Satan always uses the same basic method
to undermine Christians individually and the Church corporately.
Satan always uses one basic method as he
seeks to undermine Christ's church: He attempts to make
Christians forget that God and His Word are all-sufficient.
Satan’s method is to cause us to doubt God.
As we look at the instances we find in
Scripture, and as we look at the church in our day, we find that
one of Satan’s most common ways of doing this is the implied lie
– a statement or question that contains or suggests the little
word "if" as a way of creating doubt about God and His Word.
But God's Word leaves no room for doubt,
either about the wiles and lies of Satan or the truth and
trustworthiness of God and His Word. On the one hand, we find
Satan constantly using the little unsettling word "if". But on
the other hand we find great comfort, assurance, and power
against the evil one, in the fact that our God and His Word
proclaim not an unsettled "if" but a firmly settled and
all-encompassing "Amen".
One of the most powerful statements
of this fact is found in Psalm 119:
Forever, O Lord, Your
Word is settled in heaven. Your faithfulness endures to all
generations; You established the earth, and it abides. They
continue this day according to Your ordinances, for all are Your
servants. Unless Your law had been my delight, I would then
have perished in my affliction. I will never forget Your
precepts, for by them You have given me life. I am Yours,
save [or preserve] me; for I have sought Your precepts. The
wicked wait for me to destroy me, but I will consider Your
testimonies. I have seen the consummation of all perfection,
but Your commandment is exceedingly broad. (Psalm 119:89-96)
This passage is a testimony to the nature
both of the Word of God, and the God of the Word. Both are
all-sufficient. Both are completely trustworthy.
The Word of God is the settled Word. It
is unchanging and unchangeable.
The God of the Word is the faithful God.
He unchanging and unchangeable.
It is also essential to the nature of the
Word that it is all-encompassing ─ applying to all people, in
all situations, and in all times. That is the meaning of the
words "Your commandment is exceedingly broad" in the original
language of verse 96.
This passage from Psalm 119 is also a
testimony to the insufficiency of man – man apart from God, and
apart from His Word. It is a testimony to our need to rely,
absolutely, upon the Word of God and upon the God of the Word.
We must rely absolutely upon the Word of
God because of our internal struggles of the heart and mind.
Without God's Word, the psalmist says, "I would have perished in
my affliction." The word that is translated "affliction" speaks
of an inward poverty and misery, the internal struggles of the
heart, soul, and mind.
We must rely absolutely upon the Word of
God because of our external struggles as well – our struggles
with this present evil world. "The wicked wait for me to destroy
me," the psalmist says. Literally, in the original this reads,
"The wicked forces of this world are eagerly out to get me so
that they can ruin me."
Man's insufficiency is rooted in his
sinfulness, his variability, and his tendency to unfaithfulness.
Satan preys upon these characteristics of our fallen nature.
Ironically, as we shall see, Satan uses man's insufficiency to
make man think that he is sufficient without God. This has been
Satan' great treachery from the beginning.
Man's insufficiency can only be
overwhelmed and overpowered by salvation through the Lord Jesus
Christ, by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the believer,
and constant feeding upon the living Word of God.
That is the picture in Psalm 119: God’s
total sufficiency rescuing us from our total insufficiency;
God's steadfastness rescuing us from Satan's treachery. This is
the picture of the Christian life, the Christian walk, the
Christian position.
But into this picture, as we shall see as
we continue, constantly steps Satan our adversary, wanting to
ruin us. We must understand his method, and we must understand
God's answer.
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