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Overcoming Satan James 4: 4 – 10 |
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AS WE conclude this series on overcoming, let’s look at overcoming Satan. It’s a difficult topic, because our society has little room for the idea of spiritual evil. The main discussion of spiritual evil in our culture comes not from Western sources, but from Eastern. In the West, we have nearly forgotten the spiritual realm. The East can teach us to recognise that there are evil spiritual forces as well as good. But the East has no answers for how to deal with that fact. As I said a couple of weeks ago, the Eastern solution is to blast power with greater power. And when we become wolves, we lose the shepherd’s protection! It is Jesus who transforms the entire situation. Without him, God seems rather harsh and distant, and it seems logical to do everything we can to grind evil into the dust. This only changes when we recognise that Jesus is God come in human form, and the human dimension always has to be remembered. While rage isn’t always demonic, as I said on our Anniversary, that is one indicator of the level of demonic activity in the world. Rage comes from a wounded heart. Victims of rage often become perpetrators of rage. It is what happens when Satan uses human feelings and desires which is the issue. Here are two situations. Vic is really angry with Les, purple in the face, ready to break bones. But, instead, Vic walks away and kicks a ball in the back yard. The rage is real, but the blast is responsibly discharged. Here’s another case. Jack is enraged with Nick, because Nick has power that Jack wants. Jack is inwardly seething, but says nothing. Behind Nick’s back, Jack tells everyone how dreadful Nick is, but in very kind way. "Poor Nick! What a dreadful family background to have. No one would have good relationships, with that background... It’s no wonder Nick has marriage problems and opposes evangelism.” It doesn’t matter what the accusation is. What I’m talking about is a destructive and undermining way of attacking a person. The first is rage handled fairly responsibly; the second is rage handled destructively. But sometimes you would only know that Vic is enraged, you wouldn’t see it in Jack. During the week, John Bautista sent me a story — some of you probably received it as well — from a chap who had been in a taxi in Zimbabwe. They were cut off by another driver who suddenly pulled out from the kerb, and the taxi driver only narrowly avoided a collision. The other driver swore at the taxi driver, who responded with a cheery wave and a smile. The passenger asked the driver how he could respond so calmly. The driver replied, “Many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it. And if you let them, they’ll dump it on you. When someone wants to dump on you, don’t take it personal. You just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. You’ll be happy you did. I guarantee it.” We all carry some garbage around with us, and the more we have, the more we feel the need to dump some of it. When youo consider that our three enemies are the world, the flesh and the devil, that garbage thing belongs to the Flesh. It comes out of our human wants and desires, which were created for good purposes, but are often misused. Where the devil comes in is how those human elements get taken over to hinder God’s work or destroy human personality. Today, we’ll just look at three areas: 1. Opposition to God’s work
1. Opposition to God’s work Satan’s main aim is always to stop God’s Kindom from advancing or expanding. Two ethnic pastors were talking. One said, ”When you share a building with an Anglo church, you will always be tempted to take over. Their members are older, with less effective outreach, and you will think that you could use their buildings and resources better than they do.” He paused to let the other man take it in. Then he continued, “This impulse is always demonic, and you have to resist it.” Whenever I see one a situation developing where God’s Spirit is specially active, I keep my eyes open for disruption, because Satan can’t stand to see God getting the glory, and does everything he can to stop it. He has to break that moment. At a Christian conference, a real move of God was starting. We had a break for announcements, and a visiting pastor got up to advertise a project he planned. His whole presentation was so full of self that it cut across everything that had happened all morning. He copied the style of the conference speakers, but he didn’t have their spirit. A few people remarked afterwards, “He’s demonised!” Everything was flat after he spoke. Another way that Satan opposes God’s work is to hinder Mission. Sometimes the hindrances may even come from within a mission group itself. You’ll detect an undercurrent when mission is discussed, people find fault with the proposals, but offering no alternatives, or they propose a different option which looks good, but is not mission oriented. People might be afraid or angry or whatever, but Satan uses those feelings to oppose God’s work. There was a chance for one church to reach out in a nearby suburb. The leaders began working out the plans, and conflict broke out over the existing buildings. In the end, some leaders were sure the hall should be rebuilt just in case we started to grow, while a few still talked about outreach. So the idea of outreach got shelved while we argued about where the new doors should be. Remember: if it stands in the way of the Kingdom, it is demonic! In one church one member undermined every pastor who came and just about anyone who looked keen to do something about outreach. Another one had to get in first, and grab the glory. It happens in many churches. And there are always outside opponents. In the book of Acts, you see how often Paul had opposition. We recently read about the riot in Ephesus, where the rioters chanted praise to their godess for two solid hours before the Town Clerk could restore order. You’ve tried outreach, and have met opposition, you know how hard it is to handle People like John Wesley were pelted with stones, eggs and manure for preaching God’s love. They showed the way: you get up and go on. That’s resisting the devil!
