Jim Van Gelderen: This is Jim Van Gelderen, and I am podcasting from South Carolina. I actually was not planning to be in South Carolina at this time, but the Lord had other plans. On Easter morning, my dear mother-in-law unexpectedly went home to be with the Lord.

It has definitely been a journey the last few days. One of the blessings, of course, is remembering her life. The Bible says the memory of the just is blessed.

When somebody has lived a righteous life—not self-dependent righteousness, but a life of faith, taking steps of obedience that God has blessed and enabled with His righteousness—that life blesses other people.

Other people are able to declare the fact that the Lord touched them through that surrendered and dependent servant of the Lord. I am grateful for my mother-in-law and the fact that she was a woman of faith and a woman of prayer. We are finding out much more about her—that she really spent more time in prayer than I thought she did.

I knew she spent time in prayer, but it has come out that she was quite the prayer warrior, and her life continues to encourage and strengthen our hearts at this time.

I started a series last time on the authority of the believer. We talked about the fact that, when you got saved, you were put into Christ. His history has become yours.

You are identified now with His death, His resurrection, and His ascension, and that is found in Ephesians chapters 1 and 2. As a result, we are in Christ, who is far above all principality and power. We are in a place of ascendancy and also a place of victory.

The Lord Jesus triumphed over Satan at the cross. As a result of our being in Christ, we are part of that victory He has already won. Although there is a battle with the enemy today, he knows he is defeated.

I mentioned last time, do not pray and ask for Satan to be defeated. Claim the fact that he is defeated. What we are asking for is that his defeat already accomplished would be manifested.

We are talking about the fact that in Christ we have victory and ascendancy over the enemy, and we are also in a place of submission because, when we are saved, we are under the authority of the Lord Jesus. At the Great Commission, Jesus very clearly said in Matthew 28, “All power in heaven and earth is given unto me.” That word power is the word authority.

We know that all authority has been given to Jesus through the victory of the cross and the resurrection. Jesus can boss the devil around because He has authority over the enemy.

The Bible tells us in James 4:7, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

You need to be under the Lord Jesus’ authority so you can exercise that authority toward the enemy and resist him. He has to flee.

A couple of illustrations might help. Imagine that lightning hits, the stoplights go out, and a traffic cop is dispatched to a busy intersection. He has white gloves on and perhaps a whistle in his mouth.

Now imagine that you are driving a Mack truck and bearing down on that intersection. The policeman casually looks up at you, puts up a white-gloved hand to signal stop, and blows his whistle. What do you do as a Mack truck driver?

You stop. Why? Because that policeman has power.

He does not have intrinsic strength to destroy your Mack truck. He has authority invested in him by the government that hired him. Although you may not fear the strength of the policeman, you stop because you fear the authority.

When he puts his hand up, you stop because of the authority of the United States government. He is using delegated authority, and you obey it or bear the consequences.

In a certain sense, you and I are like that traffic cop. We cannot defeat the devil on our own. We do not have strength to overcome principalities and powers or the hosts of darkness.

We cannot defeat them in our own human strength. But we are under the authority of One who can and has defeated Satan. He has authority over them all.

All power in heaven and earth has been given to Him. It is our job, under authority, to resist the devil. He has to go.

We only have authority when we are under the authority of the Lord Jesus. Then we can resist the devil in Jesus’ name—in His authority—and he will have to flee.

Maybe I can help you understand what it means to act in Jesus’ name. It is an appeal to His authority. When you were about ten years old, perhaps your mother had you help get ready for dinner.

After you set the table, she told you to call your brothers and sisters in for dinner. You stepped onto the porch and, in the most authoritative voice you could muster, said, “Hey, get in here. It is time for supper.”

Your brothers and sisters probably did absolutely nothing. But when you said, “Mom says it is time for dinner,” everything changed. You were no longer calling them in your own name; you were calling them in your mother’s name, based on her authority.

That is what it means to pray in Jesus’ name. We are saying, “Jesus wants this. He has the authority to do this.”

We have authority through Him to resist the devil. When you are under Jesus’ authority, you can say, “Whatever God’s will is, I want it. Whatever Satan’s will is, I do not want it.”

In Jesus’ name, we can claim the victory.

I personally do not address the devil, but I do talk to Jesus about the devil.

I might say, “Lord, I want Your will. I do not know exactly what it is, but I want Your will. In Jesus’ name, through Your authority, I do not want Satan’s will.”

We can resist the devil. Satan can rear his head in an endeavor to get his will done in many areas of our lives.

Sometimes it can be whether. In our ministry, weather is a very important thing.

Sometimes we need to say, “God, we want Your will in the weather. We do not know what that is, but we want Your will in the weather. Whatever Satan is trying to do to influence the weather, in Jesus’ name we claim his defeat.”

I have seen God do miraculous things in the weather. I do believe that in weather issues Satan does have influence. The book of Job tells us that Satan used weather issues in the destruction of Job’s family and some of the things that he owned.

Obviously, God’s authority is greatest. Under Jesus’ authority, we can resist the devil, whatever that might involve. Just as your siblings would not come in when you called them on your own authority but would come when you said, “Mom says,” under Jesus’ authority we can resist the devil, and he has to go.

I think that might be one of the things Jesus was talking about when He gave us the Lord’s Prayer. He said, “When you pray, remember this: Pray, ‘My will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’” We can pray for Jesus’ will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

An important part of that is resisting Satan’s will, because there are two wills vying for what happens on planet earth: God’s will and Satan’s will. Satan’s will needs to be resisted.

I mentioned weather and sometimes illness. Not all illness comes from the devil, but the New Testament tells us that some of it does.

Sometimes it is helpful to pray, “No, Lord, if Satan has anything to do with this illness, in Jesus’ name I am resisting him. I want Your will to be done in this person’s life—or my life, for that matter.”

There are many things we can pray about. Not everything is Satan’s responsibility; sometimes it is the flesh or the world. But there are things Satan is responsible for, and I believe they need to be resisted because God tells us to.

Let us not be passive about Satan’s attempts to get his will done. The Bible tells us to pray for God’s will to be done and to resist the devil under the authority of the Lord Jesus. Hopefully these things are helping you.

We will talk more about it next time, but I hope you are encouraged that total surrender is so important because that gets you under the authority of the Lord Jesus, and total dependence is depending on His authority—the fact that He has won the victory over the enemy and that we can resist the devil in Jesus’ name, and he has to go.