One of the most fun things to watch in the entire world is a group of Brazilians cheering for their soccer team. No matter what their occupations are, they become professional coaches right there in that moment. They scream instructions to the players even if they cannot hear a thing. They are alert to all threats that the opposing team’s strategy offers. They jump and wave their hands in the air when they score a goal. All this hysterical and energetic behavior takes place for one reason alone: they want their team to win the adversary.
As we approach this passage in the first letter of Peter let us have this question in mind: how do we face the fact that we have a spiritual adversary who is willing to use all kinds of strategies to destroy us. What has been our preparation? Are we mindful of his existence and of his primary intent (which is to overcome the church of Christ)? In these two verses the apostle call his original readers attention to the existence of the devil as their personal adversary, to the strategy he uses in his attacks and of how to resist him.
The devil is the personal adversary of the Christian. Along with the indwelling sin in believers and the fallen world in which they live in, Satan personally plans and executes his plots aiming to make the sons of God fail in the progress of their sanctification and in their harmony and intimacy with their Saviour. This Peter expresses when he says “your adversary” (verse 8). Today, some say that the devil does not exist, that this is something Christians created in order to escape from the blame of their sins but you, young brethren, do not underestimate your adversary neither doubt his existence. Remember that your Saviour, Jesus Christ, personally engaged in combat against him, and so must you.
What is the devils strategy? Peter uses the illustration of a lion to describe his methods. First, Peter says that he “prowls around”. He circulates the Christian, being attentive to their weaknesses and to those things that might be useful in making them fall. Second, he “roars” against Christians, in the attempt to scare and terrorize them, to make them flee from their Shepherd straight into his trap! Third, he “devours” his pray. After he make the Christian fall in his trap, he feasts on him. He not only rejoices in that he accomplished his infernal intent, but he proceeds in destroying that Christian’s life with the particular sin (or sins) in which he is entrapped.
The solution to the coward attacks of the adversary, Peter says, is to “resist him” (verse 9). Christians need to oppose their adversary just as there are opposed and offer him unbearable resistance. How? “Stand firm in your faith.” Do not abandon what you have been learning from every sermon you hear, from all the bible studies you do, do not relax in your duty to pray and, most of all, do not relay on yourself. Your faith is not on your personal ability to fight against Satan, but as the hymn says: your “hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.” This is your faith!
Young brethren, just as the young sheep are the preferred pray of a flock, so are you in the eyes of your adversary. As you fight against him be encouraged by the saying of another apostle: “I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one” (1 John 2:13).
