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 JAN 18 1918 
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 BV 4501 .G643 1910 
 Gordon, S. D. 1859-1936 
 Quiet talks about the 
 tempter 
 
QUIET TALKS ABOUT 
 THE TEMPTER 
 
S. D. GORDON'S 
 
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v 
 
 QUIET TALKS 
 
 ABOUT 
 
 THE TEMPTER 
 
 , 5r 
 
 S. D. GORDON 
 
 Author of ^^ Quiet Talks on Power i** 
 * Quiet Talks on Prayer** 
 
 NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO 
 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 LONDON AND EDINBURGH 
 
Copyright, 1910, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 125 No. Wabash Ave. 
 Toronto: 25 Richmond St., W. 
 London: 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Temptation 9 
 
 II. The Tempter 23 
 
 1. The Story of His Career ... 25 
 
 2. His Aim and Ambition .... 48 
 
 3. His Defeat 66 
 
 4. His Present Struggle .... 82 
 
 5. Personal Characteristics ... 94 
 
 III. Typical Temptations m 
 
 1. Eden: How the Tempter Works . .113 
 
 2. The Wilderness: How the Tempter 
 
 is Defeated 132 
 
 IV. The Secret of Victory . . . .151 
 
 1. In the Victor I53 
 
 2. For the Overcomers . . . .173 
 
 3. Fighting Tactics: The Tempter's and 
 
 Ours 184 
 
 4. The Tempter's Disguises and How to 
 
 Detect Them 207 
 
 5. Authority to Take Possession of What 
 
 Has Been Redeemed from the 
 Enemy 234 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 These Quiet Talks about the Tempter are 
 really talks about the Spirit-filled life. They 
 necessarily put much emphasis upon our Lord 
 Jesus the Victor; upon Calvary, the place of 
 Victory; upon Obedience, the pathway of Vic- 
 tory; upon Bible-study and Prayer, the prepara- 
 tion for Victory; and upon Courage — faith 
 fighting — the spirit of Victory. 
 
 These are homely talks. They have the di- 
 rectness and blunt simplicity, and repetition for 
 emphasis' sake, that mark conversational speech. 
 They were spoken to crowds of men and women, 
 in the thick of the fight, looking for a bit of help. 
 They are put down here in black and white, in 
 response to many requests, practically as they 
 were spoken, and for the same purpose — that 
 some may be helped to better fighting, and to 
 swifter, surer victory. 
 
 They are not meant for the scholarly, nor for 
 the argumentative critic, save as these may care 
 to enroll themselves as men looking for any 
 bit of homely help on the road of life. If, by 
 the Master's grace, they help some, who feel 
 the stress of the struggle, to fight better, to 
 7 
 
8 Introduction 
 
 sing cheerier, to follow our blessed Master 
 closer; if they may help a little toward purer 
 lives, warmer sympathy, more loving service, 
 keener watching and better praying, their pur- 
 pose will be served, and the singing of our won- 
 drous Lord Jesus* praise be a bit louder and 
 sweeter. 
 
I.— TEMPTATION 
 
TEMPTATION 
 
 Using God's Roads. 
 
 Every one is tempted. If a man is alive he 
 is tempted. If he is Hving on this particular 
 planet, called the earth, he is a tempted man. 
 If he have a body to live in, he will be tempted 
 through it. If there be a mind to think with, 
 there is temptation through that. If there be a 
 social nature to enjoy others through, if there 
 be a right ambition to take one's place in life, 
 and do his full share of the fighting, and — in a 
 good way — win his share of the victory, there 
 will be temptation because of these. 
 
 For temptation always follows the natural 
 grooves of the true life. Satan always travels 
 God's road. He never makes any of his own. 
 He uses God's. There is nothing wrong in 
 itself. But anything and everything may be- 
 come damnably wrong. The sin is in the wrong 
 motive underneath, or the wrong relationship 
 round about an action. It is in the excess or 
 the exaggeration. 
 
 Speech is a gift from God. But the desire 
 
 to deceive through speech— the using of the 
 
 power of speech to say what is not true — is 
 
 from the evil one. The act of reaching a hand 
 
 II 
 
12 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 into a drawer to take out some money may be 
 either right or wrong. Everything depends on 
 whose hand it is, and why it is reaching in. 
 Either one of the very opposite extremes of 
 right or wrong may be in the act. 
 
 If that drawer is mine and the money mine, 
 and I am taking it out prayerfully to send the 
 Gospel of Christ to Madagascar, the act is not 
 merely right, but it is specially to be praised. 
 For they need the Gospel in Madagascar, and 
 the money may be transmuted into a redeemed 
 life under the Holy Spirit's touch. 
 
 If the drawer is not mine, nor the money it 
 contains, then the act is against the law of man, 
 as well as the law of God. It is a crime as well 
 as a sin. 
 
 If the drawer is mine, and the money too, so 
 far as man's reckoning goes, and yet I am tak- 
 ing the money out to use for something that is 
 in no sense a necessity, but only a luxurious in- 
 dulgence, it becomes a sin, though not a crime. 
 It is a sin of selfishness. And there is no 
 greater sin, nor commoner. It is a misappro- 
 priation to my own use of funds entrusted to 
 me by God to be used for Him in making His 
 Gospel known among men. For that is the one 
 purpose that should govern all our possessions. 
 It is a distinct breach of trust. 
 
 So it is regarding every action of life. The 
 motive or relationship makes it good or bad. 
 
Temptation 13 
 
 The same act may be saintly, or, selfishly hellish. 
 
 Satan boldly and thievishly appropriates 
 everything for his own uses and purposes. His 
 long fingers reach in everywhere. Nothing is 
 sacred to his touch. The holiest functions, the 
 purest relationships, the most innocent pastimes 
 are subtly and boldly turned by him away from 
 their true uses to serve his own purposes. 
 
 Because we are here and sin is here, and 
 things are as they are, we are tempted, and we 
 will be tempted to the last rod of the road. The 
 evil one attends to that. With great craftiness 
 and persistence he sees that the temptations come 
 under some guise or covering. 
 
 How to meet Temptation. 
 
 Some people yield to their temptations, I am 
 sorry to say. They calmly lie down, and are 
 trodden underfoot, like — shall I say like a dog? 
 Of course I mean a dead dog. No live dog 
 would. But some men do. 
 
 Some men play with their temptations. Their 
 consciences are not dead yet, though they are 
 a bit withered up from lack of exercise. They 
 make a pretence of fighting, and then having 
 thrown that bone to their consciences to be 
 chewed on a bit, they likewise lie down and are 
 trodden underfoot, like their brothers and sis- 
 ters just referred to. 
 
14 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 Some persons fight their temptations. They 
 recognize and resist them. They have learned 
 the meaning of " watch and pray." The 
 ** watch " brings into play the human side, the 
 " pray " the divine side. Their watch-tower is 
 never deserted. They have found out the sleep- 
 lessness of the tempter, and of all his sub- 
 tempters. They lock up the joints of their will, 
 and limber up the joints of their knees, and they 
 fight. They say, " even though we go down, we 
 will go down fighting, and only in the last ditch, 
 and with face outward toward the foe. And 
 when the sword blade snaps we will use the 
 scabbard. But we will never yield by so much 
 as a half hair's breadth." That's the spirit in 
 which they meet and fight their temptations. 
 
 In a certain large steel work a big muscular 
 Scotchman called " Striker Jones " held the po- 
 sition of boss-striker. Nearly all the men in 
 his department were hard drinkers. And he 
 was not an exception to the rule. But a change 
 took place. He became a Christian; and when 
 pressed by his fellows to take a drink he re- 
 fused. " I shall never take a drink ony mair, 
 lads," he quietly said, " na drunkard shall in- 
 herit the Kingdom of God." And they said, 
 " Wait a bit, till the hot weather comes — till 
 July. When he gets as dry as a gravel-pit he 
 will give in. He can't help it." But right 
 through the hottest months he toiled on, the 
 
Temptation 1 5 
 
 sweat pouring in streams, yet he never seemed 
 to be tempted to drink. 
 
 At last the time-keeper of the mill spoke to 
 him as he was giving in his time. He said, 
 "You used to drink a good bit. Don't you 
 miss it? " 
 
 " Yes," he said, very emphatically. 
 
 " How do you manage to keep away from 
 it?" 
 
 " Weel, just this way. It is now ten o'clock, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Weel, to-day is the twentieth of the month. 
 From seven till eight I asked that the Lord 
 would help. He did. And I put a dot down on 
 the calendar right near the twenty. From eight 
 till nine. He kept me, and I put down another 
 dot. From nine to ten He has kept me, and now 
 I gie Him the glory as I put down the third 
 dot. Just as I mark these dots I pray — ' O 
 Lord, help me; help me to fight it off for an- 
 other hour,' " 
 
 That's the fighting spirit for temptations. 
 And it makes no matter what the temptation is, 
 it can be fought and resisted successfully only 
 by steady stiff fighting. 
 
 Temptation's Weak Spot. 
 
 Now I wish you would mark very keenly 
 this: temptation has no power of itself. It 
 
1 6 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 must have help from the man being tempted. 
 There is nothing so weak, so ridiculously weak 
 in itself, as a temptation. It can do nothing, 
 absolutely nothing, without the consent of the 
 man being tempted. It can allure, it can sing 
 bewitching songs, it can make an atmosphere 
 around you mighty hard to breathe in, but it 
 can't get inside a man's life without his con- 
 sent. And it is as powerless as an infant ex- 
 cept as it can get inside. 
 
 There is only one knob to the door of a 
 man's life. And that is on the inside. That 
 door never opens except as the man inside 
 opens it. With greatest reverence be it said that 
 God won't come in without a man's glad consent. 
 God never forces. He comes in only by our free 
 consent. And — mark keenly — Satan can't get 
 in without the man's willing consent. Let every 
 tempted man underscore this fact, that it may 
 stand out sharp and clear. And then he can 
 underscore it sharper yet in the book of his 
 experience that it takes two to make a success- 
 ful temptation, and you are one of the two. 
 Without your partnership the temptation must 
 slink dejectedly away defeated. 
 
 A young fellow of seventeen was telling an 
 older friend of an experience he had. He was 
 a carpenter's apprentice, and had been sent to 
 make certain measurements for a new counter 
 in a drinking saloon. It was very cold weather, 
 
Temptation 1 7 
 
 and his teeth were chattering as he arrived, for 
 his coat was thin. The saloon-keeper immedi- 
 ately mixed a hot drink, and pushed it over the 
 counter to him. " It'll cost you nothing," he 
 said, " drink it down and you'll soon stop shiv- 
 ering, my boy." 
 
 " He meant it kindly, too, and didn't think 
 any harm," said the fellow, as he told the story. 
 " That's what made it hard to push it back, and 
 say I didn't want it." 
 
 " It must have been a big temptation," said 
 the friend. " That saloon-keeper might have 
 started you on the road to ruin." 
 
 " Well," said the young fellow, frankly, " I'd 
 rather have had it than some other kinds. You 
 see it takes two to make a successful tempta- 
 tion. There's no saloon-keeper and no cold 
 weather that can make me drink. The tempta- 
 tion I'm most afraid of is the one I'm ready 
 for when it comes, by hankering after it. If 
 I had taken that drink, I would not have put all 
 the blame on that saloon-keeper. It takes two 
 every time to make a successful temptation." 
 
 Temptation of itself is utterly powerless. If 
 a man yield, of course, he is whipped in the 
 start; he gives the chance of victory away with- 
 out even a decent show of fight. If a man play 
 with his temptation, as so many do; if he dally 
 and linger ; if he hang round the fire poking dry 
 straws in, as so many do, then he is whipped too. 
 
1 8 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 His defeat is sure. He passes the chance of 
 victory out to the assailant without a decent 
 show of fight. 
 
 If a man fight, if he is determined to fight, 
 he will zvin. For such a man will reach out for 
 every bit of help within reach. And there is 
 One standing very near by who knows all about 
 temptation, temptations of every sort, who has 
 been tempted Himself, and who eagerly gives 
 His help. He is always waiting to help. 
 
 A man may feel weak and the temptation 
 may seem very subtle and very strong. It may 
 come with the rush of a wild storm down the 
 valley. Or it may come with the sly, sneaking 
 subtlety of a snake crawling along in the tall 
 grass to strike its fangs in when you least think 
 it is there. But this man says, " I mean to be 
 right. I mean to be good, strongly good. I 
 mean to be pure, above all else to be pure." 
 And so he locks up every joint of his will, and 
 reaches eagerly out for the help of the Helper 
 at hand, and he fights, and more — he wins. 
 Every temptation so approached and attacked is 
 already defeated. 
 
 How to Win. 
 
 Will you mark as keenly as you ever marked 
 anything that there must be two factors on the 
 winning side in that fight? There must be a 
 
Temptation 19 
 
 determined will, and there must be alongside 
 the Man who was tempted in all points just as 
 we are, and who never failed, and who never 
 fails. Let it be said very plainly that neither 
 one is enough without the other. 
 
 There must be a jaw-locked determination not 
 to yield. With greatest reverence, be it said, 
 the Lord Jesus alone without our wills is not 
 enough. He works through the man's will. 
 He works with us. He can work only through 
 us. He strengthens the will. That will may be 
 very weak. It may be shattered and smashed by 
 indulgence in sin out of all resemblance to a 
 will. But, remember, it is never lost. While 
 there's life, there's a choosing power. However 
 weak it may be it still can choose. And our 
 tempted, victorious Lord Jesus will help it to 
 act, and to act right, no matter how hard it 
 seems. And then He helps it through that act 
 of choice. 
 
 He will put new life and strength into one 
 the very moment the determination is decided 
 upon. And so, bit by bit, sometimes in a way 
 that seems slow, but very very surely, the new 
 strength comes into the will. And so through 
 the choice to resist the wrong and do the right, 
 our victorious Fellow-Man breathes new strength 
 in, and gives us the enormous advantage of His 
 victory and of His presence. 
 
 But let it be said, just as bluntly and plainly 
 
20 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 as it can be said, that the will alone is not 
 enough. A man may have a square jaw, a hard 
 fist, a head high at the crown, and in other ways 
 give evidences of a ruggedly strong will. But 
 as surely as he goes alone, he will go down, 
 and he will go down sprawling, and he will 
 carry the scars of his fall clear to the end of 
 the chapter of life. 
 
 He may not go down for quite a while, and 
 that itself will greatly increase his confidence in 
 himself, but the fall will come to the man go- 
 ing alone. Going alone means going down be- 
 fore you get through. And the longer the fall- 
 down is deferred, the sharper and harder the 
 fall will be when it does come. 
 
 There must be a will, and there must be more 
 — a Saviour too, a Friend, a Helper. Neither 
 one nor the other, but one and the other; a will 
 and a Saviour; a will strengthened and helped 
 by a Saviour; a Saviour tempted in all points, 
 therefore sympathetic; victorious at every point, 
 and therefore strong to help — a Saviour like 
 that working through our wills. 
 
 If this wondrous Victor of the Wilderness, 
 and of Calvary, be not allowed to help, there 
 will be a French Waterloo in your life. And 
 the French never talk about their Waterloo. 
 They are a bit busy if that topic is suggested. 
 There is no Waterloo on the famous Napoleon 
 Monument in Paris. The sculptor had a con- 
 
Temptation 2 1 
 
 venient lapse of memory just then. The great- 
 est battle was omitted. 
 
 If you will allow this great human Saviour, 
 who was divine too, to come alongside and help, 
 there will be an English Waterloo in your life. 
 
 Every temptation is a chance for a Victor}^ 
 It is a signal to fly the flag of our Victor. It 
 is a chance to make the tempter know anew that 
 he is defeated. It is an opportunity to strike 
 the note for a ringing song of victory. Steady, 
 steady — there's a will within, and a Friend 
 alongside, and a victory just ahead, with the 
 flag high, and the music joyous. 
 
 " Hold on, my heart, in thy believing ! 
 
 The steadfast only wear the crown ; 
 He who, when stormy waves are heaving, 
 
 Parts with his anchor, shall go down; 
 But he whom Jesus holds through all 
 Shall stand, though earth and heaven fall. 
 
 " Hold out! There comes an end to sorrow; 
 
 Hope from the dust shall conquering rise; 
 The storm foretells a sunnier morrow; 
 
 The cross points on to Paradise. 
 The Father reigneth, cease all doubt; 
 Hold on, my heart, hold on, hold out."* 
 
 * Schmolke. 
 
II.— THE TEMPTER 
 
THE STORY OF HIS CAREER 
 
 The Keynote. 
 
 Wherever there is temptation there is a 
 tempter. It tells of him. Whenever it comes, 
 if you will look about a bit, you are sure to 
 find him. 
 
 Temptation may come through an evil heart 
 inside. It often does. But there's always some- 
 thing outside, too. And that something is 
 pretty sure to conceal some one. It may come 
 through inner passions or desires. It is very 
 apt to come through a coming together of an 
 inner desire and an outer circumstance. 
 
 But however it comes, through the inner, 
 through the outer, or through these two get- 
 ting together, it always comes from the tempter. 
 The inside longing and the outside opening are 
 simply coverings to hide his approach. He uses 
 whatever is handiest and most usable. 
 
