(1 Peter 5:6-11) (Vs.6) “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, (Vs.7) casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. (Vs.8) Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (Vs.9) “But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. (Vs.10) After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in the Messiah, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you. (Vs.11) To Him be dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
In this, his second letter, the apostle Peter once again was writing to the various assemblies of New Covenant believers scattered throughout Asia Minor in general (1 Peter 1:1). The assemblies he was writing to were suffering persecution. This is clear in his first letter. He actually speaks of “the fiery ordeal” that had come upon the assemblies (1 Peter 4:12 NASB). Nero set Rome on fire and blamed the Christians. He also had faithful believers wrapped in animal skin and burned alive to light up his garden parties. It was terrible time of persecution and not unlike the terrible suffering we saw with ISIS perpetrating terrible atrocities on the faithful Body of the Messiah and now in Afghanistan as we see the Taliban going door to door to kill Christians.
We are now living in a time of great anxiety and stress which Paul wrote to Timothy about that would be a conspicuous mark of the last days. Paul writes; “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days” (2 Timothy 3:1). The term used in the Greek text can be translated as “times of stress” which aptly describes the days in which we are now living. Anxiety is a very real experience for every human being. Even the saved New Covenant believer will have times of great anxiety.
When you read the Psalms of David there were times when his whole inner being was flooded with anxiety and his mind continuously weighed down by anxious thoughts, especially when he was facing his implacable enemies who had it in for him big time! King David wrote; “When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your consolations delight my soul” (Psalm 94:19). And again David writes; “The LORD is the strength of His people, a stronghold of salvation for His anointed. Save Your people and bless Your inheritance; shepherd them and carry them forever” (Psalm 28:8-9). The psalmist also writes; “Cast (roll off) your burden upon (onto) the LORD and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous be shaken” (Psalm 55:22).
Now in this second letter of Peter he deals with anxiety and how to handle it. Let’s briefly look at this passage from God’s unchanging Word: (1 Peter 5:6-11)
(Vs.6-7) “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.”
Here the idea is not just to cast a burden you are carrying onto the Lord just one time but to keep casting it onto the Lord until He actually lifts it or gives you the grace to persevere in it. Also notice it’s not just casting some or most of our anxiety onto Him but to be casting continuously all of our anxiety onto His broad and strong shoulders as the good shepherd who carries the tired and bewildered sheep when it has wandered from the sheep pen.
Remember the persistent widow who constantly badgered a judge, who did not fear God or man, to avenge her against her adversary. She was stressed out with anxiety. She kept coming to that judge and when he could no longer put up with her constant persistence he gave her what she desired from him. The Lord Jesus told this parable to encourage us as God’s chosen people to pray and to never give up. He said; “Hear what the unrighteous judge said; now, will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them? I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith (faithfulness or believing persistence) on the earth?” (Luke 18:6-8).
Our adversary is Satan and one of his favourite weapons is anxiety because this will lead to unbelief and derail our faith and confidence in God’s love and care for us at all times. Never forget that even when anxiety invades our soul that God’s consolations are there in his Word and no matter how we feel His Word will say the same thing tomorrow as it does today because He has His promises. He always remembers His covenants (Psalm 105:8). Added to this, He is always pleased with faith and gets a real lick out of it when His children persistently, patiently, and with persevering trust accompanied by prayer, stay before Him and He delights to reward their faith! (Hebrews 11:6). Now let’s move on…
(Vs.8-9) “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world”
Notice we are to “be sober of spirit.” When anxiety is roaring like a lion deep within the soul of a believer the last thing they need is fellow believers standing around laughing, jesting and with an attitude of frivolity which are out of place at such times. There is a time and a place to laugh and we are told in the Book of Proverbs that “laughter does the heart good like a medicine!” and there is a time to have a sense of humour. However, we also need to keep in mind we are in a 24/7 battle with Satan and with his principalities, rulers and fallen spiritual powers of wickedness in high places seeking to derail our confidence and trust in the Lord (Ephesians 6:12). This is why we need to put on God’s spiritual armour piece by piece every morning before we start our day. All of Satan’s fiery darts are aimed at the shield of faith (Ephesians 6:15).
In many churches today you have pastors and church members laughing and dancing around in “the circle of the merrymakers” and having their “itching ears” scratched with what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear, another mark of the last days (2 Timothy 4:3-4). Many today are living and feeding off of one personal prophecy after another and visions and dreams and manifestations that do little if anything to build faith within the soul. Visions and dream have their place within the Body of the Messiah but they are straw compared to the solid rock of God’s Word which is like a purifying fire that burns up the unspiritual dross within the heart of a believer and that breaks the hard rocklike hearts of both sinners and unsanctified saints alike.
As Jeremiah writes; “Let the prophet who has a dream retell it, but let him who has My word speak it truthfully. For what is straw compared to grain?” declares the LORD. “Is not My word like fire,” declares the LORD, “and like a hammer that smashes a rock?” (Jeremiah 23:28-29).
