This blog is a bit different than what I usually write. Usually I’m considering ideas or thoughts having something to do with a recent or upcoming trip to Africa. Although I do leave again for Ethiopia in less than three weeks (yes, I was just there), my thoughts this week have come from an entirely different source. It also means that this post is going to be wordier than usual, because I’m writing for a specific purpose to a specific person, but I thought it might be worth sharing.

Several days ago, I was speaking with a Christian brother in the middle-east. He is an evangelist in a very difficult area, and he wanted to know my thoughts on resisting the devil. You see, he had just been to an area where people were supposedly proud to be Christians, and that there was not a mosque in the village. In talking though, it became more apparent to me that the people in the village were not so much proud that they were Christians as they were proud that they were not Muslims. They did not know the word of God, and many of them were living self-destructive lives. Many were trying to keep this fact hidden from the communities around them so as to not look bad.

Over the last few days, I’ve been praying and pondering on the subject of resisting the devil. I thought about all the methods mentioned in the Bible, and all the verses mentioned about resisting the devil. What I kept coming back to in my thoughts is this; You have to want to resist the devil before you can resist him.

Not resisting the devil is easy. All it requires is that you live the way you want to live, to consider yourself first, and that whatever you see as right in your own eyes, you do. It requires no humility, no accountability, and when all that causes problems in your life and the lives of those around you, you blame others.

What are the devil’s tactics? Well, on the obvious end, his intentions are to “steal, kill, and destroy”. John 10:10.

So why would anyone not resist that? If it was obvious that were the devil’s intentions, then everyone would resist. So his intentions must not be obvious, or people simply refuse to see it.

There is an interesting passage in Mark 3: 22-26. Jesus has been casting out demons, and learned men (the scribes) come against him, accusing him of casting out demons by the power of demons.

“And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebub,” and, “By the ruler of the demons He casts out demons.”   So He called them to Himself and said to them in parables: “How can Satan cast out Satan?  If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.  And if a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.  And if Satan has risen up against himself, and is divided, he cannot stand, but has an end.”

So why would such supposedly learned men suggest something so seemingly preposterous? It’s because there is some precedent to the claim. You see, the devil has no kingdom of his own, and no creative power. He has only the power to usurp the Kingdom of God for his own purposes. If we carry “steal, kill, and destroy” to its final end, we have not only the complete destruction of God’s kingdom, we have, by transitive property, the destruction of Satan’s kingdom as well. The solution to this is a periodical reduction in the destruction the devil brings in order to put things into balance again, hence extending the reign of the devil as the prince of this world.

There is a fine line in this. If there is too much destruction, people begin to wake up and resist the devil. Take what is happening right now in Iraq and Syria. There is cruelty, destruction, and killing the likes of which the world has not seen in a long time. As a consequence, despite the threat of death, multitudes of people from those cultures are coming to Christ. This will ultimately be a massive failure for the devil, because by carrying things too far, he has undercut himself.

Being a parasite on the Kingdom of God is a precarious place to be, because there is not a winning position. If you do too much, people begin to resist you. Do too little, and the world begins to revert back to the way it was when God created it. That fine line in the middle is where the devil would like to be. Cause just enough strife that man takes it for granted. When he gets used to that, cause a little more, and so on. It’s amazing how much evil men will tolerate if it’s brought on slowly enough. It’s the tipping point that’s hard to gauge. The objective is to keep man in a place where he will not resist, because when he resists, it’s over. James 4 is very clear.

“Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?  You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.  You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.  Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.  Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?

 But He gives more grace. Therefore He says:

 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.  Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.  Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.”

It doesn’t say, “resist the devil and he might flee from you.” It says, “resist the devil and he WILL flee from you.” If we do not resist the devil, it is because we have made an agreement with him that things are fine the way they are. Essentially, I won’t resist you so long as things are relatively easy and I can put myself first. It starts with an agreement, and agreements with the devil are never a good idea. (See the post called The Hyena Gate.) I’ve heard the phrase so many times, “I chose the lesser of two evils.” Choosing the lesser of two evils, over time, always leads to choices becoming more and more evil. And so the cycle repeats itself, where Satan must cast himself out again to bring order to his usurped kingdom, and therefore extend his reign.

So what would it look like if we stopped making these agreements?  If we put ease, and convenience, and most of all Self aside and started resisting the devil? What would it look like if the Church resisted the devil? What would it look like if we woke up each morning and prayed, “Lord, not I, but you?” What would it look like if we stopped constantly trying to lift ourselves up and let God do it instead?  I’ll just finish by allowing us all to ponder those thoughts, and I will be thinking about them as well.