Our assurance of escaping the power of this malignant and tireless foe lies:
(1) In never parleying or arguing with him. He is far cleverer than we are, and if we stop to consider his proposals, or to reason about them, our fate will, sooner or later, be that of our first mother, who, because she was willing to hear what the tempter had to say, found herself deceived to her utter undoing. Our only safe course lies in instant and vigorous rejection of all that he suggests.
(2) But, although we shall see later that it is often wise to ignore him wholly,[[19]] our resistance is not to be merely a passive one. We are to meet point with point, attack with counter-attack. If he is tirelessly active in his cause, there must be in us a corresponding activity and zeal for God's service and for the safety of our souls; a like aggressive spirit, a forcing of circumstances and conditions, wherever possible, that glory may be won for our King, and the power of the devil diminished; a like persistency, and equal alertness, a ready trying of one method, then another; and no matter what past failures may have been, a continuing the fight, that in the end we may be worthy of the victory.
If we can learn these lessons, though the strength and prowess of Satan be an hundred-fold greater than that which human might can own, yet we shall have no fear of him. On the contrary he will fear us, delivering his attacks warily, lest he find his power shattered by the weapons with which we shall be able to oppose him.
We were considering a little while ago how Satan "walketh about, seeking whom he may devour."[[20]] These words of St. Peter have another significance. True, he goes about with strong and ceaseless aggression, but he goes about seeking only those whom he may devour. He does not fall without discretion upon the throngs of men, as the lion upon the flock. He seeks only those who will, he thinks, in the end yield themselves to him. He skulks about, hiding himself, seeking, as we have seen, to blind men to the very fact of his existence, until he finds opportunity for attack when he thinks the soul will yield. Some strong souls he does not openly seek, for too often has he been defeated by them, and he fears to tempt them save in some insidious, hidden way. In dealing with such souls he loses his lion-like character, and lies in ambush like the coward who is afraid to strike save from behind.
A great comfort, therefore, we must draw from the thought that Satan's career has been one of failure as well as of victory. God's Saints, following the lead of the King of Saints, have on a thousand battle-fields trampled him under their feet; and with whatever insolent confidence he may approach us, it is never without a haunting, unnerving fear lest the issue be what it has been many times before, a crushing defeat.
It is not the weak human soul only that trembles at the impending conflict, but the soul of Satan, so often beaten down and humiliated at the hands of the weakest of the soldiers of God.
[[1]] 2 Cor. xi, 3.
[[2]] 1 Tim. ii, 14.
[[3]] St. John viii, 44.