If Satan is the Accuser,
Jesus is our Defense Lawyer!
We all know the destructive and
seductive character of Satan. These traits of character attached to him will
culminate during the simultaneous reigns of the two beasts described in
Revelation 13, one rising up out of the sea and the second one coming up out of the earth.
Revelation 13 shows indeed that the great
dragon, whose name is Satan as indicated in Revelation 12: 9, will give his
throne and all his power to the first beast. This will be at the origin of a
worldwide seduction of all the human beings on earth and they will start to
worship both the beast and Satan. A seduction at such a scale never existed in
the past!
But Satan, the father of sin, will
not stop there: indeed, after the 1000 years reign of Jesus Christ, a period
during which Satan will be reduced to impotence in the bottomless pit, but as
soon as he will be released for a short period of time, will have only one
haste, rush to seduce all the nations on earth pushing them to destroy the
people of the Saints! This story can be read in Revelation 20 and Ezekiel 38
and 39.
Satan uses his power of seduction
blindly for the sole purpose of destroying all the creation of Yehoah Elohim;
he is doing this blindly because Satan like the world does not see that Elohim
is Almighty!
Satan, the accuser
of the people of Elohim night and day!
But another character trait of Satan
the Devil, that I suggest to cover more in depth today, it is the one of
accuser of all those who are doing their best to be part of the Kingdom of
Elohim. Not only is Satan an accuser, but more than that, he will do “his best”
to cause the fall of righteous men like for instance Job! This is what we are
told in Job 1 and 2.
After his miserable failure with Job,
the Devil didn’t give up his unhealthy addiction to destroy another righteous
man. This time, his target was the lamb without blemish and without spot, I mean
Jesus whom some people may call more correctly Yeshua. The story of Satan's
repeated temptations to bring down Jesus are given in Matthew 4, Mark 1, and
Luke 4. Here again it was a complete failure because our Savior always turned his
eyes towards His Father to obey Him carefully.
Psalm 109, verses 6 and the following
ones, is another reference showing the role of accuser played by Satan when Judas
is incarnated by him during the last Passover of Jesus on earth. It is also very
interesting to note that verse 6 that says " Set thou a wicked man over him: and let an accuser stand at
his right hand. " while the original Hebrew text used the name of Satan
instead of accuser! And this is well in line with what happened approximately
1000 years later when Satan enters Judas. Judas, one of the twelve disciples,
then committed suicide after his denunciation and was replaced by another. I
invite you to read about this John 13 and Acts 1.
There are several other stories in
the Bible where misguided men play the bad role of accuser.
It begins at the very beginning of
the story of Adam's accusing his wife as having been the cause of his sin.
Other examples are Potiphar's wife who will falsely accuse Joseph of trying to
abuse her. Several hundred years later, Saul blames his people for sparing
Agag, king of Amalek and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the
lambs, and all that was good. This was against the order of the Lord asking to
eliminate and destroy completely all the Amalekites and their goods as
indicated in I Samuel 15.
There is also the horrible attitude
of Doëg, the Edomite close servant of Saul, who accuses the priest Ahimelech to
have provided food to David. Following his accusation, Doeg will become a
heinous criminal as, unlike Saul's other servants, Doeg will exterminate
Ahimelech and his entire family of 85 members. Abiathar will be the only
survivor of this massacre! This story can be read in I Samuel 21 and 22.
Many prophets have also suffered
putting their life at risk as a result of accusations made by jealous or
rebellious men who have automatically become Satan's slaves. These were the
cases of Elijah (I Kings 17 and following), Zechariah, son of Yehoyada the
priest (II Chronicles 24), Jeremiah (Jeremiah 26 and following), the three
friends of Daniel, Shadrach, Mechak and Abed-Nego ( Daniel 3) and Daniel
himself (Daniel 6).
Jesus, our
defense lawyer!
Now let us switch to the completely
opposite attitude, the one of Jesus, our Savior. We are going to see how our
Savior is at the antipodes of Satan when he makes every effort to defend
sinners and to encourage them to free themselves from their slavery to the
world of sin. Jesus does not go like Satan to denounce the faults of others in
the public square. On the contrary, he will protect men and women who have
sinned and he will encourage them to eliminate sins as we will see in many
examples given in the Bible.
