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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About the Tempter (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 032. The Second Defeat
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The Second Defeat
Then there is the second defeat But, you say, why a second? That question has an intensely practical bearing on your life and mine. The first defeat was on the battlefield of the earth. The second is to be on the battlefield of each man's life.
Every man decides his own life and settles the outcome of his own battles by the way he chooses. Every man is a sovereign in his own will. What our Lord has done for us, we must each accept and claim for ourselves. Our Lord defeated Satan on our behalf. We must each of us claim all the power of that defeat on the battlefield of our own lives.
Jesus taught us to pray, "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." He was led up to be tempted, and He was victorious in the temptation. We men have been tempted, and failed. But in Jesus the Victor's Name, we claim His victory in our temptations. We cannot stand being tempted. Eden proves that, and every man and every day since Eden makes it plainer. We can't stand temptation alone. We must go in Another's strength, and in Another's victory.
"Lead us not" means that we get in close behind our Victor, and claim what He has done for us. But each of us must do that. With greatest reverence let it be said that our Lord Jesus cannot decide my battles, my temptations for me. He wins the victory for me. Then I must claim that victory in my own firm decision to resist the evil one.
The second defeat is to be on the battlefield of my will, in the power of the Lord Jesus. And that defeat may be just as radical and sweeping in my life, as it was on the Cross, and the resurrection morning.
May I close this simple talk by putting, in a brief word, how that defeat may become a real thing to me every day? First of all by trusting in the blood of our Lord Jesus. We overcome on the ground of the blood of the Lamb. (Rev_12:11.) We hide ourselves in Him, and claim all the power of His victory, for ourselves in our conflict.
Then there must be the full glad surrender of life to the mastery of our great Victor-Friend. That means the recognizing and yielding to the gracious sovereignty of the Holy Spirit at every turn, in every act, until it becomes as habitual as breathing.
It means that there will be the same obedience, the same self-forgetting humility, the same tender, loving sympathy with men, the same simplicity of life, the same glad willingness to sacrifice for the needs of others, as marked our Lord's Nazareth life. This will be the standard habitually kept before the eyes of our spirit. For the Holy Spirit works out in us the life and spirit of our Lord Jesus.
Then there is something else on the Satan side of things. We should become keen in recognising him. Recognition of temptation is half the fight against it. And with recognition must follow resistance, quick and sharp. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. (1 Jas_4:7; 1Pe_5:8-9.) He knows that he is defeated. He knows that he can't stand up before Jesus' victory. As we resist steadily he must leave, and he will, slowly, angrily, but surely before the power of Jesus' Name.
Resist Satan actively and aggressively. Learn to recognize his step and voice, and tricky devices, and then put up an earnest fight in the Victor's Name, and Satan will know his second great defeat on the battlefield of your life.