 The very name " tempter " tells at once his 
 most striking characteristic. The word itself 
 means that there is something wrong near by. 
 There's somebody being urged to do the thing 
 that is wrong. There's some one, more or less 
 out of sight, doing the urging. The wrong it- 
 
26 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 self tells of a right. There is only one right. 
 Any turning aside is wrong. The only right 
 thing to do is that right. 
 
 And — remember — there is some One else 
 present, too. The wrong tells of the right, and 
 the right tells of this other One who is close 
 by, earnestly longing to have us do the right, 
 and eager to help us do it. That is the some 
 One who gave His image to us, and will stop 
 at nothing to help us in our fight against the 
 bad. 
 
 I want just now to talk with you a bit about 
 the tempter who is sneaking behind the tempta- 
 tion. It is very striking that the true keynote to 
 a talk about the tempter is in the name of the 
 One who is the very opposite of that tempter. 
 The name of Jesus is the keynote that must give 
 the pitch to the music here as everywhere else. 
 For that name " Jesus " means " Victor," lit- 
 erally " Jehovah- Victor." It is a word taken 
 bodily over from the old language of the He- 
 brews into the Greek or Aramaic of our Lord's 
 time; and thence it has gone into every lan- 
 guage where it is found to-day. There is the 
 shout of victory in the very name. 
 
 And, of course, " victor " means that there 
 has been a victory. And victory tells of a 
 battle, a fight. It must have been a real fight 
 to call for as strong a word as *' victor " in tell- 
 ing the result. And both of these words, " bat- 
 
The Story of his Career 27 
 
 tie " and " victory " tell of a foe, and, more yet, 
 that that foe has been fighting, and has been 
 defeated. 
 
 And that great name of " Jesus " tells of an- 
 other name, the name of a place, the name of 
 an event, of an experience — Calvary. That is 
 the great outstanding word in our Lord Jesus* 
 life down here. That was the pitched battle of 
 the long fight which really began back at the 
 manger-cradle, and ran on through Nazareth, 
 and through the three-and-a-half years of tire- 
 less service. 
 
 There the tempter did his utmost and his 
 worst. There our Lord by His sacrifice upheld 
 the righteousness of His Father, revealed the 
 great love of His Father's heart, and forever 
 defeated the evil one, loosening us from all his 
 claim upon us. Those must be the two ringing 
 keynotes in talking about the tempter. The very 
 name of our Lord tells of him who has been de- 
 feated. And Calvary spells out the place and 
 the time and the blessed fact of the tempter's 
 defeat. 
 
 Our Ignorance of His Devices. 
 
 These simple talks about the tempter are to 
 be wholly practical. We ought to know about 
 our enemy if we are to resist him. I have no 
 wish to go into any speculations, but only to 
 
2 8 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 bring such clear information from the old Book 
 of God as shall make us stronger to resist temp- 
 tation, and to lead a victorious, pure life. 
 
 Paul said to his own generation of Chris- 
 tians about Satan, *' we are not ignorant of his 
 devices." Probably that was partly due to 
 Paul's own faithful teaching, and to their ac- 
 ceptance of the simple teaching of the old Book. 
 It certainly cannot be said to-day of any con- 
 siderable number of professing Christians. 
 There seems to be far more ignorance of his 
 devices than knowledge. 
 
 And as a result prayer is often powerless ; the 
 simple faith that takes God at His word is reck- 
 oned remarkable because so rare ; Christian lives 
 are entangled with things that actually help 
 Satan, though doubtless all unconsciously, 
 surely, in most cases; and our minds are full 
 of such hazy, beclouded ideas about the evil one 
 that our activities and praying are terribly 
 hampered. 
 
 It is a strange and striking characteristic of 
 the Church to-day that people commonly do not 
 believe in the personal existence of Satan, and 
 freely say so. It is supposed to be rather a 
 sign of mental strength to doubt his existence, 
 and rather evidence of an old-fashioned child- 
 ishness to believe in his being and in his power. 
 And this seems to be felt even more than it is 
 expressed, though it is freely enough expressed. 
 
The Story of his Career 29 
 
 The change in this regard has been very radi- 
 cal within, say, the past hundred years or so. 
 That is, in the eighteenth century, Satan swung 
 in too far in people's consciousness. They re- 
 membered him but forgot to remember his Vic- 
 tor at the same time. Things were ascribed to 
 Satan which could be traced to natural causes 
 and processes. 
 
 Now, we have swung clear to the other ex- 
 treme. Doubt of his existence is freely and 
 commonly expressed. One who knows his 
 characteristics can easily detect his own cun- 
 ning influence at work there. The very doubt 
 of his existence becomes evidence of it. And 
 he is so subtle that he is actually eager to have 
 men doubt his existence for a while, if so be 
 he can tighten his own grip. 
 
 It is of intensest interest to note, too, that 
 this doubt exists only in Christian lands. It is 
 only where the name of his Victor, and of his 
 own terrific defeat, are so well known that such 
 doubt is expressed. Surely his serpent-trail can 
 be easily traced in this. Where his defeat is 
 known, and so his own inherent weakness is 
 known, he would have us doubt his existence, 
 and so spike the guns of our resistance to him. 
 Without doubt were he better known, he would 
 be more heartily hated ; I mean in practical ways 
 hated, and fought and resisted, and utterly de- 
 feated all anew in the great name of his Victor. 
 
30 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 It stands out in sharpest contrast with this 
 that no such doubt is expressed or known in 
 heathen lands. There he is known, and dreaded, 
 and even slavishly worshipped, because of his 
 power. His defeat is a thing unknown except 
 where the Gospel has gone, and even there the 
 knowledge is not full, nor practically effective, 
 except in smaller part. 
 
 Three Sorts of Evidence. 
 
 I want to bring you now to a brief sketch of 
 the tempter's career. And in doing that I shall 
 not touch any of the speculative legends and 
 myths that are so common. We want to gather 
 up simply some of what God's own Word tells 
 of him. 
 
 Will you notice keenly before we turn to the 
 Book itself that there are three distinct ways 
 of proving the personality of Satan : First of 
 all is the Biblical. We shall be referring to that 
 constantly in these talks. For those who are 
 willing to accept the plain teaching of Scrip- 
 ture there is no need of going further. For this 
 Book plainly teaches both his personal existence, 
 and his great activity and power. 
 
 But for those who are not content to accept 
 these teachings there are two other independent 
 sources of evidence. And each of them is quite 
 conclusive in itself, to the earnest, seeking man. 
 
The Story of his Career 31 
 
 There is the philosophical evidence. That is 
 to say, there is no power apart from personality. 
 That can be put down as a purely philosophical 
 proposition. There may be manifestations of 
 power without the personality being seen or rec- 
 ognized. That is very common. There cannot 
 be power apart from an intelligence originating 
 and directing it. And certainly there is an evil 
 power in the world. That is plainly felt and 
 recognized everywhere. Now that presence of 
 an evil power argues plainly the personality of 
 an evil being actively at work behind the scenes. 
 
 There is still a third line of approach quite 
 distinct from these two, and as irresistible in 
 itself. That is the experimental, or the evidence 
 that comes through experience. Let a man who 
 has been yielding to temptation try to quit; let 
 a man try to cut with the sin he has been in- 
 dulging; and he will at once become aware that 
 he has a real fight on his hands. He will be- 
 come conscious of a real power attacking him 
 with terrific force. About that the man himself 
 will have no doubt. It will come with peculiar 
 force, and drive, and cunning subtlety. It will 
 hang on with great tenacity and persistence. 
 
 Thousands of men to-day are in the thick of 
 that fight. As long as a man yields to evil 
 there is no fight. But when he pulls away then 
 the fight is on. And even though he trusts in 
 the great Name above every name, and finds vie- 
 
32 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 tory through that Name, as he always may and 
 will, it is still a victory through fighting, real 
 intense fighting, with jaw locked, and fist 
 clenched, brow moist, and incessant praying. 
 That man will not be troubled any more about 
 the keen, intelligent, persistent personality of the 
 evil one. And his undoubting consciousness will 
 only grow more positive as long as he persists 
 in the fight against evil and compromise in his 
 own life, even though he may be blessedly con- 
 scious of the greater One who is within. The 
 victory always comes through fighting. 
 
 In these talks together the reference will be 
 almost wholly to the Biblical evidence as being 
 quite conclusive and satisfactory. 
 
 The Bible Viewpoint. 
 
 Will you now turn to this Book of God for 
 a little? The clearer light is in the New Testa- 
 ment. It really becomes the explanation of what 
 is said in the Old Testament. In the light shed 
 upon the Old by the New, the Old becomes full 
 of clear teaching. 
 
 The last of the books, John's Revelation, con- 
 tains the most expHcit direct teaching. There 
 we are plainly told that the serpent of Eden is 
 Satan himself. There was a being working be- 
 hind Eden's serpent, with all the characteristics 
 commonly associated with that dreaded reptile. 
 
The Story of his Career 33 
 
 The Gospels reveal the greatest Satanic and 
 demon activity on record. There Satan and his 
 whole world of attendant demon-spirits, are ac- 
 cepted as real beings, of real power. Our Lord 
 plainly so believed, and so taught. His expe- 
 rience in the Wilderness, and without doubt in 
 Nazareth before, and certainly through the three 
 years and more ^fter, leave no doubt, both of 
 His belief, and the realness of his fight, and 
 the sweet reality of His victory that marked 
 every step of His way. 
 
 His teachings about Sata^ are very plain and 
 dear. Satan is the determined foe of God, and 
 of all that is good. He is the ""'prince of this 
 world." He is conducting an aggressive war- 
 fare. The whole action of life is against him. 
 And he is defeated. Every one who will resist 
 and fight him is assured of victory. 
 
 St. Paul's letters are full of the same iort of 
 information, as are also the other epistles. 
 These men who stood nearest to our Lord, who 
 did such tremendous working and fighting in 
 their Master's Name and power, these earl> 
 giants of faith and tireless service, and heroic? 
 suffering — these men have no question, nor 
 doubts, about a personal devil. Their fighting 
 was too real to admit of doubt. They fought at 
 too close grips, hand-to-hand, for doubt to 
 get in. 
 
 And they knew victory too, constant and un- 
 
34 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 mistakable. That intensified their belief in the 
 realness of the fight, and the one fought. The 
 best cure for doubt here is fighting, real fight- 
 ing; resisting, stubborn resisting, and steady 
 insisting on the will of Jesus, on the victory of 
 Jesus our Lord. 
 
 Now these simple plain New Testament 
 teachings throw a flood of light on the allu- 
 sions to Satan in the Old Testament. Go back 
 to Eden fresh from the newer pages of Revela- 
 tion, back to Job, to the twenty-first chapter 
 of First Chronicles, and the one hundred and 
 ninth Psalm, and the third of Zechariah, and 
 you understand at once clearly who this per- 
 sonality is that works in such deadly ways, and 
 with such stubborn hate. The New Testament 
 makes one keener in detecting the serpent trail. 
 And once our eyes are sharpened to recognize it, 
 we can see it with startling plainness in the 
 old pages of the Book, and in all the pages 
 of the book of common life. 
 
 Going to the Original Sources, 
 
 Let any one who would know the teaching of 
 the Bible take a rapid but careful run through 
 its pages, noting every reference to the enemy. 
 Take sheets of blank paper and note down in 
 regular order every text, writing out just enough 
 of the words to bring to your mind at once what 
 
The Story of his Career 35 
 
 the passage contains. Leave a wide margin at 
 the right hand side of the sheet for any notes 
 you may want to make. 
 
 A good concordance will help much. Though 
 the habit of wide continual reading of the Bible 
 by the page is the real basis of all such research, 
 and makes it easy, and makes it strangely fas- 
 cinating too, and even more — makes your con- 
 clusions much more reliable because each pas- 
 sage is gotten in its setting. And the setting 
 really gives the meaning of the words them- 
 selves. Trace out and put down every place 
 referring to the names and titles of Satan, to 
 demons and the devil. It is really not nearly as 
 laborious a task as it sounds. And there is a 
 real fascination about it. 
 
 Such a simple gathering together and group- 
 ing up of the actual statements of this blessed 
 Word of God will not only radically change one's 
 belief regarding this cunning enemy of ours, but 
 it will do more. It will affect our lives, and 
 consecration, and surrender, if we are indeed 
 determined to be true to our Lord. It will af- 
 fect our praying, it will make us do more claim- 
 ing in our praying, more taking of definite 
 things. Aye, it will do yet more; if we are de- 
 termined to follow our Lord fully there will 
 come to us a new inner consciousness of some- 
 thing, or somebody, who is resisting us, is try- 
 ing to turn us aside, or trip us up. 
 
36 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 And if we are courageous enough to keep 
 steadily on, we will find the meaning of such 
 a verse as, " Greater is He that is in you than 
 he that is in the world." ' The commentary of 
 actual experience will flood that statement with 
 a light that cannot be gotten in any book. You 
 will be convinced down into the very roots of 
 your being of this : that the " world " one is 
 great, terrifically great; much too great for you 
 to deal with alone. 
 
 But, greater, aye, greater is the other One. 
 No dictionary definition can make anything Hke 
 a satisfactory meaning of that word '' greater." 
 Those two words, *' great," " greater," will stand 
 out with a strange sharpness to your eyes. 
 '' Great " — that's the enemy ; how great only he 
 knows who resists. But — ah, that is a blessed 
 •' but " ; all the gospel is in that " but " ; all the 
 power of a perfectly obedient Nazareth life, a 
 sacrificial Calvary death, and a triumphant res- 
 urrection morning, are in that " but." But 
 " greater " is He — the Victor. The intensity of 
 your fight becomes the new underscoring of that 
 word " greater." The only satisfactory way of 
 spelling that word that will at all satisfy your 
 heart is to spell it with a J and an E, and then 
 S-U-S— Great !— Greater ! ! 
 
 But now for that brief biographical sketch. 
 There are seven chapters in it. But each can be 
 *i John iv. 4. 
 
The Story of his Career 37 
 
 made simple and brief that the whole may easily 
 be held in mind together. 
 
 The first chapter tells of Satan's original state 
 before he became Satan. That name belongs 
 to a later stage, after his character had changed. 
 Originally, as created by God in His great love, 
 this prince was a being of rare personal beauty, 
 of great wisdom, with mighty power, and high 
 dignity of position. The teaching of the Bible 
 here is chiefly inferential, but so clear as to 
 leave no doubt as to the facts which the Holy 
 Spirit is bringing to us through these pages. 
 
 Jesus' words : ** I beheld Satan fallen as 
 lightning from heaven," ' give a world of clear 
 inferential light on this first stage of Satan's 
 career. Weymouth's translation, in the foot- 
 note, gives " a rendering less brief but more 
 exact," in these words, " I was looking on when 
 Satan was hurled like a lightning flash out of 
 heaven." Taken with other scriptures this 
 points clearly to Satan's early glorious history. 
 
 The Ezekicl Picture. 
 
 May I ask you to turn to a remarkable pas- 
 sage about Satan? It is in the prophecy of 
 Ezekiel. There are three chapters dealing with 
 the kingdom of Tyre, a Phoenician island-king- 
 dom of ancient times, lying on the Mediter- 
 ranean coast, north-west of Israel's territory. 
 
 1 Luke X. i8. 
 
38 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 Tyre was one of the greatest, most prosper- 
 ous, most powerful, most arrogant, and most 
 luxurious of the great kingdoms of the world 
 of its time. Of that much at least, we can be 
 quite sure. Probably much stronger language 
 could be correctly used. Ezekiel is talking about 
 all the great nations surrounding Israel. In 
 turn he comes to this kingdom of Tyre; and 
 chapters twenty-six, twenty-seven, and most of 
 twenty-eight, contain the Tyre message. It is 
 a message of judgment. 
 
 At the close of it occurs this most remarkable 
 passage — chapter twenty-eight, verses one to 
 nineteen. The first ten verses speak of " the 
 prince of Tyre," the next nine verses of " the 
 king of Tyre." The first is a message to the 
 prince, the second a lamentation over the king. 
 The title " prince," you will notice, is a subor- 
 dinate or secondary title to " king." A prince 
 is under a king. A king rules over his princes, 
 who in turn may rule over those under them. 
 
 The language used here of the prince is such 
 language as can properly be used of a man. 
 Indeed, he is called a " man." The language 
 used of the " king " is not such as is ever used 
 of man, nor could it be so used. But it is most 
 striking that exactly the same spirit dominates 
 the prince as the king. The same characteris- 
 tics strikingly mark each. The prince is an ex- 
 act duplicate, a sort of understudy, of the king. 
 
The Story of his Career 39 
 
 The same beauty, wisdom, and power mark each, 
 and the same awful defiance of God breathes in 
 both alike. 
 
 Remember that this Book of God is written 
 from God's standpoint. It sees things on the 
 earth as seen through God's eyes. This should 
 be kept clearly in mind. The Holy Spirit seems 
 to be giving us here a simple picture of the 
 scene as it appears from above, to His own eye. 
 