Let us start with this prostitute:
Jesus is invited to share the meal with the Pharisee Simon, a woman whose
conduct was reprehensible makes a lot of efforts to approach him and ask
forgiveness for his past conduct. As can be read in Luke 7: 36-50, this woman's
attitude is marked by a great deal of love and respect for the one in whom she
sees righteously and with faith her Savior. See also how kindly Jesus will
explain to the Pharisee Simon that he must stop being in himself an accuser of
others. Indeed, this Pharisee, considering himself infinitely better than this
woman, would have wished that Jesus would blame her publicly.
Jesus is looking after people who
feel guilty and want to change by good doings around them. The story of
Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector in Jericho people, who is considered by his
neighborhood to be not frequentable, is another example that you can read in
Luke 19: 1-10. Jesus concludes by saying: " for
the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."
Jesus is dealing with everyone in
the same way and he is always open to a constructive dialogue even with people
having completely opposite ideas:
Here
are few examples to illustrate the behavior of our Savior.
Despite the fact that Jesus has
righteously very hard words about the behavior of the Pharisees comparing them
with snakes or vipers and calling them sons of the devil, he does not close the
door to any representative of the Pharisees coming to question him with
sincerity. This was the case when Nicodemus came secretly acknowledging that
Jesus is indeed sent by Elohim. Jesus did not reject him, quite the contrary,
he teaches him in the most appropriate way as we can read in John 3.
Somewhere else Jesus does not
hesitate to begin a benevolent conversation with a Samaritan woman. At that
time the Samaritans knew that Jewish people should never have any contact with
them as they were considered as being unclean. But Jesus here again had a so
fruitful conversation with this Samaritan lady that many Samaritans of her city
asked him to stay with them to teach them the good news and Jesus agreed to
share with them his message. (To read in John 4).
Jesus did not condemn the adulterous
woman after she escapes the stoning that the scribes and Pharisees wanted her
to suffer. On the contrary, he lets her go, encouraging her to stop sinning.
(John 8)
Until his last breath, Jesus will
act as a defender of the creatures of his Father although they are yet at the
origin of his execution! In Luke 23:34, when he is already on the cross, he
asks his father to forgive the crowd who, a few hours earlier, shouted against
him calling authorities to execute him. He also promises forgiveness and
resurrection to one of the evildoers who repented of the curses pronounced against
Jesus. (Matthew 27:44 and Luke 23: 41-43).
John in his first letter, chapter 2,
confirms Jesus' advocacy role in our favor:
" My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may
not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ
the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for
ours only but also for the whole world. "
All this must make us think and must
guide our attitude: We must not imitate Satan by constantly accusing people
around us. We must, like Jesus, look after people who, hopefully like us, are
trying to become better. We should not throw these people on a public square to
publish their sins, knowing that everyone, we included, is reprehensible. On
the contrary, like Jesus, we must learn to be good defense lawyer for them in
the court of our Father.
If we do our job successfully, our
reward will be great:
" Brethren, if
anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him
know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from
death and cover a multitude of sins.»
(James
5: 19-20)
But what
attitude should we to adopt if we are accused?
As written earlier, we understand
that our Father Yehoah Elohim and his Son, Jesus our Lord, are asking us to not
imitate Satan and to not be accusers of our neighbor. But what about if we are
accused by our neighborhood? How should we behave and how should we defend
ourselves? Should we seek for revenge?
**It is very important to answer these questions because if we are
truly believers at the end of this world, close to the advent of our Lord, the prophecies
of the Bible informs us that most of us will be hated by the people. We should
be ready to become the object of false and even shocking accusations to be made
by all the nations and their population who will be worshiping the all-mighty
Beast on earth thanks to the power of the adversary, Satan, whose role as an
accuser is confirmed in Revelation 12:
" Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and
strength, and the kingdom of our Elohim, and the power of His Christ have come,
for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our Elohim day and
night, has been cast down. "
We will try to find the answers to
these questions in the Bible thanks firstly to the examples given to us and
secondly through his teachings. So let's go and find for these writings that
can help us and give us the support and courage to become winners!
