Awake! Put On Strength. Shake yourself from the dust and arise!

I was reminded of my friend who told me of his doubt in the scriptures. His main contention was his doubt in the actual personification of Satan; he felt the Devil was compensation by an early eastern culture to deal with the idea of sin and death. I think he couldn’t see past the red tights, bifurcated tail and pitchfork.

A friend of ours, AJ Neely, and I tried to bring up angels, certainly everybody believes in angels. He denied their existence too. “What is the point in angels and a devil? He doesn’t need them, why would they exist?”

“Well, He doesn’t need us either, and yet we exist. It is what He has chosen to do,” one of us said.

We were dumbfounded by this denial. Scripture is so explicate about Satan and how he comes to “steal and kill and destroy,” (John 10:10). Ezekiel 28:12-19 tells how Satan, once a beautiful cherub, grew prideful and became unrighteous and was cast down to earth by God. Biblegateway.com found 129 entries when I typed in “Satan,” “Serpent” and “devil” (I have kept in mind that serpent in some cases actually referred to a snake).

In short, evidence is clear and backed up by scripture. The Word of God is inerrant, but sometimes I take the acceptance of that for granted. As my friend showed me, who claims to be a Christian and believes in the Omnipotence, Omnipresence, and Omniscience of God, not everyone believes this.

Doubt in the inerrancy of scripture presents several problems. If you allow the bullet of doubt to penetrate your thinking in one area, what is to keep another bullet from hitting you in another area, next time more vital? Soon “I deny the authenticity of Satan; the scriptures are a metaphor” will become “Jesus wasn’t really the Son of God, but he was such a good, moral teacher and healed so many people that we can attribute this to him as an adjective.” Eventually that too becomes “There is no God, just a way people should treat each other.” If you deny one part you deny it all. A double-minded man is a fool. He builds his house on sand. When the torrents of rain surely come, his house will be washed away (Matthew 7:26-27). He is tossed about like the sea driven by the wind, out of control (James 1:6-7).

You literally have no foundation when you doubt the scriptures. There is no more common ground between you and believers, there is no more joy. What would be the point? If one thing is untrue then all others are untrue! Can you see the lack of logic in this? Can you see that when you doubt what the Almighty Sovereign God says is true, when He cannot lie (Titus 1:2), all His works are perfect (Deuteronomy 32:4), and all His scriptures are inspired by Him (2 Timothy 3:16), you therefore cannot have faith nor hope in eternal glory with Him?

What a miserable burden this produces for the shoulders of the double-minded man! How the lies of Satan, telling people that he does not exist, enslave those whom believe in them. “You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness,” (2 Peter 3:17).

Standfast! With all Hell breathing down your neck, with all the sulphury fumes of the lies of the enemy in your ear, STANDFAST! You have the Armor of God for a reason, “so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil,” and, “so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm,” (Ephesians 6:11 & 13).

I can attest that it is not by our own strength that we stand, but by the grace of God. “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me,” (1 Corinthians 15:10).

Remember the scene in Braveheart of the first major battle between the English and the Scots? William Wallace gave the most hardcore pep-talk on freedom ever then went and taunted the English generals. Shortly afterwards the Scots began to harass the opposing army by lifting their kilts and bellowing war cries. When the armoured cavalry of King Edward the Longshanks charged the starving peasants of Scotland, they did not at first flee. They stoodfast and decimated the cavalry because of their faith in the plans of their leaders. 

For consider the psalmist’s praise “The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold,” (Psalm 18:2).