After submitting to His Word the key verses instruct us to resist the devil and he will flee from us. How do we resist him? The same way Jesus did when He was tempted - with the Word of God! That is why we hide the Word in our heart. All the devil can do is lie. The Bible says it is his native language and beloved, he is not bilingual. The only way we can combat the lies is with the truth that sets us free. Free from what? The slavery of sin! Are we seeing this circle yet? The devil lies, trying to bind us in sin. We respond with the truth of the Word of God which sets us free from the enslavement the devil is trying to wield into our lives. After submission and resistance, we come to drawing near unto the Lord. Now what does this mean? It is unrealistic that we can submit or resist if we are not leading a life that is seeking to draw closer to God. It really is that simple. We cannot live double lives. We cannot serve two masters. We cannot be friends with the world and expect to walk in any of the power found in the Word. Think about the glorious promise found here! If we would just draw near to Him - He will come near to us! I have always preached that if we feel further away from God I can guarantee you I know who moved. He is faithful when we are not. He cannot deny who He is. So how do we live a life that draws near? Through prayer, studying His Word, and fellowship with those of like faith. Beloved this is not that complicated. When we are not communing with God we are communing with the world. When we are not studying His Word where are our interests focused? A life that draws near to God wants to spend time with Him. I am fearful of how biblically illiterate the church is today but of greater fear is the willful apathy regarding it. Even the Biblically illiterate can learn but if you do not care to, then that is how you sit under brazenly false teaching, marching cheerfully down the broad path that leads to destruction.
While this is all the backdrop let's get into the foreground now. We cannot just draw near to God in willful disobedience. Remember, sin separates us from God. Isn't it odd for those who preach a cheap grace that these verses clearly say that as sinners we must wash our hands? We must purify our hearts? Look how God refers to us here. Double minded. It is double mindedness that makes us impure. It is trying to think we can live a life of righteousness while having one foot in the world. Don't worry about sin? Who are we kidding? It is always about sin. The more we purge our double thinking and wash our sins through confession then the more we are drawing near to God. Then He will draw near to us. This is how we resist the devil. This is how we submit our lives to the Lord.
As we leave the foreground, God gives us a healthy way to look upon our sin. It is not to brush past it as if it is of no import. It is not to minimize it so we are not conscious of it. We are to grieve, mourn and wail over it. Think about that for a moment. Such preaching is anathema to people like Joseph Prince, yet it is what the Bible teaches. We ought to be sorrowful over our sin to the point of wailing! Why? Because we know it is not what God wants and our new way of looking at sin is to recognize how it grieves the Lord. There is nothing to be laughing about. We mourn and turn our joy to gloom. Permanently? Of course not because God would not leave us as such. As we humble ourselves, He will lift us up. He will turn our mourning to gladness. That is what His forgiveness will do in our lives.
And it is what He can do in the life of Tullian Tchividjian too. We ought to pray for him and his family. We ought to pray for the restoration of his walk with the Lord. We ought to pray for those who were under his shepherding. Along the way however, we ought to stop and take some inventory about ourselves too. We ought to realize that sin is very real. It is still crouching at our door as well. The devil still seeks to devour us as well. We ought to remember that we need to wash our hands and purify our double minded hearts in order to draw near to the Lord. That resisting the devil is rooted in our submission to Him and His Word. That we marginalize and minimize sin at great risk of peril to ourselves. That it is nothing we can do in our own strength. That we must humble ourselves before the Lord and He will lift us up as well.
Reverend Anthony Wade - June 22, 2015
