Speak of the Devil

The devil is constantly at work in the world and in your life. He and his minion demons never give up on you. They are deceivers, accusers, liars, disqualifiers, depressors, devourers, discouragers, dividers, and murderers. The devil tries to get you into lies and deceit. He tries to get you successful so that you will become distracted from Jesus. He gives you material things to keep your mind off of Jesus. He gets you too busy to think about the Jesus. He gets you so selfish and materialistic that you pray about yourself and not Jesus. The devil is real and he is powerful. Charles Baudelaire once said, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn't exist”.  If people have no one to blame the bad things on, then they blame them on God.

We are all in constant battle with temptations of the devil. Martin Luther said, “For where God built a church, there the Devil would also build a chapel.” What does this say about the prominence of the devil? Perhaps a modern relevant way to view this quote is that sometimes the church is almost welcoming to the devil. Before you freak out, listen. Is the church often too materialistic, too immoral, too depressed, too successful, too divided? And even in the church, we like our things don’t we? We like our success. We like our iPods. We like our materials. We like our sin. Again, hear me out, these things are not evil, but if we love them more than we love God, it becomes idolatry. The church today is at risk of becoming a haven for the devil.

How do we fight back? The two obvious answers are prayer and scripture. When the disciples couldn’t heal a demon-possessed boy and they asked Jesus why they couldn’t, he responded by saying, “This kind can come out only by prayer.” There is nothing that can compete with prayer when it comes to spiritual warfare. Luther said, “The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn” Scripture is the other obvious answer. Luther also suggests laughing at and mocking the devil. I personally love this, other than prayer and scripture what can we do?? Laugh at the devil! Make fun of him! Make it a habit, for he cannot stand it.

One last thing to keep in mind, Jesus has already won. The devil is fighting nonetheless. CS Lewis said, “Redeemed humanity is to be something far more glorious than unfallen humanity.” Without evil and temptation, humanity could not have been redeemed by Christ’s saving death on the cross. Not only has Jesus already won, but he is using the devil’s evil works to make his grace and beauty even more known. Jesus has already won.