We have a part to
play in our Christian walk. What exactly does it mean when we are told the
following--
Jas 4:7 Submit
yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Does submitting
ourselves to God mean giving up our ability to reason? No.
When we submit to
God we are then told to RESIST the devil so the devil will FLEE from us. This
resisting is an ACTION, not a passive entreaty. So, how do we RESIST the devil?
This is how our
Savior resisted the devil-
Mat 4:3 And
when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that
these stones be made bread.
Mat 4:4 But he
answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by
every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Mat 4:5 Then
the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of
the temple,
Mat 4:6 And
saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is
written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands
they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a
stone.
Mat 4:7 Jesus
said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy
God.
Mat 4:8 Again,
the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all
the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
Mat 4:9 And
saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and
worship me.
Mat 4:10 Then
saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt
worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
Mat 4:11 Then
the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
This is how WE
resist the devil-
Eph 6:11 Put
on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of
the devil.
Eph 6:12 For
we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against
powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual
wickedness in high places.
1Pe 5:8 Be
sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion,
walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
1Pe 5:9 Whom
resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are
accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.
Rev 12:9 And
the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan,
which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels
were cast out with him.
Rev 12:10 And
I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and
the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our
brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
Rev 12:11 And
they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony;
and they loved not their lives unto the death.
*******
Satan IS attacking
us as often as he can in ways we can't even imagine.
As we go through our
lives in the GOOD situations and the BAD we need to ask ourselves if they are
of God or of Satan.
Satan will
counterfeit God's ways leaving in just enough of his deception to ruin what
should be a good thing. Not all seemingly good things are of God. We truly need
to submit to God in the good and the bad. We need to resist the devil in all
things, not just the thing we perceive as being outright evil. Satan will sneak
into places in our lives we thought were sacred and beyond his reach but truly
very little is beyond the reach of Satan. The powers of Satan's will are so
strong this following verse needs to be memorized--
Mat_24:24 For
there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs
and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very
elect.
IF it were possible
the very elect would be deceived!
And this verse--
Mat 7:13 Enter
ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that
leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
Mat 7:14
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and
few there be that find it.
FEW find that narrow
gate.
And this next verse-
Luk 17:26 And
as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of
man.
Luk 17:27 They
did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the
day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them
all.
Luk 17:28
Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they
bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
Luk 17:29 But
the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from
heaven, and destroyed them all.
Luk 17:30 Even
thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
This next passage
tells us how few were saved in the days of Noah-
1Pe 3:20 …when
once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a
preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
*******
To believe that
Satan isn't a real force to resist in a very real way is to be deceived. Don't
put Satan on a back burner, something to think about another time. Don't put
your resisting of the Devil on a shelf somewhere saving it for blatant attacks.
We truly need to make it a daily practice to submit to God AND resist the
Devil! Our lives need examining, not
ignoring.
2Co 13:5
Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves.
Php_2:12
Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only,
but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and
trembling.
Reread this excerpt
I posted already a couple days ago- it's worth rereading!
May God bless us and
keep us in HIM! All through Jesus Christ our LORD and SAVIOR now and FOREVER!
******* Excerpt --
'God’s Ordering
We know that besides
man’s will there are two other totally antagonistic wills in the world.
God calls us to obey
Him and to resist Satan.
Twice in the Bible
do we find these two sides mentioned together:
(1) “submit
yourselves therefore to God,” exhorts James, and then he follows immediately
with “resist the devil” (4.7);
(2) “humble
yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God,” enjoins Peter, and
continues by charging his readers to “resist (the devil), firm in your faith”
(1 Peter 5.6,9).
This is the balance
of truth. A believer certainly must learn to submit himself to God in all matters, acknowledging that what He orders
for him is the best.
Though he suffers,
yet he heartily submits to the will of God. This, however, is just half the
truth. The Apostles understood the danger of being lopsided; hence we find them
right away warning the Christian to resist the devil once he submits to God. This
is because there is another will besides His, that of Satan’s.
Frequently the devil
counterfeits the will of God, especially in the things which happen to us. If
we are unaware of the presence of a will other than God’s, we can easily
mistake Satan’s to be God’s and so fall into the devil’s trap. For this reason
God wants us to resist the devil when we submit
to Him.
Resistance is done
by the will. Resistance means our volition opposes, disapproves, and
withstands. God wishes us to exercise our volition, therefore He exhorts us to
“resist the devil.” He will not
resist for us; we
ourselves must do so.
We have a will; we
should use it to take heed to God’s Word. So teaches the Bible. Thinking that
God’s will is
revealed in His orderings, the Christian may accept anything which comes to him
as His will. In that event he naturally will not employ his volition to choose,
decide or resist. He just quietly accepts everything. This sounds good and
appears right, but it contains a serious fallacy.
Now we do
acknowledge the hand of God behind everything, and we do confess we must submit
fully under His hand. But the point at issue here is more one of attitude than
of conduct. If what happens to
us is the direct
will of God, would we object to it? This is a matter of our heart intention.
But after we are assured of our obedience to God we should inquire further:
does this emanate from the evil spirit or is it but God’s permissive will? If
it is His commanded will, we have no objection; if otherwise, we will resist it
together with God.
Hence this never
implies that we should submit to our environment without daily examination and
testing. Our attitude remains the same at all times, but our practice comes
only after we are sure of God’s will, for how could we submit to Satan’s will?
A Christian ought
not act as one who is without a brain, passively driven by his environment. He
actively and consciously should examine the source of every item, test its
nature, understand its meaning, and decide the course to take. It is important
to obey God, but not blindly. Such active investigation is not a sign of
rebellion against God’s ordering, because our heart’s intent continues to be
one of submission towards God. We only wish to be sure that in our submission
we are verily obeying God.
A definite lack in
an obedient attitude exists among believers today. Though they perceive God’s
will, they nevertheless fail to yield. Contrariwise, those who have been broken
by God run to the other extreme by unquestioningly accepting whatever occurs to
them.
The truth lies in
the center; obey in heart and accept after being assured of the source.
How sad, though,
that many fully consecrated believers do not discern this difference. Such a
Christian therefore passively submits to his environment, surmising that
everything happens to him by the
order of God. He
gives ground to the evil spirits to torment and hurt him. These spirits provide
environment (their snares) by which to trap the saint into performing their
will or raise up circumstances to trouble him.
Believers may
misunderstand this to be what Matthew 5.39 enjoins when it says “do not resist
one who is evil,” not recalling that God summons them to struggle against sin
(Heb. 12.4). By overcoming environment they are overcoming the spirit of this
world. The factors in such a misapprehension of God’s ordering are that (a)
believers do not use their will to choose and decide; (b) God certainly does
not oppress them with environment; and (c) the evil spirits utilize the
environmental circumstances as a substitute for their passive will. Rather than
obeying God these believers actually are obeying the evil spirits.'
Excerpt from 'The
Spiritual Man' by Watchman Nee
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