‘You may know that you have eternal life.” (8) (1 John 5:13-21)

 ‘You may know that you have eternal life.” (8)

[1 John 5:13-21]

        The third assurance is the assurance of victory. In other words, it is the victorious assurance that we are victorious in our fight against sin and Satan.

        Look at 1 John 5:18 – “We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him.” Among the 5 Assurances to learn in the foundation of discipleship is “Assurance of Victory.” The Bible verse for the assurance of that victory is 1 Corinthians 10:13 – “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” The ‘temptation” here does not refer to God’s test in Genesis 22, when God told Abraham, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on the mountain I have told you about” (Gen. 22:2). ‘Temptation’ here refers to Satan’s temptation. Personally, while reading the Word of God, I became interested in “The temptations of Satan” and wrote several brief meditations. For example, in “The temptation of Satan (1)” I wrote about Jesus being tempted by Satan in three ways before He began His work as the Redeemer (Lk. 4:1-13). What is interesting is that when Jesus was crucified to complete His work, Satan tempted Jesus to ‘save Himself’ three more times: (a) (Lk. 23:35) “The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One.’” (b) (vv. 36-37) “The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, ‘If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.’” (c) (v. 39) “One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: ‘Aren't you the Christ? Save yourself and us!’” The purpose of this satanic temptation was so that Jesus, as the Redeemer, would take our sins and die on the cross. In this way, there was Satan's temptation at the beginning and at the end of Jesus' ministry. “Satan’s temptation (2)”, the temptation that Satan gives us is the cross without suffering, the gospel without the cross, and the church of Christ without the gospel. “Satan’s Temptation (3)” is a brief meditation on three things based on Acts 21. The three temptations of Satan are (1) a commotion (v. 30), (2) a rumor (v. 31) and (3) violence (v. 35). Satan still stirs up the church by causing commotion in the church, and by creating a commotion in unfounded speculation (a commotion). Not only that, Satan still spreads malicious rumors within the church (rumor). And Satan still tempts people in the church to use their words and deeds to assault them (violence). In addition to these 3 meditations on “Satan’s Temptation,” I wrote 9 meditations under the title “Satan’s Strategies” while reading the Bible. Pastor John MacArthur said: ‘The main strategy of Satan is to spread as many lies as possible to deny, pollute and confuse the truth’ (MacArthur). Now, our thoughts are heavily polluted with lies, which are unevangelical and untruth. We are unable to distinguish between truth and lies under the trend of mutual respect. Now we are confused and we are living a syncretistic faith life. The reason I wrote about “Satan’s strategy” while reading the Bible like this is because we need to know Satan’s strategy through God’s Word so that we can respond and win the spiritual battle against Satan. We must have “the assurance of victory” in this spiritual battle. That is why 1 Corinthians 10:13, the Bible verse for the assurance of victory, is important. There are three things we need to be sure of in this passage: (1) It is perfectly normal for us who believe in Jesus to be tempted by Satan [(v. 13a) “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man”]. (2) God is faithful and will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we can bear [(v. 13b) “And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear”]. (3) A faithful God provides a way out so that we can stand up under it [(v. 13c) “But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it”].