Victory Over Satan

Prayer is how we aggressively claim our strength in the Lord, appropriating the power of the Holy Spirit and putting on the whole armor of God.

Holy. Infinite. Eternal. Omnipotent. Almighty. These are

"God" words. They belong to Him alone and express truth about Him that will stand forever. This truth will never change.

The Bible shares God's truth with us. His Word is an anchor for understanding divine, eternal truth. Oh what a treasure God has given us through His Word!

The devil is a liar. He is the great deceiver. Everything he does and stands for is meant to advance and promote his lies. Truth defeats and devastates the devil's schemes and plans.

Focusing God's truth on present-day needs remains one of the major goals of all prayer. Every time Satan appears in Scripture, there is an aura of unusual power surrounding this fallen-created being. The Bible indicates that God has never created any other being as powerful as Satan. Even Michael the archangel, one of the holy angels of God, was no match for Satan in one direct encounter (see Jude 9). Michael had to appeal to the Lord to rebuke Satan. Satan's awesome power is further seen in the gospel accounts of the temptation of Jesus. No one can read of that encounter in the wilderness without developing a sober respect for the power and position of this archenemy of God and His kingdom. Yet, there is urgent necessity to know that Satan is not invincible. He is always "second best." He is a mere creature, no match for the Creator!

At times the battle may grow fierce, and we may feel that Satan is winning. Daniel must have felt that way when he was praying for twenty-one days for an answer to an urgent prayer of his heart (Daniel 10). He tells us that during that time he was in a state of mourning. As an expression of his deep faith toward God, Daniel implemented limited fast and other practices of self-denial.

Daniel's prayer had reached heaven the very first day, but the answer was delayed by a powerful prince of the kingdom of Persia, who had stood in the way of the holy angel's coming with God's answer to Daniel. Only as Daniel continued to pray and fast after those twenty-one days was the holy angel able to come (see Daniel 10:1-15). What if Daniel had thought Satan too powerful for him to gain an answer to this request? Perhaps the angelic messenger would not have come.

Do we give up too soon and miss the answers to our prayers? Christ may someday reveal the answer to that question, but the challenge of it ought to move us to pray with more faithful tenacity. Satan is not invincible, but we can be and ought to be. It is the Lord's will that we be provided all we need to do the Lord's will.

How deceitful Satan is when he tries to convince us that he is too powerful for us. One young professional man called me about his battle with Satan's kingdom. He was an athlete and very strong, both physically and intellectually. Yet, he had been plagued by constant harassment from demonic powers. They afflicted him with annoying physical sensations and at times controlled his tongue so that he hissed like a snake. When those things happened, he seemed unable to help himself.

I pointed out to him the principles of warfare as best I could over the telephone and sent him other material. For a time those things seemed to help, but then his affliction seemed to grow worse. He called me again. As he related his battle to me over the phone, he conveyed a message of despair and hopelessness.

In light of his long battle, I could understand that, but I knew he had to be shocked out of his despair.

After letting him talk about his battle and defeats for some time, I said, "I guess Satan really is stronger than God after all. He has you, and you might as well give up because there is no hope" The response was instantaneous and gratifying. He saw what I was trying to say. "That's what I'm really saying, isn't it?" he replied. "I've fallen into the trap of convincing myself that I'm defeated. Pastor, pray for me." We joined in prayer over the phone.

While I was praying, the enemy tried to step up his attack, but we continued to pray and rejoice in our invincible position of victory in Christ. Their power was broken. He could praise the Lord for the battle and even for the defeats he suffered, rejoicing in the Lord's purpose for the prolonged battle.

A woman called and related her difficult struggle in spiritual warfare. As I tried to share with her the principles of aggressive spiritual warfare that I will outline throughout this book, she assures me that she'd done all of that for many years.

She insisted that her situation was unique and challenging beyond what anyone else had experienced. She would need some very special attention before she could ever hope to be free, because Satan had such a stronghold upon her life. The secret of the enemy's strength in her life was this: She was assigning him an invincible role that he was only too happy to assume.

Once we do that, we are locked into a cycle of defeat, we can't win because we know we can't. Such a person looks for someone to help her who isn't subject to Satan's "invincible" strength like she is, but even her Christian friends are helpless until the lie the person believes is renounced. Satan is not invincible. He is a defeated foe because of what our Savior did for us on the cross. The death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ has ultimately defeated the enemy. Any apparent victory Satan has in our lives is only temporary. "We are more than conquerors through him [Christ) who loved us" (Romans 8:37).

Satan wants us to worship him. He took the Lord Jesus to a high mountain and showed Him "all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 'All this I will give you, he said, if you will bow down and worship me'" (Matthew 4:8-9). If he would dare to try to get the sinless Son of God to worship him, he will employ his

most subtle tricks to try to get those who belong to Christ to do the same.

Oh, very seldom will he be so brash as to try to get you actually to kneel and worship, at least not at first. He is much more subtle. He will try to get you to exalt his power in your own thinking to the point where you regard yourself as his helpless toy. At that point, so far as you are concerned, he is indeed an invincible foe. When you fall into that trap, you are ascribing to Satan an honor that is a kind of worship, a worship composed of fear and subjection.

