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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About the Tempter (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 035. We Have Only What We Take
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We Have Only What We Take
Jesus came to get us out of our awful plight. He came to the earth because we were here, and it was our home, our lost heritage. He lived His life of perfect obedience on the earth, because the earth had been lost to us through our disobedience. He would win it back through obedience, but He would win it back for us. All through He was acting in our place, as our substitute and representative.
But again be it said that He cannot do for us what we do not want. That is, He can't make us accept what He has done for us, unless we choose to. No one can make a choice for another nor act in the stead of another, but by the other's consent.
He defeated our enemy. He won back our lost dominion of the earth. He has won for us freedom from all the power of Satan, the power we gave him through our sin. But the results of His great victory become ours only as we accept and appropriate them as our own.
Each man of us may have His victory as our very own. But it does not become our very own until we accept it so. And so Satan, who left Jesus when he must, will not leave us till he must; and then, as with Jesus, "only for a season." (Luk_4:13.) Our sin gives Satan a grip upon us. He insists on that grip.
And Satan has a right to us for we have given ourselves to him by obeying him. For sin is obeying Satan. So we become his slaves, and he our master. He can hold that grip upon us until a stronger than he comes along to worst him. That stronger One has come—our blessed Lord Jesus. But we must accept His victory as our very own, and give Satan notice of our decision. He must leave when he is ordered off in the Name he fears. And he will leave.
But he never leaves until he must. And so there is a present struggle, even after an absolute defeat, because so many men have not accepted as their own what our Lord Jesus has done for them.
Satan must be doubly defeated. First by one stronger than he. That has been done by Him whose very Name—Jesus—tells of victory. Then he must be defeated by each one of us, on the battlefield of our own wills, by our choosing Jesus as our own representative, as our own Substitute-Victor.
In His Name and strength we can administer that second defeat. In no other way can it be done. And in His Name we must. As men, as rightful under-masters of this earth, as rightful children of our Father, who made us in His own image, we must defeat the evil one in the Name of Jesus, by choosing Him as our Saviour and Lord.
The struggle with our Lord was for the mastery of the earth, and the whole race. In that Satan has been defeated. The present struggle is for the mastery and control of each man's life. Our Lord won the victory over our enemy; now He would win His way into each man's heart and life.
Satan has been defeated on the earth, and on behalf of the whole race; now he must be defeated on the battlefield of each man's life. The first struggle was settled decisively by our Lord. The second can be settled only by each one of us, in the power of our Lord's victory for us.