How is the Devil Killing You?

As I make my way through Revelation there is a verse that I have recently studied that is stirring up my heart.  Revelation tends to be a book that people shy away from, and I think that’s because we get it into our heads that it’s too difficult to understand and that it’s scary.  I personally believe that those thoughts are not from God.  2 Timothy 1:7 tells us that God has not given us a spirit of fear.   So, it stands to reason that if we are afraid of reading something in the Bible, God didn’t put that fear in us.  I would guess that it’s actually Satan who’s afraid of you reading that book.  If you really read the whole Bible, including Revelation, then you will be able to spot his tricks more and more and he will have less and less power.  He will be defeated and he does not want that. 

So, back to my original point.  I’m studying Revelation 12 and I get to verse 17.  It goes something like this:

“Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring – those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.”

Verse 9 of that same chapter tells us that the dragon is the Devil.  So, read the verse again with that in mind.  Let that sink in for a minute. 

The dragon – Satan is beyond angry.  He’s enraged.  He’s ticked off to the point of murder.  If you go back a through the chapter you can see why he’s so mad.  He tried to eat the woman’s baby, Jesus.  Then he gets evicted and hurled to the Earth.  So, he tries to take out his anger on the woman, but she’s protected so he fails again.  Now, he’s really MAD.  So he says, “Fine if I can’t get her then I’ll take out all her children.”  I may have paraphrased there a bit, but you get the idea.  In this passage the woman is Mary or Israel, the child is Jesus, and the offspring, that’s you and me.  The offspring is the Church. 

So what verse 17 says to me is this:  Satan is coming after you in one way or another if you follow God and testify to who Jesus Christ is.  He hates us if that’s how we live our lives.  He hates us so much that he wants to kill us.  But, God put an end to death through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.  So for those of us who believe in Jesus, it doesn’t matter if the Devil has us killed because we still get to be with Jesus.  We can’t lose.

 

So, if Satan loses when he kills us, how does he “make war” against us as Revelation 12:17 says?  He finds things that either torture us to deny our faith or he pampers us into complacency.  I don’t know about anyone else, but I think the Devil kills me through keeping me too busy to think about my faith or witnessing to other people.  He whispers worries in my ear that things are going wrong.  That I’m going to mess something up.  He tries to affirm thoughts that I already have that I’m a bad wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend, etc.  When he gets our minds busy about ourselves and our own worries then he can distract us from the real point – sharing the Gospel. 

Now, I’m not trying to downplay the thousands of people who are dying for the Gospel.  That is real.  But, there is also the truth that the Devil is real and he works in a lot of ways.  It does not look a physical death for everyone that declares faith in Jesus Christ.  For some of us, maybe he just makes us lazy.  Maybe he just makes us busy.  Maybe he just makes us think that he doesn’t even exist.  And if there’s no enemy, why would you need a savior?   

I don’t know how the enemy is making war with you today, but I know that Jesus wants to give you peace. Jesus doesn’t promise us that peace will be easy.  Jesus doesn’t promise us that we won’t face difficulty.  In fact, he promises the opposite.  But, Jesus also promises that if we stay the race and overcome we will receive the crown of life.    My prayer today is that we would not let the Devil kill our witness because that’s the only way that he will win.