James 4:7-10 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.… 1. This resistance must extend to all the variety of his temptations. We must beware of resisting him in one or more, and making this a kind of compensation for yielding to him in others. 2. He applies his temptations to those lusts and passions of the old nature which remain in us, and especially to those which, by the study of our character, he knows to be the strongest, and most apt to yield — those which "most easily beset us." The most effectual resistance we can make to him, therefore, is a constant and strenuous opposition to these — whichsoever of them we are conscious, from our experience, have most power within us. And, as his temptations are often sudden — meant to take us at unawares — this vigilance over our own hearts must be constant and unremitting — "lest he find us off our guard." 3. The resistance must be made in the strength of God. (R. Wardlaw, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.WEB: Be subject therefore to God. But resist the devil, and he will flee from you. |
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