Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1918 — Resisting the Devil [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Resisting the Devil

By REV. JAMES M.GRAY, D.D.

Dean of Moody Bible Institute, Chicago

o TEXT—Resist the Devil and he will flee !rom yju.—James 4:7. There are two spiritual kingdoms in existence, the kingdom of light and

the kingdom of darkness, and they are in continued, universal' and deadly antagonism. At the head of one is Christ and at the head of the other , Satan. The principal field of operations of these opposing king* doms is the human heaft. Satan cannot be everywhere a t once in his own per Son; but his

messengers are legion, which makes it practically true Of him that he is übiquitous, attacking us both by suggestions of evil within and solicitations to evij without. His agents are not only demons, but bad men and women, bad literature, bad amusements, bad habits, bad examples, and .when we are resisting these we are resisting him. (1) The best time to resist him is at the beginning of the temptation, when we are at our strongest and the temptation at its weakest point. For example, have we ever known a drunkard who one ail at once? Did not the deceitful habit creep over his faculties by slow degrees until at last it controlled him? How many latent passions are there in the human breast which never would see the light were it not for the apparently accidental circumstance that first made them known to us? This suggests the carefulness with which we should select the books we read as well as the society in which we mingle.

(2) The temptations of Satan will be felt most powerfully at our weakest point, and each one of us has that point which is a predilection towards some special sin or error. Gambling is an example of what 4s meant, since there is in almost every heart a desire to possess riches, and it requires only a slight bend in this current to turn the youthful mind away from honest labor and-healthful occupation. Some wise man has said, “The way the tide of man’s constitution runs, that way the wind of temptation blows.”

(3) The devil often tempts us where we least expect it, and where we think ourselves least liable to fail. Abraham’s name is a synonym for faith, and yet he fell through unbelief. Whenever we speak of patience we think of Job, and yet Job pursed his day.” Moses was meek above all the men which were on the earth, and yet his lack of meekness, as exhibited in striking the rock at Kadesh, prevented him from entering the promised land. (4) The devil can successfully be re- , stated only in the strength of God. That was the way David coped with Goliath when he said to Saul, "The Lord who delivered me out of the paw of the lion and out of the paw of the bear, he wifi also deliver me out of the hand of this uncircumcised Philistine.” He was not trusting in his physical strength, nor his personal courage, nor his great sklll in the use of the sling. AU these were brought into active exercise it is true, but yet he had learned to lean upon a power greater than his own and greater than which he opposed. This gives significance to the latter half of the text, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” We must do the resisting, but our victory over him is brought about by God. In other words, the reason the devil will flee from a man if he resists him is because he has been overcome once for all by the Son of God for all mankind. O, what hope and encouragement is in those words, “He will flee from you.” “Behold I give you power over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you,” said Jesus to his disciples in Luke 10:19. What a compass there is in this declaration! The tempted Christian is in the wilderness of despair and hears the roaring of the safanic lion. He is traveling on a lonely road and remembers that he has an adversary with murder in his heart. He is in the fires of a fierce conflict and the angel of the bottomless pit is stirring up the flames. “O, thou God of life and light,” he cries, “Is there no escape? Can I, not free myself of this? Shall my spiritual Use be threatened every moment with spiritual death ?” “No, is the answer of our Almighty God and eternal savior, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” Here is a /clear command and a precious promise! May he who in his own person overcame our enemy give us diligently to obey the one because we faithfully believe the other.

Many of our prayers are like letters which are insufficiently Addressed. They get lost in the dead letter office of heaven. There is not sufficient direction about them. —Donald Sage Mackay. Only as we are true to ourselves can we be true to our friends. God’s love must be perfect in us in order that we may love others perfectly.—E. V. H.