"The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you." -Romans 16:20
During Christ’s temptation by Satan, Satan said, “All these things (a mighty all indeed – a mere imaginary bubble!) will I give you, if you fall down and worship me.” This was indeed a desperate parting stroke. It is now high time for you, Satan, O you enemy of souls, to be commanded to depart! Filled with a holy resentment at such hellish treatment, and impatient of the very thought of alienating the least part of his heart and affections from his Father, or dividing them between his God and the world, Jesus said to him, “Get away you Satan, you grand adversary; for it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’ This is the great commandment of the law, the commandment my Father gave unto his Israel of old, and would thou have me, who came to fulfill the law and the prophets, thus shamefully to be a transgressor of it? Get away you – I will bear your insolence no longer. Your other temptations were hellish, like yourself, but this intolerably so. Get you therefore away, Satan; my heavenly Father is the Lord my God, and him only will I serve.” And now the battle is over; the important combat is ended; Jesus has won the field. Satan is routed, and totally put to flight. Then, when the devil found that Jesus could withstand even the golden bait, the lust of the eye and pride of life, in the two last, as well as the lust of the flesh in the first temptation, despairing of the least success, and quite stunned with that all-powerful “Get you away, Satan,” he left him. Praise God for Christ’s resounding victory over Satan!
George Whitefield Daily Readings by Randall J. Pederson (editor) is available at any good Christian bookstore. If you don’t have a Christian bookstore near you, you may want to consider purchasing a copy from one of the online book retailers listed below:
