We are going to look at a wonderful blessing the Lord has given us today that you might again not think this would be necessarily a blessing or a privilege. It is a privilege of not being under the control of the devil. Satan no longer need control us or be in charge of our lives. We can have power and victory over Satan himself. We begin with 1 Peter 5:8 which says, “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith.” We know first from this passage that the devil wants to trip us up and destroy us. I think he is more interested in destroying the believer than the unbeliever because, after all, he already has the unbeliever in his camp, and he is already taking that unbeliever in the direction of hell. He wants to keep the unbeliever from seeing the greatness of the Lord. 2 Corinthians 4 tells us that he blinds the eyes of the unbeliever that they might not see the glory of Jesus Christ. So, he is actively involved in that. For the believer he is going about seeking someone to devour. He wants to trip up the Christian and destroy their lives. He wants to keep them from being fruitful and effective for the Lord. Peter says that we are to resist him. How do we fight the devil? We are to resist him.
Another passage gives us a little more on that in James 4:7 which says, “Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” There he goes a little further. Peter tells us to resist the devil and that is a good thing, but now James says that if you do so he will flee from you. How do we combat the power of the devil? We do so by resisting him in such a way that he basically gives up and he flees. He cannot stand before you and therefore he runs from you. So, the Scripture never talks to us in the epistles and New Testament church about doing some kind of demonic warfare, it tells us to resist the devil and he will flee from you. That is the power the Lord gives you as the Holy Spirit is within you, as He strengthens you . . .
