0811 OVERCOMING SATAN

AUGUST 11 = JAMES 4

DEFEATING THE DEVIL

How do I go about overcoming Satan? Temptation can be so strong, and spiritual warfare so difficult. And an invisible spiritual enemy can be so hard to find, and his ways so deceitful. It almost seems like an impossible war I find myself in, and I’m often defeated before I even realize that I’m in a fight. How can temptation seem so attractive when it is so deadly to me? How do I defeat this enemy of my soul?

James has a battle plan that is guaranteed to work. All I have to do is to follow it and carry it out. Ready?

“Submit yourselves, then, to God. 

This is how it begins. I submit myself to God. As in any warfare, immediate compliance with any orders from on high is essential. After all, the only one who has ever defeated Satan is God, and God is all-knowing and all-powerful. So submitting to the leading of the Holy Spirit would seem to be the first logical step if I am on the Lord’s side.

And what has God already told me are my marching orders? He gave several commandments. He summarized them as loving God and loving people. He has told me to worship him alone. He has told me what kind of people to stay away from as friends. He has told me to meditate and talk about his words all day and night. And he’s about to give me some specific instructions on this battle, so I’ll keep reading.

Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 

Here it is! The secret to success: Resist the devil, and he will flee! Wait a second! Isn’t that backwards? I thought Paul told Timothy to “flee youthful lusts.” Aren’t we supposed to flee from the devil? I’m confused.

The distinction is subtle, but extremely significant. We flee from temptation, rather than to try to stare it down and outlast it. Remember what happened with Eve and the fruit in the garden? She noticed that it was pleasing to the eye and good for food. She was looking at the temptation, rather than to run from it. Satan is standing behind us, whispering in our ear about how pleasing to the eye, how fun, how good the temptation would be.

But do you know what happens when we turn around to run from the temptation? We run straight toward the devil! With the temptation behind us, Satan has no weapon. But we have the name and the blood of Jesus with us, complete with the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. We are like young David, who ran toward Goliath with his sling and stone. And that added to the speed of his shot. So we resist the devil when we go on the offensive, and he flees the battle.

So we submit to God, and we resist the devil. The next thing that James instructs us to do is this:

Come near to God and he will come near to you. 

Now we change the metaphor. We resist the devil when we run at him. But we draw near, or come near to God, not as an enemy but as a friend or family member. And when we take the initiative in coming to him, we find that he in turn draws near to us. We need his inner strength to do battle with the enemy of our souls, and we need this strong relationship with God to make us immovable in battle.

Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”

I think all these commands can be summarized in a word: Repent! Clean hands. Pure hearts. Be sorry for wrongs. Humble yourselves. When we come to the end of ourselves with this attitude, we find that God lifts us up, not because we are strong, but because he is.

One last instruction, a few verses later, that adds to this spiritual warfare:

“If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.”

You might say that there are two categories of sin: Sins of commission and sins of omission. Sins of commission are things that we DO, knowing that we should not be doing them. But equally bad are sins of omission. These are things we OUGHT TO DO, but we do not do them. It is the equivalence of saying no to God, or of NOT submitting to God from the very start of our battle with the devil. And how do you think that battle will go, when we have already been run through with the enemy’s best weapons?

This matter may be the single most important thing for the daily direction of a believer’s life. May we heed and obey every day. Amen.