Reading: “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution”—2 Timothy 3:12

Satan is the arch-enemy of Christ and His people. The reason for this is that he hates all that is holy and pure. He loathes the image of God in humanity and especially so when that image has been renewed in the gospel. He will seek to thwart us in our attempts to be like Christ. He is continually going to and fro seeking for opportunity to destroy the lives of God’s people. We see this in the biographies of biblical characters such as Joseph, David, Job, and Daniel. We can see this assault on holiness most clearly in the temptation of Christ; he directs his attention towards the senses—the sense of hunger, sight, the mind are all bombarded with thoughts of power and control.

What is important for us to see here is that Christ guards the senses from temptation by the application of Scripture to the mind. William Gurnall writes, “Set a strong guard about the outward senses. These are Satan’s landing places, especially the eye and ear.” Make a covenant with the eye that no unholy thing will be set before it. Protect the inlet of the ear from unwholesome words.

Paul Thompson (N. Ireland)