Theme: Satan is a Real
Threat, but He has been Neutralized
1) Daily protection comes
through humility
2) Eternal Freedom comes
through God’s grace
James 4:7-10 Submit
yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you
sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and
weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble
yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
It’s hard to believe that
October is already upon us. This time of year is well known for cooler
temperatures, shorter days, and changing of the scenery through cloudiness and
tree colors. However, October is best known for its final day, Halloween.
Halloween is a beloved holiday in our country for many reasons. It’s a time for
trick-or-treating, apple cider, hay rides, and other fall celebrations. But
it’s most well-known for dressing up in costumes. Halloween has always had a
scary side to it that involves many things that make our hair stand on end. But
ultimately, despite how scared we get, we know that it is all make believe.
None of the goblins or ghouls of Halloween actually pose a threat to us.
There are certainly many
exciting things about Halloween and a lot of fun can be had at this time of
year. But with that comes a warning. Sometimes, the playful side of Halloween
can cheapen real dangers that do exist in life. One way this often happens is
in our perception of Satan, the greatest enemy to our faith. It’s not uncommon
to see Satan depicted in various ways throughout the Halloween season. In fact,
he’s probably one of the most popular characters to dress up as. We often see
Satan as a little horned figure with a tail and pitchfork. Sometimes he’s also
depicted as a dirty angel on your shoulder, always trying to get you to relax
and have fun.
These pictures are harmless
in and of themselves, but if they cause us to loosen the reality of the danger
that Satan poses they can be harmful. Pretty soon we begin to think that Satan
is just a fictitious being, like so many others do. God is clear in a number of
places in His Word that Satan, and all demons, are indeed real and dangerous.
Satan is called a raging lion who seeks to devour you (1 Peter 5:8). We’re told
at the very beginning how it was Satan who first tempted Adam and Eve to bring
sin into the world. That’s certainly a reality that we have to deal with today,
sin is not make believe. Jesus called Satan the “father of lies.” Paul
instructed the Ephesians to use God’s Armor to withstand the attacks of Satan.
There was no point to this if Satan doesn’t exist. Even Jesus was tempted directly
by Satan, which means that our great foe is just as real as our one and only
Savior.
And here in our verses for
today James reminds us that the devil, Satan, is the one who is in direct
opposition to God. The first thing we need to realize about Satan is that he is
real and is a great threat to our lives, but we also know that he has been
neutralized by Jesus. The last chapter of Romans records the victory that
Christ achieved for us over Satan, by hearkening back to the very first promise
of a Savior given directly to Satan: The
God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ be with you (Romans 16:20).
We await complete and total
victory over Satan while here on this earth. And though no one can take this
promise from us, we can lose it on our own. This is the threat that remains.
Not that God can somehow be overpowered by Satan but that we could be deceived
and lose the precious inheritance that Jesus has won for us. Think of it this
way. The battle for our souls is complete. Jesus won the war when He declared
from the cross, “It is finished.” Satan can do no more with Christ in the
picture. Satan is condemned to hell. The threat today for us is that we would
lose our way on the path to God’s kingdom in heaven. Though Satan is conquered,
he still works through the lies and trickery of sin to distort the only way to
eternal life through Jesus. Satan can no longer fight, but he can cloud and
conceal the truth.
This is the new battle we
find ourselves in as we near the end of this world, and it’s the same battle
that Christians from the time of Christ have been entrenched in. We see the
forceful message that James gave to his fellow Christians who were engaged in
this conflict. The seriousness and reality of this threat from the devil is
emphasized by the Holy Spirit’s employment of 10 commands in these 4 verses. At
first glance these commands make it feel as if we need to do these things on
our own in order to conquer the devil in our lives. But that would contradict
what Christ has already freely done in our stead.
Rather than shovel more
responsibility on our plate, these imperatives stress the urgency of taking
this threat seriously. Whenever the danger of Satan is minimized, and it is
greatly minimized in our modern world, the great need we have for deliverance
from God is made shallow as well. To help in understanding this, James points
out two important things we can focus on. The first is the daily protection
that God offers to the humble.
Part 1
Discrediting the seriousness
of Satan’s ploys is a result of spiritual arrogance. Therefore, James implores
his fellow Christians to stay humble in their faith. He begins by exhorting
them to submit to God. Submitting to God means that we acknowledge Him as the authority
in our lives. It’s a concept that involves both self-denial and hope.
Self-denial because we yield all things to God and confess that we are not the
end all, be all of life. But hope because a humble and repentant heart trusts
in God’s saving merits and grace. No matter which side of it you look at,
humility is a good thing for your life.
But how many of you enjoy
being made humble? I know I don’t. It’s not easy to be told you’re wrong or
you’ve failed. It’s equally frustrating to know that you haven’t measured up to
God’s expectations, and even that you can’t on your own. Because of these
reasons, and others like them, humility is becoming rarer and rarer in our
world. Yet, when it comes to your life with God, you can’t be with Him without
humility. And furthermore, to submit to God means learning the painful lessons
of humility day after day.
Another aspect of humility
and submission comes forth when James speaks of being sorrowful. Sorrow seems
like a strange thing to look at as a quality, especially since we have hope in
Christ. But James is not pointing to the end of our faith, but rather combating
sinful pride that we encounter along the way. At times, there are so many
things going on in life that we forget why we are here. This is especially true
for us as Americans, since we are told daily that we have a God-given right to
happiness. God certainly created the world for our benefit and He wants us to
have a happy and fulfilling life. The problem is not with happiness or with
God, it’s that we often change the meaning of happiness. God does not give us
the right to pursue whatever we want under the context of happiness. There are
indeed many things present in the world that are attached to a worldly view of
happiness but only involve sin. James makes the point that submission to God
means showing sorrow over things that are sinful, even though they may bring
happiness to our sinful flesh.
