MY reader will know who said these words many hundred years ago!
They were the words of the Lord Jesus, when the Spirit led Him into the wilderness, and Satan came and tempted Him to disobey His Father. But the Lord Jesus could not sin, He was pure and holy from His birth not only He did not sin, but He could not sin. There was nothing in Him that could yield to any temptation. Although, as Paul tells us: “He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” (Heb. 4:1515For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15).) So instead of giving way, Jesus told Satan to go behind Him, and he went away.
If my reader has been “born again,” is a child of God, and can say from his heart, that he has been washed whiter than the whitest snow in the blood of Jesus, I would have him remember, that, Christ having fought the one great battle for us, it is always a conquered enemy he has, by the power of the Holy Ghost, to resist, thus leaving us entirely without excuse every time we give way to Satan. This makes our giving way very solemn. Christ having once fought the great battle for us will always fight our little ones, if we will only yield ourselves to Him. And then, it is so beautiful to know, the Christian being in Christ gains the fruits of His wondrous victory! “We are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.” (Rom. 8:3737Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. (Romans 8:37).)
It is God’s word which preserves us from the wiles of the enemy, and if only we are in the spirit of dependence and obedience, we shall, like the Lord Jesus, have power to send Satan away, because God being with us, Satan is powerless. When Satan comes to a truly dependent Christian he finds Christ, and thus meeting his Conqueror, he is obliged to flee!
Although the Lord Jesus has conquered Satan once and forever, still He in His wondrous love feels for and pities His own when they are tempted, and is ever looking down upon them from the glory.
“Touch’d with a sympathy within,
He knows our feeble frame;
He knows what sore temptations mean,
For He has felt the same.
“But spotless, undefiled, and pure,
The great Redeemer stood,
While Satan’s fiery darts He bore,
And did resist to blood.”
E. O’N. N.