1 Peter 5:8... 8) Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. (New King James Version)

Nobody needs to remind you that we live in a world with many dangers out there. You hear about it all the time on news broadcasts, about all the evil that effects peoples lives. We spend millions of dollars on security, securing our homes, businesses, and auto's, yet somehow, evil finds its way into peoples lives.

The Bible tells us that evil will heighten as we move closer toward the end times. And that is just what is happening. Now, there is a new danger, a new evil to protect ourselves from, the internet. I've read that one out of every five teen's has been sexually solicited on the internet. To me that is mind-boggling!

And no matter what we do to secure ourselves, there is no escape from evil. This is nothing new to our societies, there may be some new technologies, such as the internet, that evil lurks behind, but evil has been around since the beginning of time. Peter understood how dangerous this evil is as we read in 1 Peter 5:8 above.

As a Christian, we read what Peter has to say here and understand that evil is a product of Satan, but I often wonder how serious even Christians take this threat of evil around us? Ephesians 6:12, tells us, "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places."

Most people recognize only what their physical five senses allow them to comprehend. As born again Christians we must realize who our fight is truly with in this life. When I say life, I refer to our spiritual life as well as our physical life, because we need to recognize that we are living in both worlds, even though we can only detect the physical life prior to receiving the Holy Spirit. After receiving the Holy Spirit we need to realize the need for training our physical senses to respond to the Holy Spirit who now resides within us.

Herein lies a major problem with the Church today. Once a Christian is born again, in many cases the burden and responsibility of learning to utilize the Holy Spirit to its fullest potential in our lives, is left up to the individual convert. There is no real effective development process to help one grow in the knowledge and understanding of Christ and the depth of the Holy Spirit. In many, if not most cases, the Churches themselves are lacking this knowledge and understanding, because it has been lost over the many generations of false teaching since the first century Church (2 Timothy 4:3-4 ). Which would explain why those being born again into those Churches are powerless Christians and no more effective than a Muslim, Buddhist, or any other religion in this world.

God did not call us to be weakling pawns subject to this world and ineffective in the dealings with this world— rather, He has called us to be His kings and priests with power and authority in a world in dire need of the this truth. We also should not live in floundering situations in many areas of our lives, whether that be in health, finances or any other area that needs to function properly to reflect us as being children of the living God. If we are floundering in any area of our lives, we need to re-examine ourselves (2 Corinthians 13:5 ) and find out what the cause is, because God has given us everything we need to live successful godly lives (2 Peter 1:3 , Also see Acts 1:8 ).

There are many who call themselves Christains, but I'm not talking about those people in society, when asked, will say they are Christian, but yet, you will find not a single shred of evidence of that when you look at their everyday lives.

No. I'm talking about born again believers who live their Christian lives in total disregard of the potential dangers around them. Because, Satan is not detectable to the five physical senses, most Christian's will only recognize evil when it directly effects their lives. They take no precautions, whatsoever, to keep evil at bay and out of their lives.

Peter is telling us here that we need to take precautions. Peter tells us first to be sober— the meaning of the word "sober" here refers to a "serious state of mind." We understand this more clearly with the next word that he uses when he tells us to be vigilant. "Vigilant" means "alert"— when you're alert to a particular danger, chances are that you are in a serious state of mind.

Why do we need to be serious and alert? Because our adversary, the Devil, is all around us and looking to devour us. Sounds like a pretty good reason when you think about it like that. But, the problem is for most Christians, is that we become complacent when things are running smoothly. But, it's when things are running smoothly that is when we should be sober and vigilant.

Why? Because it is in those times that Satan is sitting back and waiting for you to drop your guard to the point where he has easy access to you. Do you know that if you accepted Jesus as your Savior, you have authority over Satan? You do, and Satan knows that as well. If you are not a Christian, Satan is not that concerned with you, because he knows who is in charge of a non-Christians life— he is!

Because Jesus has defeated Satan, Jesus promised us that if we would put our faith in Him we would do the same works that He did, only greater, because He is with the Father in heaven and whatever we ask in His name He will do (John 14:12-14 ). An example of what Jesus did, that He promised we could do also, is in Mark chapter 5. Let's take a look at one example of what you're capable of doing as a believer in Jesus.

The account that I will be using can be found in Mark 5:1-20 (parallel Scriptures can be found in Matthew 8 and Luke 8). We begin the account with Jesus and the apostles arriving by boat on the shore of Gadarenes. Immediately upon exiting the boat a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit came to Jesus. Now, this man is described as living among the tombs and there was no one who was able to bind him, not even with shackles and chains. Anytime they did bind him, he was able to break free of them— it also goes on to say that no one can tame him.

This man obviously had a very serious mental disorder that was the symptom of this unclean spirit who had a hold on this man and was living inside of his spirit— because he would also spend the nights in the tombs crying out and cutting himself with stones. Luke's version also describes the man as being naked when he approached Jesus.

When he saw Jesus from afar, he ran up to worship Him. This man obviously had enough where-with-all to know who Jesus was. So too, did the demonic spirit who was residing within the man. Immediately the evil spirit spoke up and said to Jesus in verse 7, "What have I to do with You, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore You by God that You do not torment me." This response to Jesus by the demon is very interesting, because it is obvious that Jesus has intimidated this demon and struck a cord of fear in him.

Jesus follows by commanding that the demon come out of the man. Jesus then asks the demon his name— the demon replies, "My name is Legion; for we are many." Not only did Jesus find out his name, but the demon also told Him that he is not working alone, he says "we are many." This is like an amateur bank robber getting caught on his first heist and out of guilt and fear of what may happen to him he starts spilling the beans before he is even asked by the authorities. This is another example of the fear that Jesus has instilled in him.

