612 The Spiritual Man
however, is just half the truth. The Apostles understood the danger of
being lopsided; hence we find them right away warning the Christian
to resist the devil once he submits to God. This is because there is
another will besides His, that of Satan’s. Frequently the devil
counterfeits the will of God, especially in the things which happen to
us. If we are unaware of the presence of a will other than God’s, we
can easily mistake Satan’s to be God’s and so fall into the devil’s
trap. For this reason God wants us to resist the devil when we submit
to Him. Resistance is done by the will. Resistance means our volition
opposes, disapproves, and withstands. God wishes us to exercise our
volition, therefore He exhorts us to “resist the devil.” He will not
resist for us; we ourselves must do so. We have a will; we should use
it to take heed to God’s Word. So teaches the Bible. Thinking that
God’s will is revealed in His orderings, the Christian may accept
anything which comes to him as His will. In that event he naturally
will not employ his volition to choose, decide or resist. He just
quietly accepts everything. This sounds good and appears right, but it
contains a serious fallacy.
Now we do acknowledge the hand of God behind everything, and
we do confess we must submit fully under His hand. But the point at
issue here is more one of attitude than of conduct. If what happens to
us is the direct will of God, would we object to it? This is a matter of
our heart intention. But after we are assured of our obedience to God
we should inquire further: does this emanate from the evil spirit or is
it but God’s permissive will? If it is His commanded will, we have
no objection; if otherwise, we will resist it together with God. Hence
this never implies that we should submit to our environment without
daily examination and testing. Our attitude remains the same at all
times, but our practice comes only after we are sure of God’s will,
for how could we submit to Satan’s will?
A Christian ought not act as one who is without a brain, passively
driven by his environment. He actively and consciously should
examine the source of every item, test its nature, understand its