 There is a man recognized among men as 
 ruler of the kingdom of Tyre. There is an- 
 other ruler, unseen by men, who rules the ruler 
 of Tyre, and who so completely dominates him 
 that this under-ruler perfectly carries out the 
 purposes of his chief. Yet this prince of Tyre 
 is one of the mightiest kings of earth of that 
 time. The same classification would make all 
 the kings of earth *' princes " and this unseen 
 spirit one of a higher order and higher rule. 
 
 It is a perfect illustration of thorough organi- 
 zation, the higher one, unseen by those on the 
 scene of action, completely carrying out his own 
 purpose through a subordinate. The second 
 passage (verses 11-19) relates to the "king." 
 It seems to give a simple sketch of this unseen 
 master-spirit who rules this mighty, earthly 
 king, and dominates him so absolutely. 
 
 The picture drawn of him at the beginning of 
 his career is a most remarkable one, in its wis- 
 dom, beauty, and simplicity, and yet its strength. 
 
40 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 He was not only beautiful in person and wise in 
 rare degree, but, in language most striking as 
 coming from God Himself, it says he was per- 
 fect in both beauty and wisdom, filling out the 
 full measure of what was possible in both these 
 regards. 
 
 He was in the most intimate personal rela- 
 tion with God Himself. Notice, " Thou wast 
 the anointed cherub that covereth; thou wast 
 upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast 
 walked up and down in the midst of the coals of 
 fire." Without going into how much those 
 words mean just now, it clearly points to the 
 closest intimacy and fellowship between God 
 and this magnificent creature. 
 
 TJie Break zvith God. 
 
 That is the first chapter in this strange biog- 
 raphy. Then follows the second : " Thy heart 
 was lifted up because of thy beauty; thou hast 
 corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy bright- 
 ness." " Unrighteousness was found in thee." 
 " Thou hast sinned." Here is put simply the 
 root of his sin, and you will note keenly that 
 it is the root of all sin. His sin and ours are 
 of closest kin. 
 
 He preferred himself to God. He thought of 
 his beauty and wisdom as something that be- 
 longed to himself independently of God. And 
 
The Story of his Career 41 
 
 more yet, he thought of these as for himself, 
 instead of being only for God, and His glory. 
 They came from God, their source; they were 
 dependent upon God, their life; they were for 
 God, their purpose. Satan thought only of him- 
 self. The whole core of sin is here, preferring 
 one's self to our wondrous Lover-God. 
 
 The words spoken by his underling, whom he 
 has so dominated, puts yet more keenly the 
 innermost purpose of his heart : " Thou hast 
 said, ' I am a god, I sit in the seat of God ' " ; 
 "thou hast set thy heart as the heart of God." 
 " Wilt thou yet say, ' I am God '? " 
 
 This is the very core of sin. It is rebellion 
 against God. It is dethroning Him, and taking 
 the throne for one's self. It is nothing short of 
 startling to find how common is this very 
 thought about God and one's self. Rarely in- 
 deed is it put on human lips so plainly and 
 bluntly and openly. But it is lived as truly as 
 this old prince spoke it. And quickly upon the 
 heels of that came the natural logical result: 
 " I have cast thee as profane out of the moun- 
 tain of God; and I have destroyed thee, O cov- 
 ering cherub, from the midst of the stones of 
 fire." 
 
 Such is this striking Ezekiel passage, which 
 came to the prophet as a word spoken by God 
 Himself. It puts simply, and concisely, and 
 clearly, the first two stages of this prince's ca- 
 
42 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 reer. First, the great beauty, rare wisdom and 
 close fellowship with God Himself; then the sad 
 break-away. 
 
 Our Lord's thrice-repeated phrase,' '' The 
 prince of this world," suggests in this connec- 
 tion that this earth was the realm over which he 
 was set as administrator. He seems to have 
 been the rightful prince of this earth, but he 
 has become the traitor-prince through being un- 
 true to the trust ; and the usurper-prince through 
 seeking to retain control of the earth as his own 
 dominion, through deceiving man, to whom the 
 earth's dominion was given, into obeying him, 
 and in utter defiance of God. 
 
 The third chapter of Satan's career is the 
 present one, a very long one, beginning from the 
 time of that break-away, on through these cen- 
 turies of our earth's history, and to continue 
 until the close of the present order of things. 
 His whole purpose is to swing the earth and 
 man wholly away from God, and wholly for 
 himself. In this chapter, two-thirds of the way 
 on, occurs the great crisis of his present career 
 — the stupendous event of Calvary, where his 
 fate, so far as this earth and our race is con- 
 cerned, was settled forever. 
 
 The fourth chapter is the one following this 
 present time, when our Lord shall return to 
 establish His kingdom, and Satan shall be 
 ^John xii. 31 ; xiv. 30; xvi. ii. 
 
The Story of his Career 43 
 
 " chained," in the simple language of the Book,* 
 and kept in restraint for a long period, a thou- 
 sand years. 
 
 The fifth chapter tells of his being " loosed 
 again/' ' That seems very startling. It would 
 seem that once he is securely fastened up he 
 should nevermore be permitted any freedom 
 again. But our God is a wondrous sovereign. 
 He is a love-God. He wants our love, pure and 
 glad, and freely given. That millennial king- 
 dom will contain many who render only a 
 " feigned allegiance." They go with the crowd 
 and the current of their time, but at heart do 
 not prefer God's way. 
 
 There is to be a final sifting time, a testing 
 time. Those who at heart prefer the reign of 
 this coming pretender-prince, and it is startling 
 how many even within Church lines do, these 
 will be given free choice to do as they prefer. 
 Our God wants only a love-following, only 
 heart-followers. And so the final testing time 
 is allowed — an awful time of sifting. 
 
 Then will come the final chapter,^ when the 
 last crisis is over, and Satan is finally judged, 
 and put away for ever and ever. Such is a 
 brief story of the sad career, past and future, 
 of this great spirit. 
 
 ^Rev. XX. 1-3. ^Rev. xx. 7-9, 
 
 3 Rev. XX. 10. 
 
44 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 A Human Understudy. 
 
 It is both striking and startling to find that 
 there is a human illustration of his career. 
 There is portrayed for us, with great faithful- 
 ness in detail, by the Holy Spirit, the character 
 and career of a man, who fills out with strange 
 exactness, this strange story of Satan. It is 
 found in the biography of King Saul of Israel. 
 His career is put down for us in the Word of 
 God, with that peculiar fidelity to truth in out- 
 lining human character, that marks this Book. 
 That it is put down here for a real practical 
 purpose, no one who reads carefully can 
 question. 
 
 Notice please, very briefly, the story of Saul's 
 life. It is all found within less than fourteen 
 pages of First Samuel.^ He was a man of un- 
 usual personal beauty, and excellence of char- 
 acter. He was chosen by God to be a Prince 
 over His people. He was peculiarly endowed 
 by the Spirit of God for this work. He ruled 
 for a tfme with real rare wisdom, with great 
 fidelity and obedience to God's purposes. 
 
 Then he acted independently of God; he pre- 
 ferred his own way, persisted in it, and defended 
 it. He was set aside as God's chosen one. An- 
 other was chosen in his place, to be God's prince 
 over his people. But he refused to transfer 
 ^i Samuel ix.-xxxi. 
 
The Story of his Career 45 
 
 the realm to his God-chosen successor, though 
 he knew and acknowledged that this other one 
 was God's own chosen one to rule in his place. 
 He not only refused, but he fought his suc- 
 cessor; he persistently and tenaciously and 
 devilishly fought him up to the very end. 
 
 He was defeated. At the close of his career, 
 in the sore plight in which he found himself, 
 he sought the aid of demons, of evil spirits. 
 Finally he died by his own hand. And then 
 there is a startling point to mark at the very 
 close; that is to say, it is startling when one 
 thinks of the great rebellious spirit-prince of 
 whom we are talking — namely, his successor 
 grieved sorely over him in his death. 
 
 Yet he that knows the heart of God, as given 
 so tenderly and fully in this Book, knows this, 
 that while His purity flames out against sin, and 
 He cannot do anything else than judge it, and 
 burn it out, and burn it up, yet His great heart 
 grieves sorely over His children, the sons of 
 men, and over the higher spirits who have so 
 sadly fallen. 
 
 Is not that a most striking parallel between 
 these two princes: the first prince of Israel and 
 the first and chief of all the princes of the up- 
 per world? But I am very sure there is yet 
 more in the parallel between the stories of Sa- 
 tan and of Saul. There is something intensely 
 personal to us. Saul perfectly produced in him^ 
 
46 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 self the career of Satan from the break on. It 
 is possible for a man to reproduce the Satan 
 character. A man may be a mirror reflecting 
 clearly and fully in his own life the character- 
 istics of that traitor-prince. 
 
 Mark very keenly and prayerfully — the core 
 of all Satan's rebellion was his preferring him- 
 self to God. He wanted his own way. That 
 was all. But that was terrific. He was self- 
 willed, he persisted in his self-will. Here was 
 the one seed, out of which his whole character 
 and career grew into their awful strength. May 
 I ask you very softly, please, do you find any 
 of this sort of seed inside yourself? Let the 
 answer be only to yourself, as all alone in God's 
 own presence, with this strangely searching 
 Word of His open, you find your inner motives 
 laid bare by the faithful Holy Spirit. 
 
 As we close our talk may we not very quietly 
 offer this petition in our hearts, and repeat that 
 great prayer of David's : ' Search me, O God, 
 and know my heart; and let me know about this 
 heart of mine, what Thou dost know. Try me, 
 and know my thoughts — that is, my innermost 
 motives, my undermost purposes, my hidden- 
 away ambitions — the thing underneath all else 
 that is really gripping my life. Try me. 
 
 " Try " is a fire word. It means a hotly 
 heated furnace, and the metal heated to the 
 
 * Psalm cxxxix. 23, 24. 
 
The Story of his Career 47 
 
 liquid state, that all the dross may be freed out 
 and come to the top in clear view, and then be 
 painstakingly skimmed off. " Try me." It's 
 not an easy prayer to make. Yet it is the only 
 prayer that will meet the case here. " Try me " 
 — find out, and put out. Let the fire-test come. 
 Can you make that prayer? Aye, you can; will 
 you? There's a wondrous life of purity and 
 power at the end of that road. 
 
 And see if there be any way in me that 
 grieves Thee; and help me see what Thou dost 
 see; and help me be grieved over what I see 
 even as Thou art. And lead me — and here the 
 iron of one's will comes in — lead me ; here I am, 
 wiUing to be led. 
 
 " I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou 
 Shouldest lead me on; 
 I loved to choose and see my path, — but now — 
 Lead Thou me on." 
 
 Here I am, ready to go along as Thou dost 
 lead ; lead me out of this way, into Thy way, the 
 way everlasting. 
 
HIS AIM AND AMBITION 
 
 The Trinity of Action. 
 
 There's a new trinity that the earnest man 
 wants to get hold of. At least it is new in not 
 being much talked about. It is the trinity of 
 action, the three that come into contact in the 
 action of life, three persons in one action. The 
 man who earnestly wants to win in the fight 
 of life needs to know about this trinity of action. 
 
 If a man would be pure; if he would be 
 strong; if he would make no partnership of any 
 sort — silent or otherwise — with sin, he must 
 fight. If he would keep that sly, subtle, stub- 
 born thing called selfishness out, clear out and 
 clean out, with no tail-ends left anywhere 
 about; if he would keep humble, self- forgetfully 
 humble, seeking nothing for himself, he must 
 fight for it. If he would be free from that pe- 
 culiar money-slavery, whose clanking chains are 
 rarely out of sight or sound wherever one goes ; 
 if he would know the rare sweets of that rarest 
 of all things, self-mastery, he will have to do 
 some real, hard, stiff fighting. 
 
 The earnest man knows that life is a fight. 
 The presence of the tempter makes it a fight. 
 48 
 
His Aim and Ambition 49 
 
 The man's earnest purpose to be true, both to 
 himself and to his Lord, brings the fight out, 
 and brings it on, and makes it a very real fight 
 so far as he is concerned. Now, such a man 
 in the thick of the fight, wants to know about 
 this new trinity if he is to be a keen fighter, and 
 if he is to win in the fight. If he is not to 
 suffer shameful defeat he must know about this 
 three-in-one. 
 
 You know the fight of life may be settled in 
 one of three ways. A man may be defeated. 
 He may make an honest fight and be defeated; 
 and a good many men are. Or, he may make 
 a sort of truce, a compromise, a stand-off. He 
 may agree not to fight, that is, not to oppose 
 in any aggressive way the power of evil, but 
 just to slip smoothly along, content not to op- 
 pose, but to play the part of a neutral. 
 
 Yet that is really the same thing as a defeat, 
 only it is not a decent defeat; it is cowardly. 
 There is no neutral ground, where right and 
 wrong are involved. The man who fights, and 
 is whipped has the comfort of knowing that at 
 least he fought — he is not a coward. But this 
 easy-going fellow has not enough heart to make 
 a good fight. He's too diplomatic. Cowards are 
 rare diplomats. It is surprising how many are 
 letting the fight of life be settled in this slip- 
 shod way. 
 
 Then there is a third way, fighting and win- 
 
50 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 ning. The earnest man will fight, and he may 
 win, and he will win, if our blessed Lord Jesus 
 may have His way in his life. Now, to know 
 about this trinity of actions in the fight of life 
 is an immense factor in winning. And the 
 earnest man should know about it. 
 
 The first one I will name in this trinity is 
 the tempter, the splendid spirit-prince of this 
 world. I name him first because he is the ag- 
 gressor. He started the fight, and he is forever 
 keeping it up. I name him first, too, because we 
 are living on the earth — and he is the prince of 
 this world. This is the battle-field, and this 
 prince is at home here. He knows all the ground 
 well. He is fighting on familiar ground, and 
 in that he has great advantage. The earnest 
 man wants to get some clear, sane, workable in- 
 formation about him. 
 
 The Human Battle-field. 
 
 Then the second one in this trinity is the man 
 himself. He is the real scene of the conflict. 
 I said the earth is the battle-field and that is 
 true. It is true because man is on the earth. 
 It is our presence here that makes it the battle- 
 field. This earth is ours as well as our present 
 home. We were given mastery over all its riches 
 and forces. It is our presence here that makes 
 the fight. We men are really the battle-ground. 
 
His Aim and Ambition 51 
 
 The tempter works upon us, and he works 
 through us. He must work through us. It is 
 his only way. Only as Satan gets control of 
 men can he carry out his ambitions for the 
 earth. 
 
 Every man is a battle-field, a spirit battle- 
 field. Every man is being besieged. If the evil 
 one be in control, — and it is startling, to the 
 point of being painful, in how many of us he 
 is in control, even where we are quite uncon- 
 scious that it is he, for he is very adroit in keep- 
 ing out of sight; if he be in control, then the 
 Lord Jesus is laying siege, lovingly, tactfully, 
 persistently trying to win His way in. 
 
 And wherever the Lord Jesus has been given 
 mastery, the enemy is, by every artful device 
 known to deceit, trying with malicious cunning 
 and persistence to get in at some corner or 
 crevice. But — but the man within is the decid- 
 ing factor. The man settles who shall come in 
 and rule his life. Every man's heart is his 
 castle. There he is sovereign, and none can 
 come in without his consent. 
 
 There is only one knob to the door of a man's 
 heart. That is on the inside. The tempter can- 
 not get in unless the man within turns that knob 
 and lets him in. And, be it remembered with 
 greatest reverence, that our gracious God won't 
 come in except by the man's free consent. Man 
 is the battle-field. He decides which way the bat- 
 
52 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 tie should go. No man can be whipped without 
 his own consent. And every man may have vic- 
 tory, sweet and full, if he wants it. Man is the 
 second of this trinity of action, the middle one. 
 The thick of the action swings around him. 
 
 An Unfailing Ally. 
 
 And the third one is the Holy Spirit. His 
 place of activity just now is this earth. He 
 represents our Lord Jesus, and is clothed with 
 full power as His representative. When Jesus 
 was on the earth He yielded Himself wholly to 
 the Holy Spirit, and was entirely under His con- 
 trol. When He finished his work on earth, and 
 went back home again, the Holy Spirit yielded 
 Himself wholly to the control of our Lord Jesus. 
 And now He is here on the earth, the messenger 
 and representative of our Lord Jesus, clothed 
 with absolute power. He is the Lord Jesus' 
 other self, sent down to carry out His plans, and 
 to make real and actual in your life and mine 
 the victory which Jesus won for us when He 
 was here. 
 
 This is the great third One of this trinity of 
 action. It is He that so lovingly and persistently 
 lays siege to human hearts. He works wholly 
 through our wills. He will come into our lives ; 
 he will take supervision of our temptations; he 
 will be the general on our side in every fight. 
 
His Aim and Ambition 53 
 
 He gives us all the victory of Jesus over Satan. 
 That victory, won years ago, He will make a 
 present victory in your life and mine. 
 
 All this experience, and skill, and power, and 
 the enormous prestige of a victory already won, 
 He puts at our disposal. We can be as sure 
 of victory as we are sure that our Lord is 
 actually Victor. This Holy Spirit is our per- 
 sonal friend. He is always alongside, inside, 
 to help. He devotes Himself to us. And in 
 His presence we have all the power of God, and 
 all the victory of Jesus, at our disposal in our 
 life-fight. 
 
