This sermon emphasizes the importance of resisting the devil by submitting ourselves to God. It explores how the devil's tactics include intimidation, persecution, deception, and division from God. The key message is to resist the devil by drawing near to God, cleansing our hearts, and submitting to His authority, as highlighted in the letters of James and Peter.

And the French are well acquainted with the Diabolo and the English word devil. There are many demons according to scripture, but only one devil. Sometimes he is compared to a roaring lion, at other times to a slithering serpent, still other occasions to a fierce dragon, and then also as an angel of light. The devil's ways are multiple. He can intimidate, he can terrify through persecution, and he can also deceive and destroy. The main work of the devil is to divide us from God and God from us, and nevertheless we are called upon to resist the devil. In northern Italy, in the Alpine region, you had a very terrible situation during World War II. The German troops, retreating up the Italian peninsula with the Allied advance, destroyed bridges, burned buildings, exploded roadways and railways, carted off women for slave labor, lined up and killed men by way of reprisal, and yet the people of the area erected a memorial which said, you have ruined our roads, you have bombed our bridges, you have plundered our cattle, you have taken our women, you have destroyed our men, you have orphaned our children, there is only one more thing we can give you, and that is our continued resistance. You and I are called upon to resist the devil, and there are several passages of the New Testament where this exhortation is given to us with great clarity and force. The first of these is found in the letter of James, chapter 4. The fourth chapter of James, and this James, of course, is not the brother of John, or the son of Zebedee, this James is one of the brothers of our Lord. The evidence in the New Testament is that he was not a Christian during the days of our Lord's ministry, but became a Christian when his brother Jesus, risen from the dead, showed himself to be the true Messiah and the son of the living God. Now in James, chapter 4, verses 7 and 8, we have this exhortation. Submit yourselves then to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God, and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you devil-minded. The theme of resisting the devil is very plainly put by James, and he also tells us how we are to resist the devil. We resist the devil by submitting ourselves to God. Now this manner of submission is not very popular in our day, but it's certainly biblical, and we can't dismiss it as being Old Testament stuff because it occurs repeatedly in the pages of the New Testament. Romans 13, citizens, unless you want anarchy, submit yourselves to legitimate government for the powers that be are ordained of God to maintain justice and order in the community. You cannot have a civil order without submission to lawful governmental authority. Nor can you have a family without submission. Wives, submit to your husbands. Children, submit to parents. If the order is destroyed, there is anarchy and not the beauty of order and peace within the family. Again, believers are told to be submissive toward those who exercise authority governing the flock of God, the church of our Lord Jesus Christ. And here we are told that we are to submit to God. The one way of resisting the devil is to submit to God. There's a struggle here, and we cannot be neutral. We either submit to the devil and do his will, or submit to God and resist the devil. So what's called for is a humble submission to the authority of God, to put him first, to put his command as having absolute priority in our lives. To resist the devil, we must submit to God. Again, to resist the devil, we must approach God. We must come near to God, and we will find that he has come near to us. Those who are taken captive by the devil are those who drift away from God, or worse yet, who run away from God, because of a proud and disobedient streak that will not submit to the authority of the Lord. If we do not drift from God, if we do not desert God, if we do not become vulnerable by a stupidity that turns away from God, but rather approach the Lord and have fellowship with him, we will become strong to resist the enemy. So if we submit to God, if we bow to his authority, if we draw near to him and hold communion with him who draws near to us, if, using the stream of the grace of God, we cleanse our hands and we purify our hearts, we will be able to resist the devil. Now what we have in James is echoed by what we find in the first letter of Peter, 1 Peter 5, verses 8 and 9. 1 Peter, the fifth chapter, verses 8 and 9. 1 Peter, the fifth chapter, verses 8 and 9.