Resisting The Devil And He Flees

➡ Paul, the voiceover for a ministry called Your Daily Bread, discusses the spiritual battle believers face in a world influenced by Satan. He emphasizes that while believers live in a world filled with sin and false religions, they are not possessed by the devil but face external temptations that appeal to their human weaknesses. However, Paul reassures that Satan is a defeated enemy, and believers, empowered by the Holy Spirit, can resist these temptations and live a triumphant life. He encourages believers to stay strong in their faith, reminding them that they are part of God’s kingdom and have the power to resist evil.
➡ Stay alert and prioritize correctly because the devil is always looking for someone to mislead. Be aware of your surroundings and resist the devil’s attempts, and he will leave you alone. Keep your faith strong, shine your light, and for more daily devotions, visit goddessgovernment.com.

Hello, my name is Paul, and I am the voiceover for a ministry provided to you by Jim Pugh at God Is Government Called Your Daily Bread, taken from Christ’s teaching of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6, verse 11. This is a daily devotion ministry, focused not only on uplifting Scripture, but Scripture that will grow your spiritual connection with Christ. We hope that you receive these devotions to uplift you, encourage you, but most importantly, advance your knowledge base of the Holy Scriptures. Today’s focused discussion will be resisting the devil, and he flees. There was a time in the life of Martin Luther that his conflict with Satan was so real that he says he picked up his inkwell sitting on his desk and threw it at the devil.

The ink stain remained on the wall for years as a reminder of the reality of that conflict. We are all engaged in a conflict with the enemy of God, the enemy of Christ, the enemy of our souls, the enemy of truth. That conflict is inevitable because we who are part of the kingdom of God, we who are the slaves of Jesus Christ, we who are the soldiers of Christ, as it were, are an in-enemy territory. Satan is the prince of the power of the air, the ruler of this world. He and his minions, his demons, which constitute a third of the angels, run their wicked anti-God, anti-Christ, anti-truth, anti-life system through this world.

As long as we are here, we are engaged in that battle. That’s why in verse 10 we read, finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the full armour of God that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armour of God that you may be able to resist in the evil day and having done everything to stand firm.

In the opening couple of messages, we address these verses and try to draw out some foundational understanding of the spiritual conflict in which we engage. Understand this, that if you are a believer, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Satan does not dwell within you. In fact, greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world, and he that is in you is the Holy Spirit. No Christian can be devil-possessed or demon-possessed. We’re not talking about that. We’re not talking about demon possession, which can only occur in one who does not belong to God, in whom the Spirit does not dwell.

What we’re talking about is the battle that a Spirit indwelt child of God faces, living in Satan’s world. And it isn’t what Satan does in us as if he lived there, or what demons do in us as if they lived there. It is what they do outside of us that panders to the fallenness that is in us. We have been redeemed. We have become regenerate. We are new creations as we heard tonight. We have different affections, different motivations, different loves, different attachments. We value things completely opposite the way we valued them before we came to Christ.

Life is new for us. We are a new creation, however incarcerated in unredeemed flesh. We still possess fallen propensities to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. That is what is in us. What is in us is our fallenness. What is in us is sin. Romans 7. It is sin that is in me, Paul says. That is why I’m still a wretched man. That is why I don’t do what I ought to do, and I do what I ought not to do. In fact, I do what I don’t want to do, and don’t do what I actually want to do.

It is sin that is in me. It is a principle still operating in me that wars against the law of God that now dominates my mind, my new creation. Satan, who is outside of us, works the world system in such a way as to assault us at the points of our fallenness. We live in a hostile world, a world that is filled with manifest promotion of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. It dominates our culture, in some ways more now than ever, at least on the media front.

It isn’t that sinners are worse now, although there is some increasing degree as we read in the words of the apostle Paul, evil men grow worse and worse. But it isn’t so much that there have never been sinners before, or there’s never been sin before. There has always been sin. There has always been vile, wretched sin through all of human history. But the exposure level, because of mass media at this part of human history, is something beyond anything people in the past had to endure. It was impossible, for example, to have a full pornographic experience in your room at home.

That was not possible before it had direct access to something you hold in your hand wherever you are. It was impossible to have the kind of sexual explosion on your mind that you get by looking at a 30-foot-high screen that’s 60 feet wide and watching people committing immoral acts. That level of assault is part and parcel of living in this century, and the previous one. That’s what Satan does. Satan works in that system. That’s the wicked side of it. The moral side of it, deceptively moral side of it, is in religion.

Satan also operates all false religions in the world. So Satan operates false religions in the world, false forms of Christianity. He wears clerical garb. He runs certain seminaries and colleges that call themselves Christian and call themselves religious. He’s in charge of all of that, and he’s also in charge of the pornographic industry and every form of sin and mixture and admixture in between. This is the world system that assaults us with false religion and blatant sin and everything that’s in the middle. This is the war. The war for us is to walk in the spirit and not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

The war for us is to live in the spirit and not in the flesh. The war for us is to love what is right, holy and just and good and not find our affections attached to what is evil because it is so alluringly presented to us. Now there is a basic contrast between what God does and what Satan does that can be simply understood. God reveals truth. Satan conceals truth. God tells us the truth. Satan tells us lies. God gives life. Satan takes life. He has the power of death. God produces spiritual works.

Satan produces fleshly works. God brings along tests to make us mature. Satan brings along temptations to destroy us. God sets us free. Satan imprisons us so it goes. And so we live in this world and, as I said, the world in which we live today has capabilities and capacities to assault us in ways that the worlds of the past didn’t have. The question, then, is how do we deal with this and live a triumphant life? How do we overcome these things that are all around us and in our face and therefore in our minds, therefore pandering to our remaining fallenness? Well, there are some things that we can offer as very important elements to the answer to the question, how do we deal with this? One way is to remind yourself that Hebrews 2.14 is true.

Jesus came to render powerless. That’s what Hebrews 2.14 says, render powerless the devil. Or 1 John 3.8, the Son of God appeared to destroy the works of the devil. Recognize this, then, that Christ has defeated Satan. He is a vanquished foe. He is not the victor. He is the vanquished. Genesis 3.15, way back there, it said that when the seed of the woman came, who was the Messiah, he would crush the serpent’s head. That’s why Romans 16.20 says that Satan will shortly be put under your feet. He is a defeated enemy. So like sin that remains in us, we no longer have to sin.

We do not have to lose. He is not a foe who can overpower us. I think that’s so important to mention because there are people who think that Satan has this kind of invincibility that overpowers God. And certainly if Satan can overpower God and God’s purposes, he can certainly overpower us. But that is not what the Bible teaches. At the cross, he was rendered powerless. His abilities are completely confined and limited by the sovereign purposes of God. He is the victim, not the victor. And greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world.

1 John 4.4 The second thing to understand. Not only the fact that Satan is a vanquished foe, and you do not need to collapse under the weight of his efforts because you have a greater strength within you in the power of the Holy Spirit. But secondly, even saying that, you have to follow that up by saying you have to be alert to his efforts and resist them. 1 Peter 5. Be sober. In other words, get your priorities right, think straight. Be on the alert, for the devil goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

You have to be aware of what’s going on around you. In James 4.7, it says, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Thank you for joining us in this exploration of resisting the devil and he flees. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].