 This is the trinity of action — a real devil to 
 be resisted and fought, a real Holy Spirit de- 
 voting Himself to us, and we men in between 
 deciding the fight by our choices. We know 
 that we men are real. We have no doubt about 
 that. We know the conflict of life is a real 
 thing. The earnest man has no question about 
 that. Well, these other two are just as real, 
 though unseen. We want to look not so much 
 at the things that are seen, but through and 
 beyond these, at the things and persons unseen. 
 For these are the real forces. 
 
 There is a devil to be fought. And a keen 
 tough fighter he is, too, but he has the enormous 
 disadvantage of having known a crushing 
 defeat. 
 
 There is a Holy Spirit, too, to take charge of 
 
54 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 our fight, to fight with us and through us. He 
 has never known defeat. He is the Spirit of 
 Jesus, the Victor over the devil. He is with 
 us. He will make real in us the victory of 
 Jesus. His presence assures victory. But it 
 is victory through fighting. The fighting is real, 
 and the victory is just as real. 
 
 And in between these two we men decide the 
 issue. The devil is the tempter. He is the 
 aggressor. He has great power and subtlety. 
 The Holy Spirit is the Helper. He is the Vic- 
 tor-Spirit. He has far greater power than the 
 tempter. He never fails. He is our personal 
 friend. The result depends upon us. We are 
 the tempted. We may be the helped. We must 
 recognize and resist the tempter. We must rec- 
 ognize and claim the power of the Holy Spirit. 
 Through Him there is unfailing victory for us. 
 That is the trinity of action in the fight of 
 life. 
 
 The Awe of Power. 
 
 Now it will help us greatly to recognize and 
 resist the devil, if we know a bit more about 
 him. Knowledge here will be a real help to 
 power. I want to talk with you just now about 
 his ambition and his aim. K we understand 
 what it is he is aiming at, and what motive is 
 controlling him, it will help us greatly in rec- 
 
His Aim and Ambition 55 
 
 ognizing him when he approaches us under 
 cover. 
 
 It helps to note the difference between aim 
 and ambition. The aim is the purpose of one's 
 life; the ambition is the passion burning under- 
 neath. The aim is the thing you are driving at ; 
 ambition is the thing you are driving with, or 
 the thing that drives you toward the aim. The 
 aim is the goal; the ambition the motive power. 
 The aim is the driving point ; the ambition is the 
 driving power. 
 
 What are Satan's aim and ambition — the pur- 
 pose and passion that control him? I think we 
 can get the answer quicker, and clearer, and 
 better, if we take a moment to note the effect 
 produced by the possession of power. 
 
 Power always has a peculiar effect upon those 
 who have it. That effect may be either good or 
 bad. Power either awes, or it itches. It pro- 
 duces a sense of reverence and of responsibility, 
 or it causes a sort of self-itch. That word 
 " itch " may not seem just a nice word to use, 
 but it is so accurate and graphic that I think 
 it helps to use it, that we may better under- 
 stand. 
 
 Each of us has power of some sort, and in 
 some degree, some more, some less. It may be 
 the power that comes through the possesion of 
 physical beauty. Beauty gives power over oth- 
 ers. It may be power through a keen mind, a 
 
$6 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 well-stored and well-trained mind; power of 
 personal presence and touch, of wisdom, of 
 leadership among men in the action of life; 
 power through what one can do; power through 
 the possession of money which is so enormous, 
 or power by reason of position official or other- 
 wise. Now whatever sort of power it may be, 
 and in whatever degree it be possessed, it has 
 one of two effects upon us. 
 
 There is the good effect, the true effect that 
 it should have — it should awe. It all comes 
 from God. It is given us by Him. It is not 
 a thing that we possess of ourselves, simply. 
 It is a gift. That should awe and hum- 
 ble us, to think that God has given us such a 
 gift. 
 
 Then it is a trust. God entrusts it to us. We 
 are responsible to Him. We are trustees. No 
 matter what the power, it is something given us 
 by God in trust. As we realize this it makes 
 us yet more humble and prayerful, that we may 
 be true to the trust, and make the best use of 
 the gift for God. 
 
 And then it may be used among men. That 
 is the purpose in its being given to us. It is 
 for others. We are to use it for men's sake, in 
 God's name, to His glory. So God intended. 
 That is the threefold fact about any power that 
 you and I possess. And to realize this at all 
 makes one very thoughtful and prayerful that 
 
His Aim and Ambition 57 
 
 it be used wholly as intended. The possession 
 
 of power awes — that is the true, the good 
 effect. 
 
 The Itch of Power. 
 
 Then there is the bad effect, where the hurt 
 of sin gets in. It itches. There is the itch of 
 thinking that you have it. You are pleased with 
 yourself. You are taken up with the fact that 
 you have the power. How beautiful you are; 
 how mentally keen; how well you do certain 
 things; how you can make men and things bend 
 to your desires; how a look, or a word, or a 
 finger uplifted makes things go. It may not be 
 expressed in so many words ; it may even be hid- 
 den away under an outside of apparent hu- 
 mility, but you feel it; you know it; it is the 
 dominant thing underneath in your thoughts. 
 That's a bit of the itch of power. 
 
 Then, with that, goes the supposition or dis- 
 tinctive feeling that this power is from yourself. 
 It is really due to you. It originates in you. 
 That is the reason you are puffed up so big. 
 The " I " is printed so big as to belittle all the 
 other letters of the alphabet, even the letters 
 G, and O, and D. The Giver of it is forgot. 
 Mirrors are in demand here, especially the sort 
 that cast a rosy-hued glamour. The fact of 
 trusteeship has entirely slipped out of sight. 
 
58 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 The upward look is lost; the inward look ab- 
 sorbs the eyes. 
 
 And then the swing over into the next stage 
 is very smooth and easy. This power is to be 
 used for yourself. The one passion here is how 
 to use it all for your own advantage. There 
 may be giving, or doing for others, but this is 
 merely incidental, and the whole tendency is 
 to make it seem as big as possible. The pur- 
 pose underneath the giving or the doing, is to 
 puff up the sense of pride, or else to get more 
 for yourself in return. 
 
 These are the two effects produced by the pos- 
 session of power of any sort; the good and the 
 bad; the natural and the unnatural — the awing 
 sense of God, and the itching sense of self. 
 
 This great spirit-prince has great power, 
 power of beauty, of mental and spiritual en- 
 dowments, and of position. They were given 
 him by God as a trust, to be used for the Giver. 
 The true aim of his life was to glorify God. 
 That was God's purpose in so richly endowing 
 him. He was to administer this world for God. 
 He was to do just what our Lord Jesus will do 
 when He returns to set up the kingdom upon the 
 earth. In his own character, may I say very 
 reverently, he was to be what our Lord Jesus 
 was in His character. This was his true aim. 
 The possession of the rare power entrusted to 
 him was meant to awe, to fill him with a 
 
His Aim and Ambition 59 
 
 reverential love for the Giver, and an earnest 
 desire to be true to the great trust reposed in 
 him. 
 
 The true ambition underneath his aim was to 
 be a tender, burning passion for God. The 
 God-passion, the one dominant desire to please 
 God — this was to be the one fire burning in his 
 heart. 
 
 What is his aim? and what his ambition? 
 They follow the line of the true, but with this 
 startling difference, he puts himself in the place 
 of God. The one aim of his life, mark it very 
 keenly, is to get the world for himself! He 
 would drive God out, and have all for himself. 
 He would dethrone God, and take the throne 
 himself. He would kill God off that he himself 
 might be supreme. 
 
 It is with greatest difficulty that such words 
 can be spoken or written. They seem blas- 
 phemous. They are blasphemous. His whole 
 burning, driving aim is just that — blasphemous! 
 Yet mark very keenly that it is a very common 
 blasphemy in our common life. 
 
 Satan-Worship. 
 
 And the ambition underneath this aim is — 
 himself. The self-passion burns so fiercely 
 within him that all else is consumed in its flame. 
 The shorter spelling of Satan is, s-e-l-f. The 
 
6o Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 preat passion of his heart is to be worshipped. 
 And it is starthng how far he has succeeded in 
 having this passion satisfied. Devil-worship is 
 very common in Africa, and in other heathen 
 lands. There are said to be societies for devil- 
 worship in Paris. But it concerns us to mark 
 keenly that it is not needful to go either to 
 heathendom or Paris to find Satan-worship. 
 
 For worship means the ascription of worth. 
 And the Satan-spirit is simply the self-spirit, 
 in some one of its numerous forms. And there 
 is nothing commoner in all life than the self- 
 spirit. Sometimes it is very cultured. It takes 
 a very high polish. It sometimes wears saintly 
 garb, and is skilled in the use of religious phrase- 
 ology. Wherever that self-spirit, that self-seek- 
 ing spirit rules the inner motive there is the 
 thing Satan is after — the worship of himself. 
 Imitation is the sincerest worship. It is not 
 thought of in any such blunt fashion, of course. 
 The very suggestion that any of us is indulging 
 Satan-worship is repugnant. 
 
 And of course no one of us may say it of any 
 other one. I am merely talking in this blunt 
 way, and turning in this terrible searching light 
 upon the Satan character, and the Satan char- 
 acteristic, that you and I may go aside thought- 
 fully and prayerfully, alone with God, that we 
 may see within what He sees. Satan really be- 
 comes a mirror for our use. As we talk over 
 
His Aim and Ambition 6i 
 
 his characteristics, does there come up to our 
 eyes anything of this same sort within? As 
 his aim and ambition come out thus sharply, are 
 you conscious, or maybe only half-conscious of 
 something of the same sort within? Of course, 
 
 not in such degree probably, and yet The 
 
 truth is that no one of us can look into this 
 picture of the evil one without being aware of 
 the distinct resemblances between him, and cer- 
 tain characteristics within ourselves. 
 
 In some degree we know the very common 
 thing called selfishness can be found within. It 
 is shocking to find that this is simply the Satan- 
 spirit. It is painfully searching to think pray- 
 erfully of these Satan marks and traits. It is 
 startling in the extreme to think that we may 
 have been helping Satan in any way; that lie 
 has been depending much upon us in furthermg 
 his ambitious aims. Yet every bit of selfish- 
 ness in you or me spells out partnership with 
 him. Selfishness, the self-spirit, the keeping 
 for ourselves of anything that is not needful 
 for strength, and that might be out in blessed 
 service among men for our Master, that is the 
 Satan-spirit. That is a footing for him in our 
 lives. It not only means an emptying of our 
 own lives of God's own presence and power, 
 but vastly more and sadder than that — it is an 
 active, positive help to Satan in achieving his 
 aims. Satan is a mirror. He reflects to our 
 
62 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 eyes whatever there is of the same sort within 
 ourselves. 
 
 The True Aim. 
 
 There is another mirror that this Word of 
 God holds up to our eyes. It is the character 
 of our Lord Jesus. I speak of Him because 
 He and Satan are the two great claimants for 
 our allegiance. They are the two great rivals. 
 Our Lord's character here is revealed no bet- 
 ter than in some words He spoke about Himself. 
 And all men have agreed that what He said 
 about Himself here is true. He said " I came 
 . . . not to do my own will but the will of 
 Him who sent me." 
 
 That was the undercurrent of his life through- 
 out; in the commonplace Nazareth village, and 
 home, and carpenter shop, through the years of 
 tireless ministering to the hungry crowds, in 
 the bitterness of the Gethsemane suffering, in 
 the untold agony of the Cross. Like an under- 
 current of music it runs through all His life. 
 Sacrifice was gladly yielded to, pain was cheer- 
 fully suffered, even while the knife cut in deep — 
 service was a delight, because in these He was 
 carrying out His Father's plan. 
 
 The purpose of His life was to do His Fa- 
 ther's will; the passion, the Father Himself. 
 The gripping, controlling aim was the Father's 
 
His Aim and Ambition 6^ 
 
 plan; the burning ambition underneath, the Fa- 
 ther — a tender love-passion for the Father. 
 
 This is the contrasting mirror held up to our 
 faces. We might shrink from saying that this 
 finds a reflection in us. And yet down in the 
 inner purpose of the heart, that can be the one 
 gripping, dominant thing. It has been the grip- 
 ping, purpose-passion that has swayed His true 
 followers in every age; and it is all by His 
 wondrous grace. Wherever His Spirit is al- 
 lowed to dominate this will be the gripping 
 passion and purpose. 
 
 Please mark very keenly this, that one of 
 these two characteristics dominates every man's 
 life, either the Satan-characteristic or the Jesus- 
 characteristic. The absence of the one tells of 
 the presence of the other. By so much as our 
 Lord's own purpose and passion do not control, 
 by just that much is Satan in, and making use 
 of us. This is simply the very old question of 
 consecration or surrender from another stand- 
 point — the Satan standpoint. 
 
 A Sensitive Thermometer. 
 
 Let the thoughtful earnest man look a bit 
 at his inner motives from this point of view. 
 Let there be no morbid spirit of extreme in- 
 trospection, but a simple, wholesome look 
 within. For example, there is no more sensi- 
 
64 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 tive thermometer than the money-thermometer, 
 by which to find the degree of heat of one's 
 passion for doing the Father's will. Let a man 
 quietly alone ask himself how far the money he 
 controls is being used as our Lord would have 
 it used, and how far it is being used for him- 
 self. 
 
 Remember it is right to use some of it, a 
 proper proportion for one's self and one's own; 
 to do all that is needful for strength and com- 
 fort. Remember, too, that the passion of our 
 Lord's heart is to have all men know fully and 
 tenderly about His love and death for them; 
 and that to-day two-thirds of them do not 
 know anything about Him, and thousands of 
 the other third know very little. I am not talk- 
 ing about the very proper thing of conscien- 
 tiously giving a tenth of one's income. This 
 question goes very much deeper — how far am 
 I controlled in the money I control by the pas- 
 sion that controls my Lord's heart? 
 
 And of course the answer is not to be made 
 to anybody else, but to one's self, and one's 
 Master only. And that answer is not an answer 
 of the lips. It is made entirely by what propor- 
 tion of one's money is actually being used, or 
 held, for one's self or one's own, and what pro- 
 portion is being used in satisfying the burning 
 passion of our Lord's heart for His world. 
 
 There are other thermometers that can be 
 
His Aim and Ambition 6^ 
 
 used in taking the heart temperature. This is 
 only one. It is a very sensitive one. Perhaps 
 most times it comes nearest to telling how far 
 the warm love of our Lord's heart is affecting 
 the temperature of our own. By so far as the 
 passion of our Lord's heart is not dominant in 
 ours, by just that much is this traitor-prince 
 having use of us. It is a very searching ques- 
 tion. It is not a question for any of us to 
 ask another, but only for each to ask himself, 
 or better yet to ask His Lord, off alone in the 
 secret place. 
 
 David's prayer might be brought into use 
 again, with a new meaning, in the light of this 
 subtle Satan-characteristic: — search me, O God, 
 and know my heart, and let me know what Thou 
 dost find there. Apply the fire test to my con- 
 trolling passions and purposes, and let me see 
 how much dross Thou dost find there. See if 
 there be anything there that pains Thy heart, 
 and let me see as much of what Thou dost see 
 as I can stand; and — I wonder if one's courage 
 will stand the test of that closing petition — 
 lead me out of that way, into Thy way, the 
 Lord- Jesus-way, the way everlasting. 
 
HIS DEFEAT 
 
 Great — Greater. 
 
 Satan is being forgot. That is the chief dan- 
 ger regarding him to-day among Christian peo- 
 ple as well as others. He is ignored, even 
 where he is believed in as an actual personality. 
 
 There is a feeling among earnest, godly peo- 
 ple that this is a dreadful subject. Better put 
 it aside, and go on doing the best you can in 
 earnest dependence upon God's grace. The 
 thought of Satan gives a feeling of dread, al- 
 most akin to horror. The result is a failure 
 to get definite, clear thought about him, so as 
 to resist him more intelligently and victoriously 
 in the great Victor's great Name. Satan is 
 practically ignored and forgot. That is very 
 bad. It leaves him free to work. That is the 
 most common danger to-day regarding him. 
 
 There is a second danger less common, but 
 not less real; namely, that we shall think too 
 much of him, when we begin to study the teach- 
 ings of God's Word about him. Unless we are 
 on our guard against it, there is an easy tend- 
 ency to think that he is bigger and stronger 
 than he is. That is bad, too. 
 66 
 
His Defeat 67 
 
 Extremes are always bad, and work harm. 
 We want to keep the poise between the two, 
 though that is the hardest thing to do, and the 
 rarest thing to find. He should not be mini- 
 mized nor magnified. Clear outlines will let us 
 see him as he is, neither smaller nor bigger. 
 And this will be an immense help in resisting 
 him, as we are bidden to do. Our resistance 
 of him, in our Lord Jesus' Name, will become 
 an immense factor in undercutting his activity 
 and power. 
 
 There are two things that help immensely in 
 correcting this second danger — the danger of 
 being afraid of him, as we learn how real 
 he is, and how tremendous is the power he 
 wields. 
 
