PART 23 I AM AN OVERCOMER

How do we resist the Devil?

 concurred, I had no evidence of such. If this was true, how would they try to do this? And how I would know it was them or just memories from my past resurfacing because of a connection with something that was taking place in the present.

At this time, I was on the staff of a worldwide non-denominational Christian ministry. On one particular evening, I sensed the need to pray. So, I went into my room, knelt at the side of my bed, and began sharing my thoughts with God. All of a sudden, an audible thought surfaced in my mind, reminding me of a past sinful action that disrupted what I was asking God for. I admit that I was pretty startled.

Some would say this was my imagination working overtime. Others might attribute this to entertaining impure thoughts. Some might credit this to mental issues.

I wonder how many people believe that the Devil exists. I have an article for you to read about that might surprise you.

 

IS SATAN REAL? MOST PEOPLE THINK NOT

Polls tend to show that Americans are a largely religious people, with something close to 95 percent claiming a belief in [God] and large numbers saying they think that Heaven exists, and so too do angels. But the people who respond to those polls appear to have an easier time personalizing religious concepts of good than of evil. Events like the Salem witch trials notwithstanding, this is a nation inclined more to theological optimism than to pondering literal representations of faith’s dark side.

For evidence, one might look to a recent finding by the Barna Research Group, market researchers in Oxnard, Calif., who reported last week that nearly two-thirds of Americans do not believe in the Devil as a living entity. In a nationwide telephone survey of 1,007 randomly selected people earlier this year, Barna’s pollsters asked whether they agreed that Satan is “not a living being, but is a symbol of evil.” Sixty-two percent agreed with the statement, while 30 percent disagreed; the remaining 8 percent had no opinion. The results echo a survey Barna did two years ago, in which people were asked whether they thought hell existed as an actual location, [“a] place of physical torment.” Only 31 percent said they thought it did.

Belief in a literal Satan can certainly find a basis in Scripture, not to mention inspiration from some of Western civilization’s most influential literature, like Dante’s “Inferno” and Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” In the Bible, the Devil appears, most famously, as Job’s tormentor and Jesus’ tempter. (“Get thee hence, Satan,” Jesus declares in Matthew 4:10, rebuking the Devil for having offered Him “all the kingdoms of the world.”) So if less than one in three Americans seems willing to give the Devil his due, academic authorities say, then that is a result of fundamental, long-term shifts in the nation’s religious culture.

R. Scott Appleby, a historian at the University of Notre Dame, said that within the Roman Catholic Church, the influence of the Second Vatican Council in the early [1960s] and the broader ecumenical movement, together with a greater interest by church authorities in the behavioral sciences, had pushed aside much discussion of hell and the Devil. [And as the] director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at Notre Dame, [he] cited an academic study of sermons preached by parish priests in the [1980s]. It showed that talk of Satan “had diminished markedly,” [while more] emphasis was placed on topics like loving one’s neighbor and being a good steward of the earth and its resources.

    

E. Brooks Holifield, professor of American church history at Emory University, said that among many Protestants, belief in the Devil probably fell during “three big shifting points” in their religious culture -- in the [1830s, the 1890s and the 1920s -- when emergent] theological liberalism overrode Calvinist and fundamentalist thinking. Anthony Delbanco, a professor of English at Columbia University, said he had reservations about poll questions that asked people to define their beliefs in “either-or” terms.

But Professor Delbanco, author of “The Death of [Satan]” (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1995), a book about the shrinking role that the idea of the Devil has played in America, added that the declining belief in Satan as a real being had contributed to a loss of the Devil as a cultural symbol, which in turn, the professor said, carries its own problem. “The vocabulary that the culture once supplied to explain evil has become impoverished,” he said.

Yet there are many for whom the Devil remains a reality, the ultimate and undiminished embodiment of evil…¹⁵⁸

It appears that most people think that the Devil isn’t a supernatural creature but a symbol of evil. As far as what most Christians believe, many might agree with this sentiment. Whether they do or not, here are some verses that will give us a glimpse as to what his agenda is concerning those who follow Christ. Please turn to the Book of 1 Peter.

 

1 Peter 5:8

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

The Apostle Peter was instructing believers about a foe who’s perpetually out to destroy them. He’s described as their adversary (of an opponent in a lawsuit) and called the devil (one who brings a false charge against another with hostility), who’s depicted as a roaring lion. This is an allusion to the horrors of the Neronian persecution in the Roman Coliseum, in which lions mauled and devoured Christians. Satan desires to do the same thing spiritually, i.e., to defeat believers’ testimonies.¹⁵⁹ Who walketh about (goes to and from on the earth) seeking whom he may devour (utterly destroy; seeks to destroy us by beguiling our senses; perverting our judgment; enchanting our imaginations; deceiving us with false views of spiritual things; and destroying us with violent opposition, persecution, and death¹⁶⁰): 

Some argue that what’s described as how the Devil is trying to ruin Christians could be the result of a believer’s thoughts they continue to entertain, whose origins are from their fallen sinful nature. This could be true, especially if we’re going to a church where the teachings are centered on performance and not on learning how to think differently about ourselves according to the Word of God.

Let’s see what else the Devil has in store for us. Please turn in your Bible to the Book of 2 Timothy.

 

2 Timothy 2:26

And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.

Timothy tells us that some believers are caught in the snare of the devil. The word snare in Koine Greek means false teachings or the allurements to sin. These influences are used to seduce the believer so that they’ll comply with his will.

I think we’d all agree that the Devil isn’t like God the Holy Spirit in the sense of being everywhere present. He did meet with Jesus on three separate occasions. However, his reach is limited. Did you know that there’s another person he impacted without appearing to him physically? Please turn your Bible to the Book of John.

 

John 13:2

And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him;

Before the [Lord’s final] supper, not only the eating of it, but the preparing and dressing of it, and doing all things necessary previously to the eating of it¹⁶¹, the Devil had already cast into the mind of Judas some natural or depraved propensity¹⁶², i.e., the love of money as the catalyst to betray Jesus. This confirms that the Devil and presumably his army, the forces of evil, are aware of people’s weaknesses, and they inject relatively evil thoughts which inflames their passions or desires.

So, what’s our defense against the mental warfare of the evil one? Please go to the Book of Ephesians, and we’ll find out.

Ephesians 6:11 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

Our resistance is to clothe ourselves with the whole armour (full armor) of God. By analogy, the Roman soldier is in view, who takes up all the weapons of a heavy armed soldier: the shield, sword, lance, helmet, greaves, and breastplate.¹⁶³ In a spiritual sense, this refers to divine equipment, offensive and defensive, which we’re to take to ourselves all that God provides for living and for overcoming.¹⁶⁴  When we do this, we’ll be able to stand against (stand one’s ground; successfully resist) the wiles (that which influences covertly, invites us to pleasures that seem to be harmless, and leads us in indulgence until we have gone so far that we cannot retreat¹⁶⁵) of the devil. This question remains.

 

What specifically is the spiritual protection that we’re to cover ourselves with?

Please go forward in your Bibles to the Book of 1 Peter.

    

1 Peter 5:9

Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.

We’re to resist (oppose) the Devil by remaining stedfast (in rocklike firmness; solid like a foundation¹⁶⁶) in the faith (in your faith; a body of doctrine or beliefs which Christians adhere to¹⁶⁷). We can deduce that the whole armor of God that we’re to hide in are Scriptures or objective truths we think with in response to the mental onslaughts of the Devil. Which verses? Those that provide us with divine perspective as to the fleshly inclinations that the evil one tries to exploit us with. What this is conveying to us is that we have a part to play in our walk with God, i.e., learn the Word, memorize it, and apply it when evil thoughts, impure desires or polluting imaginations rear their ugly head.

We can never have enough spiritual weapons on hand to employ against the supernatural combatants. Here are a couple of more verses that you may want to appropriate in this regard.

2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down (put an end to) imaginations (reasonings that are opposed to the truths of God’s word), and every high thing (obstacle; mental elevation; a‎n exaggerated evaluation of what one is or of what one has done �" ‘conceit, pride, arrogance’¹⁶⁸; as something made high, and belongs to those regions of air where the powers of darkness ‘exalt themselves’ against Christ and us¹⁶⁹) that exalteth (lifts) itself against the knowledge (the gospel; one’s knowledge of God after salvation) of God, and bringing into captivity (under control) every thought (intent of the mind) to the obedience of Christ (to obey Christ in the way they think);                           

Ephesians 6:16 Above all, taking the shield (the protection) of faith (a present faith in the Lord Jesus for victory over sin and the hosts of the devil¹⁷⁰; living faith, a trust in the promises and the power of God¹⁷¹), wherewith ye shall be able to quench (extinguish) all the fiery darts (considerations darted into the mind¹⁷²; lies, blasphemous thoughts, hateful thoughts about others, doubts, and burning desires for sin¹⁷³) of the wicked.                               

Another area that we can learn how to become an overcomer is one that I’ve wrestled with throughout my walk with God. Let’s find out what this is all about.