Resist the Enemy – Part 1

24 Oct Resist the Enemy – Part 1

Moving from Checkers to Chess

Five Steps to Unleashing the Power of an Eternal Perspective

Currently in our series on five steps to unleashing the power of an eternal perspective, we’re looking at the final issue involved in Step 4: You Must Fight the Invisible.

So far we’ve seen that we must

• Be alert to spiritual warfare, accepting the reality of it and embracing that reality as the organizing perspective in life rather than the American Dream…
•  Put on the spiritual armor and are trusting in God’s power to protect us… next, we must
• Resist the enemy

Today we’ll look at Part 1 of resisting the enemy, our need to:
Be shrewd in detecting spiritual deception and intimidation.

 There are three different passages in Scripture in which we are told what our responsibility is in spiritual warfare, and all three passages say we are to resist!

• “Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm” (Ephesians 6:13).
• “Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).
• “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith…” (1 Peter 5:8-9).

As we cultivate a mindset of resistance to the enemy in spiritual warfare, we must be shrewd in detecting spiritual warfare, to decrease our vulnerability to his “wiles”

1. Cultivate shrewdness by championing truth

Jesus said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). To the degree that we do not know the truth, we are vulnerable to ignorance and deception. So, we must be responsible in the pursuit of truth and our readiness to believe it… and believing it, obey it.

We must believe, we must embrace, we must “own” the essentials of an eternal perspective, or Satan will use our ignorance to deceive and defeat us.

We must refuse to quit on God. We must refuse to believe the enemy’s lies about Him. We must refuse to succumb to a temporal perspective.

We must embrace the first part of an eternal perspective:

• We must believe God exists, in spite of the absence of proof, because in the heat of spiritual battle, there can be times we will be tempted to believe that God doesn’t exist.
• We must believe God is good, in spite of rampant evil in the world, because in the heat of spiritual battle, there can be times we will be tempted to believe that He is not all good.
• We must believe that God loves us, in spite of the trouble in our life, because in the heat of spiritual battle, there can be times we will be tempted to believe that He does not love us.

Then… we must embrace the second part of an eternal perspective:

• We must choose God over happiness, because in the heat of spiritual battle, there will be times we can be tempted to believe that we must choose self over God to be happy.
• We must choose others over self, because in the heat of spiritual battle, there will be times we can be tempted to believe that we must choose self over others to be happy.
• We must choose the eventual over the immediate, because in the heat of spiritual battle, there can be times we will be tempted to believe that we have to have something now to be happy.

“”Knowing” these truths will set us free.

2. Cultivate shrewdness by rejecting pride 

Pride is the fundamental flaw of Satan. He wanted to be his own authority, his own boss, the god of his own life. He wanted to be like God (Isaiah 14:7)!

And pride is the fundamental strategy he uses against us – to tempt us to become our own authority, our own boss, the god of our own lives.

So, “Pride,” as C. S. Lewis is reported to have said, “is the mother hen under which all other sins are hatched.”

We see how Satan uses pride to devastating and destructive ends in two passages of Scripture. James 3:14-16 tells us that if we operate out of “selfish ambition (pride),” it will produce wisdom that is “earthly, natural and demonic.” Demonic?!?  Yes, pride makes a person susceptible to demonic influence, producing “wisdom” that creates “disorder and every evil thing.”

We see an example of this in 2 Timothy 2:25-26, which tells us that we should deal gently with those who oppose the truth “if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.”

Working this passage backwards, it tells us that Christians can be held captive by the devil to do his will, because they have not come to a knowledge of the truth, because they have not repented.

It doesn’t tell us what they have not repented of, but it would include pride, which we already saw is the underlying sin of all sins. So, if a person is self-willed (James 3:16), and does not repent, it will keep him from coming to a knowledge of the truth, which makes him susceptible to being held captive by the devil to do his will. That person can exercise wisdom that is earthly, natural and demonic, resulting in disorder and every evil thing.

Pride is a devastating and self-destructive characteristic that we must be alert to in our own lives, as well as the lives of others – particularly spiritual leaders.

3. Cultivate shrewdness by governing your mind 

• Maintain a clear conscience: Ephesians 4:26-27 instructs us not to let the sun go down on our anger because it gives the devil an opportunity. This would seem to apply to any similar sin. We are to repent/confess quickly. Otherwise, it gives the enemy an advantage in our lives.
• Resist temptation: 1 John 2:15-17 instructs us to resist the lure of the world, flesh and devil.
• Control sinful thoughts: 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 tells us that the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but are divinely powerful, and that we are to destroy speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and that we are to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.
• Quote Scripture: In Luke 4 and Matthew 4, we see Jesus resisting the devil by quoting Scripture to meet his every temptation.
• Pray: In Ephesians 6:18, after Paul lists the spiritual armor and instructs us to put it on, he ends by calling us to prayer: “Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers…” In addition, we see Jesus modeling this principle in the Garden of Gethsemane when He was praying before His arrest. He urged His disciples also to “pray that you may not come into temptation”(Matthew 26:41).

Conclusion

As we are alert to the devil’s tactics in our lives – Dirty Tricks, Mind Games and Hand to Hand Combat – and as we use the three biblical defenses to counter the enemy – Be Alert, Put on the Armor and Resist – we can be victorious in our battles in spiritual warfare.

Next week, we’ll look at tactical strategies on how we can resist taking Satan’s bait in the heat of battle. I look forward to seeing you then.

Get a Moving from Checkers to Chess At-a-Glance-Overview: Click Here

As we have been studying these concepts for quite some time (including in some prior blog series), and I am excited to now be connecting all the “moving parts” from those posts and combining them into a “spiritual game plan” in this “Moving from Checkers to Chess ~ 5 Steps to Unleashing the Power of an Eternal Perspective” series.

For an overview of the game plan, so you can see at a glance where we begin and where we’re headed, I’ve created an overview/outline you can download for free: Click Here

For the full discussion of each of the steps, begin with the first post in this series, Moving from Checkers to Chess, and then continue with the following posts thereafter.

In case you’re new here, below are two resources I’ve created for additional help in your Christian discipleship journey:

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