Resist the Devil

Since a child I've been aware of the instruction in James 4:7 to "Resist the devil and he will flee from you". But this morning in Bible class, the Lord used our new preacher to open my eyes to an additional instruction in that verse, one which is required to even make resistance to the devil possible. Here's the entire verse:

Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

As the preacher pointed out, people often try to resist the devil without first submitting themselves to God. Thus they're in and out and then back in, repeatedly, the drug and alcohol rehabs, but the "fix" never really takes hold.

You simply can't resist the devil without first submitting yourself to God.