Can I Just Command the Devil to Leave Me Alone?
No.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could? If I could, I’d just command him to stay away from me for the rest of my life and be done with him.
What you CAN do is resist the devil.
James 4:7:
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
James didn’t say, “Command the devil to flee from you, and he will flee from you.” Even Jesus didn’t do that. If He could have done it, He could have had one temptation instead of three where He had to respond, “It is written” and tell the devil what God had to say about the matter. After the first one, He could have just said, “Hey, you’re the devil! I command you to flee from My presence and stop tempting Me!” But after three unsuccessful tries, the devil departed on his own. And remember, that was after He was tempted for forty days in the wilderness! If had some way to make the devil and his temptations go away during those forty days, He would have showed us all how to do it!
In fact, the devil tempted Him a LOT more after that. Jesus had no magic bullet to stop him from doing it. Hebrews 4:15 tells us that He was tempted in EVERY way as we are. That is proof that He had no way to make the devil leave Him alone so that He would never be tempted again.
No one likes to lose. People want victory rather than defeat. How many churches are called Victory Fellowship, Victory Chapel, Victory Church, and so on, and how many are called Defeat Fellowship, Defeat Chapel, Defeat Church, and so on? A sports team with a horrific losing record was selling seats for a dollar or even less to get fans to fill entire empty sections, and I’m not sure even that did much good. People don’t like being around defeat. I presume that last year’s Super Bowl winner is probably not selling seats for a dollar. People prefer victory. The devil is full of pride and his days are numbered, so he won’t hang around long where he keeps getting whipped. It’s humiliating for him and he doesn’t want to be where his limited time is being spent for nothing.
But even in Jesus’ case, the devil departed, but only for a season, not forever:
Luke 4:13:
And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.
If you could make the devil leave forever, you could invalidate all the Scriptures about how you are supposed to deal with him and his lies and temptations.
See also: