10 May 2012
I Peter 5:8-9
I Peter 5:8: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
9 Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.”
The word “Satan” actually means “adversary.” This passage is why I became pre-millennial: I just could not reconcile these verses with the section in Revelation that says that Satan was bound for a thousand years. People who are amillennial claim that the binding of Satan happened when Christ died on the cross, and that Satan is now bound. I think that is completely ridiculous. Satan is not bound; instead he is a “roaring lion”, looking for people to devour. He is our adversary and he is working very hard to destroy us! Therefore, if Satan is not yet bound then Revelation 20 must not have happened yet – and if it hasn’t happened yet then it must still be in our future. Once I realized that, everything else fell into place and I became pre-millennial.
But the key to remember is that we really do have an adversary. We are in a deadly and very serious war, and few people are even bothering to fight. The Bible says that if we resist the devil he will flee from us, but are we actually resisting? How many people are instead trying to get the very things that the devil is peddling?
We must fight and resist; we must die to ourselves and “resist stedfast in the faith.” This is another reason why we have to stay grounded in the Word: if we don’t then how will we be able to tell the truth from lies?