Negotiating With Terrorists

1 Peter 5:8–9 NKJV

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.

We have an adversary.

“Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender,”

He’s not God’s adversary. He’s ours.

That means certain things:

We’re at war. All the time. It doesn’t end. (that’s one reason why heaven is gonna be so awesome.)

An adversary is a hostile enemy who opposes and accuses you. The literal meaning is plaintiff.

What is our adversary responsible for?

There are people, PEOPLE, who derive pleasure from the suffering of others. People who want to see others enslaved, injured, lose their job, miss out on opportunities, be abused, and so on. Rapist love what they do to others. Child molesters find pleasure in ruining future lives of innocent children. There is a sex trafficking INDUSTRY! People make and buy child porn.

When people gain outrageous power, 99 times out of a hundred, they become corrupt dictators who are okay with their people starving while they party and live in luxury. Communist dictatorships have starved and murdered millions upon millions of people.

The Stanford Prison Experiment.

Our adversary implanted lies in Eve’s mind, that he knew would get him what he wanted: a slave.

There is evil! Evil exists! All of this stuff is just a tiny glimpse of what our adversary brought into this world. How much of that suffering does he enjoy? How much of it would he do again? How does he feel if you go through any of that?

Your adversary derives pleasure from you are abused, betrayed, and hopeless.

He’s responsible for all of it. Not part of it. None of this was even possible before he got involved, and he’d do all of it again.

We’ve underestimated our adversary.

What does our adversary need from us?

“Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender,”

Your adversary doesn’t care if you become an atheist or not. You don’t have to join a different religion for him to be satisfied. He only needs one thing: compromise. Accept just a tiny bit of his stuff into your life. Be okay with one tiny little thing. That’s all he needs. Just a little surrender to him.

What’s at stake for us?

Our adversary knows, and has always known, when we compromise with him, we hand him everything.

Our power, our future, our walk with God, our ability to be like Christ, answered prayer, our faith and motivation, our family stability, our ability to overcome the stupid things our flesh wants.

Remember, Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Apart from Me, you can do nothing.”

So what do we do?

It’s right there in verse 9: resist him.

Resist all of his stuff. If it’s from him, it’s from your adversary. If it’s from him, it’s meant for your suffering, your pain, loss of hope, loss of future, loss of innocence.

Resist his bitterness. Resist his anger. Resist his lust. Resist his attacks on scripture.

Take churchill’s attitude. Churchill knew he was facing evil. He knew what his adversary wanted. When every other possible person thought surrender made sense, only Churchill understood the kind of person they were dealing with. There was no compromise with hitler. There was only hitler and his hunger for power.

Surrender made so much sense at the time. Germany was so strong, they could wipe out britain’s entire aircraft industry with a couple of bombs. They could leave the country with no homes or businesses. Why not compromise with them? Maybe there’d be something left of Britain. But churchill knew that could never work because he was dealing with evil.

Here was Churchill’s attitude about surrender to the germans: “if this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground.”

Here was his attitude about hitler: “Hitler is a monster of wickedness, insatiable in his lust for blood and plunder. Not content with having all Europe under his heel, or else terrorized into various forms of abject submission, he must now carry his work of butchery and desolation among the vast multitudes of Russia and of Asia. The terrible military machine, which we and the rest of the civilised world so foolishly, ... allowed the Nazi gangsters to build up year by year ... cannot stand idle lest it rust or fall to pieces. . . So now this bloodthirsty guttersnipe must launch his mechanized armies upon new fields of slaughter, pillage and devastation.”

That was just Hitler! He knew no compromise was possible. We are dealing with the originator of all evil. The one who brought all of it into the world. The one who made Hitler possible.

Does it matter what our adversary offers in return?

Does anything we get in return make compromise worth it?

It never make sense to negotiate with a terrorist. They want nothing but your destruction.