Ch. 3
The Powers of Darkness Draw Us Away From the Faith Walk
We are now understanding the warfare a Christian has with the powers of darkness. The powers of darkness tempt every Christian to walk after the lusts of his own flesh and hate his neighbor. This carries him away from the faith that comes from being led by the Holy Spirit so he can be perfected in the nature of God. The powers of darkness continually tempt your mind with thoughts of anger, hate, selfishness, resentment, criticism, fault-finding, unforgiveness, etc. These thoughts are the very opposite of love, and they exalt themselves against the Word of God. These are the schemes of the enemy against us.
These are the thoughts we are commanded about: “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5).
This is why we are warned to “put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil... taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked” (Eph. 6:11, 16).
In Luke 4:1-14, Jesus shows us how He resisted every temptation of the powers of darkness by standing firm on the Word of God. The Word is our shield of faith. The Psalmist said, “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee” (Ps. 119:11). We stand on the Word because we love Jesus more than we love our flesh. Through Jesus’ temptations, He proved Himself holy, just as we are to prove ourselves holy.
If we love our flesh more than we love Jesus, we will welcome these thoughts of Satan because his suggestions give us an opportunity to fulfill selfishness. But because we are disciples of Jesus, we love Him more than we love ourselves and we no longer walk in pride, greed, unforgiveness, resentment, and criticism. This is how we are conformed to the image of Christ. When we are reviled and attacked by others, we bless.
We no longer war according to the flesh by reacting in anger, hate, slander, revenge. We know that God’s law takes care of all revenge. So we are “Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing” (1 Pet. 3:9). This is the God-kind of love. “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh (we no longer strike back at our neighbor): For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:3-5). This is how we overcome the flesh and the devil in order to be perfected in love. “And hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments” (1 John 2:3). We have already seen this Scripture, “He that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth His word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in Him” (1 John 2:4, 5).