Wednesday, January 4
Take your stand against [Satan].
As servants of Jehovah, we are not among those who are misled into thinking that Satan does not exist. We know that the Devil is real, for it was Satan who spoke to Eve through a serpent. Satan taunted Jehovah regarding Job. It was Satan who tried to tempt Jesus. And after the birth of God’s Kingdom in 1914, it was Satan who began “to wage war” with the remnant of anointed ones. That war still rages as Satan seeks to destroy the faith of the remnant of the 144,000 and the other sheep. To win the battle, we must take our stand against Satan and remain firm in the faith. Satan is anything but humble. In fact, for a spirit creature to have the audacity to challenge Jehovah’s sovereignty and set himself up as a rival god is the epitome of pride and presumptuousness. Therefore, one way that we can take a stand against Satan is by shunning pride and cultivating humility.
COMMENTARY
It would seem that Satan’s main strategy is to feign his own demise in order to portray himself as being weak and ineffective. Being superhuman he is able to easily overreach Christians, ever disguising himself as an angel of light, convincing them they know the truth, when they are embracing a lie. The lie, of course, is that the great dragon has already been hurled down from heaven and gone off to wage war against the offspring of the woman. Appealing to human pride, Satan makes Jehovah’s Witnesses feel privileged to have special knowledge regarding the invisible presence, knowledge that no one else has. And because of a gross lack of humility, at least collectively, the leadership of the Watchtower are incapable of acknowledging their error.
Think of it, though, Satan was able to influence the apostle Peter and tried to use him to dissuade Jesus from his sacrificial course, only to be rebuked by Christ. Now Satan uses his power to impose a deluding influence upon all in order to disguise his full-on frontal attack in the future, which will come about when Michael hurls the Devil and his angels down to the earth.
It is laughable, really, that the Governing Body —sitting in the lap of luxury in their brand new ivory tower —each of them overfed and pampered like kings, should speak of a “war that still rages.”
One thing is certain, when Satan is hurled down they will know it. It will seem as if the sky has fallen. And hopefully they will learn some humility.
As for the rest of Jehovah’s Witnesses, taking a stand against Satan then will mean leaving the Watchtower entirely. Besides, after having promoted a fake parousia since its inception, what credibility could the Watchtower’s Governing Body possibly have then anyway?
That is what Jesus was alluding to when he advised: “Let the man on the housetop not come down to take the goods out of his house, and let the man in the field not return to pick up his outer garment.”
There is something far better.