God’s adversary is always the human mind when the mind’s acceptance of new revelation is being resisted by man’s current level of understanding truth.

The date was 1514, a little commentary on the current study of a church leader was published. It would be followed in 1543 with his life study. What he set forth in his writings was greatly opposed by the visible church. One of his disciples was tried before the Inquisition, condemned, and burned at the stake for this heretical view. Another one was forced to his knees under the threat of torture and death, and pressured to renounce all belief in this teaching. This follower of the new teaching would consequently be sentenced to imprisonment for the rest of his life.

God’s adversary it seems is always the fleshly mind of man.

The church leader who set forth this new understanding was Copernicus. Although what he taught is accepted today, it then countered a belief that had been taught for almost 1400 years. The simple truth that the earth was not the center of the universe was greatly contested by most of the leaders of the established church. It seems when new truth or even a clearer understanding of an established truth is revealed it is always resisted by the mind-set of what is currently believed to be true. The thinking of the human mind becomes God’s adversary.

Such was the new understanding brought to Peter by the revelation of God that he must go and eat with the Gentiles. He not only found himself resisting this change but the contemporary people of God resisted it as well (Acts 11:1-2).  In many instances, what hinders the acceptance of new true is always the current understanding of truth.

After Peter had his thinking challenged and changed, he went up to Jerusalem. Upon his arrival, he was confronted by the brethren that were in Judaea. They were struggling to understand how Peter could go into a home of the uncircumcised and eat with them. Preaching the gospel to all people just was not done in that fashion.

God’s adversary always causes man to struggle with God’s revelation.

Peter told them how he too struggle to understand what God was doing. He shared with them how he was on the housetop praying when the vision came to him. A great vessel came down from heaven containing all matter of beasts, creeping things, and fowls of the air. After the vessel descended to him he heard a voice say, “Arise, Peter, slay and eat.” Peter told the men of the circumcision how he had responded to the voice, “Not so, Lord: for nothing unclean has at any time entered my mouth.” Then, he added that the voice answered him, “What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.” Moreover, this vision had occurred to him three times (Acts 11:3-10).

The circumcised men then were told how that even as Peter was experiencing the vision there were three men at his door from the Gentile, Cornelius. Peter further stated that the Spirit of God had told him to go with the men from Caesarea doubting nothing. Upon entering the house of the uncircumcised, Peter shared with the circumcision in Judea how he had learned that Cornelius had a vision from God as well: Peter was to come and tell the Gentiles the things they needed to hear (Act 11-13).

The men of the circumcision in Judea were probably astonished as much as the men in Caesarea when Peter told them what occurred next. He said, “as I begin to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them as on us at the beginning.” He then added, “for as much then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, what was I that I could withstand God (Act 11:14-17). Peter who had placed himself in an adversarial role against God’s revelation had now come to accept the truth once challenged. In this instance, God’s adversary had been conquered.

God’s adversary always becomes prevalent with the exercise of the fleshly human mind.

It was not the first time that Peter had become an adversary to the ways of God. When he was following Jesus on the shores of Caesarea Philippi, Jesus raise the question, “Whom do me says that I am?” After several different responses from his disciples, Jesus then asked, “But whom say ye that I am?” Peter spoke up and said, “thou are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Peter is not an adversary here for he is answering Jesus based upon a revelation of truth that he had already received. It would not be long, however, until he became an antagonist to the ways of God. It is not that Peter did not believe that Jesus was the Christ, the son of the living God, he did. He just did not understand how believing Jesus as the Christ would work out in his life.

After Peter told Jesus of his belief that he was the Son of God, Jesus told him and the other disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ. He told them how he must go to Jerusalem, suffer many things, and be killed. Peter immediately took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.” Not knowing how Jesus was to be the Christ, Peter at the thought of Jesus being killed became hostile. His thinking had put him in enmity with the ways of God. By the exercise of his mind, he became an adversary to the things of God.

God’s adversary will always bring gloom and despair.

Although Peter found himself in an adversarial role in Caesarea Philippi and in the vision concerning the Gentiles, he was not going to spend all the days of his life with a fleshly mind — an adversary to the outworking of God in his life. After many years of God continually breaking through to him, he would write to believers who were struggling at the time as he had once struggle:

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. To him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen (1 Pet. 5:8-11).

When the believers to whom Peter was writing were going to face the afflictions (hardship or pain, emotions or influences) of living life, as all men in the world do, they were to be sober. Their minds were not to become intoxicated with ever-increasing imaginations of gloom and despair in the midst of the afflictions. They were to be vigilant (watchful) for that which would destroy their abundant life of God. The mind instead of being controlled by the Spirit could become fleshly, become God’s adversary.

Like the bombardment of a torrential downpour of rain, the thoughts of the mind can be thrown against the stable, secure soul. With no capability to instill harm other than by mental anguish, the mind can become the adversary to the working of God. The run-away mind can become occupied with seeking, plotting, envisioning destruction for all. It can become intoxicated with the gloom of its own death.

God’s adversary can be conquered.

When Peter walked with Jesus during his earthly ministry, he became an adversary to how God was going to take Jesus to his death. After Jesus ascended and returned by the Holy Spirit into the life of Peter, he still became an adversary to how God was going take Jesus to the Gentiles. In the first instance, Peter struggled in his adversarial role for several years. In the second instance, Peter’s opposition diminishes at a much faster pace. Finally, in his maturity, Peter recognized instantly who, where, and how the adversary to the outworking of God in his life would come.

Peter now knew that if God’s adversary, the fleshly mind of man, is resisted in faith, God would not be prohibited from revealing his Son, Jesus Christ, in all of his glory to man. In the midst of the same afflictions that all men face, Peter wrote, “the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.” When the adversary is resisted in faith, God will thoroughly complete his work. He will confirm upon the believer a sense of security that will hold fast in troubling circumstances. He will strengthen the believer with spiritual knowledge and power that will carry him through the tempest. He will give the believer a foundation so sure that it cannot be shaken by the most violent of storms. The God of all grace will “make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you” conquering God’s adversary.

From Caesarea Philippi, to the vision concerning the Gentiles, to the final solution, Peter had come to understand a vital truth in experiencing the full gospel of Jesus Christ. Although the men of the circumcision to whom Peter was giving his testimony probably did not fully understand what they were saying, they nevertheless voiced the truth revealed in Peter’s life. After Peter finished speaking, they withdrew their contention with him and said, “Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life” (Acts 11:19).

God’s adversary can be overcome by experiencing “repentance unto life.”

As illustrated by Peter’s life, repentance unto life is not a onetime experience. It is a way of life, a process of the mind being brought back to full restoration of the grace of God. With repentance meaning, “reversal (of decision)” which in turn is derived from “to think differently or afterwards, i.e. reconsider,” it seems that the renewing of the mind only occurs in consecutively stages of being brought out of its own thinking.

Peter’s life serves as an example. Peter could not come to understand that Jesus was the Christ by his own mind. God had to reveal to him that truth. His mind however could grasp that truth only on a certain level. The level of understanding of that truth for Peter was restricted by his already preconceived ideas of how the ways of God would be worked out in the Christ. His mind once again had to be changed (repentance), although he now knew that Jesus was the Christ. God had to break through to him again with more revelation to deliver him from his current level of understanding of the Christ.

Repentance unto life is the continual process of God bringing man out of the limits of his own understanding. As with Peter, man seems to continually say, “Not so, Lord.” As with God, he keeps sending the vision again and again. The adversary of God can be conquered by continually listening to Jesus.