James 4:7-10(NKJV) 7Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
This week we are moving into the second area of our assignment for 2012. First, we must possess our land of promises. That involves, among other things, cultivating an attitude that says what God has given me is mine and no one has the right to keep it from me. The second area is driving out the enemies that try to keep us from fully possessing the promises of God. That involves actions we must take. If we want 2012 to be better than 2011, we must honestly evaluate what we are doing and make some necessary changes.
One area in which we must take action involves two things set forth in James 4:7-10. We must submit to God. Most born again believers would agree with this and would say that they are submitted to God, however, it is not enough to be submitted in words. To drive out the enemy we must be submitted in our actions. Yesterday we looked at what this means in practical living.
Today I want to look more closely at the second actions we must aggressively take. That is, we must resist the devil. The word, resist, means to set oneself against something or someone. We must set ourselves against the devil. We must do so aggressively. It is not enough to say we oppose the devil any more than it is enough to say we submit to God. We must submit aggressively with our actions. In the same way, we must resist the devil aggressively with our actions.
There is something that I want to interject here that I think will help us do that. The devil is real. He is not some mythological being that was put into the bible as a theological foil for God. He is not just a literary tool to represent evil. God is a spirit. He is a real person that exists in a realm that we cannot see with our physical eyes. If we believe that to be true than it must follow that the devil is just as real and exists in that same dimension beyond our physical senses.
If we accept that the Lord can affect this world, we must accept that the devil can have some affect on it as well. The devil is not God. He is not all-powerful or everywhere present. However, he is powerful and he does lead an army of beings that have as their goal to hurt God and his children. They also do their best to hinder God’s plan in the earth. They are real and they are your enemy. (1 Peter 5:8)
When we understand this, it motivates us to resist the devil at a higher level and to a greater degree. As long as the devil can convince us that he does not really exist or that he has no real influence in the outcome of our lives, we do not perceive the threat. History is full of examples of evil people who tried to convince their enemy that their intentions were benign. The result is usually that the evil waits until the good has its guard down and then attacks. The devil is the father of all lies and all deception and that is his tactic against us most of the time.
I do not want to sound melodramatic, but we need to understand that the devil is a clear and present danger to our wellbeing. He is a consistent threat to our families, our homes and our lifestyle. He is committed to destroying the family of God and the plan of God. He does not care about you or me personally, but if he can hurt us, he hurts God. Anyone that loves God is an enemy of the devil and the devil will do everything in his power to destroy them.
I am talking about the devil’s influence and opposition in everyday life. He uses culture, media and our own wrong thinking to trap and hinder us. He uses temptation to sin through any means at his disposal. He does his best to distort the Word of God, defame the character of the Lord. He does his best to misdirect us to every other possible cause for the things that are wrong in our existence. I do not believe there is a devil that needs to be cast out of every situation. He is far more subtle than that. I believe that we have an active enemy who uses every means at his disposal to deceive the people of God in order to keep them from possessing the promises of God.
I believe that difficult things that come into our lives have three possible sources. God often leads us through difficulties so that we grow by learning to apply our faith. More often, we make bad choices that put us in compromised and hurtful situations. Sometimes the devil is actively attacking us to destroy the plan of God in our lives. In all of these cases, the devil has some hand in the outcome. Even when our problems are caused by our own actions, the devil is there to take advantage of those actions. In truth, he is often the one that pushed us in that direction to begin with.
What am I saying today? Am I putting the devil in the same category as God? No, I am not. There is only one God and he is the supreme being in the universe. I am saying that the devil has gained a measure of authority because of the fall of man. Both Jesus and Paul called Satan the God of this world. He has great influence over the system that governs the world and over the people who do not yet know Jesus.
I am not saying any of this to cause you to fear the devil. Fear is not of God. It is a manifestation of the satanic nature. I am saying that we must take the threat seriously. 1 Peter 5:8 tells us so.
1 Peter 5:8(NKJV) 8Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
Our recent history gives us a good example of what I am talking about. September 11, 2011 changed the world for most people. Before that time, we knew that terrorism existed. We knew it was a threat, but we did not really take it very seriously. We felt we were immune. We really knew otherwise, but because the threat did not seem imminent, we did not address it.
When those planes slammed into the buildings that day, we understood terrorism in a very different way. We saw that the threat was real. We submitted to all kinds of increased security measures in order to ensure our safety. We altered our lifestyles to protect ourselves against this threat.
In a few years, the sense of danger began to wane. We still know the threat exists, but it has been silent for a long time. The measures that were taken have seemed to work to stop the terrorists from repeating those attacks. Many Americans are resisting the security that we thought was so necessary in the aftermath of September 11th. However, the threat still exists. We are just as vulnerable now as we were then and the more we lower our guard the closer we come to another tragedy.
I believe that is exactly what happens to us when it comes to resisting the devil. If something bad happens, we increase our resistance. When things are on a more even keel we tend to let down our guard. We allow certain things we might not allow if the threat was imminent. We do not aggressively resist the enemy because he does not seem to be involved now.
We must understand that the devil is always there and that he is always against the church. He never stops planning attacks. He never stops pressuring us to compromise. He is behind every bad thing that happens to us either actively or passively. He is our enemy and he is always against us.
The good news is that we can resist him and when we do, the promise is that he will flee. More tomorrow.
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