In many places in the Bible, the
believers are compared to a flock of sheep, especially sheep, whom the world
wishes to send to the slaughterhouse to go to the butcher. Paul reiterates this
comparison in Romans 8: 35-37 quoting the text of Psalm 44:
" Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation,
or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it
is written:
“For Your sake
we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”
Yet in all these things we are
more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that
neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things
present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing,
shall be able to separate us from the love of Elohim which is in Christ Jesus
our Lord. "
The only reason behind this hate of
the world against the believers is their attachment to their Elohim and to his
Son, Jesus, the Shepherd!
But the comparison made between
believers and sheep is the key for us to understand the attitude we must adopt
when we are attacked and even falsely accused. Indeed, a sheep does not respond
to aggression and does not seek for revenge. The sheep will try to take refuge near
its shepherd looking for its rod and if it is lost, it will try to hide and
escape their aggressors.
There are two spectacular examples
where this kind of admirable attitude has existed. The first one is our Savior,
Jesus, who has always shown us the way to follow. Let's read in the Bible how Jesus goes to trial in court "where
Satan is the judge"!
First of all in Luke 22: 41-44
before he was arrested:
“And He was withdrawn from them
about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if it
is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but
Yours, be done.” Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening
Him. And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like
great drops of blood falling down to the ground. "
Then in John 17:
" Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said:
“Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify
You, as You have given Him authority
over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given
Him. And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I have glorified You on the earth. I have
finished the work which You have given Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Me
together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world
was."
We see here that Jesus seeks for
help by turning in the first place to his Father, his shepherd somehow. Then,
when he is delivered "to the butcher" as it is written in the
prophecy of Isaiah 53, in verses 6 and 7:
" All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to
his own way;
And Yehoah has laid on Him the
iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not
His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before
its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth. "
Later on, Jesus, as we have read in
the prophecy above, will no longer open his mouth before those who want to kill
him. But when still speaking before,
Jesus was never violent nor vindictive.
Let's read in Mark 15:
“Then Pilate asked Him, “Are You the
King of the Jews?” He answered and said to him, “It is as you say.” And the chief priests accused Him of many
things, but He answered nothing. Then Pilate asked Him again, saying, “Do You
answer nothing? See how many things they testify against You!” But Jesus still
answered nothing, so that Pilate marveled. "
Let us go now to another striking
example about a similar and admirable behavior to be compared with the one of
Jesus. It is the behavior of the Jewish people during the Shoah and often during
the two thousand years of diaspora. We have here a second dramatic example of
this remarkable attitude. Indeed, the Jewish people have always behaved like
sheep trying to keep traditions, most of which originate in the Bible. But at
the same time, wherever they were scattered, the Jewish people made all their
efforts to contribute to the welfare of the society around them, and they never
responded by violence to the violence inflicted on them. The peak of their
suffering was the Holocaust, during which the Nazi beast tried powerfully to
destroy them all without mercy. And yet, the Jewish people, while trying to
escape this fatal fate, allowed themselves to be led to the butchery as written
in Psalm 44, which we quoted above. We do not wish to anyone what the Jewish
people has suffered but would we be able to have the same attitude as they had
under similar conditions. Unconsciously, the Jewish people followed the example
of their Messiah that for the time being they don’t know yet!
But there are many other examples of
the right attitude to adopt against our accusers. To name but a few, remember
how Joseph behaved by welcoming his brethren in Egypt, these brethren who had
planned to kill him!
You can also read how David behaved with
Saul who was trying to kill him by all means.
Daniel, of whom we have spoken
above, has always tried to contribute to the good of those who were ready to
have him killed, be it Nebuchadnezzar or Darius.
Read also how Etienne spoke before
being stoned with violence by the religious authorities of his time.
I wish us to have the same courage as all these witnesses in front
of their accusers and keep in mind Paul's advice in Colossians 4, verses 5 and
6:
"
Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time. 6
Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how
you ought to answer each one. "