Notice also we are to “stay alert” because Satan is prowling about to see whom he can devour. laziness in spiritual matters is the stomping ground of Satan. He is not interested in the goats but the sheep! In Bible times when a lion was circling the flock and looking for a young lamb that might wander off from the flock having drifted away from the shepherd, by stealth that lion would prowl around stalking the lamb and when that lamb was in a vulnerable position the lion would leap on it to tear it apart with its teeth. However, that lion would have to contend with the shepherd, who, with his staff and rod, would be able to make swift and short work of the prowling lion. When he was shepherding the sheep as a boy David, on quite a few occasions, had decisively dealt with the adversary of the sheep (1 Samuel 17:34-35).
We need to keep in mind that Satan can roar very loudly but that at the cross the Lord Jesus pulled out his teeth! When we give ground to Satan in our warfare with him, he will always take the advantage but only if we allow him to. We have our part to play as New Covenant believers and the blessed Holy Spirit is in us and with us to furnish us with the spiritual armour and weapons we need to drive the devil out of our affairs. And so we read…
(Vs.9) “But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world.”
When we submit to God and resist the devil by faith, he will flee from us and after that we can be spiritually renewed by drawing near to God and He will draw near to us (James 4:7-8a). The reason the devil sometimes does not flee is because we do not cast all of our anxiety onto God continuously. Resisting the devil takes time and patience as we wait on the Lord and renew our minds on the Word of God (Psalm 119:28). We are told in God’s Word that “those who wait upon the LORD will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40:31).
Waiting on God takes time but it will increase our expectation of His deliverance. As King David writes; “Attend to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to You I pray. In the morning, O LORD, You hear my voice; at daybreak I lay my plea before You and wait in expectation” (Psalm 5:1-3). Waiting on God does not mean sitting around drinking coffee but having an expectancy that God is going to come through. At the same time we need to keep working at whatever our hands find to do in God’s service and work at it with all of our might even in the time when anxiety is weighing us down in our soul (Colossians 3:23).
Even at such times when the soul is in turmoil deep within us in our inner spirit where God’s Spirit lives by His Spirit, there will be peace, sometimes almost undetectable, but one which passes all human understanding. It is a settled peace much like the bottom of the sea which is virtually undisturbed even when on the surface the waves are being tossed in a strong wind. As we learn to feed our anxiety with the Word of God it will build up in us the capacity for faith to develop and grow (Romans 10:17). Added to this by praying in the Holy Spirit it too will spiritually build us up in our most holy faith! (Jude 1:20).
Another strategy of Satan is to isolate us from fellowship with other believers and to tell us that no one else is suffering anxiety quite like we are suffering so consequently we neglect fellowship. A briquette is warmed by other briquettes in the fire but if you isolate a briquette from the others it will soon lose its heat and become cold. This is why fellowship in the Holy Spirit with fellow believers is vital to our spiritual survival especially as we are now living in the last of the last days. One of the things Satan is using with covid-19 is to separate believers. You may have Zoom but there is nothing more strengthening than a home fellowship where two or three are gathered together in the name of the Lord Jesus, where He is among them and where believers can share in a way they cannot do over zoom which is in the public arena (Matthew 18:20). As New Covenant believers we are never alone because our brothers and sisters all over the world are experiencing the same things we are experiencing. Finally we read…
(Vs.10-11) After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in the Messiah, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you. To Him be dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
Satan cannot keep the pressure on when we are resisting him by faith, reading the Word of God, maintaining Spirit-filled fellowship, by praying in the Holy Spirit and refusing to give up! Satan just can’t stand it, and if we keep at it he will just leave and sometimes in abject terror because he knows that the effectual fervent prayer of a New Covenant believer, made righteous by faith, avails much! (James 5:16). The prayer of persistent faith will move mountains (kingdoms) (Luke 17:6).
Right at this moment you may be in the midst of a draconian lockdown, restricted from visiting family and friends or from having face to face fellowship with other believers and you may be in a state of anxiety deep within your soul. You may be anxious about where things are going as governments mandate restrictions and vaccines and you find yourself anxious about the future, but remember that compared to eternity this life is transient. It is like a small drop of water in the vast sea of eternity.
As the apostle Paul writes; “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, yet our inner self is being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal glory that is far beyond comparison. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).
If anyone faced afflictions, anxieties, times of depression, prison, persecution, criticism, difficulties of all kinds, physical afflictions, hostility from false brethren and mental and emotional drain it was the apostle Paul. However, compared to the weight of glory to come for all of eternity, the problems of this life to him, as traumatic as they were, he considered them light and momentary afflictions in the light of eternity. One of the purposes God is using Covid-19 is to purify His people, both Israeli and New Covenant believers grafted in to the Commonwealth of Israel from attachment to this world and to the things of this world, to prepare them for eternity and to get them focused on what is unseen and of eternal value, instead of what is seen in the natural and of temporal value.
God is the God of all grace (unmerited favour) who has called all of us as a New Covenant believers into His eternal glory in the Messiah our Lord Jesus who will Himself, perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish us in His everlasting kingdom when he comes back to earth to inaugurate his Messianic kingdom for a thousand years. and then after that, for time and for all eternity we will enjoy life beyond anything we can think of or even imagine in the final eternal and perfect state. His dominion will last forever and ever! Amen! With these things in view let us continue to keep our eyes fixed on the author and perfector of our faith the Messiah our Lord Jesus, and keep casting all anxiety onto Him!
