Based on Matthew 26:41

MEMORY TEXT:  “And He said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven” (Luke 10:18).

Sometimes when the news reports a particularly repulsive crime, I think to myself, “I wish the devil did not exist!”  Nice thought, but would that solve the world’s problems?

The sad fact is that, although the devil is making war with the people of God, and although he goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, evil is so engrafted into the hearts of human beings, even if the devil were to disappear, evil would continue to prosper.

When sin entered the world, mankind became infected.  Unfortunately, we all have the disease.  The Bible tells the sad story: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Romans 5:12).  Even more frustrating is the fact that, in spite of a vaccine bought for us at a great price, we keep re-infecting ourselves.

We are our greatest enemy.  The Bible often describes our nature as "the flesh": "This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.  For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.  Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness. . . And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts" (Galatians 5:16-24).

Though Satan is our implacable enemy, we would do well to spend less time fighting him and more time dying to self and resisting the sins that come from inside us.  Job is an example of how to confront temptation.  The issue was not if he would exorcise the devil from his life (his wife suggested that he curse God and die) but if he would remain faithful to his God.  In the end “the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning” (Job 42:12).  

We are in a battle with the forces of evil.  We must place our emotional focus on Jesus.  “Those who realize their weakness trust in a power higher than self.  And while they look to God, Satan has no power against them” (Our High Calling, p. 307).