When I was a young man, my father would sometimes have three or more purebred bulls as part of his herd. One of those bulls would inevitably have to prove in battle with the others that he was "in charge." Once that had been proved, the defeated ones would always give him the right to rule and would not rechallenge his authority. That illustrates what Satan tries to do with us. When he defeats us once or several times, he seeks to establish his right to rule. He wants believers to accept the fact that he is stronger than they are and that he is

"in charge? Once we accept that fallacy, he has us caught in a psychological defeat that does not belong in the Christian life.

There are times when experience seems to defy truth. A lady from Canada claimed to have used faithfully the principles of warfare set forth in The Adversary. "I've done it all, she said, "but it just doesn't work for me. I've prayed doctrinal prayers, I've read and memorized the Word, I've aggressively and consistently resisted the devil and his demons, but I'm still harassed constantly.

She was discouraged, defeated, and desperately looking for some quick relief. She lamented that there didn't seem to be anyone near who was interested in helping her. Her experience of battle was a direct challenge to the truth of God. She was so defeated that she was not even attending church.

As we talked, I asked her if she had ever thanked her Lord for the battle. I asked her if she had ever prayed that the Lord would teach her everything He wanted her to learn through this prolonged battle. She confessed that she had not. Her attitude had been that this battle with Satan's kingdom was all bad and that the only thing God would want for her would be immediate and total victory. Yet when she saw that God might want to teach her stability and faithfulness in spite of the battle and in the very midst of the greatest defeat she had ever experienced, for He can bring good out of any situation -it opened up an entire new vista for her.

Neglect of church attendance and fellowship with the body of believers as an admission to Satan's victory. Her "giving up" on warfare praying and saying that warfare principles were "not working" were admissions that Satan was winning. She needed to stand upon the truth and not let her battle experience remove her from it.

The apostle Paul keeps emphasizing that in his great doctrinal exhortations of Romans 5-6 . We must stand upon truth and not allow subjective experience to challenge the absolute truth. Only as we do that will the subjective experience begin to harmonize with truth. Subjective experience is never to be trusted as a valid establisher of spiritual truth. The revealed

Word of God establishes truth.

In Romans 6:5-10 the apostle Paul expounds the truth that each believer is united with Christ in His total victory over sin, death, and Satan. That is an infallible truth upon which each believer is responsible to stand. This is an unchanging, eternal truth that we are responsible to appropriate and live out in our everyday lives. Satan will ceaselessly seek to challenge the truth. He will bring all the harassment he can muster into your experience to make you think that for you this doesn't work.

He keeps saying by your experience that sin is too strong and he can and will reign in your life.

What is Paul's answer to such attack? "In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires" (Romans 6:11-12).

Paul's challenge is repeatedly communicated in similar doctrinal passages. We must stand upon truth. Our responsibility is to affirm as fact that we are "dead" to the rule and reign of sin, of death, and of Satan in our lives.

We are "alive to God? Our Lord is ruling. Our responsibility is to "not let sin reign." Sin and Satan can reign only if we "let" them do so. We "let® them reign when we accept the idea that "it doesn't work" or we neglect "assembling together" because the experience of battle is too great. The moment we allow Satan an invincible role in our lives because of our experience of battle and our experience of defeat, we are letting him reign. Victory comes because we have certainty of our victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

There is no point at which the believer needs to "cave in" and admit defeat at the hands of Satan's craft and power. There is hope and victory available for the most defeated. The church at Laodicea illustrates this point. That body of believers had succumbed to Satan's deception. Spiritual lukewarmness had taken over. That church felt very self-sufficient and spiritually victorious in its own strength. They were saying: "I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing" They were so blinded by Satan's clever deception that they didn't know they were "wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked" (Revelation 3:17). Yet, even to people so totally deceived, the Lord Jesus offered full access to His victory.

Revelation 3:18–20 KJV 1900

18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. 19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. 20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

Loving Heavenly Father, I praise You that Satan is a defeated foe. I rejoice that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished his defeat in His sinless life, His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension into glory. I look forward to that day when the Lord Jesus Christ's rule has come in its fullness when Satan is bound in the bottomless pit. I know that Satan will ultimately be forever consigned to the lake of fire prepared for him and his angels. In my union with the Lord Jesus Christ, I rejoice that You have given me complete victory over Satan today.

I enter into my victory aggressively and claim my place as more than a conqueror through Him that loved me. I refuse to admit continuing defeat by Satan in any area of my life. He cannot and will not rule over me. In Christ, I am dead to the enemy's rule. I affirm that the grace and mercy of God rule in all areas of my life through my union with the Lord Jesus Christ. Grant to me the grace to affirm Your victory even when life experiences seem to say otherwise.

I thank You for these battles and all that You seek to accomplish in Your wisdom and design for my life. I accept the battle and rejoice in Your purpose. I willingly accept and desire to profit from all of Your purpose in letting Satan's kingdom get at me. I reject all of Satan's purposes. Through the victory of my Lord and Savior I stand resolute and strong upon the certainty of my victory. In confidence, I look to You, Lord Jesus Christ. When Your purpose for this trial is fulfilled, I know that it shall fade into the dimness of forgotten battles and a defeated enemy. It shall be so through the precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.