Boekaanbeveling: Fighting Satan – Knowing His weaknesses, strategies and defeat

Boekaanbeveling: Fighting Satan

– Knowing His weaknesses, strategies and defeat –

Skrywer: dr. Joel Beeke

Hier beskikbaar: Good Neighbours

Ook beskikbaar as e-boek by Amazon.

Die voorwoord van die boek wys op die aktualiteit van die boek, ek plaas dit hier onder. In tye waarin die duiwel ‘letterlik en figuurlik’ opnuut los is, en allerlei boeke verskyn wat of die duiwel se bestaan probeer ontken, of die duiwel agter elke bos soek, is dr. Beeke se boek ‘n welkome toevoeging tot ‘n bybelsverantwoordbare studie oor die onderwerp.

Ons word opgeroep om die Satan se planne en strategieë te ken (2 Kor. 2:10,11), hom te weerstaan (Jak. 4:7), om deel te neem aan die geestelike oorlog (Ef. 6:10-20). Mag hierdie boek, en die bronne wat hy aanbeveel, ons daarmee help.

Ek plaas die voorwoord, inhoudsopgawe, en ‘n paar aanhalings uit die boek hier:

Voorwoord

In his book Power Encounters, David Powlison rightly argues that we urgently need to fight Satan by reclaiming biblical, traditional, spiritual warfare as set forth by Paul in Ephesians 6:10–20. We live in a society that has become increasingly pagan and has brought itself into a pervasive array and bondage of addictions. Troubled or bizarre behavior has become commonplace; many people are experiencing a heightened sense of the presence of evil. Missionaries and anthropologists alert us to animistic cultures and demon possessions.

Satanism is flourishing in Western nations. Since the 1970s, numbers of charismatics, dispensationalists, and theologians have been teaching and practicing various forms of “deliverance ministries” to cast out inhabiting demons. Frank Peretti’s books have only added to the confusion, influencing thousands to see demons lurking everywhere. On the other hand, millions in modern civilization don’t believe the devil exists—or at least have exorcised him from their working vocabulary, even though the devil is a primary explanation for the plight of modern civilization. This attitude has even permeated the church.

Nineteenth-century preacher Charles H. Spurgeon could already say in his day, “Certain theologians, nowadays, do not believe in the existence of Satan. It is singular when children do not believe in the existence of their own father: but it is so, that those who are most deluded by him are the loudest in repudiating all faith in his existence.”1

Biblical, clearheaded thinking about Satan and spiritual warfare is sorely needed today. Particularly as believers, we need to be cognizant that the battle against Satan and his forces of evil is fierce, spiritual, and necessary. We must know our adversary. We must know Satan’s personality and history. We must know his strategies, his power, and his weaknesses. We must know how to withstand him and what spiritual weapons to take up against him. We must defeat him by faith through lives that bear fruit and spread the truth.

The present book addresses this need from a practical perspective. Its chapters enlarge upon five addresses given at the Metropolitan Tabernacle School of Theology in London. The first address (chapters 1–2) examines the personality and history of Satan. The second address (chapters 3–4) shows how believers are to exploit Satan’s weaknesses by fighting defensively and offensively. The third address (chapters 5–6), relying heavily on old classics, exposes Satan’s devices and expounds our remedies for them. The concluding addresses examine how we can defeat Satan in our personal lives and in our churches and nations (chapters 7–9). This book, which now includes study questions for individuals and groups, is a revised version of Striving against Satan, formerly published by Bryntirion Press, Wales, in 2005. …

May God graciously use this book to teach us all how to be more aware of Satan and his devices and how to wage a more successful battle against him.

Inhoud
Preface

Introduction: A Holy War

Part One

Knowing the Enemy: The Personality and History of Satan

1. Satan in the Bible

2. Satan in Church History, Today, and the Future

Part Two

Knowing Satan’s Weaknesses: Fighting Him Defensively and Offensively

3. Building an Unyielding Defense

4. Building an Attacking Offense

Part Three

Knowing Satan’s Strategies: His Devices and Their Remedies

5. Satan’s Strategies and Skill

6. Confronting Four Major Strategies of Satan

Part Four

Knowing Satan’s Defeat in Our Personal Lives, Churches, and Nations

7. Our Challenge as Believers

8. Our Challenge as Church Members

9. Our Challenge as Citizens

Selected Bibliography

‘n Paar aanhalings

If you are a true believer, Satan hates you because you bear the image of Christ, because you are the peculiar workmanship of God created in Christ Jesus unto good works, and because you were snatched from his power.

Every true believer is engaged in what the Bible describes as spiritual warfare (Gen. 3:15; Rev. 12:7). John Bunyan called it a holy war.2 This spiritual warfare, or holy war, involves a perpetual battle against three enemies: the devil, the world, and the flesh.

The battle against Satan and his devils is necessary. Just as our world today cannot escape the war against terrorism, so we cannot escape war with Satan. Like it or not, we are at war. To be in the midst of war and not realize it is most dangerous. If we ignore the enemy, we set ourselves up for defeat. Paul commands us to “put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil” (Eph. 6:11). Too many Christians today pay little attention to Paul’s command. Too many churches speak more about disarmament than armament. And too many preachers promote universal brotherhood rather than expose the antithesis between two opposing kingdoms in this world.

Question 127 of the Heidelberg Catechism, an explanation of the sixth petition of the Lord’s Prayer (“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”), tells us of the help we must have to know and defeat our enemy: Since we are so weak in ourselves that we cannot stand a moment; and besides this, since our mortal enemies, the devil, the world, and our own flesh, cease not to assault us, do Thou therefore preserve and strengthen us by the power of Thy Holy Spirit, that we may not be overcome in this spiritual warfare, but constantly and strenuously may resist our foes till at last we obtain a complete victory.

Bron: Beeke, Joel R. Fighting Satan: Knowing His Weaknesses, Strategies, and Defeat. Reformation Heritage Books. Kindle Edition.