The Lord commands, not suggests, that we overcome Satan. The question is “how?” The answer is simple but not easy. The only way to overcome the devil is by believing and obeying God’s Word. The premier example of this never-fail method was played out not long after Jesus received the Holy Spirit from the Father, thus beginning His 3 1/2 year ministry. The story unfolds in the fourth chapter of Matthew.

In preparation for His self-denying ministry that would result in His crucifixion, Jesus had spent 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness without nourishment. This is a commanded activity called “fasting” which I will cover in a future posting. Having fasted almost six weeks, Jesus returned to civilization in a near-death condition. Any religious person knows the story of the temptation in which Satan attempted to convince the Lord to BELIEVE AND OBEY THE WORD OF GOD–sort of. First, he tempted Him to perform a miracle to “prove” His Messiahship by turning stones into bread. Bread was an essential element in the Middle Eastern diet. So what was the problem? The problem was that Satan wanted Jesus to sustain His life by way of physical food. The Lord knew that without the spiritual food from His Father, physical food, and therefore physical life, was meaningless. Jesus–the Spirit-filled, righteous Son of God–overcame Satan not by reminding him of Who He was, by quoting Scripture (Deut. 8:3). Realizing that the man Jesus knew how to use the Scriptures to defeat him, the devil tried to turn the tables on Him by also quoting Scripture (Ps. 91:11,12)–a ruse used extensively by him to lure the unwitting God-seeker into his Catholic/Protestant web. Jesus then turned the tables on him by quoting Deuteronomy 6:16. Then Satan took Him to a very high mountain and offered Him the world (Satan owns the world at this time). Again, Jesus overcame him by quoting Scripture (Deut. 6:13).

Jesus of Nazareth, the Son/Messiah/Christ of God, was a man and therefore powerless before Satan without the Holy Spirit. As a man, Jesus knew that He could overcome the devil only by the power supplied by His Father by way of the Holy Spirit. He would later voice this fact in John 5:30 and 14:10 where He said that He could do nothing by Himself, and that the works He did were in reality done by the Father (through His Spirit power). Prior to His return to heaven Jesus warned His disciples that they were not to try to minister until they had received that same Spirit, telling them that they would “… receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you” (Acts 1:8). The Spirit would give them the same power it had given Him–“… power over all the power of the enemy” (Lk. 10:19). In Revelation 3:21 He tells us that in order to sit with Him in the Kingdom of God we must “… overcome (Satan) as I overcame (him).” The problem within the Counterfeit Church involves both knowledge and application.

Not having received the Holy Spirit or, having received it having lost it, the church lacks the overcoming power Jesus promised His true saints. Being puddy in the hands of a powerful devil, she obeys his command that she overcome God by obeying his (Satan’s) words–a fact that this website is dedicated to exposing. As was the case in Eden (Gen. 3:4), Satan tells those within professing Christendom that she can reject God’s Words and “… ye shall not surely die,” thereby nullifying God’s Words to the contrary as recorded in Romans 6:23: “… for the wages of sin is death.” The church accuses God of lying and hails Satan as the teller of truth, thereby making true God’s warning in Isaiah 5:20 where He told of a time when men would “… call good evil and evil good.” To be continued. L.J.