2. Opposition to joy and celebration. If Satan can’t stop God’s work directly, he will do it indirectly, particularly through breaking our joy and our celebration. He generally starts with breaking fellowship with God. That’s why the Bible emphasises over and over that we need to return to our first love, that we need to ensure that we don’t grieve the Holy Spirit or quench his fire. Think about how easily we neglect prayer or Bible reading. I want to suggest that when that happens, it generally is a symptom of something deeper. Just like you don’t want to talk to someone you are angry with, the same happens with our relationship with God. When Paul says, Be angry, but don’t sin, he isn’t just saying don’t be angry with other people, but it also applies to anger with God. When we let that fester, it breaks down our relationship with him. Things like grief and disappointment often have a component of anger with God. And we can’t celebrate a God whom we are angry with. If he can’t do it with breaking down our relationship with God, he will do it by breaking fellowship in the Body. Paul reminds the Corinthians that 1COR 12:12 The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. We belong together. And, when fellowship is broken, we can’t celebrate together. When John reminds us that 1 JOHN 4:8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. he is reminding us that our relationships with each other are as much a condition for our relationship with God as it is the other way around. You often see the outcome of these two in an opposition to joy and celebration. People whose relationship with God and with their closest Christian community is damaged are people who can’t celebrate and whose joy is lost. I went to a Baptist church not far from here once, and it was the second deadest congregation I have ever visited. They sang the songs, they went through the motions, but there was no celebration of God, no joy in what they did. And they didn’t want change, because they were stuck somehow. It was a dying church and has pretty–well disappeared. Satan knows that those who rejoice in God and celebrate him will want to do his will.
3. Breakdown of relationship If Satan can’t get us with direct breakdown of relationships at the core of our lives, if he can’t directly separate us from God and our fellow–believers, he will attack more generally. In particular, he will attack us at the level of our tight, covenant relationships, our general relationships in society and even commercial relationships. Most people have some kind of covenant relationships outside their relationship with God and with their Christian community. You can think of marriage, or relationships between brothers and sisters or parents and children. These relationships come under stress, and a break in them is enormously stressful. I knew a pastor whose marriage broke down and he lost his wife, his kids, his home, his position, his income. He was virtually homeless. He just couldn’t focus on anything but this explosion in his life. God’s work takes a very low position. But even in the more general social relationships of life, if satan can make it break down, it will hinder God’s work. Have you ever seen how bad blood between two people in a workplace or at school or any other place will be noticed, and will do damage? People talk and a Christian who has a bad relationship with someone. even if it is just a bad business relationship or failure to pay your debts — eventually it gets out and blackens your character. They say that, when the Quakers first began in England, everyone hated them for their teachings, but everyone wanted to do business with them because they were straight dealers. People trusted them. And, of course, that was partly how their beliefs spread. People always shopped in the Quaker’s shop and always called in the Quaker tradesman, and saw what a difference it made when people sat down under Christ, their teacher, and learnt from him, to use a common Quaker expression. The Bible tells us to ...provide things honest before all people. Summary and conclusions We have seen a range of ways that satan tries to attack us. There are many other ways, of course. James gives us a way ahead. JAS 4:7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. This may seem a long way from overcoming by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony, to use the exopression from Revelation which we have focused on this month. It isn’t really. When James talks about resisting the devil, he tells us to do several things:
All three have to do with the blood of the lamb. The first way of overcoming satan is through the sacrifice of Jesus. When Jesus died on the cross, he submitted himself entirely to God. PHILIPPIANS 2:8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself Submission to God is always through the cross. Just as Jesus gave himself entirely to God for us on the cross, he calls us to give ourselves entirely to God through his sacrifice for us on the cross. Then again, we have to wash our hands and purify our hearts. As the Psalmist says, PS 24:3 Who may ascend the hill of the LORD? And we are washed and cleansed — how? Through the blood of Jesus, our sacrificial lamb. We read in Hebrews 9: 14 How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! The blood of Jesus goes on cleansing us — as long as we are repentant people, that is, people who grieve, mourn and wail over our sins and our need for God’s forgiveness and a fresh infilling of his Spirit. Finally, when we speak a clear word of testimony, when we declare our experience of Jesus to ourselves and to others, we directly resist satan, because his greatest aim is to keep us from declaring Jesus. I said I wasn’t going to testify but Satan is out to keep God’s work from succeeding: resist him, and he will run! Let’s defeat him in Jesus’ name! AMEN
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© Peter R. Green 2007. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.) |
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