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in the right position to take it up, and Satan would not allow him to do so if he desired.
What is to be done? Shall we listen to the unscriptural "experiences" of men as fallible
as ourselves? Or shall we believe the diagnosis and the remedy definitely written in the
Scriptures? Let us examine "the law and the testimony".
How many the Devil get a foothold? How did he once energize us? The answer of
Eph. 2: 2, 3 is, "through the flesh". It is the same in Eph. 4: Instead of being exhorted
to "resist the Devil", the member of the one body is told to
"put off concerning the former manner of life the old man, which is corrupt according to
the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that ye put on the new
man . . . . . putting away the lie . . . . . can you be angry, and sin not? Let not the sun go
down upon your wrath, neither give place to the Devil" (Eph. 4: 22-27).
This teaching is not palatable to the carnal mind. The family doctor knows that many
a patient would resent the truth that his sickness was attributable to abuse of the dinner
table. His vanity must be respected, and another name and cause suggested. So, many a
spiritual disease is simply the result of the "deceitful lusts of the old man", but this is
highly offensive, and the spiritual sufferer is told that he or she has been specially singled
out by the Wicked One. Deliverance is sought in vain, and the bondage grows worse.
We are not told to exhort such to "claim" anything, or to "resist the Devil", or to do any
of the many things that form the mode of deliverance advocated by the teaching we here
reject, but we are told that
"the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all apt, apt to teach,
patiently enduring evil, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves: if God
peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth: and that they
may be awakened out of the snare of the Devil, who are led captive by him at his will"
(II Tim. 2: 24-26).
Here are a series of statements which should be weighed with those that we often hear.
The remedy is provided in "teaching", not in resisting or commanding the Devil to
depart. Patient endurance of evil is foreign to those who are out to "resist" the Devil, for
they say that a believer has no right to submit to evil at all, all such being of the Devil.
We, however, prefer Paul as our monitor. The phrase, "If God peradventure" and
"repentance" do not harmonize with the system that practically dictates to God what He
must do. It is the acknowledging of "the truth" that sets the captive free, not exorcising
demons, or muttering on this or that the unscriptural imprecation, "The curse of God".
The snare of the devil is associated with the "novice" who too quickly jumps into
so-called service, and with evil living (I Tim. 3: 6, 7), and this we see all around. What a
tragedy it would have been for Paul (and also ourselves) had he listened to the advice to
"resist the Devil" in the matter of his thorn in the flesh--the messenger of Satan sent to
buffet him! How many have missed their blessing by assuming that all illness, all
trouble, all apparent disaster is "of the Devil". Far more likely is success to be of his
engineering.