True, Godly sorrow over sin
is absolutely necessary to guard against Satan’s deceptions, because he will
try to deceive you into thinking that sin is harmless happiness. The fact that
many people believe that pursuit of worldly happiness is a God-given right is
further proof of how devious Satan’s temptations can be. Even as he did before
Jesus in the wilderness, Satan will stop at nothing, even twisting our
understanding of God and His Word, to lead us into sin. And the first step on
that path is keeping us from submitting to God in humility, and all too often
Satan accomplishes this by making it look as if sin is simply happiness.
Part 2
Humility is certainly needed
to help in the everyday struggle against Satan’s ploys. But something even
greater was needed to ultimately destroy his works and to promise us future
glory with God. That something is the grace of Jesus Christ. This grace comes
in view through the commands to “cleanse” and “purify.” Again, these actions do
not point at our works, but that we would cleanse and purify ourselves through
Christ’s atonement on the cross. This cleansing and purification is the
forgiveness that takes away our sins. It is the same hope that was expressed by
David concerning his sins of lust, adultery, and murder, as we read in Psalm
51: “Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Wash me from my sin and cleanse me from
my iniquity.”
In his first letter John
wrote at length about this connection. See
what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children
of God; and so we are. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as
he (God) is pure. 7 Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices
righteousness is righteous, as he (God) is righteous. 8 Whoever makes a
practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the
beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the
devil. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the
children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God,
nor is the one who does not love his brother (1 John 3:1,3,7,10)
Cleansing and purification of
sins come only through Jesus because only Jesus has destroyed the devil’s
works. Yes, Satan is real. His hold on your life was real. The need to destroy
him was real. So real, in fact, that God’s own Son had to come down to earth
and do it for all of us. Our desire to pursue this cleansing and purification
is only evidence of what Christ has already done. We draw near to God by
staying as close to Him as we can, not by working to achieve His favor. Many
ask, well, where is God that I may stay close to Him? “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word
was God.” God is in His Word. God is the Word. When you stay close to the
Word, you are close to God, the conqueror and victor over Satan. In the Word,
Satan can’t get close to you. In the Word, you are safe.
Doesn’t sound like a
dangerous threat from that perspective, does it? But the problem is, Satan can
reach you in everything else. His deceptions and ploys are abundant in all
areas of this sinful world. Hi twisted fingers can grab you through money,
possessions, education, politics, your occupation and hobbies, and even your
own heart. We forget this all too often. We are so quick to think of Satan only
in the evil things of the world, only in those things that we can clearly see
as sins. But he can get through to you with his lies and deceit in every area
of life, because every area of life has been corrupted by sin. Satan often will
reach out to you in something that seems innocent. He will often use those
things that God created to be blessings but have been corrupted by sin. Things
like: your family and friends, your marriage, your food and drink, your time,
your bank account, and your freedom. We already mentioned one big one in
happiness. These are all blessings from God, yet corrupted by sin and able to
be used by Satan to deceive you.
The devil can even use your
most precious resource and your only safe-haven, the Word of God, when it’s
meaning and contents are twisted. Think of Christ’s temptation in the
wilderness. What did Satan use to tempt Him? Fame, wealth, and kingdoms. But
also the very words of God when he deceptively misquoted Psalm 91. Satan can do
all these things because his objective is simple. He only has to get you to
forsake Christ. There are plenty of ways to do that. Satan has no strict dogma
or well-defined theology that he needs to abide by. He is loyal to all
religions except Christianity, and even in many cases he finds a way to distort
that. There is nothing specific that Satan has to get you to believe. It
doesn’t matter to him, just as long as whatever you believe denies salvation
through Jesus Christ.
And therefore, Satan can use
just about anything, even the many blessings in God’s creation. The message for
you today is to use what God has given you as a defense. The threat is
absolutely real, Satan is no fairy tale. An attitude of humility will keep you
close to God by repenting of your sins and looking alone to forgiveness in
Christ. Christian humility will also keep you where you belong, as God’s
obedient servant, instead of falling into the fatal sin of denial through
arrogance and pride.
But, in the end, even
humility has its limit. Even Satan has a found ways to turn well-intentioned
humility into a human service that forgets about Jesus. That’s where the gift
of grace comes in. Even though Satan can just about throw anything at you to
lead you astray, God only needs one thing to keep you with Him – His love for
you even though you’re an underserving sinner.
Don’t be a double-minded
Christian who tries to look good on the outside but is happy to follow Satan’s
schemes in every other area of life. Be aware. The danger is real. The threat
has eternal implications. But you have victory today! The only thing that can keep
you from God is yourself and how much of a foothold you allow Satan to gain in
your life. There is only one way to God and one way to be with God for
eternity. Humility helps us for a while, but grace alone is what unlocks heaven
to us. Grace in Jesus is what makes us untouchable to Satan. It’s what protects
us at all times, because grace is also what chained Satan to hell. The victory
message is that we are cleansed and purified in the blood of Jesus Christ, shed
for us on the cross. The very thing that proved to be Satan’s demise, is our
promise of eternal life. No one can take God’s grace from you. You always have
it in Jesus Christ. Amen.
The peace of God which
surpasses all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Amen.
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