To enable us to resist evil we first have to establish what or who evil is.
In Nicky Gumbels video he says There is a close connection between good and God and between evil and the devil.
Behind the power of good lies Goodness himself. Directly or indirectly behind our own evil desires and the temptations of the world lies evil personified the devil.
Many westerners find belief in the devil more difficult than a belief in God. This may be partly because of a false image of what the devil is like. The image of God as a white bearded old man sitting on a cloud is absurd and incredible, so also is the image of a horned devil trudging through Dantes inferno. We are not dealing with an alien from outer space but with a real personal force of evil who is active in the world today.
Why should we believe in the existence of the devil?
First it is biblical, starting with the temptations in the Garden of Eden where the first sin was committed. Satan is not mentioned very often in the Old Testament and it is only when we come to the New Testament that the doctrine is developed more fully. Jesus clearly believed in the existence of Satan and was tempted by him. He frequently cast out demons, freeing people from the forces of evil and sin in their lives, and gave his disciples authority to do the same. In the rest of the New Testament there are many references to the work of the devil.
Any kind of theology which ignores the existence of a personal devil has a great deal to explain. Evil regimes, institutional torture and violence, mass murders, brutal rapes, large scale drug trafficking, terrorist atrocities, sexual and physical abuse of children, occult activity and Satanic rituals. Need I go on just read your paper or listen to the news.
What are the devils tactics?
The ultimate aim of Satan is to destroy every human being, he wants us to follow a path that leads to destruction, to that end he tries to prevent anyone coming to faith in Jesus Christ. Paul tells us The God of this age (the devil) has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is in the image of God.
So long as we are going along Satans path and our eyes are blinded, we will probably be almost totally unaware of his tactics. Once we start walking along the path that leads to life and our eyes are opened to the truth, we become aware that we are under attack.
The initial line of attack is often in the area of doubt. We see this in the opening chapters of Genesis where the enemy in the form of a serpent, says to Eve, Did God really say--? His opening move is to raise doubt in her mind. We see the same tactic in the temptation of Jesus. The devil comes to him and says If you are the Son of God.
He not only raises doubts but will twist any of Gods prohibitions to suit furthering his cause. His tactics have not changed he still ignores the permissions He ignores the fact that God has given us all things richly to enjoy. He ignores the riches of Christian marriages and families, the security of a Christian home, the level of friendship that we can enjoy as Christians, and countless other things which God offers to those who know and love him. He does not tell us about these things. Instead he concentrates on a tiny unimaginative list of prohibitions of what Christians are not allowed to do- reminding us again and again that we cant get drunk, swear or be promiscuous. There are relatively few things that God does not allow us to do and there are very good reasons why he prohibits them.
Finally he denies the penalty. He says, you will not surely die. He says in effect that it will not do you any harm to disobey God.
He suggests to us that God is really a spoilsport. That God does not want the best for our lives and that we will miss out if we dont disobey. In fact the opposite is the case, as Adam and Eve found out. It is the disobedience which causes us to miss out on so much of what God intended for us. Deep down we all feel ashamed and embarrassed by our sin. We dont want people to find us out.
Sir Arthur Conon Doyle once played a practical joke on twelve men. They were all very well- known, respected and respectable men, regarded as pillars of the establishment. He sent each of them a telegram, with the same message in each. Flee at once. All is discovered. Within twenty four hours, they had all fled the country.
Virtually all of us have something in our lives of which we are ashamed; something we would not want everyone to know about. How quickly we would want to leave the room if every action we had ever done was displayed on a screen, followed by a written list of every though we had ever entertained? Deep down we all feel ashamed and embarrassed by our sin. We see that Satan is a deceiver, a destroyer, a tempter and one who raises doubts. He is also an accuser. The Hebrew word for Satan means accuser or slanderer He accuses God before people. God gets the blame for everything,( why does God allow these things to happen). God he says is not to be trusted. Secondly he accuses Christians before God. He denies the power of the death of Jesus. He condemns us and makes us feel guilty not for any particular sin, but with a general and vague feeling of guilt.
What is our Position?
As Christians, God has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.
Before we were Christians, Paul says, we were in the dominion of darkness. Satan rules us and we were subject to sin, slavery, death and destruction. That is what the dominion of darkness is like.
Satan is a conquered foe on the cross Jesus disarmed the powers and authorities and made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. Satan and all his minions were defeated at the cross, and that is why Satan and his demons are so frightened of the name of Jesus. They know they are defeated.
Jesus has freed us from guilt, so we dont need to be condemned. He has set us free. He has broke the fear of death when he defeated death. With that, he set us free, potentially, from every fear. All these things guilt, addiction and fear belong to the kingdom of darkness. Jesus has transferred us to a new kingdom.
The cross was a great victory over Satan and his minions, and we now live in a time of the mopping up operations. Although the enemy is not yet destroyed and is still capable of inflicting casualties, he is disarmed, defeated and demoralized. This is our position and it is vital to realize the strength of the position we are in, due to the victory of Jesus on the cross for us.
How do we defend ourselves?
Since the war is not over and Satan is not yet destroyed, we need to make sure that our defences are in order. Paul tells us to put on the full armour of God so that you can take your stand against the devils schemes. He then mentions six pieces of equipment which we need. Sometimes it is said The secret of the Christian life is ----But there is no one secret we need all the armour.
First the belt of truth. It means getting the whole Christian truth ( or as much of it as one can) into ones system. We do this by reading the Bible, listening to sermons and talks, reading Christian books and listening to tapes. This will enable us to distinguish what is true and what is Satans lies, for Satan is a liar and the father of lies.
Second we need the breastplate of righteousness.
This is the righteousness that comes from God through what Jesus has done for us on the cross. It enables us to be in a relationship with God and to live a righteous life. The Apostle James says Resist the devil, and he will flee from you, come near to God and he will come near to you. We all fall from time to time, when we do we need to get up quickly. We do this by telling God how sorry we are for what we have done, he then promises to restore his friendship with us.
Thirdly we also need the boots of the gospel of peace I understand this to mean a readiness to speak about the gospel of Jesus Christ. If we are constantly seeking opportunities to pass on the good news, we have an effective defence against the enemy. It is hard , because we know that we are being watched to see if we live up to our faith. But it is a great incentive to do so.
The fourth piece of armour is the shield of faith. With this we can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. One aspect of faith has been defined as taking a promise of God and daring to believe it. Satan will throw his arrows of doubt to undermine us, but with the shield of faith we can resist him.
Fifthly, Paul tells us to take the helmet of salvation. There are three tenses of salvation. We have been saved from the penalty of sin. We are being saved from the power of sin. We shall be saved from the presence of sin. We need to grasp these great concepts in our mind to know them so that we can answer the enemys doubts and accusations.
Finally we take the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Jesus used the scriptures when Satan attacked. Each time Jesus replied with the word of God and in the end Satan had to leave. It is well worthwhile to learn verses from the Bible which we can use to see off the enemy and remind ourselves of the promises of God.
As we have already seen, Satan and his minions were defeated on the cross, and we are now involved in the final mopping up operations before the return of Jesus. As Christians we need not be afraid of Satan he has a great deal to fear from the activity of Christians. We are called to pray. We are involved in spiritual warfare, though the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary they have divine power to demolish strongholds. Prayer was a very high priority for Jesus and it should be for us. In the words of the Hymn Satan trembles when he sees the weakest Christian on his knees.
We are also called to action . Again in the life of Jesus, prayer and action go hand in hand, Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God,