The account concludes with the demonic spirit, Legion, asking Jesus to send them into a herd of swine (pigs) that was near by. I believe he asked this because demonic spirits have been stripped of their heavenly powers after following Satan into rebellion with God. The only way they can function is to possess someone or something and utilize the power of the individual or animal they possess. Demons who do not possess something are powerless and in a state of limbo, until they can find a place to reside. I believe that this demon was trying to be clever with Jesus, because if Jesus would allow them to enter the swine, at least they would have a physical body, albeit an animal, to possess and utilize whatever power they could from the animal.

Jesus allowed the request and sent the unclean spirits into the swine, but to the dismay of the unclean spirits, Jesus had the swine run off the cliff in order to kill themselves so these demons would still be left with no power, but just be caught up in the dead bodies of swine. The Scripture does not tell us, but just maybe this scenario was worse for the evil spirits than being sent into a limbo state, but of course, that is just conjecture on my part, there is no documented biblical evidence for it.

We read in James 2:19, "You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble!" Notice this statement made by the apostle James has an exclamation point at the end of the sentence to emphasize the fact that these demons, as well as, Satan, do fear Jesus mightily. Just re-read verse seven, the demon "implores" Jesus by the name of God not to torment him. Now, with that said, what did Jesus tell us in John 14:12-14? "He who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also"

I hope I am making my point clear here. What is the "work" which Jesus has performed here? Not only has He shown authority over the demonic spirits, they also listen to His every command and must obey Him. They have no choice! Since Jesus did this and He told us we can do what He did, and on top of that in John 14:12, Jesus said "and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father." Can you imagine that! We can do greater works than Jesus did. Now, let's not get puffed up over this, because it is not necessarily us that is capable of performing such miracles, it is Jesus through our faith in Him that performs these miracles.

Although we are human beings and are susceptible to human weakness, we should never fear dealing in the spirit realm, against the powers and authorities of this world, because He (Jesus) that is in you, is greater than he (Satan) that is in this world
(1 John 4:4 ). But, here is my disclaimer on that statement— that is, unless you have not overcome the spirit of "doubt" and "unbelief!" What is this spirit of "doubt" and "unbelief?" It is a human weakness that allows Satan's thought processes to cloud Jesus' promises, to cloud the power and authority that flows through you from Jesus, to cloud the fact, that what you pray for you will have, if you do not doubt (Mark 11:23 ).

This, of course, goes hand-in-hand with believing who you are in Christ, and that being kings and priests to God the Father (Revelation 1:6 ), through Jesus Christ. You must also be full of the Holy Spirit by being baptized into the Holy Spirit upon acceptance of Jesus Christ as your Savior. These are important steps to take to ensure that you have proper authority over these spiritual hosts. Until you have given your life over to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Master, you have no part in Him and do not have authority over these demonic spiritual hosts, because you are not under the redeeming blood of Christ, but under the curse of the Law of God.

Let's take a look at an example of some who confronted these demonic hosts without proper authority, and what happened as a result. In Acts 19:11-20, we read how God worked such miracles through the apostle Paul, that even handkerchiefs that he touched had healing powers associated with them. It goes on to say that some itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to cast out evil spirits in the name of Jesus Christ whom Paul preached. Also, there were seven sons of Sceva, who was a Jewish chief priest, who also went out casting out demons in the same manner without proper authority. In verse 15, we read of an account where one spirit whom they were trying to cast out of a man, replied to them, "Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?"

The result of there lack of authority is found in verse 16, "Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded." Unfortunately for them, they found out the hard way that Jesus will not work through someone who is trying to benefit from the gifts of the Spirit without proper authority and for selfish gain. These gifts are to be used solely for the purpose of glorifying God and not for self gratification or selfish gain of any kind.

If you have any doubt as to whether the power and authority that I speak of is legitimately yours, let's take a look at Genesis 3:22, "Then the LORD God said, 'Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil.'" (se also 1 Corinthians 15:47-49 ). This was said by God, after He had found Adam and Eve had eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Because Adam and Eve were not fully mature enough in spiritual matters to handle such a responsibility of having this knowledge, and since they had already sinned against God, they could not be trusted to uphold the necessary law of God to redeem them from this curse since they had already broken a simple command from God. They needed to be removed from the garden so they would not eat from the tree of eternal life and be subject to this fallen state they had put themselves into by disobeying God.

The interesting point here is that prior to eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it would have been fine, if not the best scenario for Adam and Eve, if they would have eaten from the tree of life instead. Again the Bible does not elaborate, but if they had eaten from the tree of life in the prior state, the state that God created them in, I believe the tree of knowledge would not have had an adverse effect on them.

My reasoning for this, is that if there was any possibility that Adam and Eve would have eaten from the tree of life first and then had taken of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and it created the same scenario, God would have restricted the tree of life from the beginning along with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But, the tree of life was not off limits to Adam and Eve prior to their sin, so it would lead me to believe my interpretation is correct.

So, in conclusion, I would just like to reiterate the fact that you do have the same power and authority flowing through you via the Holy Spirit and that in order to manifest it into your life, you must train your five physical sense and your soulish realm to relinquish their physical authority to the authority of the Holy Spirit within you. Then, and only then, can these powers flow through you and be manifest into the physical realm. For more information on this particular subject, please read my study on Spirit, Soul, and Body.

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