Stand Up, Resist, Overcome!

I meet many Christian people who will do anything to evade this question about the devil. They believe that he exists. They admit that he is busy. But when I suggest that they withstand him—to say something like, “I now resist the devil and his attempt to get me to do this or that”—they object. “Oh, no,” they reply, “I just leave it to the Lord. I am too weak and frail to tackle the devil. He is too strong for me.”

But it is God who tells us to resist Satan, though not in our own strength. He says, “Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.”* (Ephesians 6:10) “Stand up, draw the sword, resist, withstand, overcome!”

Read where you like in the record of Scripture, and you will always find the endued man of God as the instrument of challenge to the devil—registering the victory of the cross over him.

This is no isolated work reserved for certain outstanding characters only. It is to be the common lot of every believer born from above. Each one of God’s children lives his earthly span in a world where at every step he is challenged and opposed by wicked spirits under Satan’s leadership.