 The first is always to couple the Name of our 
 Lord Jesus with Satan's, in all our thinking. 
 Remember Satan, big, bold, cunning, sleepless, 
 and quite too much for any one of us alone. 
 We are clear outmastered by him at every turn. 
 Don't get him in too big — nor too small, just the 
 right size, as revealed to us in the Book. 
 
 But — but, remember Jesus too; He is bigger 
 and stronger. He is more than a match for Sa- 
 tan. You and I are clean out-matched by 
 Satan, out-classed and out-done; but Satan is 
 clean out-matched by our blessed Lord Jesus, 
 clean out-classed and out-done. We can't hold 
 our own alone against Satan, and — blessed fact 
 
68 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 for us! — he can't hold his own for a moment 
 against our Lord. 
 
 Always couple the two names. Satan — big 
 and strong, wily and persistent and aggressive. 
 Be wary of him — keenly, intelligently, earnestly 
 wary of him. And Jesus — bigger to the point 
 of being almighty, stronger, wise in conflict, re- 
 sourceful in battle, and who undertakes for us. 
 Remember Jesus, our Lord. That's the first 
 thing that helps. The second is this, remember 
 that Satan is defeated. We are fighting a de- 
 feated foe, who has all the enormous handicap 
 of a defeat behind him. He is defeated, and 
 he knows it. 
 
 Opening a Way for God. 
 
 We have the great advantage of fighting a 
 defeated foe. All the stinging sense of defeat, 
 the disappointment and disheartening that de- 
 feat makes he knows. And all the swing and 
 spirit, the joyousness and elasticity of action, 
 that comes from an assured victory already got- 
 ten, we have in our Lord Jesus. We ought to 
 sing as we fight. 
 
 There is a fine, free reading of a verse in the 
 Fiftieth Psalm that helps greatly in the thick 
 of the fight. It runs like this, " whoso offereth 
 the oflfering of thanksgiving glorifieth Me; and 
 openeth a way that I may show him the vie- 
 
His Defeat 69 
 
 tory of God." ^ That victory is already accom- 
 plished. Our spirit of thanksgiving (which is 
 faith at its best) enables God to reveal all 
 afresh in our lives the victory already won for 
 us! 
 
 Sing as you fight. Pull out the organ stops 
 and loosen the swells, and let the cheeriest, most 
 joyous music of heart and voice out. For our 
 enemy is defeated. Our Lord, our Friend, is 
 Victor. And our resisting shall make his defeat 
 more marked, and make it a more real thing 
 in our own lives, and in our service among 
 others. 
 
 It seems just a bit strange to be talking about 
 fighting when the foe has been decidedly de- 
 feated. A decisive, overwhelming defeat of the 
 chief of forces usually settles a conflict. There 
 is a reason, and we will talk together about 
 that in our next talk. Just now the fact we 
 want to mark down big is that our tempter is 
 fighting us against the heavy odds of a sting- 
 ing defeat. 
 
 We can understand that defeat better if we 
 will note the difference between the Satan-spirit 
 and the Jesus-spirit. 
 
 The core of the Satan-spirit is this, — self, 
 
 pride, — which is the assertion of self, the sense 
 
 of inner satisfaction with yourself; conceit and 
 
 egotism, the undue sense of one's own im- 
 
 ^ Psalm 1. 2z. 
 
70 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 portance, and with that always, independence of 
 God. The feeling of one's own sufficiency al- 
 ways makes us feel independent of God, that 
 we do not need Him, and can get along well 
 enough by ourselves, by depending upon 
 ourselves. 
 
 The selfish spirit not only ignores God, but 
 it ignores the needs of others. Luxury is a 
 direct outcome of the Satan — the selfish spirit. 
 Whatever adds to our strength is properly 
 classed as a necessity. All beyond that is lux- 
 ury. The self-spirit always breeds luxury. Yet 
 luxury always spells out somebody else's need 
 unsupplied. Every bit that is being kept for 
 ourselves, beyond the line of what will make 
 us stronger in body and mind, speaks out the 
 crying need of the great crowds who make up 
 the majority of our race. We hold for our- 
 selves what we do not need, while two-thirds 
 of our brothers of the race are perishing in 
 their need of the Bread of Life. This is essen- 
 tially the self-spirit, it is the very core of the 
 Satan-spirit. 
 
 The Spirit that Won. 
 
 In sharpest contrast with this is the spirit 
 that controlled Jesus when living His human 
 life among us. It was a spirit of selflessness, a 
 spirit of utter self-abnegation. He did not go 
 
His Defeat 71 
 
 to the unwise extreme of neglecting what was 
 needful for His strength as a man. He surely 
 did not over-use His strength though that was 
 one of His constant temptations, as with the 
 man now who feels the needs of others press- 
 ing in so sorely upon him. For the sake of 
 these multitudes He conserved His strength 
 that He might minister to them the better. The 
 whole spirit of His life was for others. 
 
 And underneath that was something deeper, 
 explaining that. He had a passion for the Fa- 
 ther. In the place of the passion for self was 
 the God-passion. And if you will mark it very 
 keenly this was revealed most in the obedience 
 of His life. This is the very inner heart of 
 the Jesus-spirit — obedience. This was the one 
 unfailing warp into which all the cross threads 
 of His earthly life were woven. 
 
 Cut in underneath at any point in His char- 
 acter, and this is the controlling motive. He 
 reveals His passion for the Father in this — 
 His glad, full obedience to the Father, no mat- 
 ter what it meant. The obedience reveals the 
 passion. The passion found its full expression 
 in the obedience. That passion and obedience 
 were revealed much in the Nazareth life, but 
 most on Calvary. The obedience was not sim- 
 ply in life, but unto death, even the worst sort 
 of death that could be devised, with all the hor- 
 rible cruelties and indignities that sin could 
 
72 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 think of. The sacrificial spirit is the very heart 
 of the Jesus-spirit. Not seeking sacrifice, but 
 yielding to it, as it comes in the pathway of 
 obedience. 
 
 This is the innermost spirit of the Jesus- 
 spirit — the passion for the Father, which leads 
 to utter self-obHteration in the good sense, in 
 a life of glad obedience, even to the point of 
 keenest suffering and severest sacrifice. 
 
 This sharp contrast between these two spirits 
 will help us to understand the defeat of Satan, 
 how crushing it was, and further it points out 
 the way on our side, and the only way whereby 
 he can be defeated on the battlefield of each 
 of our lives. 
 
 Defeated by a Life. 
 
 Satan was defeated by our Lord Jesus. There 
 were two steps or stages in that defeat. The 
 first was in the life He lived. That life ran 
 through thirty-three years and a bit more. It 
 was a long battle, and the defeat administered 
 was all the more conclusive, and sure, and 
 crushing, because of its length. 
 
 First of all came that Nazareth life. The one 
 word that marks that Nazareth life, and sums 
 it up, is the great, simple word " obedience." 
 From the early, tender years, when the con- 
 sciousness of His mission first began to come 
 
His Defeat 73 
 
 to Him, on through the years of growth and 
 maturity, He obeyed. He insisted on obeying. 
 
 Jesus insisted on going that daily common- 
 place routine : white-washed cottage home, com- 
 panionship with his fellow-workmen and fel- 
 low-villagers, long hours in a wood-working 
 shop, driving nails, pushing a plane, mending 
 ploughs and yokes for customers hard to please 
 sometimes. That was the Father's plan for His 
 life. He obeyed, because it was the Father's 
 plan, li the Nazareth round be put in sharp 
 contrast with the conditions to which the Son 
 of God was accustomed in His Father's pres- 
 ence — His intense humility stands sharply out. 
 
 Did no temptation come to Him those Naz- 
 areth days to quit that retired humble round 
 and go forth to let men know who He was, and 
 why He had come? Look at Him a moment 
 in Nazareth. He is, say, twenty-eight years of 
 age, in the maturity of His human strength as 
 a man. Yet He goes the old humble common- 
 place round in that shut-away village, in the 
 little narrow-walled cottage home, rising early, 
 helping about the home, then down the street 
 with a cheery " good-morning " to neighbour 
 and fellow-craftsmen, then the carpenter shop, 
 mending a table, smoothing up carefully the 
 handle of a plough, at it for long hours, then 
 home again for the frugal meal, with the small 
 familiar talk of a home circle around a table. 
 
74 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 Then Hkely as not talking over with the mother 
 of the home the ever present problems of house- 
 keeping, figuring out the slender funds to meet 
 obligations, and so on, and so on. 
 
 Does any one of you think that no such temp- 
 tation as this came subtly stealing in those 
 days : '' what are You doing here in this shut- 
 away corner. You are the Son of God ! (no 
 * if Thou be' then) You have a mission to the 
 whole world ; it is such a needy world too ; so 
 needy. You are to redeem a ivorld. This is no 
 place for You; assert Yourself, as the Son of 
 God, for the good of the world." 
 
 Did no such insinuating voice speak such 
 words in His ear? No one who knows the 
 tempter can doubt it. But faithfully, steadily, 
 obediently He went the old round up to the 
 very last, when the Father's voice sent Him 
 forth. The one touch-stone of His life was 
 obedience to His Father's plan. 
 
 A Running Fight. 
 
 In that obedience He was cutting straight 
 across the character and life of the traitor- 
 prince of this world. He was holding the title 
 to all the Father had given Him by His obedi- 
 ence. He was undermining Satan's hold upon 
 the race and the earth. His obedience was the 
 defeating of Satan. 
 
His Defeat 75 
 
 The one temptation, that came in a thousand 
 differing ways, was to turn aside, if only by so 
 much as a hair's breadth from the Father's will. 
 The one answer was unflinching, unfailing obe- 
 dience. And in that He was laying the founda- 
 tion for the final defeat of the traitor-usurper- 
 prince. 
 
 In His Nazareth life our Lord reveals His 
 utter humility, His rare simplicity. His warm 
 sympathy with men, and His spirit of sacrifice 
 for others. And each of these is in direct con- 
 trast to the character of Satan. 
 
 But the chief thing underneath all the rest, 
 the thing that controlled Him was the obedience 
 to His Father's plan for His life. That was the 
 basis of the defeat of the evil one. K Jesus had 
 diverged by so much as a hair's breadth, the 
 tempter would have been victorious. By re- 
 maining true He was defeated so far. 
 
 Then follows the great Wilderness tempta- 
 tion. His public ministry was prefaced with 
 this terrific, though subtle, onset by the tempter. 
 But again, our Lord held true and steady to 
 the Father's will. The touch-stone of the Naz- 
 areth life is the touch-stone of the Wilderness 
 victory, namely, full obedience to the Father's 
 will and the Father's time. The Wilderness 
 temptation ended in victory for Jesus — and so 
 in defeat for the tempter. 
 
 And following that came the three years and 
 
76 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 a half of public ministry. They were years of 
 temptation, subtle and stormy, of attack in 
 every conceivable shape by the enemy; of sharp 
 struggle and conflict with the evil one and his 
 forces. Behind demons, behind human leaders, 
 even behind ignorant friends and followers, the 
 enemy came, ceaselessly, day and night, doing 
 his best and his worst, with his subtlest devices 
 and his greatest resources. 
 
 It awes one greatly to draw near our Lord 
 at certain stages, and note by the tensity of His 
 spirit, how fierce the onset was. One can al- 
 most hear the deep-drawn breathing, and see the 
 moist brow, and the firmly locked jaw, and hear 
 the earnestly breathed prayer. 
 
 He never flinched and He never failed. He 
 was a Victor at every step, by His full fol- 
 lowing of the path marked out for Him. And 
 His victory spells out the defeat of the tempter. 
 Each advancing hour of continued, steady on- 
 going was a deepening and intensifying of the 
 defeat of the tempter. So our Lord defeated 
 Satan in and by His life. 
 
 The Climax. 
 
 Then came the climax — the defeat in His 
 death. Jesus was obedient not only in life, but 
 even to the terrible experience of death, aye, 
 the most shameful and cruel of all deaths, the 
 
His Defeat 77 
 
 death of the Cross. He was first of all obe- 
 dient in His life on earth, then He carried that 
 obedience right on into Satan's own domain, 
 the domain of death. He hesitated not to die, 
 though death was never made so dreadful 
 and awful a thing before, nor since. If Jesus 
 would insist on obeying even to the point 
 of death then Satan was set on it that He 
 should know the worst that could be known 
 in death. 
 
 By His death He did a three-fold thing and 
 that tells of the three-fold defeat of Satan. 
 Through sin Satan had done three things. He 
 cast a blot on God's administration of the uni- 
 verse; on the perfect righteousness of His rule. 
 Sin is a slander on God's righteousness. He 
 got a claim upon men who in sinning yielded 
 allegiance to the tempter and so became his 
 slaves; and he hardened the human heart 
 against God. 
 
 Our Lord's death smote Satan hip and thigh 
 at each of these points. He vindicated the 
 righteousness of God, He forever freed us from 
 the slavery of Satan, and He melted our hearts 
 by such a wondrous love. The man whose heart 
 is broken by such love comes back home to God. 
 And because of the death of Jesus, God is 
 " reckoned righteous in reckoning righteous the 
 man who has faith in Jesus." ' And the hold 
 ^Romans iii. 26, free translation. 
 
78 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 upon us which our sin gives to Satan is for- 
 ever shaken off. In His death Jesus adminis- 
 tered a defeat to our enemy on every side. 
 
 And as the death was the climax of the life, 
 even so the resurrection became the climax of 
 the death. And our Lord of His own accord 
 went down into the jaws of death, into the 
 belly of hell on our behalf, in our place, as our 
 substitute; then having fully defeated Satan by 
 that act. He rose up by His own will, up again 
 into life. In His death He was Victor over 
 sin. In His rising again He was Victor over 
 death. In both He was Victor over Satan. 
 
 And every spelling of that word *' victory " 
 is a spelling in big letters of the word " defeat." 
 Loosen all the bell-ropes. Ring out the bells 
 clear and loud. Our enemy is defeated. Pull 
 out the organ stops, free the swells, and let 
 the joyous thunder of the full diapason get out. 
 Our Lord Jesus is Victor. Our enemy is a 
 badly whipped foe. 
 
 The Second Defeat. 
 
 Then there is the second defeat. But, you 
 say, why a second? That question has an in- 
 tensely practical bearing on your life and mine. 
 The first defeat was on the battlefield of the 
 earth. The second is to be on the battlefield 
 of each man's life. 
 
His Defeat 79 
 
 Every man decides his own life and settles 
 the outcome of his own battles by the way he 
 chooses. Every man is a sovereign in his own 
 will. What our Lord has done for us, we must 
 each accept and claim for ourselves. Our Lord 
 defeated Satan on our behalf. We must each 
 of us claim all the power of that defeat on the 
 battlefield of our own lives. 
 
 Jesus taught us to pray, " lead us not into 
 temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." 
 He was led up to be tempted, and He was vic- 
 torious in the temptation. We men have been 
 tempted, and failed. But in Jesus the Victor's 
 Name, we claim His victory in our temptations. 
 We cannot stand being tempted. Eden proves 
 that, and every man and every day since Eden 
 makes it plainer. We can't stand temptation 
 alone. We must go in Another's strength, and 
 in Another's victory. 
 
 " Lead us not " means that we get in close 
 behind our Victor, and claim what He has done 
 for us. But each of us must do that. With 
 greatest reverence let it be said that our Lord 
 Jesus cannot decide my battles, my temptations 
 for me. He wins the victory for me. Then I 
 must claim that victory in my own firm decision 
 to resist the evil one. 
 
 The second defeat is to be on the battlefield 
 of my will, in the power of the Lord Jesus. 
 And that defeat may be just as radical and 
 
8o Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 sweeping in my life, as it was on the Cross, 
 and the resurrection morning. 
 
 May I close this simple talk by putting, in 
 a brief word, how that defeat may become a 
 real thing to me every day? First of all by 
 trusting in the blood of our Lord Jesus. We 
 overcome on the ground of the blood of the 
 Lamb.' We hide ourselves in Him, and claim 
 all the power of His victory, for ourselves in 
 our conflict. 
 
 Then there must be the full glad surrender 
 of life to the mastery of our great Victor- 
 Friend. That means the recognizing and yield- 
 ing to the gracious sovereignty of the Holy 
 Spirit at every turn, in every act, until it be- 
 comes as habitual as breathing. 
 
 It means that there will be the same obedi- 
 ence, the same self-forgetting humility, the same 
 tender, loving sympathy with men, the same 
 simplicity of life, the same glad willingness to 
 sacrifice for the needs of others, as marked our 
 Lord's Nazareth life. This will be the stand- 
 ard habitually kept before the eyes of our spirit. 
 For the Holy Spirit works out in us the life 
 and spirit of our Lord Jesus. 
 
 Then there is something else on the Satan 
 
 side of things. We should become keen in 
 
 recognising him. Recognition of temptation is 
 
 half the fight against it. And with recognition 
 
 * Revelation xii. ii. 
 
His Defeat 8i 
 
 must follow resistance, quick and sharp. Re- 
 sist the devil and he will flee from you/ He 
 knows that he is defeated. He knows that he 
 can't stand up before Jesus' victory. As we 
 resist steadily he must leave, and he will, slowly, 
 angrily, but surely before the power of Jesus' 
 Name. 
 
