SATAN DOESN’T HAVE A CHANCE AGAINST JESUS
Ephesians 6:10-20 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.
This is one of Paul’s famous passages. While many sermons are preached about it and some may even memorize few people really take it to heart in their everyday life. I am not saying that this is some sort of magical formula that will eliminate problems from Satan, the powers of darkness and the evil of this world. Some people try to use it this way as they do other scripture, reading it when certain things come there way. God’s word was never meant to be used in this manner. Scripture was given by God to help us to know we can trust God to act in our life. In other words if the first thing we think of when trouble comes our way is to quote scripture, then we are trusting scripture instead of God. If we praise the verse instead of God, then we have allowed the scripture to be a magical incantation just as Satan has his people use his. Any time we trust in anything before the Lord, we have made it our God. Now you may say that this is nitpicky, but God and Satan don’t think so. Satan will even allow God’s word to bring results if it means that we will stop trusting in the Lord. It is ironic but true! We need the full armor of God if we are to be able to deal with life in general and not just with Satan, the powers of darkness and the evil in this world. Just to have part of it will leave ourselves vulnerable, and the powers of darkness are not stupid. They go for the weak areas in our life, just like a lion goes for the weakest of the animals they are stalking.
While we tend to see the person that sometimes daily gets under our skin as our problem, chances are they are being influenced by the powers of darkness to do what they do to get at us. The reason they do this is that if we are focused on dealing with the person we won’t deal with them. It is like putting a band aid on cancer. It may cover it up and is out of sight, but the problem is not taken care of. As Christians we need to remember that people are not our enemies, the powers of darkness are. This must be our first thought if we are to be set free of the problems and irritations we face. The powers of darkness will use our children, husbands, wives, friends and even TV pundits to try and get to us.
Our power over Satan, the powers of darkness and the evil this world comes in our authority given to us by Jesus. Matthew 16:19 says, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Jesus is saying to his church that all we have to do is use his backing or authority. Satan or the powers of darkness may not want to listen or obey us but they have no choice with Jesus. They have to obey him. We can come right out and tell them ourselves to leave us alone and to to the pit and never come out, or we can ask Jesus to make them do it. We can ask Jesus to send his angels to come protect, provide, help or whatever and he will do that as well. Jesus love us and wants to help us, but he will always respect our free will. If we want to deal with the powers of darkness on our own he will let us. The outcome will not be good for us, but he will let us. All we have to do is ask! But if we are not suspecting Satan and the powers of darkness as behind the problems in our life, well chances are we will not ask for his help or use the authority he has given us. We must remember that while we may not see the spiritual realm and all the activity that is going on, it doesn’t mean it is not active in our life. Hebrews 12:1 even reminds us that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. We constantly have righteous and unrighteous angels about us. This is why scripture reminds us that we must test the spirits and be spiritually discerning.
While the keys of the kingdom are important in dealing with the spiritual things in our life, so is having the full armor active in our life. If we are not a Christian then we have no chance of having victory in this life. Oh, we can make deals with Satan and the powers of darkness and they will leave us alone or even bless us, but we will go to hell for all eternity like them and have lost everything. We need to know God’s truth in order not to be deceived into believing lies. If the powers of darkness can get us to trust in a lie then they can manipulate us however they choose. God is not obligated to honor a lie. We need to be living in righteousness. If we allow sinfulness to be taking place in our life, we are giving Satan and the powers of darkness permission to come into our life and they will do as they choose and it is never good. We need to be willing to show faith by doing what we say we believe. We can know all the right things, but if we do not do them we can not benefit from them. And we need to be ready at all times to deal with the powers of darkness. We can not grow weary or doubt. We need to be in prayer or constant fellowship with the Holy Spirit so he can instruct us and help us to know what to do. While this may at first sound overwhelming, it is nothing that a little child can not do. It is a matter of trusting Jesus and obeying him. Jesus wants to help us, if we only ask.
Remember James 4:2 tells us that we have not because we ask not. II Chronicles 20:15 reminds us that the battle is not ours but the Lord’s. The Lord will not let us down, if we only trust him for help!
Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you for your backing for our lives. We rejoice that your have all power and authority. We also thank you that you love us so much. We love you Jesus! Please keep us close to your heart. We ask this in your name.
