THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT
Written by Matthew Winter
Did he though? No seriously, how many times have we thought this? How many times have we done pet sin #3 for the 10 billionth time? Everytime we promise ourselves and God, it's the last time, I promise. If you’re anything like me this is sadly and painfully a familiar story, rather than facing the reality that we just can't get it right, we take the easy way, the victim, this is a story as old as mankind themself.
We all know the story of the garden. We know that we basically had 1 job: don't eat from the tree in the middle. Long story short, Adam and Eve do exactly that. God shows up, and what do we do? Do we repent? Do we admit to God our wrong doing? Nope, instead what happens is the all too familiar story. Adam points to Eve and says, “She did it!” Eve points to the serpent and says, “well He said it would be okay.” Now we are stuck with a curse, the effects of which are not in the least, slavery to sin and death itself.
But I've talked about all that before, so today I thought we would look at it a little differently. If we look at the phrase the devil made me do it, there is an actor, and an action. Who is the actor? Well, it's “the devil.” This instantly brings up images of red guys with horns and pitchforks, maybe bat wings, maybe not. We think, maybe, of satan as the king of hell and he is trying to meet his quota of souls so he isnt bored for eternity and has someone to torture. Often we think of an eternal battle for our souls between God and the devil. But the fact of the matter is the devil of the bible is actually unknown to most of us. In our minds, the meta of our understanding of who the devil is and how he acts, is informed by a media caricature, which is based on Medieval Catholic Dogma and the Divine Comedy or Dante's inferno as it is more commonly known.
So who is the devil, really? What do we know? What clues does the bible give us as to his character?
So the first thing that it is important to understand is that satan is a creature. He is in fact part of creation. We know from Isaiah and Eziekel and Revelation that satan was once an angel created with the heavens in Gen 1 and that sometime in eternity, past before the garden, there was a rebellion in heaven. We see that God's army, led by Michael, is at war with an army of demons of whom satan is chief. As Jesus reminds us in Luke, he was there when satan was cast out for this rebellion, and as we see in Job: he is made to roam the earth. But we also see something else in Job. Satan can only do what God allows him to. He must go to God and get permission to afflict and oppress Job. So this isn't some cosmic battle of equal good and evil. God brought Satan into this world, and the fact is, as we see in revelation God will take him out.
(Isa 14:12, Mt 4:1, Mk 1:13, and Lk 4:2,Jn 8:44, Eph 2:2, Eph 6:12 Ezk 28:12-17,Rev:12:7-17, Mt 12:24, 25:41,Job 1-4 & 42, John 14:30 & 19:11).
So now that we have an idea of our actor, let's examine the action. Can the devil make us do stuff? If we look at Genesis 3, did the serpent make Eve sin? No, what he did is create doubt. Did God really say? He enticed her, he tempted her. But in the end it was Eve's choice to follow the serpents prompting, and it's our choice now. If what James writes in Chapter 1:15 & 16 is true when he says, but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. Then we don't need the devil's help at all to do bad stuff. The devil did not in fact make you do it. As Paul wrote in Romans 7, often we can't seem to do the good we want to, and we can't stop doing the bad we don't want to do. What the devil does is accuse. When you’ve done things for the umpteenth time and you think to yourself, how could I? Can God really still love me? Am I even saved? That doubt, that voice saying how dare you, how could you?! THAT is the devil prowling like a lion seeking to devour you, as Peter tells us. He hates you and he hates God's plan of redemption for you and will do everything in his power to drive a wedge between you and God.
So what do we do then, if we can't stop sinning, and the devil is out to get us? Fear not friends. The ancients believed that their gods inhabited idols, see, they didn't actually worship idols per se but the gods they believed took home in the idols themselves. It was in this way that Yahweh was different. He said make not an idol or any graven image of me or anything in the heavens. He then came down in power, on the mercy seat of the ark, and lived there. We often miss this. God LIVED on earth. The ark was his home. Later in the 2nd Temple, God filled the temple as the Shekinah glory and he resided there until the time of Christ. Then Jesus rose again and the bible tells us he breathed the holy spirit on his disciples. Then we see in Acts 2, at Pentecost and after that all believers receive the spirit of God to dwell within them. How is this related you may ask, why the odd rabbit trail? The God of the universe, who made all things, including the devil, who he will one day cast into the pit of fire, LIVES INSIDE OF YOU. Remember the old saying: he who is in you, is greater than he who is in the world? Satan has no power, NO POWER over you. You are a child of the Most High, and while you won't always get it right, John reminds us in 1st John that we have an advocate in Christ!
Call to Action
Remind yourself of God's promise to defeat the enemy by reading Genesis 3
Remind yourself that God keeps his promises by reading Revelation 20
Next time you make a mistake: pray and read 1st John 1 and remember that Christ is your advocate, don't let the devil get you down, you belong to God.