 Resist Satan actively and aggressively. Learn 
 to recognize his step and voice, and tricky de- 
 vices, and then put up an earnest fight in the 
 Victor's Name, and Satan will know his second 
 great defeat on the battlefield of your life. 
 * I James iv. 7 ; i Peter v. 8, 9. 
 
HIS PRESENT STRUGGLE 
 
 EacJi one must choose. 
 
 Every man must make his own decisions. No 
 one can make a choice for another. Every man 
 must do his own thinking. 
 
 We can accept another's choice for ourselves, 
 but that is simply accepting the other's help in 
 making the choice. We still choose to take his 
 choice as our own. Another could not choose 
 for us unless we were willing. That is, of 
 course, where there is no force or coercion 
 used, but every man free to act as God in- 
 tended he should. Just as certainly every man 
 must do his own fighting, and lose or win the 
 fight. 
 
 With the greatest reverence let it be said that 
 God cannot make decisions for us. With the 
 same reverence be it said, too, that not even 
 our Lord Jesus can fight our fights for us. He 
 can put all of His power, and all the advantage 
 of His sweeping victory at our disposal. But 
 we must choose to accept and use. He works 
 through us. So working He makes our vic- 
 tory as full and sure and sweeping as His own, 
 82 
 
His Present Struggle 83 
 
 by placing His strength at our disposal. Every 
 victory won is by His strength through our own 
 wills. 
 
 This explains why there should be a present 
 struggle going on by Satan. It seems strange 
 that after a defeat, the defeated is left free 
 to fight. Defeat, of as radical and crushing and 
 sweeping a sort as Satan has suffered at the 
 hands of our Lord, usually means a settling of 
 the conflict at once and forever. But here is 
 a strange and striking exception. Satan has 
 been defeated, but he has been and is fighting 
 as hard as ever, apparently, and with tremen- 
 dous results for himself. Why is this? The 
 question is an intensely practical one, or I 
 certainly would not bring it up, here. For in 
 the thick of the fight there is only time and 
 spirit for the intensely practical. And the an- 
 swer is tremendously practical, because the 
 whole matter is thrown over upon our action. 
 
 It is because of us, that the fight continues. 
 Were it not for us men, and the part we have 
 in this thing, Satan's activity would have been 
 summarily settled long ago. 
 
 The core of the answer is gotten at once by 
 noticing that our Lord Jesus was acting for us. 
 His whole life as well as His death was on 
 our behalf. It was for our sakes that He 
 came down to this earth, and lived as He did, 
 and was tempted, and suffered, and died. His 
 
84 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 whole thought was to do something in our 
 place. 
 
 It was something in which we had sorely 
 failed. Our failure cost us, and lost us, mastery 
 of ourselves, and the dominion over nature. It 
 brought us suffering and death. It cut us off 
 from God. It makes us slaves of Satan. 
 
 We have only zvhat we take. 
 
 Jesus came to get us out of our awful plight. 
 He came to the earth because we were here, 
 and it was our home, our lost heritage. He 
 lived His Hfe of perfect obedience on the earth, 
 because the earth had been lost to us through 
 our disobedience. He would win it back 
 through obedience, but He would win it back 
 for us. All through He was acting in our place, 
 as our substitute and representative. 
 
 But again be it said that He cannot do for us 
 what we do not want. That is, He can't make 
 us accept what He has done for us, unless we 
 choose to. No one can make a choice for an- 
 other nor act in the stead of another, but by the 
 other's consent. 
 
 He defeated our enemy. He won back our 
 lost dominion of the earth. He has won for us 
 freedom from all the power of Satan, the 
 power we gave him through our sin. But the 
 results of His great victory become ours only 
 
His Present Struggle 85 
 
 as we accept and appropriate them as our 
 own. 
 
 Each man of us may have His victory as our 
 very own. But it does not become our very 
 own until we accept it so. And so Satan, who 
 left Jesus when he must, will not leave us till 
 he must ; and then, as with Jesus, " only for a 
 season." ^ Our sin gives Satan a grip upon us. 
 He insists on that grip. 
 
 And Satan has a right to us for we have 
 given ourselves to him by obeying him. For 
 sin is obeying Satan. So we become his slaves, 
 and he our master. He can hold that grip upon 
 us until a stronger than he comes along to worst 
 him. That stronger One has come — our blessed 
 Lord Jesus. But we must accept His victory 
 as our very own, and give Satan notice of 
 our decision. He must leave when he is 
 ordered off in the Name he fears. And he 
 will leave. 
 
 But he never leaves until he must. And so 
 there is a present struggle, even after an abso- 
 lute defeat, because so many men have not ac- 
 cepted as their own what our Lord Jesus has 
 done for them. 
 
 Satan must be doubly defeated. First by one 
 
 stronger than he. That has been done by Him 
 
 whose very Name — Jesus — tells of victory. 
 
 Then he must be defeated by each one of us, 
 
 *Luke iv. 13. 
 
86 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 on the battlefield of our own wills, by our choos- 
 ing Jesus as our own representative, as our own 
 Substitute-Victor. 
 
 In His Name and strength we can administer 
 that second defeat. In no other way can it be 
 done. And in His Name we must. As men, 
 as rightful under-masters of this earth, as right- 
 ful children of our Father, who made us in His 
 own image, we must defeat the evil one in the 
 Name of Jesus, by choosing Him as our Saviour 
 and Lord. 
 
 The struggle with our Lord was for the mas- 
 tery of the earth, and the whole race. In that 
 Satan has been defeated. The present strug- 
 gle is for the mastery and control of each man's 
 life. Our Lord won the victory over our ene- 
 my; now He would win His way into each 
 man's heart and life. 
 
 Satan has been defeated on the earth, and 
 on behalf of the whole race; now he must be 
 defeated on the battlefield of each man's life. 
 The first struggle was settled decisively by our 
 Lord. The second can be settled only by each 
 one of us, in the power of our Lord's victory 
 for us. 
 
 The Real Struggle. 
 
 Then there is a second practical answer to 
 that question of why Satan has power to con- 
 
His Present Struggle 87 
 
 tinue his struggle, and it is rather a startling 
 one. The man who accepts our Lord Jesus' 
 victory as his own, must choose to let the Jesus- 
 spirit control his life. 
 
 If there be some part of my life uncontrolled 
 by that Spirit, that uncontrolled part is held 
 by Satan. Any bit of selfishness allowed to re- 
 main becomes Satan's footing in my life. He 
 holds that bit of ground stubbornly. And he 
 can hold it, for I yield it to him in letting the 
 selfishness or the wrong spirit remain. On that 
 ground he stands and struggles for more, so 
 there is a present struggle because I let him 
 have part control within. 
 
 If my Master has asked me to sell a bit of 
 property, whose income I don't really need, and 
 to send the money out through my church chan- 
 nels, that men in China may learn of the vic- 
 tory of the Lord Jesus — if so, and I simply 
 don't, that disobedience, that bit of self-will, that 
 bit of Satan-spirit, gives the evil one a fresh 
 hold upon my life. 
 
 In that I neutralize the victory of Jesus. I 
 am helping Satan in his present struggle. In 
 so far as your life and mine are not swayed 
 and swept by that Jesus-spirit of which we have 
 spoken, in just that far we are strengthening 
 Satan in his present struggle. 
 
 I will not stop to make a survey of the Chris- 
 tian world, and attempt to gather up into words, 
 
88 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 how much help of that sort the cunning enemy 
 is getting to-day from those who profess to 
 belong to Jesus Christ. The results would be 
 startling, and would without doubt seem critical, 
 and in a bad way, even though merely a colour- 
 less statement of facts. 
 
 Each of us would better go off alone, and 
 look within, with that " search me " prayer, and 
 with a willingness to look honestly at what that 
 searching eye of God reveals within. 
 
 There is still another bit to be put in here. 
 It is this; our ignorance of Satan and his wily 
 ways of working is helping him greatly in his 
 present struggle. Knowledge is power. Igno- 
 rance is weakness. Our ignorance of Satan 
 adds to his power immensely. 
 
 Satan is being strengthened in his present 
 struggle because of the very common wide- 
 spread ignorance of him. He works freely 
 among us, and even — starthng though it sounds 
 — he works through us, yes w^e Christians, be- 
 cause we have not learned to recognize his pres- 
 ence, and so do not aggressively resist him in 
 the Victor's Name. 
 
 We should remember that one of Satan's 
 peculiar weaknesses is this — he is dependent 
 very largely upon our human co-operation. Per- 
 haps he is wholly dependent upon us men. His 
 very first attempt in Eden was to get the con- 
 trol of a human being, and once in control -he 
 
His Present Struggle 89 
 
 used that one to get another, and so on end- 
 lessly ever since. 
 
 If we men were to throw off his allegiance at 
 once in the power of the Victor, Satan would 
 not only be terribly weakened, but far more, he 
 would be driven out of his present sphere of 
 activity. He is dependent upon us in his pres- 
 ent struggle. And right well he knows it. What 
 a soul-winner he is! With what persistence 
 and tenacity he keeps after a man who is trying 
 to get away from him ! 
 
 The Battlefield. 
 
 This leads up naturally to the sphere of Sa- 
 tan's activity. Where is this great struggle 
 going on? Will you note that there are five 
 places of residence or head-quarters of activity 
 assigned to Satan in God's Word? First of 
 all he was in the presence of God." After his 
 fall, he was cast out of that presence; his head- 
 quarters were moved to some place below the 
 throne of God, and above the earth, as the chief 
 sphere of his activity and ambition.'' That is 
 his present scene of action, and will be until 
 the close of the present order of things. 
 
 After a while he is to be cast down to the 
 
 *Ezekiel xxviii. 13-17. 
 
 ^Ezekiel xxviii. 16; Luke x. 18; Ephesians ii. 2; vi. 12. 
 
90 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 earth.* Then follows the time when he shall 
 be cast into a place called the '' abyss " or 
 ** pit " ; * and afterwards he is to be consigned 
 to what is called " the lake of fire." * Our prac- 
 tical concern just now is wholly with his pres- 
 ent head-quarters and sphere of activity. 
 
 His head-quarters is somewhere above the 
 earth ; the sphere of his activity is the earth and 
 the atmosphere that envelops it. His titles 
 ** prince of this world," * '* prince of the powers 
 of the air," ° " the god of this world " " indicate 
 that. The two great temptations in which he 
 himself was chief actor were on the earth, in 
 Eden, and in the Wilderness. 
 
 In the attack upon Job, two of the disasters 
 that came were war — an evil spirit aroused 
 among men — and two of them were wild storms 
 in the atmosphere that surrounds the earth. 
 
 In the remarkable story of Daniel, tenth chap- 
 ter, the opposition to Daniel's prayer was by 
 some evil spirit-being, who intercepts God's mes- 
 senger on his way from God's presence down 
 to where Daniel was on the earth. While the 
 old man was praying on his knees in the woods 
 
 ^Revelation xii. 7-9. 
 
 ^ Revelation xx. 2, 3. 
 
 'Revelation xx, 10. 
 
 *John xii. 31; xiv. 30; xvi. II. 
 
 ''Ephesians ii. 2. 
 
 •2 Corinthians iv. 4. 
 
His Present Struggle 91 
 
 down by the river Tigris, two spirit messengers, 
 one from God, the other opposing God's mes- 
 senger, and so from the enemy's camp, were 
 wrestling up in the spirit realm above the earth. 
 But the wrestling was regarding something 
 down on the earth. 
 
 The very striking passage in Mark's Gospel * 
 makes yet clearer the sphere of activity. A 
 great storm had arisen while our Lord slept on 
 a pillow in the hinder part of the boat. It 
 must have been an unusually fierce storm to 
 have so thoroughly frightened these old sailors. 
 In distress and alarm they awaken Jesus and 
 ask for His help. Notice both His action, and 
 His words. The usual reading is He '' rebuked 
 the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace be still." 
 The more literal reading is immensely sug- 
 gestive and helpful. *' He said to the sea. Lie 
 down, be muzzled." It is the sort of language 
 one uses in speaking to a dog that is misbe- 
 having. If the word be repeated in the sharp 
 peremptory tone of command, in which one 
 speaks to his dog, it makes the sense yet more 
 intense and real ; — " down sir ! lie down ! " 
 
 The whole passage is significant. It is not 
 the sort of language to be used in talking merely 
 to wind and wave, especially by as even-poised 
 a man as our Lord was. There is at once the 
 recognition of an evil spirit, or a group of 
 ^ Mark iv. 35-41. 
 
92 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 them, who had aroused the unusually violent 
 storm. 
 
 The very language used is a recognition of 
 personality. There was some one at work 
 through wind and water. He is ordered down. 
 He obeys. There was a great calm. But the 
 point to mark just now is that his sphere of 
 action includes wind and water as well as the 
 earth. Mark keenly why this is the sphere of 
 his activity — because we are here. It is us 
 he is after, and through us the dominion of this 
 realm. 
 
 Proper Air Supply, 
 
 You and I are living on the battlefield. We 
 are in the thick of the engagement now on. We 
 must take sides. And the side we take affects 
 the result of the struggle, because that struggle 
 is through us. 
 
 You know how a diver working down at the 
 bottom of a river or of the sea, must take his 
 own atmosphere along with him. He is work- 
 ing in a strange element — water. He must 
 have his own native element — air — to live in and 
 he must have a constantly fresh supply of it, 
 too. 
 
 The prince of the power of the air has been 
 tampering with the moral atmosphere of the 
 earth; he has poisoned it. An atmosphere of 
 
His Present Struggle 93 
 
 doubt, of compromise, of disloyalty to God sur- 
 rounds us. We have to stay here and fight, and 
 it is hard work fighting in such air. Indeed 
 it is impossible. We must live in an inner air- 
 chamber, filled with the sort of air which is na- 
 tive to us. And that inner air-chamber must 
 have continual connection with the pure air of 
 God above. 
 
 Shall I give you a formula for the sort of 
 atmosphere for the inner air-chamber of our 
 lives? It is a simple formula with five items 
 in it. No one item can be omitted. First is 
 this, " the blood of Jesus cleanseth from all sin." 
 Second, is this — the whole of one's life and ac- 
 tivities yielded to the control of the Holy Spirit. 
 Third, this — habitual obedience to His Voice. 
 Fourth, this — daily quiet time with the Book 
 that the ear may be keen to know what He is 
 saying, and the mind instructed in His will. 
 And fifth — recognition of the enemy, and ear- 
 nest aggressive resistance in Jesus' great Name. 
 
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 Watch as well as pray. 
 
 One of the settled maxims of military wis- 
 dom is this — " study the enemy." Millions are 
 spent annually by the governments of Europe 
 and America, and, lately, of the Eastern world, 
 in just this thing. Yet they go just a step 
 farther, for they spend the money studying the 
 military strength and tactics of nations that are 
 now friendly, but that may become enemies. 
 The general who would enter upon a conflict, 
 without doing his utmost to learn everything 
 possible to be learned about the enemy he must 
 meet, would be regarded as greatly lacking in 
 wisdom, if indeed he were not plainly called a 
 fool. 
 
 Our enemy is not a possible enemy, but a real 
 one. The war is actually on. And plainly God 
 meant us to know about the enemy, for He 
 has given us so much clear information about 
 him and his forces, in His Word. Our Lord 
 Jesus said, " watch and pray that ye enter not 
 into temptation." ^ 
 
 The temptation is here. It reveals the tempter 
 * Matthew xxvi. 41. 
 94 
 
Personal Characteristics 95 
 
 in ambush. " Pray " is not enough. " Watch " 
 is not enough. The two must be coupled. The 
 eyes must be joined with the knees. And keen- 
 trained, practised eyes they must be too. The 
 '* watch " is for the enemy, the '' pray " for God. 
 We must look out as well as look up. There 
 has not been too much praying, but there has 
 been far too little watching. While some of us 
 have been devotedly absorbed in kneeling, the 
 enemy has slipped in, and toppled us over. 
 
 We must learn to pray with our eyes open, 
 and our ears alert, for our cunning enemy is 
 lurking around. Praying that is not accom- 
 panied by watching is weakened. The knees 
 need the eyes. The eyes watching the enemy 
 will make the knees stronger in their work. 
 Watching will reveal our danger, and make us 
 realize more keenly the need of prayer, and of 
 claiming our Lord's victory. 
 
 More watching would make more praying. 
 We would feel more keenly the danger, and 
 our own helplessness. Keener watching — eyes 
 trained to see in the dark, would make keener, 
 steadier praying. For we would realize more, 
 how great the prayer is that can affect and up- 
 set such an enemy as our watching brings into 
 the light. 
 
 Our watching is hard on the enemy; he must 
 fight harder. And our praying becomes more 
 simple and definite, steadier and more quietly 
 
96 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 tense. And watching makes easier praying; it 
 reveals to us our utter helplessness in ourselves 
 alone, and then we throw ourselves on our Vic- 
 tor, and rest our case there. We can do noth- 
 ing else before such a foe. And as we lean 
 wholly upon our Defender, we learn to rest 
 upon Him in our sorest straits. And that help- 
 less resting upon His makes the results quicker 
 and surer. Faith rests because of its very 
 helplessness. 
 
 So7ne important " Nots.' 
 
