How to Resist the Devil

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Wednesday, August 3. Believers are warned against underestimating the cutting traps of the devil. Let's learn how to identify and resist Satan's tactics in today's study of 1 Peter. Well, first of all, I want to talk to you about 1 Peter. I want to talk to you about 1 Peter. I want to talk to you about 1 Peter. I want to talk to you about 1 Peter. I want to talk to you about 1 Peter.

What does he do? He tries to destroy our testimony, render us absolutely useless before God. I'm simply saying that there is someone, his name is Satan, who is committed to destroying you at any cost. And he doesn't mind how long it takes, just as long as he gets you. I'll give you that as a warning, because if Satan can get you going down a track of disobedience, a track of temptation, he's not going to hurry you up too much, because if he does, he'll give you a warning.

But if he can just give you the idea, take your time, don't hurry, don't get too involved, don't go too far, don't do this, don't do that, he knows that ultimately, if you listen to him, he's going to get you one way or the other. So he's in no big hurry, but if you'll just remember, you have an enemy who is committed to destroying you. That's why God talked about putting on the whole armor of God. We talk about the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness. We talk about the shield of faith, the sword of the Spirit. We're talking about a warfare. And the truth is, we face it every day.

Some days, it is more pronounced in our life than in other times. And you see, one of the things, one of his ways of working, of course, his primary tool is deception. He sends through his demonic powers thoughts into your mind and mind about other people and get us to think, well, you know, I don't like him.

I don't like her. And so what does he do? He divides people among themselves. You know, most old time pictures of Satan was somebody with a long tail or big horns and dressed in red and all that. The Bible says he is like an angel of light.

He's not going to dress up like he is. And his demons are going to possess intelligent people with erroneous philosophies in multitudes of religions in order to deceive the multitudes, which is exactly what he's doing. If you look around, it looks like the devil's winning, but he's not.

The truth is, we've already won. But we need to remember that when we are facing him. So he says, notice, be of sober spirit.

Be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Now, one of the deceptive ways he operates is this. He will send thoughts into your mind and you say, why should I think a thing like that? Many of the things that come through your mind didn't originate with you.

They originate with the devil. Satan sends a sinful thought. And all of a sudden, the next thing we know, we're sort of imagining ourselves getting involved in that or going there or participating in that. The next thing we know, we're sort of identifying ourselves with that experience, whatever it might be. The next thing we know, there is a desire. And the next step we choose, we will to follow that impulse or that thought or that desire. The next thing you know, we've sinned.

That's the way he operates. Thought, imagination, identification, desire, will and sin. It didn't even start with you. It started with Satan's attempt to destroy you. Did you know that very avenue and that very approach is all Satan needs? When you and I allow the first sinful thought to remain, what we're doing is we are giving Satan a toehold at that very moment.

And I want to tell you, Satan isn't interested in toeholds. He's interested in your total captivity, but he's willing to begin with one thought. And all of us are thinking constantly.

We have to choose whether to allow some thoughts to remain and become a part of our emotion and our will or let them go right on by. And this is his deceptive way of doing things. Now, when he says in this passage, he says, here's the attitude you and I should have. He says, be of sober spirit. That is, don't don't play around with ideas about the devil. Don't joke about Satan. He says, be of sober spirit.

Don't be fuzzy minded about it. Be of sober spirit. Be on the alert. Be watchful.

Be careful. Now, listen, haven't you had times in your life where, listen, you could you knew the devil was after you could see it coming? He says, be watchful.

Be on the alert. Now, remember this while Satan is cunning and shrewd and deceptive and very successful. You remember, my friend, there is somebody on the inside of you who knows all about that character and his name is the Holy Spirit. And I want to tell you, Satan's never pulled any wool over his eyes and never tricked him the first time.

If you and I are willing to exercise our discerning spirit and if we're willing to allow the Holy Spirit who lives within us to do his work, we will become victorious. But if we have no discerning spirit and this is where many of God's people in trouble, they don't have any discerning spirit, walk right in the midst of one of Satan's traps and never even know he said it for him one time. Well, I can't imagine what happened and somebody else looking. So I'll tell you what happened.

You mean you walked right into the trap. You didn't understand what happened. That's why you and I need to develop a discerning spirit and we need to teach our children to have a discerning spirit. And you don't teach them that when they get to be 18 years of age. You teach them that just as early as they can begin to understand what it means to identify wrong.

That is wrong. Why did you feel what you felt? Tell me what you felt before you did that. You see, once you begin to teach a child of discerning spirit, they can pick up on that early in life and our best defense against the devil is a discerning spirit to be able to identify what is absolutely and unquestionably of the devil. And you see, once you have a discerning spirit, you can walk in a room and tell when something's not right.

I walked in some places and there's something wrong in this place. I mean, I can be in a group of Christians and know there's somebody's attitude that's all messed up in that room. God will give you discerning spirit because you have the Holy Spirit, but you must learn to develop a discerning spirit.

You can know when something's not right. You see, God has equipped us not to fall in the trap. If you will develop a discerning spirit and you only going to develop that by getting into the word of God, getting his principles and getting sensitive to your surroundings. Friend, more people have been down, fallen, crashed in their spiritual life because they had no sensitivity whatsoever with what was going around. He says, be watchful, be sober. Your adversary, like a roaring lion, is laying the trap, laying the snare, deceitful, cunning, waiting for you to let down your guard, not developing a discerning spirit, being able to detect what is of God and not of God. He says we're to be sober.

