1 Peter 5:8-9: Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith.
As we continue to think about the passage above, today I want you to focus on the words “Resist Him.”
In the late 1700s a 14-year-old girl named Marie Durant was told by authorities to renounce her beliefs. She belonged to a Christian group known as the Huguenots, a French nickname for Protestants. The request was simple. All she had to say was “I renounce.” But she refused. As a result, she was placed in a single room with 30 other women who also refused to renounce. They remained there…for 38 years. Occasionally, they would be asked, “Do you renounce?” They replied, NO! In fact, they carved another word on the wall: RESIST. I’m told that tourists can still see that word on the wall of their cell.
People in our day and age shake their heads in disbelief at this story. In a time when religious beliefs are so easily thrown aside for expediency, or if they are inconvenient, this kind of commitment is beyond comprehension. Thinking about those women sitting in the room day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, knowing that nothing in their situation would change as long as they held to their beliefs … you might be tempted to dismiss them as fanatics. But what they were doing was what Peter tells us to do: resisting the devil. They stood firm in their faith, confident that God was on their side.
James wrote Resist the devil, and he will flee from you (James 4:7). That is the same thing Peter encourages here: Resist Him.
An example of courage comes from the cross of Christ. Jesus was brave enough to suffer and die for something He had not done. It was a “must” situation, a “have to” set of circumstances. All of humanity faced eternal death and destruction, eternal damnation and separation from the Creator because of sin. The only one who could change this was the one who lived without sin. So He did what had to be done. He paid the price with His perfect life. And then He rose again on the third day to let us know the victory is ours. We live now hearing Him say to us, “I am with you always.”
The devil is going to continue his assaults and attacks on you and yours. You will face hardships and temptations as a follower of Jesus. How can you live with them? Joseph Scriven put it this way:
Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged, Take it to the Lord in Prayer.
Can we find a Friend so faithful Who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness–Take it to the Lord in prayer.
The Lutheran Hymnal #457 stanza 2
