Читать книгу The Warfare of the Soul: Practical Studies in the Life of Temptation - Shirley Carter Hughson - Страница 35

One of Satan's most powerful means of warfare lies in his experience in dealing with the souls of men. We dare not presume to think that we can oppose or overreach him with any gift of discernment that we have of ourselves. His experience in this warfare has been age-long. Ours has covered but a few brief years. His devotion to his cause has been unflagging, and so, by his strenuous attention to the business in hand, he has acquired vast stores of knowledge as to methods of temptation. Our knowledge of attack and resistance is a poor and beggarly thing, because when God would place us in the school of temptation that we might learn this military science, we are wanting in devotion to our cause and miss the numberless opportunities that are offered.

Furthermore, Satan has dealt with millions of souls of the same type as ours, dealt with them and mastered them. It were the height of folly for us to imagine that there might be any thing in our nature, or in our aim and purpose, that he has not met and studied in characters far stronger than ours. Taken apart from God, there is nothing in us that can for a moment baffle so powerful and experienced a foe. We can present no new front to him. Only the infinite strength and variety of God's grace can supply that which will surely baffle and defeat him.

As we study the history of his dealings with the souls of men we see not only that he is faithful to his own abominable ideals and aims, and so acquires great knowledge of the methods which avail against us, but that he is faithful and methodical in using the experience he has gained.

He makes the most of what he has. If he discovers that a certain mode of temptation is effective against men, he wastes neither time nor force in wandering afield after new things. He works one method thoroughly, getting out of it all possible dishonour to God, before seeking new ways and means. He never scatters his force, but is ever intensifying and concentrating it, daily seeking to perfect more and more his method of warfare.

Let us see how careful he is to utilize his own tremendous experiences. Take the first recorded temptation that he brought against man. What was his course of reasoning in devising it? "I fell through the desire to be like God," he reflects. "This same temptation will ensnare this new handiwork of God whom He has made in His own image and likeness." It was to him unthinkable that any intelligent being should not have that aspiration, and he approaches our first mother, promising as the reward of sin, "Ye shall be as gods."[14] His confidence was not disappointed. The lure attracted, man fell, and sin and death entered the world.