We're to be sensitive. Now, I want us to look at one single principle. I could give you a whole list of things. How to resist the devil. Read the Bible, pray. You know that doesn't work.

If it did, if just reading the Bible and praying helped you to resist the devil, some of you wouldn't be in the mess you're in already. There's a simple principle I learned. I got defeated a lot of times before I ever learned this principle. And I'm not saying tonight that I never get defeated.

I'm going to tell you I'm just as vulnerable as the next guy. But I want you to watch this principle. He says, be of sober spirit. Be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour, but resist him firm in your faith.

Now, here's what I want you to see. First of all, you're a child of God. You're in dwell of the Holy Spirit.

You're protected by God. But if you choose, any time you and I choose to sin against God, God may put pressure on us. He may chastise us.

Many things would happen. But if you and I choose to sin against him, then we suffer the consequences. But there's a connection here that I want you to see that I think a lot of folks may have missed. I want you to notice what goes before verse eight and nine.

We've already dealt with this. But let's go back to verse five. You younger men likewise be subject to your elders and all of you clothe yourselves with humility toward one another. For God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

Humbled yourselves. Therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you at the proper time. Now, we need to go back to James Chapter four for a moment. And let's look in verse six. James Chapter four, verse six. I personally believe if you can grasp the simple principle, you're going to start getting victory in your life over the devil that you've not had before. Now, look, verse six. But he gives a greater grace.

Therefore, it says God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Submit, therefore, to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. You cannot.

Here's what I want you to see. You cannot separate submission to the will of God. You cannot separate submission to the will of God and resisting the devil by faith.

You can't do it. Go back. Hold that. Let's go back over to verse nine.

First Peter five. But resist him firm in your faith. Now, James forces submit, therefore, to God. Resist the devil.

He will flee from you. How does submission and faith and resisting the devil. How does all that connect? This is the way. In essence, in essence, if I'm going to have victory over Satan, it is a matter of my exercising my faith.

That's the bottom line. Exercising my faith, my faith in what? First of all, faith in who I am in Christ. I am a begotten, born again, redeemed, sanctified, reconciled child of the living God. I am indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Christ Jesus to the Holy Spirit is living within me. He that is within me is greater than he that's in the world. It is, first of all, faith in who I am in Christ. Faith in what God says he will do for his children. So the bottom line is faith. Why is it that our faith sometimes does not work and sometimes it won't work?

Why doesn't it work? I'll tell you why. James said, submit, therefore, to God, resist the devil. He'll flee from you. He says, resist him in faith. But the truth is, if there is an area of my life that is not and has not been submitted to God, I'm going down in defeat. I don't care how much faith you've got, because what happens is it just cancels it out.

It's not going to work. Humble yourselves, therefore, to the mighty hand of God. Submit yourself to the will of God. Resist the devil. Resist him firmly in the faith. Submit, therefore, to God. Submission to God is an act of faith. And what I'm saying is, God, I submit this to you.

It may be painful. I mean, I want I submit in this area of my life because what I'm expressing by my submission is I'm expressing my trust in God that he knows what is better for me than I do. Any area that I hold out for myself, I'm saying, God, I believe this is best. What I'm doing is I'm expressing doubt. I'm expressing unbelief. So when he says in this passage, submit yourself, therefore, to God, resist the devil. He'll plead for me. That is an act of faith.

I submit. I submit because I believe what God says is true, that it is best for him to deal with this and for me to try to deal with it. And back to First Peter, when he says in this particular verse, resist him firm in your faith.

Listen, there's a comma there. Resist him firm in your faith. So I want to ask you a question. Has he been defeating you one time after the other? Is there an area you've not given to God? For now I've been defeated so many times, but all of a sudden it dawned on me, you can't separate. You can't separate those two, submission and faith, submission and resistance.

You can't separate the two. It is submission to the will of God that enables my faith to rise up, remembering who I am and who is living within me and that I do not have to yield to Satan no matter what he's doing. But you cannot separate submission from faith and submission from resistance. Now, you know what it all boils down to?

Is there some sin I like? Well, until I'm willing to pour it out and die to it, Satan has a toe hole, foot hole, strong hole, total hole until I'm willing to deal with the area that I've yet to submit to Almighty God. He said, resist him firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world.

Their brethren were going through difficulties and Satan was playing havoc with them. Now, the truth is, you've defeated Satan at times in your life. You've been victorious at times. This is why you ought to keep a diary, because you see, as you go through experiences in your life and you record them and you go through them again, you think, what did I do last time? You read that part, you say, oh, I failed that time. But then you go through the same experience and there's victory. You find out, now, what did I do that time?

How did I respond? Or if it is a continuous act of failure, I want to go back to ask you a question. Is there an area of your life that you've not laid down before God and told him, Lord, I yield? Which means you have to die to it. And death's never easy. God knows it's not.

And sometimes it's awfully painful. But you cannot separate resisting and believing from submitting. Thank you for listening to How to Resist the Devil. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.