 Now that we may get our eyes trained for 
 keener watching I want to talk with you a bit 
 further about the personal characteristics of 
 this tempter-enemy of ours. We want to know 
 more about him so as to recognize and resist 
 him better. 
 
 He is a being of great personal beauty, and 
 with that goes the thought of great attractive- 
 ness. Yet it must be noted keenly that it is a 
 spoiled beauty. Nothing mars like selfishness. 
 The more beautiful face may become the most 
 ugly. Sin makes ugly. Satan's beauty has been 
 sadly spoiled, until now it is the false beauty 
 of powder and paint, of gaudy dressing and 
 flashy colours. He comes in a guise of beauty 
 and attractiveness. He has enormous power, 
 and real great dignity. We are told that 
 
Personal Characteristics 97 
 
 Michael in dealing with him on one occasion 
 spoke respectfully, as to one in a position of 
 dignity and glory/ 
 
 He is at the head of a vast compact organi- 
 zation of spirit-beings. Paul's description of 
 this organization reveals how thoroughly disci- 
 plined and organized are the forces at his dis- 
 posal.^ And however the spirit of lawlessness 
 and disregard for authority may permeate all 
 his ranks, there yet is a dominant organization 
 maintained and recognized, for so their pur- 
 poses can better be achieved. 
 
 Paul says our fighting is " against the princi- 
 palities, against the powers, against the world- 
 rulers of this darkness, against the hosts of 
 wicked spirits in the heavenlies." The words 
 of highly endowed beings. Satan's personal 
 character is revealed in such a compact organiza- 
 tion, the creation of his skill, and being wielded 
 by him. 
 
 But, over against that there are certain words 
 to be put down in blackest ink. They tell at 
 once of his limitations. He is not omnipotent, 
 though the power he wields is greater than any 
 of us realize. He is not omnipresent, though 
 the superb organization at his command has 
 sometimes seemed to suggest something of the 
 sort. He has no fore-knowledge, though he is 
 a very shrewd guesser. And he is not om- 
 *Jude 9. "Ephesians vi. 12. 
 
98 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 niscient, or knowing all things, though he has 
 gathered great knowledge through the centuries. 
 These traits belong to God only. 
 
 Indeed, in contrast with these, it should be 
 said again that he is wholly dependent upon the 
 co-operation of men so far as our lives and 
 the earth is concerned. This is a bit of his in- 
 herent weakness. 
 
 And, further, a vast deal of the power he does 
 have among us men, he has wholly, either 
 through our foolish ignorance and ignoring of 
 him or through our active (though I think 
 largely unconscious) co-operation with him by 
 the selfishness and sinfulness and compromise 
 in our lives. 
 
 His Mental Status. 
 
 He is credited with having great intellectual 
 keenness and force. He is thought of as a 
 giant of intellectual power. And there must 
 be much truth in such a supposition. The story 
 of his creation, his close fellowship with God in 
 his early history, and the work entrusted to him 
 would all lead to the conclusion that his mental 
 acumen and resourcefulness must be very great. 
 This should be carefully noted. 
 
 Yet there is a bit of vast import on the other 
 side of this fact. There is very much to lead 
 us to believe that his mentality is distinctly of 
 
Personal Characteristics 99 
 
 a secondary-grade. His is not a first-grade men- 
 tality. This should be noted, for it has great 
 bearing upon our dealings with him. 
 
 Note, please, that he has great cunning and 
 craftiness. His keenness is so great as to make 
 one feel uncanny. He has a peculiar quality of 
 persistence, and enormous driving power. In- 
 deed these are his dominant traits mentally. 
 Yet note that animals have great cunning and 
 craftiness and keenness and persistence and 
 energy. These do not indicate a first-grade 
 mentality. Yet they are Satan's dominant 
 traits. 
 
 Certainly he is not wise. That quality could 
 not be ascribed to him, and it is a peculiar thing 
 to mark that he constantly reveals a defective 
 judgment. He constantly overreaches himself, 
 and defeats his own purposes in dealing with us. 
 This suggests that he is more of a shrewd 
 guesser, with long experience back of his guess- 
 ing, than anything else. A vast lot of what 
 might be thought of as keen thinking, and as 
 indicating wide knowledge or fore-knowledge, is 
 simply very shrewd, crafty guessing. 
 
 Note that his dominant mental trait is imita- 
 tion. He has been called "the ape of God." 
 Read through Saint John's Revelation, and note 
 how in everything he does there he is simply 
 imitating God. There is a trinity of evil. One 
 of his chief agents appears as a lamb. Step 
 
100 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 by step, every plan of his seems to have been 
 patterned on something of God's. 
 
 Now it is true of course that imitation is the 
 most dominant law of all life. It is one of the 
 commonest laws governing all action, from 
 childhood on. Originality does not mean an 
 absence of imitation. It means unusual wis- 
 dom and judgment and insight in the selection, 
 and combination into one's own action, of what 
 is found in others. The basis is still imita- 
 tion. The new thing called originality is the 
 rare judgment in choosing what to imitate, 
 and how to combine what is chosen. Yet 
 mark that this great traitor-prince imitates 
 slavishly what God has done. There is no 
 trace of originality. His mental powers are 
 second-class. 
 
 This is not so surprising as it may seem at 
 first flush. He has cut himself off from God, 
 the source of all life and wisdom. All life, 
 physical and mental and of the spirit, is in 
 God, and from Him. Satan has existence, but 
 in breaking away from God he broke away from 
 the source of wisdom, and of strong mental 
 power. 
 
 The Immense Power of Experience. 
 
 Yet — yet, let it be very plainly underscored 
 that he is far more than a match for you and 
 
Personal Characteristics loi 
 
 me. That will be a bit humiliating to us, but 
 it is as true as it is humiliating. 
 
 Will you please notice why we are no match 
 for him here? First of all, because of his long 
 experience. Will you mark that experience 
 counts for more in the practical action of life 
 than anything else. For instance, a man with a 
 second-grade mind, or third-grade, but with a 
 long matured experience, will completely out- 
 class the man of first-rate mental powers who 
 has no experience. Neither unusual matured 
 talent nor unusual advantages of University 
 schooling, unaccompanied by experience, can 
 hold its own for a moment in the action of life 
 against matured experience wisely applied. 
 
 Experience outclasses every other sort of 
 qualification, standing alone without the expe- 
 rience. When you have been actually through 
 a difficult situation you have a grip and confi- 
 dence for a similar situation that can be gotten 
 in no other way. You are afraid of a strange 
 thing. Ignorance breeds fear. You have con- 
 fidence about the thing you have done a thou- 
 sand or a hundred times. Experience brings 
 boldness. It knows. 
 
 Satan has a very long experience. It has 
 been maturing for thousands of years. He 
 knows us men like we know the thing we know 
 best. And in comparison with him in the mat- 
 ter of experience we men are the merest babes. 
 
102 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 just drawing our first gasping breath. He has 
 been at this thing for millenniums; we are just 
 starting in. We are no match for this tempter, 
 even though his mentality is second-rate. 
 
 And then there is a second reason why we are 
 no match for him here. It is a humiliating rea- 
 son too, but again as true as it is humiliating. 
 It is this: our mentality is not first-class either, 
 except as the Spirit of God sways our mental 
 powers. The keenest, wisest brain is not first- 
 class except as it lives in its own atmosphere, 
 that is the breath of God. And as a matter of 
 fact we, too, have cut ourselves off from our 
 true atmosphere by sin. And even where we 
 have come back into our native air, through the 
 redeeming work of our Saviour and Lord, in 
 so far as He is not allowed to dominate our 
 mental powers we fall to second place. We have 
 not the mental powers with which we were en- 
 dowed. Now I think we would agree to the 
 sad fact that compromise with evil and selfish- 
 ness have become a law among those of us 
 classed as Christian people. By common con- 
 sent the Church of Christ is not swayed in the 
 life of its members by that Jesus- Spirit of which 
 we talked a while ago. 
 
Personal Characteristics 103 
 
 Unsurrendered Mental Powers. 
 
 Then there is even more to be said. There 
 are a great many earnest, godly people, who are 
 wholly surrendered in spirit and purpose to 
 the Lord Jesus, but whose mental powers are 
 not surrendered. These lie fallow. It almost 
 seems sometimes as though mental stupidity, the 
 blind unthinking following of religious leaders, 
 is looked upon as a sign of unusual grace, in- 
 stead of unusual stupidity. 
 
 When the Holy Spirit is allowed possession 
 there follows a second mental birth, as well as 
 a new spiritual birth. There is a new activity, 
 a new mental life, a new keenness and strength 
 of mental action. It is the Spirit's mode of ac- 
 tion. And in so far as it is not our experience, 
 the lack tells how far the Holy Spirit is not 
 in control. It tells how far we have not sur- 
 rendered our powers to His sweet life-giving 
 sway. This is a second reason why we are no 
 match for our spirit-foe who is ever close upon 
 our heels. Full victory comes through the blood 
 of the Lamb, and through our mental powers be- 
 ing actively swayed by the Spirit of God. 
 
 There are a few other traits that should be 
 noted. Satan is a liar. His word cannot be 
 trusted. He has rare skill in blending. He can 
 mix truth and lie, fact and falsehood, so skil- 
 fully and cunningly that even the elect are de- 
 
104 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 ceived. Only the constant knee-test can detect 
 some of his damnable blending; only eyes 
 habitually steeped in the light of the Word can 
 see the subtle tinging of false colours in his 
 fabrics. 
 
 All sorts of lies come from him, big lies and 
 small; white lies and black — the mean dirty- 
 white, gray-smoky-white kind seem to be a fa- 
 vourite. Social lies, business lies, personal lies, 
 Church lies, religious lies ; lies that are lived and 
 acted ; lies in the garments worn ; — all sorts 
 come from him. He is fond of disguises, and is 
 skilled in the use of them. He hates the truth. 
 
 A Cowardly Weapon. 
 
 Then he is fond of using force. Violence 
 is peculiarly his weapon, from the stage of sim- 
 ply threatening to use it, on through its active 
 use both in personal and in large mass move- 
 ments. If one man kills another, it is commonly 
 called murder. If a big organized crowd of 
 men do the same thing in a more or less skilled 
 way, it is called war. 
 
 I am not discussing either the question of 
 armies or of warfare. That's a separate ques- 
 tion, with many facts to be noted on both sides 
 before a fair conclusion can be reached. Many 
 of the great armies are simply huge policing or- 
 ganizations keeping order on the street where 
 
Personal Characteristics 105 
 
 the national crowds pass by, and jostle each 
 other in passing. 
 
 But violence, force, mere brute force is one 
 of Satan's favourite modes of action, and re- 
 veals his character. Settling differences by re- 
 sort to mere animal strength is of course put- 
 ting the whole affair on the very lowest basis. 
 Mere might is made the standard of right, 
 though it almost always means putting the 
 wrong up as the right, or in place of it. All use 
 of this lowest means of attaining one's own 
 ends, whether among individuals or with crowds 
 of men, is from this great usurper-prince. 
 
 Its commonness in social life, using one's so- 
 cial advantage to crowd down, or crush another; 
 in business life, where it is so universally prac- 
 tised, using whatever advantage may come into 
 one's hands to crush a rival or compel him to 
 come to your terms; in political, and even in 
 Church circles, reveal how wide-spread is the 
 subtle influence of this great spirit-foe of ours. 
 It reveals, too, his personal characteristics. 
 There is nothing more contemptibly cowardly 
 than the use of mere force to attain one's ends. 
 
 This leads directly to another trait that should 
 be very sharply marked — Satan is a coward. He 
 is a mean, contemptible coward. He is fond of 
 bluster and brag. He will come with his sug- 
 gestion of doubt to some dear old saint of God, 
 lying in a bed of illness, weak in body and tired 
 
io6 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 in mind, and will worry and tease and torment 
 her until she is almost in despair. Ugh! he is 
 a contemptible coward. He prefers to attack 
 somebody weaker than himself. 
 
 He is afraid of our Lord Jesus. He has no 
 courage for a stand-up, square fair fight with 
 an equal. Under such circumstances he will slink 
 off. He is afraid of us, too, when we cling so 
 close to Jesus that we two are as one. Resist 
 him, and he will sneak off, and hunt for some 
 one off his guard. Now it is good to remember 
 this trait of cowardice. Cling close to our 
 blessed Master; never get out of His presence; 
 resist this great coward in the great Name, and 
 you are safe. 
 
 But with that put in this — he is persistent. 
 He has bull-dog tenacity. He knows how to 
 hang on. There is just one thing that will 
 out-do his persistence, and that is our insistence 
 in our Lord Jesus' Name. He can't stand that. 
 When he hangs on you hang on just a bit longer. 
 He is defeated, and he knows it. Our Lord is 
 Victor, and we know that. The tempter's per- 
 sistence is bluster. Steady insistence, steady 
 claiming the power of our Lord Jesus' Name, 
 insistence, steady insistence — he can't stand 
 that. 
 
Personal Characteristics 107 
 
 At His Strongest — Weak. 
 
 A friend told me of her nephew, who was 
 under her care for a time while his parents were 
 in India. The family devotional reading was in 
 the Book of Revelation. There had been some 
 hesitation about taking up that book, when it 
 came in regular order, lest the children might 
 not understand. But with the aunt's insistence 
 that the children could get more than one might 
 think, it was decided to take it up. One day the 
 little fellow abruptly said, " Satan will have two 
 big punishments, won't he ? " His aunt was 
 surprised, and sought to draw out his thoughts. 
 " He will be put into the pit and then into the 
 lake of fire," the child said. Evidently he had 
 taken in much more of the family reading than 
 they had supposed. So his aunt tried to in- 
 struct him further. How well she succeeded 
 is suggested by the little man's remark one night 
 as he was going to bed. As though talking half 
 to himself he said, " Satan is very strong, we 
 can't do anything against him," in a tone that 
 suggested an element of fear in his mind. Then 
 his face brightened, and his tone of voice com- 
 pletely changed, as he said, '' but with Jesus, 
 we are a hundred times stronger." Then as he 
 was being tucked in he said, " Oh, I should say, 
 with Jesus we are a thousand times stronger." 
 
 That was wholesome reading and instruction 
 
io8 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 for that child. The two definite impressions of 
 the greatness of the foe, and of the greater 
 power of our Lord, and that that power was 
 ours, will be of great value to him as he grows 
 in his Christian life. We should couple our 
 Master with ourselves as the boy did, " with 
 Jesus we are a thousand times stronger " — ^and 
 more! Let's remember that. It will put new 
 life into our insistence, and it will put our en- 
 emy to flight. 
 
 Satan tries to imitate the beauty and personal 
 attractiveness which were his but have been 
 spoiled by his sin. He has great power, he is 
 a subtle organizer, and has a splendidly com- 
 pacted organization of spirit-beings at his nod 
 and beck. His mentality is distinctly of sec- 
 ondary grade, but his experience with us men 
 is so long and matured and intimate that he has 
 enormous advantage. 
 
 He has a devilish knack of tenacity, of per- 
 sistence. He loves deceit and is peculiarly skil- 
 ful in using it. Rugged honesty is one of the 
 sure checkmates for shutting him up in a corner. 
 He uses force and delights in its use. And he 
 is a contemptible coward. 
 
 This reveals much of his supposed strength, 
 much of his real strength, and reveals too, how 
 much less is he than our wondrous Victor, the 
 Lord Jesus. " Greater is He," so much greater 
 that you can't put into words how much greater. 
 
Personal Characteristics 109 
 
 But you can know how much when the thick of 
 the fight is on. 
 
 The intelHgent surrender of all our powers 
 and activities to the Mastery of our Lord, the 
 thoughtful cultivation of the Holy Spirit's pres- 
 ence and practical sovereignty, the daily quiet 
 time alone with God's Word, the spirit of hum- 
 ble dependence upon our Lord — these will bring 
 to us a simple, sane sense in recognizing the 
 enemy, regardless of disguises, and will make 
 us strong in resisting and overcoming him at 
 every turn of the road. 
 
III.— TYPICAL TEMPTATIONS 
 
EDEN: HOW THE TEMPTER 
 WORKS 
 
 Three Attacks. 
 
 There have been three great attacks made 
 upon man by the tempter, three great attempts 
 to tempt him away from God's path — in Eden, 
 in the Wilderness, and at Calvary. The pur- 
 pose each time was the same — it was to swerve 
 man from God's path and God's plan. That is 
 the sole thing aimed at in each as in all tempta- 
 tion. In Eden man fell into the snare laid for 
 him. He failed to obey God ; he disobeyed. He 
 obeyed another, and became the slave of him 
 whom he obeyed. He lost his title to the do- 
 minion of the earth. 
 
 Our Lord Jesus came as the new Head of the 
 race. He came to redeem what had been lost. 
 His coming was a direct challenge to the traitor- 
 prince. The challenge of His presence was met 
 by the tempter in the Wilderness. It was the 
 second great attack upon the race, the second 
 temptation. That is, it was the second great 
 driving attack. 
 
