Satan is “the devil,” the “deceiver of the whole world,” and the “accuser of the brethren.” He accuses us “day and night” before God. We saw this in our study of Zechariah 3, where Joshua the High Priest was standing before the Lord, with “Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him” (Zechariah 3:1).
First, Satan tempts us to sin; then if we fall, he accuses us of sinning!
And even if we don’t fall to his temptations, he will still accuse us of past failures in an attempt to get us to become hopeless, so that we just give up and dive into sin. We figure that we are already miserable failures so we might as well enjoy it. Satan wins again.
If we want to be free from the power of sin, we must be free from Satan’s accusations.
His accusations go like this, as he stands before God: “I testify that Mike gave in to my temptations to view pornography, then he followed my suggestions to gratify his flesh, and finally, he accepted my proposal to sexual impurity. He has sinned repeatedly. He is defiled, impure, unholy, weak, and feeble. He’s unfit for heaven; I’m sure You would agree”.
First, we conquer Satan “by the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 12:11).
When Satan accuses us, reminds us of our horrible sins and tempts us to believe that our sin is who we are, we must make use of the cross. Jesus died as the sacrificial Lamb, shed His blood to atone for us and make us right with God. “God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith” (Romans 3:25a).
Our defense can never be our own “good works” or anything we have done to try to be better, or how much progress we are making. No, our defense is the cross alone, and the atonement Jesus made.
Here is how we must deal with the devil, our accuser:
Devil’s accusation: “Mike is a terrible sinner.”
Mike’s cross-defense: “Yes, but Jesus paid the penalty for my sins on the cross, and made atonement for me by His own blood.”
Devil’s accusation: “Mike disobeyed by falling to pornography and self-gratification.”
Mike’s cross-defense: “Yes, but Jesus obeyed perfectly, clear unto death, and His obedience is counted as my obedience.”
Devil’s accusation: “Mike failed in sexual impurity, defiled himself and made himself impure and unclean.”
Mike’s cross-defense: “Yes, but Jesus succeeded where I failed. He washed away the impurity of my sin with His blood and clothed me with His righteousness.”
This is how we overcome the accusations of the devil, and it is a response that we must become adept at through practice. Much as a fighter practices blocking and dodging the punches of his opponent, so we too must practice responding to the accusations of the evil one with the truth of the cross and the powerful blood of Jesus.
As the old hymn says,"When Satan tempts us to despair and tells us of the guilt within, upward I look and see Him there, who made an end to all my sin."
Question 4. Please write out an exercise similar to what I did above, showing how you can answer each accusation of Satan against you with the cross:
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