Face To Face With The Devil
When Jesus explains his parable of the sower, he says, "The ones on the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. (Luke 8:12)"We may well wonder about this. Is it fair? Should some be lost just because Satan removes what was sown in them? How does the devil choose when and where to act? Are the hearers of the Word responsible for protecting it from Satan? How can I best guard what I hear?
Two things strike me about this parable. The first is that Jesus is saying that how we hear is just as important as what we hear. He expects us to take the Word seriously...to keep it safe...and to act on it. The other thing is the difference between the storyteller and those who were listening. Jesus had met the devil face to face. He knew him. Those who listened to this story and those of us who read it today only know the devil by his acts. How much more seriously would we take him if we, like Christ, had looked into his eyes and seen the malevolence there?
posted by Thurman8er @ 12:46 PM
1 Comments:
I think that a lot of people feel that Satan preys mostly on the spiritually weak.
However, I think that Satan may do greater evil to those who are strong and who guard the Word carefully, because perhaps he feels the most threatened by... and challenged to defeat... the cause of Christ in the strong.
Perhaps Satan is the most devious to those who are the strongest. And those, who mere "men" may mistakenly judge to be "weak", may actually be very strong.
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