WE live in an age of polls. News organizations constantly run the results of polls to judge the public’s position on every issue imaginable and politicians react to the polls. One of the more popular ones these days is the approval poll. No matter where we look we are faced with approval ratings for the Congress, the President, or candidates. The most telling thing about polls is how the data behaves over time. How does the public’s view of things compare to the views of ten years ago, twenty years ago, even a lifetime ago.
Some of the more interesting polls reflect Christian attitudes towards the core beliefs that form basic doctrine. In 2009, a poll conducted by the Barna Group revealed that most American Christians do not believe that Satan is a living creature, but rather is a symbol of evil. Only twenty-six percent of the Christians surveyed believed he is a real living being. The majority of these describe themselves as born again Christians.
This finding is consistent with similar polls run by Harris and others about the beliefs of Americans in general. Whether inside the church or outside, the percentage of people that does not believe Satan is real remains roughly the same. A comparison of similar polls over time reveals that if anything, the percentage that sees Satan as real is decreasing. This is a very dangerous, but predictable trend.
Scripture is clear on the reality of Satan. It is equally clear about his hatred of God and God’s people. For this reason, his main target is going to be Christians. There is little reason for him to focus on non-Christians; they are already doing his will because by definition they are enemies of God. His best efforts are aimed at those of us who are born again. Peter warns us to be on guard against Satan who “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”
He then offers advice: But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world.1 Peter 5:8-9 (NASB)
But what should we be on guard against? What should we resist? The common thinking is that we need to resist the sinful pleasures of the world in varying degrees. If it feels good, it must be sinful is a standard defense. It is also terribly inefficient because like the Maginot Line of pre-World War II in France it points in only one direction and it is rigidly placed. In fact, our resistance to worldly pleasure is one of the tools Satan can use against us.
Satan is a worthy and cunning advisory whose main means of destroying Christians are rooted not in the world, but in our own doctrines and Scriptures. Satan knows Scripture better than most Christians will ever know it and he knows how to bend context and meaning to undo us at every turn. While we focus on the concept of the devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other constantly urging us to sin or not to sin, we miss the most obvious reality. There is no angel on the other shoulder. He counsels us to avoid the blatant sin by committing a less obvious one, disguising it as virtue.
We portray Satan with a pitchfork prodding us commit obvious sins when in fact, he works through reason and persuasion to seduce us into sins we do not see. Remember Christ in the desert was not tempted to do things against Scripture, but to make His own fulfillment of Scripture by unscriptural means. This is why we need to be on guard. Satan will use our own spirituality and reasonable argument against us at every turn.
There are three facets to Satan’s attack: deception, delusion, and distraction. Only the first is an attack from the outside. The other two are attacks from within. All three are hard to defend against but with a bit of understanding of Satan himself and with God on our side through prayer, we will see that resistance is not futile.
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