Resist the devil

Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. – James 4v7

We don’t like to talk about him much. The world has made some kind of weird and scary cartoonic icon out of him. At this stage he has been made such a fantasy that people have a hard time remembering that he is real, very real and is a very real threat.

Peter puts it in terms we can understand – the devil walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. We read of the licence he was given to afflict Job. Paul’s thorn in the flesh was sent as a messenger from Satan. He is much more real than the guy in a red suit in a cartoon or the nasty dripping drooling caricature in a horror film.

He is much, much worse. He is the master of subtlety. He appears as an angel of light. He is a liar. He is tricky. He casts doubt. He has learned in our western culture that the obvious tricks don’t work. He is much craftier here.

We battle the world around us. We battle our own flesh. Boy, oh boy do we battle the flesh. But we also battle the devil himself. I can think of a couple of times in my life when I really believe that I have seen him at work. It is a terribly scary experience.

So what do we do? First we must submit to God. We place ourselves under His authority. The word here a military term dealing with submitting to the commander. It’s like a troop lined up waiting for His command. There is a scene in the Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V where the English army is lined up before the battle of Agincourt. There is fear in their eyes. Yet they are ready for the battle. They are straining at the lead. They are chomping at the bit. They are waiting for the command to fight.

This is what submission is all about. It is this kind of submission that allows us to move on to the next step – resist the devil. He must be opposed. We can’t give an inch. I recently wrote on the issue of ‘No Surrender!’ This is the time for a no surrender attitude. We cannot budge an inch. We cannot give ground. We can’t play around.

The battle against Satan is real and serious. But the promise is even more powerful. Resist the devil and he WILL flee from you. Satan has no power, none, nothing, not one bit of strength against a child of God who is submitted to Him and resisting the attacks of the devil.

Greater is He (Christ) who is in us (His church) than he (Satan) who is in the world.

Submit. Resist. He will flee.

NO SURRENDER!!!