VICTORY THROUGH THE VICTOR

One of the grave dangers of to-day is that Satan is no longer regarded as a Personality. Even among those whose faith is founded on the word of God, the idea of an orthodox devil smacks of superstition and an exploded hoax from the Dark Ages. “Let us hear the love side of the gospel; away with this devil and hell business—it’s too dreadful,” they declare. His real existence and personality are ridiculed in many pulpits and lecture platforms. When these ideas become common among the people who think, a wide open field remains for him to work unmolested.

We can also go to the other extreme: that is, to think him a greater being than the Son of God. Those who have followed us through these chapter studies will, we fear, come to some such conclusion. Who can be equal for such a mighty Prince? Now this biography was undertaken that we might have a full, life-sized photo of our Enemy. In this we cannot exaggerate the true status of the case; any less conception of Satan than we have portrayed will put us at a serious disadvantage in the life struggle. He is a real foe, and we must meet him in the open, under cover, and invisibly. Let it be written in black-faced caps, and heavily underscored: Satan is all we can find out about him—plus, with emphasis on the plus. We want to keep in mind clearly the Enemy, the battle-ground, and the battle; we can never match swords with him; to ignore him—big, cunning, supernatural, eternally at it—will be the most dangerous folly.

But—there is victory, complete, overwhelming victory for every one who fights; but bear in mind it must be a fighter. There is one Name which never fails to reverberate from the Throne of God to the cavernous pits of darkness; this Name shakes loose the grip, untangles the web of all the allied powers of the Prince of Night. Satan is mighty, Jesus is almighty; he met his Waterloo. Jesus was never defeated. His first defeat was when he was an archangel; he was overthrown and cast out of heaven. Jesus said: “I was present when Satan fell like lightning from heaven.” He was also defeated in the wilderness; again in the Garden, and at Calvary. In fact, on every battle-field where he met the Lord Christ the defeat was stunning, humiliating. Now we are in mortal combat with him, and we must not forget—he has been many times defeated. A writer says: “We have the advantage of fighting a defeated foe.” Standing alone, we are doomed to utter defeat, capture, ruin; but if our fight is coupled with the Name of Jesus, our triumph is as certain as our defeat will be without Him.So long as we muster in as munitions of war our intellect, self-sufficiency, egotism, etc., the cohorts will laugh at our delusion. There is but One who can out-general his maneuvres, silence his thunderings, checkmate his diabolical acumen, know his oily, snaky approaches, penetrate his angelic beneficence, understand his insidious schemes: that One knew him from the beginning, and—outranked him in heaven and conquered him on earth.

This question arises: If Satan has been conquered, and Jesus is yet contending with him for world-wide supremacy—why the almost universal triumph of evil? Why is true righteousness at such a discount? Why are the fighters failing and falling all around us? If these questions cannot be answered with a degree of sound reasoning, the whole problem of life, Bible, God, Atonement, Gospel are in a hopeless tangle. A Chinese puzzle does not compare with a riddle of everything worth while, visible and invisible.

Satan undoubtedly controls the machinery of this world. Then wherein is the “victory that overcometh the world”? Let us keep in mind the power, resources, opportunities, organization, and management of Satan; also the blindness and bondage of sin, and—the Free Agency of Man. So long as man remains carnally-minded and free, the Enemy has undisputed right of way; while the heart is carnal, impure, unsanctified, the controlling motive power of man’s life “is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” He has in his own bosom a traitor, an alien to the government of God. “To be carnally minded is death,” says Paul. The “old leaven must be purged out”; we must “put off the old man (carnal mind) and his deeds, and put on the new man, etc.” This putting off is absolutely necessary.

Jesus cannot only defeat Satan, but He can destroy the “works of the devil”—one of which is the alien principle of our nature. “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the Devil.” The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus—the God-Man—is an everlasting Atonement and a propitiation for sin. Sin is the Rubicon of our battle; once we solve, in all its fullness, the problem of sin, we rob Satan of his fulcrum power. He came to Jesus and found nothing: no availability, no sin, no yielding, no fellowship. He was tempted, but without sin.

Our victory must be twofold: first, through the merits of the Everlasting Blood Covenant we may be saved from sin unto salvation—reconciliation, forgiveness. Then by the fuller benefits of the Atonement we may “enter into the holiest by the Blood.” Only the pure in heart can stand the approaches of Satan by way of our natural appetites. The triumphs of modern surgery are only possible by means of sterilized instruments. Please observe—with all the meaning that can be couched in language: the sinful, unregenerated heart is not only in danger of being overcome, but is already in blind bondage to Satan. The power of sin, both actual and original, must be broken by the pardoning grace of God through faith in the Atoning Blood; and the heart cleansed and empowered by the Baptism of the Holy Ghost.

The second inevitable concomitant of victory is copartnership with Jesus, the Captain of our salvation—“looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.” Diabolus and his minions cannot stand before this Name. His final overthrow was when Jesus cried out on the Cross: “It is finished.” Now at the sight of Jesus, the Cross, or the Blood, the phalanx of darkness slinks away. Let us lay hold of eternal life by an unfaltering faith in the Blood that cleanseth, and “The Name high over all: in earth, in heaven, in hell.” “And they overcame him through the blood of the Lamb, and the word of their testimony.” Amen and Amen.