash. Not in this world, not in the face of the evil and the blindness that are so characteristic of human experience in this world. And not with the Devil its prince and its ruler!

The reality of the evil one confirms the spiritual character of life and of our life in this world. He is part and parcel of a great struggle to the death between good and evil. And that should make us take life a great deal more seriously. And it should help us, Peter thinks, to put our own trials and difficulties in perspective. Life is difficult? Of course it is! We're living on a battlefield!

We are less likely to slumber and sleep our way through the Christian life if we remember that there is a powerful being out there who desires our destruction, who hates us and wishes us every manner of harm. We are more likely to remain alert and watchful and sober-minded if we remember that someone is seeking to undo our loyalty to Christ, someone much more powerful than ourselves. If it is true that we must respond to temptations from the devil and to trials that he brings against us in just the same way we would respond to any other temptations and trials -- with grace and faith and obedience and humble reliance on the Lord's presence and help -- it is also true that knowing the Devil is at work against us is a constant reminder of how much energy and grit and perseverance and biblical wisdom and prayer this battle is going to require of us. It left our Lord utterly exhausted, those years of doing battle with Satan -- Satan never attacked anyone as relentlessly as he attacked the Prince of Life -- and if we are not often weary because of the commitment we are making to standing firm in our faith and living a godly, obedient, fruitful Christian life, it is probably because we are resisting the devil too little and succumbing to his wiles too much. It will take a great deal to resist him to very end of one of his attacks, to stand against the temptation to the bitter end until he gives up and moves on.

But there is something more here. We are also more likely to take seriously our responsibility to live worthy of the grace that has been given us, if we know that our every failure to do so is greeted with delight and relish by the Evil one, if our every failure he throws up in the face of our Savior. He wanted to undo Job precisely to embarrass God. And his designs on you are no different. He doesn't care about you, really; he cares about the opportunity you provide to strike a blow against Christ himself.

Is this not the case? And does not Paul tell us in Ephesians 3 that one thing the Lord Christ is after in our lives is the demonstration of his wisdom and grace to the principalities and powers. We have a role to play in that. Our task in life is not to give comfort to the Lord's enemies! It is manfully to fight our master's battles and all the more when he has already made victory certain for us by his own suffering and death. Just as Peter thinks that it is nerving to Christian soldiers to hear that the rest of the army is under attack and fighting bravely, so it is nerving to hear that we have a vicious enemy that is worthy of our bravest, our best, our noblest effort, an enemy who not only can be bested, but who ought to be bested, who ought not to be given a single inch of our line.

And if that makes life hard and the Christian life more demanding and exhausting, what is that to us? It is finally the proof that we are serving our master faithfully, that the devil continues to take an interest in us! He continues to care to bring us down!

As John Knox once wrote in a letter to his mother-in-law: "He is a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour; whom he has devoured he seeks no more."

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