Standing Fast Against Enemy Attacks

As we grow more firmly rooted in Christ, Satan will seek out opportunities to attack us in our faith, our confidence in our position in Christ, and in our efforts to live in the way in which God has designed. He hates God, desiring instead to be in God’s place himself, so he hates God’s children as well. His designs are well-documented in Scripture:

“He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44)

“Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Pet. 5:8–9)

The good news is, God has already made us strong enough to stand against the enemy in the moments when he chooses to attack us. Because he knows that Satan would love to intimidate us into distrust of God and His promises, Paul writes in Ephesians 6 that we are to resist him in the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross and His resurrection. In the strength of His might!

“Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.” (Eph. 6:10– 13)

In order for us to stand in God’s strength, the Lord has provided us with everything we need to resist and, indeed, to remain standing when each battle is complete. So we must take up all the armor God provides.

When we take up God’s provision, we will be able to stand against the enemy’s scheming in those moments when he chooses to appear, in whatever form, and seeks to do as much damage as possible.

We will be able to wrestle against the true enemy—not flesh and blood but rulers, authorities, cosmic powers, and spiritual forces of evil who hate God and us, His children. These forces have a limited time to do their damage. Christ on the cross disarmed them, but God allows them to continue moving in our world while He completes His greater purpose. This greater purpose allows Satan and his hosts continued activity, but it also gives more time for the full mercy mission of God to reach its zenith and for others to come into God’s kingdom.

This is precisely the comforting understanding we receive from Peter in his final letter (see 2 Pet. 3:1–15). We should remember the prophets’ predictions of Christ’s return and final judgment, because scoffers will question them in the final day, moved by their own sinful desires and a backward view of history without God. But the promised day of judgment will come.

Since we know the end of the story, what kind of people ought we to be? We should be holy, set apart; godly, acting like His children; anticipating that day, waiting; and advancing that day by expanding God’s kingdom through extending His message, hastening its coming. God has great patience for the world, looking to bring many to salvation.

But in the meantime, we who are still alive embrace His promise and wait for the new heaven and earth, where righteousness lives, even while the enemy seeks to do as much damage as he can.

Standing Firm in God’s Armor

Paul encourages us to take up all the things God has provided: truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation, the Word of God, and prayer. With God’s armor in place, we will be prepared for those moments when Satan thinks he sees opportunity in our lives and attacks. In the end, we will have done all to fight off his attacks. In the end, we will have stood firm.

Paul begins detailing the armor that God has provided for us: “Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth” (Eph. 6:14). Truth is like a belt around our waists holding everything else in place. There is no substitute for spending regular time in the Word of God—the written expression of God’s truth. In it we find everything God wants us to know about Himself, the world He created, our place in that world, how we are to live in it, and what awaits us after the world ceases to be. When we ground ourselves attitudinally and actively in these words from God, we root our lives upon this firm foundation. As we spend daily time engaging God through His Word and the active ministry of the Holy Spirit within us, we plant His words into our minds. Then, as we live out the minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years of our lives, the Holy Spirit uses the time we’ve spent in God’s Word to bring to our remembrance the words He has spoken to us to assist us in making decisions that grow the life of Jesus in us and glorify our heavenly Father.

Paul tells us to stand firm “having put on the breastplate of righteousness” (Eph. 6:14). Righteousness, like a shield, is placed over the breast to fend off all accusations that question the righteousness we have received from Jesus Christ.

Satan is the accuser of the followers of Christ. We see his accusatory spirit most in the first two chapters of the book of Job. For whatever reason, Satan appears to have to render regular accountability to God. In Job 1–2 God quizzes Satan about his activities on earth and also about the life of one of His children, Job. From Satan’s distorted view of Job’s life, Job obeyed God only because God provided for and put special protection over him. Take away those provisions and protection, and Satan was quite sure that Job’s response would be exactly what Satan’s would have been: rejection and repudiation of God.

The rest of the account bears out just how wrong Satan always is about the depth of God’s redemptive ministry is in His human creation and the degree to which our lives are changed by obedience and trust in God.

But he will continue accusing, hoping to displace as many people as he can. His accusations come to the Jesus follower from many different places, but maybe none are more powerful than the ones that arise from within our own minds.

Sensing the depth of our sin and disobedience, we ask ourselves, “Can I really be declared new in Jesus Christ? Did Jesus really exist? Was His death really fully sufficient? Am I a special case without hope?” On and on the doubts can go, and Satan is willing to pile them on, hoping to gain advantage. But God’s gift to us, as a protector placed across the most inward parts of our body, our hearts, is His righteousness.

The resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ, from the grave is God’s guarantee that He has received His life and death as our payment. His Holy Spirit now indwelling us is His pledge that we belong to Him. “It is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee” (2 Cor. 1:20–22).

He has given us an active gospel of peace, in which our feet are active in serving God by serving others with the good news we have received, “having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace” (Eph. 6:15) as shoes for our feet.

Christ’s is the gospel of peace, and we are messengers of this peace. We bring this message of peace wherever we live by how we live and what we say. Some of us are commissioned to take this living and telling nature of the gospel of peace to places yet untouched and to which He directs His church.

This active ministry helps keep our minds off the attacks of Satan and on our lives here on this earth as sojourners living and telling this gospel of peace.

Paul goes on to say, “In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one” (Eph. 6:16). Faith is a shield with which we fend off all the fiery darts that the evil one fires our way, whether they come through the flesh, the world, or Satan himself.

In this regard Paul admonishes us in Romans 13:14, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires,” and in Galatians 5:16, “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” And the apostle John tells us in 1 John 2:16–17, “All that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”

God has also given us salvation as a helmet to remind us of all the truth that it is in our salvation: “Take the helmet of salvation” (Eph. 6:17), Paul writes. The very idea of salvation is so dramatic that all its descriptions are striking. Jesus says to Nicodemus that it is like being born again. Nicodemus couldn’t quite understand that, so he asked, “How in the world does a person go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?” Jesus admonished him for not knowing what he should have understood—that this new birth is spiritual, not physical, but it is just as dramatic as a newborn baby’s entrance into the world.

Paul describes salvation as being delivered out of a kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light: “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of
sins” (Col. 1:13–14).

Jesus says it is like going from death to life: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24).

God has given us a powerful offensive weapon as well: we are to take up “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph. 6:17), and we are to use this as both a protective instrument and an instrument of attack. With the Word of God firmly planted in our minds, guarding our hearts, and motivating our wills, we will be able to respond to the whispers and promptings of the Holy Spirit, using the Word of God to help us live as God has designed. We will be able to fulfill the purposes for which God has left us here on this earth and, when we have been tested and found complete, to stand!

Finally, God has given to us prayer in the Spirit at all times and for everything that the Spirit Himself brings to our minds. We are to be “praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication” (Eph. 6:18).

As we plant the Word of God in our minds, we give the Holy Spirit the words of reminder, correction, encouragement, and direction we need each day to continue maturing in His righteousness and participating in His mission of mercy. As we move about daily, we dialogue with the Spirit, motivated, instructed, and directed by Him.

Along with the armor God has provided for us come several warnings:
Keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak. (Eph. 6:18–20)

Life in the Spirit demands alertness and concern for others. We must be alert for the needs of others and ask God on their behalf. We must be alert so that the mystery of the gospel will be proclaimed boldly.

God Has Made Us Strong in Him!

As long as we live in these earthly bodies, we have all the tools we need to draw from God’s power and the Holy Spirit who lives within us so that we can stand fast against
the enemy’s schemes. We do not need to be intimidated by the devil’s schemes and accusations! We have everything we need to walk in the healing and wholeness God intended for His people from the very beginning.

Many have watched the movie Chariots of Fire, which features the life of Eric Liddell. Eric loved to run. In 1924 he won the right to represent his nation at the Olympics in Paris, but in the midst of it he was called upon to live out his convictions about running on Sunday, the Lord’s day of rest. Against much opposition, he gently but firmly declined to run. Later, while serving as a missionary to China, he was taken prisoner by the Japanese during World War II. He had sent his family to safety before this time, but he believed God had asked him to stay with those who could not escape.

His biography, Something Greater Than Gold, tells the whole story. In the face of imprisonment in a Japanese camp and his ultimate death there in 1945, Eric served God faithfully among others in the camp. He was not intimidated by Satan or the threats of those who ran the camp or privation or even death.

In order to develop this kind of strength and stand against the enemy’s onslaughts, time every day in God’s Word led by the Holy Spirit is a must. Time every day talking with God about our needs and the needs of others is a must.

Recognizing and being daily awareness of the armor God gives His children is a must. As we put on the armor of God and use it day by day, we will able to avoid the pitfalls of the flesh that far too many fall into and instead live lives of victory over sin. We are strong in Him!