hit the bricks.

Here comes a fun question: If you resist the devil and he flees from you, then why is he still around?  If it was as simple as the book of James says it is, then why do you still have problems with temptation as the rest of us do as well?  These are solid questions, clearly, and people have good reasons for asking them, especially in times of temptation and grief.  That is, people do want to know, and fairly seriously too, what they should do in times of sin and temptation.  James seems to make it too easy, doesn't he? Resist the devil and he will flee from you? Seems too simple, as though you could just tell the devil to hit the bricks, and he'd be gone.  It seems almost facetious, and it would be a lot more useful if we could see an example of this being carried out.  What does it look like to tell the devil to hit the bricks?  Well, if you want to know about that, go and look up the interaction between Jesus and the devil from the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew.

In the Gospels, Jesus is driven by the spirit into the wilderness following his baptism, and he fasts and prays, and is tempted by the devil while he is out there.  And in doing so, the devil assails Jesus where he is weak according to his state of humiliation.  That is, the devil tempts Jesus according to his hunger, according to his human desire to live, and his leadership and ownership of the world.  And here are the words that make up the final rebuffing of the devil.

"Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.  And he said to him, 'all these I will give you if you will fall down and worship me.'  Then Jesus said to him 'Be gone, Satan! For it is written ,you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.'  Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him."

 Matthew 4:8-11

Now, I'm going to do this nice and slow, so you can all gather it quite nicely, and so I'm not leaving anyone behind.  Jesus said to him "Be Gone, Satan!" … Then the devil left him.  Emphasis mine.  But you see here that Jesus puts what James was talking about earlier into practice - "resist the devil and he will flee from you."  Jesus resisted the devil, and he fled!  Easy enough, right? So here's the question that you will likely have at this point, which is that if it was that easy to do (which the Bible says it is), then how is it possible for all of us to be tempted so much so frequently? Well, let's keep it basic, shall we? If the Bible says that if you resisted the devil and he would flee from you, and the devil is still around, then it must mean that you're not resisting him.

Don't get shocked, because you should all know that this is true by now.  You should be well aware of the veracity of this statement, because the devil, like absolutely all of your most insidious friends, is the sort of guy who you want to keep around, mainly because of how much fun he is.  The classic, well known, and wonderful enabling friend.   The one who will say 'do you want another drink?' The one who will hand you a cheesecake slice and a fork after you have specifically turned one down.  The friend who will encourage you to enter into a new, illicit relationship, or to seek a divorce, to watch you go down dark paths and who will encourage you to do so.  You should know that this is true, and part of the way you can tell is by the preponderance of likes you get on facebook or twitter or whatever for the various decisions that you make, your status updates that you post, that kind of thing.  People don't tend to disagree with you even if the decisions you're making are bad ones. Your friends want to enable you constantly to make these sorts of poor decisions, and you tend to be more than happy to comply. 

Fast forward to now, of course, and we're in the midst of some trickery.  It's some next level trickery, of course, because the devil is happy to convince you that your sins are entirely in your own best interest.  That is, you should commit these sins because they're a good idea, and you're happy to believe him.  He wants you to listen only for confirming voices, and to judge them by that nature.  Ultimately, what the devil is looking for you to do is to hear only the voices that tell you to do what you want to do already.  He's looking for you to make decision based on where you already want to be, and to curate your news feed, your friend list, your passages of scripture entirely around that.  He wants you to be fat and happy, and doing what seems best to you.  Because what you want the most is what you need the least.  

So, let's think about resisting the devil, and having him flee from you.  Go ahead.  Now, this is where you fight me on the issue, and tell me that you're not really up to it for a large number of reasons.  The temptations are too good, they're too on point, the devil knows what you want too well, and his voice is too beguiling.  I get that.  I fully understand that.  And I know that if you're exposed to non-stop messaging from any source, it will begin to wear on you, and to change your thinking.  So if that's the truth, then perhaps it's time to diversify who you're listening to.  Maybe it's time to listen to more than just sources that confirm what you were thinking in the first place. Maybe it's time to listen to God on this one. Remember how Jesus rebuffed the devil, by putting him in his place with scripture.  When he does that, the devil's taunts, his temptations cease, because there isn't an opening to exploit.  The devil can't get an opening in because there isn't one there, and it can't be abused.  Jesus calmly, yet firmly responds to the temptations by rebuffing them with the word of God.  He can do that because he knows the word of God, because he's been listening to those words, and handling them for a long time.  He's immersed in God's word and knows what to say to temptation.  Can you say the same? Can you say that you know enough about God's word to know what he would say in the face of temptation from the evil one? Or, more likely, are you probably going to come back with platitudes and opinions.  Because that's usually what happens.  Believe it or not, the Bible knows what you're going to encounter, given that there's nothing new under the sun, but if you don't know what the Bible says on the subject, it's like having a gun for self defense in your purse, which is in your house, in another continent because you're on vacation in Brazil.  Jesus wants you to be immersed in his word, to abide in it, so you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.  The truth is your weapon against the devil, it's what you use to counter him, and it's what you put his temptations through, the colander, to see what is a lie, and what is the truth.  He may use scripture himself, he may just make you think things are a good idea, he give you a notion, and may whisper in your ears what seem like good ideas, it's all in there.  The only way to sift out the truth, is to use Gods word to do so. 

So live in God's word, abide in it. That's the only equipment that you have, and you need to have access to it, to own it, to know it inside and out, so that when the storms come, when the days are short and the chips are down,  you'll be ready to fight.  And if reading God's word is daunting, if it's a lot to do, then start with worship in God's house.  Start with worship, with hearing God's word read, hearing the preaching, and taking part in the sacraments, where the word of God comes directly to you.  You're not going to hear what you want most of the time, but that's the point.  You'll hear mollycoddling voices everywhere else, but you're only going to hear the absolute truth from God.