Side Effect of Loving God

Simply the side effect of loving God is that it makes us clear candidates for attacks from Satan. For every step towards salvation, it provokes a repulsion from the kingdom of darkness. The violence of this repulsion is no better expressed than in the investment the serpent gives in the life of a believer to completely undo and abuse the believer’s conviction and resoluteness on this topic. The methods employed by the serpent are a strategic finesse. “Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. “Genesis 3.1

Of course, we understand that this verse refers to “that old serpent, called the devil, and Satan.” Christ once said to the Jews, “When he [satan] speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it,” was “more subtle than any beast of the field.”

Without the correct antidotes and strategies, Satan is able to overcome us, for several reasons. The highest reason of them all is that he is inherently malicious; for malice is the most productive reflection of his cunning nature. Have you seen when a [wo]man is determined on revenge, no matter how stupid and under resourced he is, he somehow becomes clever as he devises opportunities to release his poison. Let a man have animosity against another, and let that animosity thoroughly possess his soul, and you will see him become extremely crafty in the means he uses to injure his adversary. Now, no one can be more malicious against man than Satan is, as he proves every day; and that malice sharpens his inherent wisdom, so that he becomes extremely subtle.

Satan reveals his craft and subtlety by the methods of his attack. He thoroughly and carefully examines us, and if he shall find us to be, like Achilles, vulnerable nowhere else but in our heel, then he will shoot his arrows at our heel. Simple.

Satan has not often attacked a man in a place where he saw him to be strong; but he generally looks carefully for the weak point, the so called besetting sin. There, he says, “I will strike the blow”; We have need to say, “God help us!” for, indeed, unless the Lord helps us, this crafty antagonist might easily find enough holes in our armour, and soon might he send the deadly arrow into such openings so that we fall down wounded before him.

We then quickly learn that his methods of attack can come sometimes betray his very subtle nature. We see him go an all out attack! As we are putting on our helmets, he is trying to lunge his fierce sword into our hearts; or while looking after the breast-plate, he is lifting up his battle-axe to split the skull; and while you are attending to both helmet and breast-plate, he is trying to trip up your foot. He is always watching to see where you are not looking; he is always on the alert when we are slumbering. We absolutely must “be sober, be vigilant; because the adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist steadfast in the faith.

He is not coming out against you, if you are great giants, with a sling and a stone; but he comes armed to the teeth to cut you down. The weapons of his warfare, always evil, and often spiritual and unseen, are mighty against such weak creatures as we.

Again, the craftiness of the devil is revealed in another thing, in the people and things he employs. The devil does not do all his dirty work himself; he often employs others to do it for him. When Samson had to be overcome, Satan had a Delilah ready to tempt and lead him astray; he knew what was in Samson’s heart, and where his weakest place was, and therefore he tempted him by means of the woman whom he loved. “There’s many a man that has had his head broken by his own rib”; and certainly that is true. Satan has sometimes used a man’s own wife to cast him down to destruction, or he has used some dear friend as the instrument to work his ruin. You remember how David mourned over this evil: “For it was not an enemy who reproached me; then I could have borne it: neither was it he who hated me who magnified himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him: but it was you, a man my equal, my guide, and my acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked to the house of God in company.” It is not the words of our enemies and haters that are effective against us.

And once again, Satan shows his cunning by the times in which he attacks us. He comes to attack us when we are sick in bed. And you sometimes wish you can just get up and be made strong, because you could be well prepared to give him the most terrible thrashing, because of the way he attacked while we were sick. Coward! It is in these moments when we are low that Satan attack us with unbelief. Why doesn’t he come when the promise of God is fresh in our memory, and when we indeed are enjoying a time of fellowship with God, to launch his fight? Instead he comes when there is a cloud between ourselves and our God; when the body is depressed, and the spirits are weak, then he will tempt us, and try to lead us to doubt God. It is the timing of his attacks, the right ordering of his assaults, that makes Satan ten times more terrible an enemy than he would otherwise be, and that proves the depths of his craftiness.

There is one thing about the powers of hell that has always amazes me; The Family Unit is always quarrelling; but we never hear how satan and his army quarrel and bicker amongst themselves? Evil is always so well organised and united! They are so united that, if at any time hell wishes to attack, this attack is so precise, timely and comes with its fullest force. If only we had such unanimity in our family units to only move at the guidance of the finger of Christ. If only the family could move in one great mass to the attack of evil, how much more easily might we prevail! But, sadly Satan exceeds us in subtlety, and the powers of hell far exceed us in unanimity. This, however, is a great point in Satan’s subtlety, that he always chooses the times of his attacks so wisely.

WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH THIS ENEMY?

Shall we seek to be as subtle as he is? No, that would be an idle task; if fact, it would be a sinful one. To seek to be crafty, like the devil, would be as wicked as it would be futile. What shall we do, then? Shall we attack him with wisdom? No, our wisdom is only foolishness. What, then, shall we do?

The only way to repel Satan’s subtlety is by acquiring true wisdom. If we are to successfully defeat Satan, we should make the Holy Scriptures our daily resort. We find strength to resist the devil, and also find joy upon discovering that he will actually flee from you. Let us fight Satan always with an “It is written”; for no weapon will ever hurt the arch-enemy so well as Holy Scripture will.

But, above all, if we would successfully resist Satan, we must look not merely to revealed wisdom, but to Incarnate Wisdom. We must flee to him “who by God is made to us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” He must teach us, he must guide us, he must be our ALL_IN_ALL. We must keep close to him in communion. The sheep are never so safe from the wolf as when they are near the shepherd. We shall never be so secure from the arrows of Satan as when we have our head lying on the Saviour’s bosom.

It is possible, in Christian experience, for a man to rejoice greatly and yet to be in heaviness. No man can explain this paradox, yet he understands it himself. “In heaviness through various trials,” yet greatly rejoicing in the full conviction that they will soon be over, and that then we shall enter into unutterable joy. Be of good courage, then, you who are now depressed, you who are in heaviness; “lift up your heads, for your redemption draws near.” The fiery furnace is very hot; but Jesus is in it with you; and, by his grace, you shall come out of the furnace before long.

Always remember to be loved by God and to love God is essentially to be hated by the devil and his children.

nk