Resist the Devil by Mario Digangi - Part 3

Of all we will never let anything displace the centrality of Jesus Christ in this church. So we have the statements in James and in Peter. Now there's several passages in 1st John.

1st John chapter 5 and verse 19. 1st John 5 19. We know that we are children of God and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.

And by world here he doesn't mean the planet on which we live, but by world he means that whole simple system of things which gets along without the authority of God. A lifestyle that ignores God, a lifestyle that disregards his warnings, a lifestyle that will not conform to the Father's will. That is the world.

At every level where God is disregarded you have an evidence of the control of the evil one. He defiles the world, he dominates the world, and ultimately will be the cause of the world's destruction. So 1st John 5 19 reminds us that we are in the world but we are not of the world.

We are children of God and we know that we are to be distinct from and separate from the world which is under the of the evil one. Continuing in 1st John turning back to chapter 3 and verse 8. He who does what is sinful is of the devil because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work.

Christ came into the world to nullify the work of the devil. He came to annihilate the devil and all his works. But whoever does what is sinful shows that he is a partisan under the command of the evil one.

For the devil is a sinner from the beginning and all who sin show that to that extent they are under the devil's influence. And the reason why the strong Son of God appeared upon this earth we seen was to destroy the devil's work. So there's a war going on and we either side with Christ who came to destroy the works of the devil or we side with the evil one and make ourselves enemies of the Son of God.

In other words, there simply is no room whatsoever for neutrality in this war. We either side with the devil and his works or we side with the strong Son of God who came to destroy the devil and his works. We make the work of Christ counterproductive when we give our allegiance and obedience to his enemy.

1 John 2, and here John gives us the secret not only of how to resist the evil one but how to overcome. 1 John 2 beginning at the middle of verse 13 and going on into verse 14. I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one.

I write to you, dear children, because you have known the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong.

And why are you strong? Because the word of God lives in you and you have overcome the evil one. Strength to overcome the evil one, and this goes beyond resisting and repelling, it means winning, comes about when the word of God lives in us. Remember that famous statement of the Psalms? Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee.

If what we hear goes in one ear and out the other, then when we are tempted we have nothing to draw on with which to resist and overcome. But if when we read the word of God or hear it read and expounded, we retain that word and it lives in us, then in the hour of need we can draw on it and we can cite it and we can resolve to stand by it and to believe what God has said and to obey what God commands, and so we resist the enemy and we actually end up winning. After all, John had a great precedent for this kind of exhortation.

It is found in the fourth chapter of Matthew, in a passage we all know, where Jesus is tempted by the evil one in the wilderness. And every time that Satan brings from the outside a suggestion to the mind of Jesus that he should not submit to God but take matters into his own hands, that he should do the sensational and spectacular rather than the superficial, rather than the spiritual and sacrificial, that whenever the devil comes to him with this external solicitation to sin, how does Jesus deal with it? He refers to the scripture that lives in his heart. It is written, it is written, it is written, and he takes the word of God and puts it in the devil's face and resists and wins.

Young men, that is, new converts to the faith, I write to you because you are strong, and what is it that makes you strong? It is the indwelling and livening word of God, and that enables you to resist and to overcome the evil one. It is extremely important that we, with the reading and the hearing of the word of God, should let it find lodging within us and live within us.