 Our Lord was tempted before the Wilderness. 
 The Nazareth life was a continuation of temp- 
 tations. And he was tempted by every sort of 
 "3 
 
114 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 subtle and stormy effort during the three and 
 a half years after. But the Wilderness was a 
 great pitched battle. It was the first of two 
 pitched battles. Our Lord remained true. He 
 steadily insisted on obeying the Father. The 
 tempter was defeated. 
 
 This led to the third great attack or attempt 
 at Calvary. Having failed in the Wilderness, 
 Satan would try again. He would make an- 
 other yet greater effort. That second great 
 effort was at Calvary. There he rallied all his 
 power. This was the second great pitched bat- 
 tle of which our Lord was the central figure. 
 And we men can never be grateful enough for 
 the steadfast obedience, for the victory through 
 obedience, of our Lord in the Wilderness, and 
 at Calvary — for everything most dear to us 
 was at stake. He was acting for us as our rep- 
 resentative and substitute. 
 
 The one thing aimed at by Satan at Calvary 
 was to make obedience just as difficult and pain- 
 ful, and indeed as near to impossible, as it was 
 possible for him to do. Obedience has never 
 been so hard before nor since. By every bit 
 of Satanic cunning and devilish malice of which 
 he is such a consummate master, he hedged the 
 path of obedience in. By thorns and thongs, 
 club and cross, bodily pain, mental and spirit 
 pain, hy every conceivable indignity and shame 
 and utter disgrace he sought to check Jesus' 
 
Eden: How the Tempter Works 115 
 
 advance, to choke Him back. It was Satan at 
 his very best, which means at his very worst. 
 
 The One Aim in Temptation. 
 
 But — blessed ever be the Name of Jesus — 
 He never flinched. He felt the pain, He felt 
 the shame. None ever realized and felt so 
 keenly all that was heaped upon Him. But He 
 obeyed. He despised the shame. We men can't 
 take in the depth of meaning of St. Paul's sen- 
 tence, " becoming obedient, even unto death, 
 yea, the death of the cross." ^ All the malice of 
 hell, all the devilish malignity and hatred of the 
 tempter, all the simple, steady obedience of 
 Jesus, our Lord, to the Father, all the matchless 
 love of the heart of God, are covered by that 
 little three-lettered "yea." 
 
 Here lies the core of all temptation, to make 
 us disobey, to ensnare us away from the Fa- 
 ther's plan. Under every sort of device and 
 cunning this is the one thing being aimed at in 
 temptation. Through confusing our thoughts, 
 through blurring our conceptions of what is 
 right, through mixed standards of right and 
 wrong, through compromise of some sort, by 
 rush and grip of passion, by lure and glare of 
 ambition, by sudden sweep of storm, by sly 
 sneaking of the snake through the tall pretty 
 
 *Phil. ii. 8. 
 
Ii6 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 grass — under every sort of approach this is the 
 one thing aimed at — to lead us to break, by lit- 
 tle or by much, the Father's common plan for 
 human life, or His particular plan for each 
 life. 
 
 And here, too, lies the one simple pathway 
 trodden by our Lord, obedience to the Father's 
 plan, regardless of consequences. It is the path- 
 way for us to tread, in the strength of our 
 Lord's victory. His footprints are big and clear 
 and sharply outhned. We are to place our feet 
 where He trod. He has made the way easy. 
 Keen ears to hear, clear eyes to see, under those 
 a sturdy will to follow — then comes and stays 
 the one simple standard of right, and yet bet- 
 ter the grace and strength to stick to that stand- 
 ard; that is the unfailing road to victory over 
 every temptation. 
 
 God has given us in His Word these great 
 temptations, pictured out in clear outline, that we 
 may know the wiles of the tempter and the wis- 
 dom of our Victor. We want to look a bit at 
 two of these. Eden reveals how the tempter 
 works. It should make us keener in watching. 
 The Wilderness shows us how our Lord re- 
 sisted him. It should make us keener in pray- 
 ing. Just now, a look at Eden. 
 
Eden: How the Tempter Works 117 
 The Eden Trail, 
 
 Eden was God's plan for man. Eden was 
 a garden. God planned a garden for our home. 
 There was perfect love, no questionings, no 
 doubtings, no suspicions, but the sweet, full 
 confidence of true perfect love. Love was the 
 atmosphere of the garden. That meant that 
 there was purity. True love always includes 
 sweet purity. There was no sin, no blemish, no 
 weakness, no wrong, but sweetest purity of 
 heart and life, of imagination and thought and 
 conduct. 
 
 And that in turn meant, too, that there was 
 companionship between God and man. Each 
 enjoyed the other. There could be fellowship 
 because there was perfect love, and the perfect 
 purity that belongs to love. There cannot be 
 fellowship between Him and us except upon His 
 level of purity and love. That rules us out 
 now utterly, except as we come back by the red- 
 dened pathway made for us by our Lord's death. 
 Through Him comes purity, and through Him 
 love is made perfect. 
 
 There is God's plan — a garden with its beauty 
 and fragrance, perfect love, perfect purity, full 
 fellowship between God and man, among men 
 themselves, and between man and the lower cre- 
 ation and all nature. That is the Eden plan, 
 God's plan for man. 
 
Ii8 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 Then, then the tempter came. Why did he 
 come? Because he wanted to get control of 
 this earth. That dominion had been given to 
 man. He held his title by obedience. The 
 tempter came to steal away man's control and 
 usurp the earth. If man could be made to dis- 
 obey by so much as a half of a hair's-width, the 
 title would be defective, and the earth's domin- 
 ion lost; the tempter would have mastery, not 
 simply of the earth but of the man whose wor- 
 ship he coveted. 
 
 Will you mark very keenly how he came? 
 Because that is the way he comes. We want to 
 learn the Eden trail. It will help us become 
 good trailsmen, good trail detectors. And that 
 is an immense help. To recognize a temptation 
 sharp and clear is one-half of the victory over 
 it. We are studying the serpent trail here. 
 
 How he came. 
 
 Please note three points as to how he came. 
 He came tinder cover; he used somebody else, 
 or something else; he worked in disguise. That 
 is immensely suggestive. Was he afraid to 
 come out into the open? I think he was. Is he 
 afraid? I have no doubt of it. Satan, coming 
 plainly as he is, with the light we have, would 
 be booted out most times, and with no easy 
 booting either. And so he comes under cover. 
 
Eden: How the Tempter Works 119 
 
 It is his favourite way of working, under cover. 
 He came through a serpent, through an animal. 
 And mark you this, he got the very best he 
 could ; and he always does. The animal he used 
 was the subtlest there was in the whole animal 
 creation. 
 
 The word " subtlest " suggests this : not what 
 it means to us sometimes — craftiness — not that; 
 but mental keenness, if I may use the word 
 " mental " for an animal. That is the thought 
 of the word " subtle " — mental, intellectual 
 keenness and acumen. He got the best there 
 was, and behind that came his snaky, sneaky, 
 crafty foot-tread; and he is still coming. He 
 is the keen man who will find out how to detect 
 Satan's disguises. 
 
 Then he made his attack through the body; 
 and this again is immensely suggestive. The 
 suggestion to Eve came through a perfectly nat- 
 ural bodily appetite, the desire for good food, 
 something tasty and toothsome. Through that 
 he came to her. And if you will mark very 
 keenly again, it is one of his favourite modes. 
 He came, and he comes through the body; 
 through a purely natural, normal function of 
 the body, the desire for food, the desire for 
 drink. He still works through the natural func- 
 tions of the body. You quickly think what 
 they are, all in themselves perfectly right when 
 held to their true uses. 
 
120 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 And then having gotten into the body he 
 comes through bodily weakness, through disar- 
 rangements of bodily functions. Through ex- 
 cess in the use of the body he can come in, and 
 he does. And I think to-day he is having a very 
 wide sway among men through his bodily ap- 
 proach, far more than we guess. And far more 
 than we guess, too, there is deliverance from 
 him in our bodies through our Victor, Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 Then he came through the mind. Indeed, he 
 came to the mind to reach the body. Of course 
 he spoke to Eve; he could not touch her body 
 except through her consent. But he tempted 
 and confused Eve mentally, got her ideas mixed 
 up, put in false thoughts and wrong thoughts 
 and wrong ideas, and half truths. He confused 
 her mentally and so confused her morally, and 
 so got the consent of her will to his own will. 
 And I may say here just this, the whole thing 
 he is driving at is to get the control of our will. 
 But he cannot without our consent. Every man 
 is a sovereign in his will. Every man stands 
 alone in imperial solitude in the realm of his 
 will. And so Satan tries to affect that, to con- 
 trol it. 
 
 He still works through our mind. He can 
 cast on your mental vision disturbing, distort- 
 ing, and startling thoughts. He does; and fol- 
 lowing that, he affects the whole mental life 
 
Eden: How the Tempter Works 121 
 
 marvellously, far more than we suspect. I do 
 not mean just now simply those who have been 
 taken to insane asylums. Without doubt in 
 large measure he is responsible for their condi- 
 tion, though always through their consent. 
 Everything is through human consent. But the 
 devil cannot use these folks very much. They 
 have gone too far. He is far more concerned 
 to influence mentally us folks who are reck- 
 oned to be sane. He is working upon our men- 
 tal condition, seeking to confuse, and distort, 
 and swing us away. Remember this, that just 
 as there is far more victory in our bodies 
 through Jesus Christ our Saviour than many of 
 us know, so there is far more victory in the 
 matter of clear minds, and quiet minds, and 
 minds strong for the service of life, through 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, on the ground of His 
 blood, than we have guessed. 
 
 And so these are the three ways he came: un- 
 der cover, through the body, through the mind. 
 
 The Generations of Doubt. 
 
 Then notice what he did. And please keep 
 in your mind as we are talking, that we are 
 tracing now the Eden trail. Wherever you find 
 these things anywhere you are coming across 
 the slimy trail of the serpent. 
 
 The first thing he did was to raise a doubt 
 
122 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 about God's love. " Hath God said you shall 
 not eat of any of the trees? What a hard God 
 He is ! Lovely trees ! Delicious fruit ! It was 
 made to be eaten; it will nourish your body. 
 What a cruel God He is ! Can't you eat of this 
 fruit? W^hat an awful God you have got!" 
 That is the suggestion, a doubt about God's 
 love. And following the language of the book 
 of Genesis I want to read to you the generations 
 of this thing called doubt. There are ten tables 
 of generations in the book of Genesis, and I 
 am going to add one for our practical help just 
 now. 
 
 Doubt! These are the generations of doubt, 
 as Satan begat them that day. Satan begat 
 doubt. It was doubt of God's love that was 
 the first born. Doubt of God's love gave birth 
 to doubt of God Himself. Doubt of God gave 
 birth to doubt of everybody else. We are liv- 
 ing in a world of doubt; we are suspicious of 
 everybody; all the time watching others the 
 wrong way ; keeping a suspicious eye open. That 
 is the second generation. And doubt always 
 gives birth to misunderstanding. That is a 
 large generation. There are a great many chil- 
 dren born there. And misunderstanding gave 
 birth to criticism; Hkewise a very large family, 
 many of whom, most, or shall I say " all " of 
 whom abide with us until this day. And criti- 
 cism gave birth to hatred in all its various 
 
Eden: How the Tempter Works 123 
 
 forms; and the generations of hatred are vio- 
 lence in all its forms. And the children there 
 are, personally, murder; and on the wholesale, 
 war. These are the generations of doubt of 
 God's love which Satan begat that day in the 
 Garden of Eden. And a peculiar thing about 
 these generations of Satan is that they are so 
 long-lived. Methusaleh died in infancy by 
 comparison. 
 
 The second thing that Satan did was to tell 
 a lie. Perhaps I need not stop long there. He, 
 of course, is called the father of lies, all kinds 
 of lies, if you will mark. There is quite a 
 large family here. I need hardly label them 
 all to-night. There are white lies and black 
 lies; there are small lies as men measure them, 
 and large lies ; there are social lies and there 
 are business lies. There are lies that you live; 
 there are lip lies and life lies. The whole world 
 is filled with the lies that have grown out of 
 the first that Satan told; and they all come from 
 him. If you will mark very keenly again this 
 is a bit of the Eden trail. All lying by look 
 or lip or for any purpose, social, personal, re- 
 ligious — there is a large range of religious lies, 
 you know — the whole thing, the whole brood 
 can be traced directly to this great father of 
 lies. 
 
 The third thing — he kindled the fires of an 
 unholy ambition. And I would need to have 
 
124 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 a whole evening for a talk on a thing of that 
 kind. He gave to Adam and Eve an unholy 
 ambition. He said to Eve, " Ye shall be as 
 God ! " Ah ; there is Satan's ambition, to be 
 as God! to be worshipped as God. He said to 
 Eve, '' You can by a simple act of your own 
 lift yourself above this level where God has put 
 you, to a level with God Himself." And all the 
 wrong ambition of life had its birthplace and 
 its birthtime there. I hardly know how to say 
 briefly enough and simply enough what I want 
 to say here. This itch seems very common 
 everywhere. It is in commercial Hfe; it is in 
 social life, very, very strong; it is in political 
 life; it is in business life; it is in church life; 
 it is in every phase of life; the effort to get 
 yourself up above where God has placed you 
 by improper means. The feverish fingering of 
 the door-knob upstairs, and the insistently 
 working your way up the stairs where you have 
 no right to be. The itch of an unholy ambition 
 was the third thing he gave to Eve. 
 
 And the fourth was this, he urged disobedi- 
 ence. The one keyword of the true life is 
 obedience. The keyword of Satan's life is 
 disobedience to God. The one thing that our 
 Lord Jesus Christ insisted on doing was this, 
 obeying His Father. He could make bread, but 
 He would not make it at Satan's suggestion. He 
 waited until the Father said, '' Feed those hun- 
 
Eden: How the Tempter Works 125 
 
 gry " by Galilee's waters. The obeying the Fa- 
 ther was the one touchstone of His life : and it 
 must be the one touchstone of our lives. 
 
 "More anxious not to serve Thee much. 
 But please Thee perfectly." 
 
 But Satan that day introduced the further itch 
 of disobedience. 
 
 And the fifth thing he tried to do; it came 
 later, after the act of disobedience; please mark 
 that very keenly; the fifth thing came after Eve 
 gave him a very large door to get in, and it was 
 this — a suggestion of impurity. The serpent 
 does not speak of it: it comes as a mental sug- 
 gestion. Mark keenly, in that third chapter 
 there was no act of impurity, there is nothing 
 wrong in the way of impurity except what is 
 in the imagination of those two, which led to 
 the seeking for garments, which were not in- 
 tended in the first place for the body but wholly 
 for the mind. And this is the commonest sin 
 of the whole race, through all the world, from 
 that day until this, — impurity, that is to say, if 
 you will mark keenly again, simply this, the 
 using of a perfectly proper, holy function in a 
 way not intended. Simply that; but all of that. 
 That is the core of impurity of every sort and 
 shape and degree. 
 
 And I wish you would mark very keenly a 
 
126 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 difference here in Satan's approach. Before 
 their act of disobedience and afterwards his ap- 
 proach is different. Before that disobedience 
 he came from the outside; afterwards he came 
 from the inside. The serpent said, " Eat the 
 fruit. God is not good ! " But when the fruit 
 was eaten the serpent was dismissed; his work 
 was done. Through the act of disobedience 
 there was an inner door open, and through that 
 door the evil one came and put the image of 
 the wrong thing on the mind. Before the eat- 
 ing he came from without; after the eating he 
 came within. To-day, he comes both ways. He 
 had only one way of coming in the beginning: 
 now he has two, and he uses both. 
 
 Some of the Results. 
 
 Then I want you to notice, please, a fourth 
 item in Satan's coming, some of the results. 
 The first was this, voluntary separation by man 
 from God. If you will mark again, please, the 
 separation between God and man did not begin 
 with God. It began with man. God did not 
 go away; man went away. He hid himself be- 
 hind a tree. That is a very bad use of trees. 
 Trees were never meant for any such use as 
 that of hiding away from God. And ever since 
 man has been hiding from God. God does not 
 go away; man does. 
 
Eden: How the Tempter Works 127 
 
 The second thing was this, and I wish you 
 might mark this keenly if you will, a second re- 
 sult, moral cowardice. Notice what our splen- 
 did first man of the race said. " The zvonian 
 Thou gavest me! / am not to blame; she is. 
 What did You give me that woman for?" 
 Blaming somebody else. Contemptible cow- 
 ardice ; but he does not stop there, '' The woman 
 Thou gavest; Thou art to blame after all; it is 
 all Thy fault." 
 
 Moody tells about going to a prison in New 
 York City and having a service, and then going 
 down afterwards to talk with the prisoners one 
 by one, and he said, " I never found such an 
 innocent lot of men in my whole life as in that 
 place. Each man explained that somebody else 
 was to blame." Adam seems to have given 
 birth to a great race of moral cowards. ""/ am 
 all right. It is her fault ! It is his fault. Watch 
 him! Look back here! Keep an eye on that 
 man, I am all right ! " Moral Cowards. They 
 are extremely common. 
 
 And then a third result I wish you might 
 mark yet more keenly was this — fear. Sin al- 
 ways produces fear, and I wish I had time this 
 evening to talk about this, the fears that affect 
 body and mind. If I could remove from your 
 minds all sense of fear to-night you would go 
 out of this hall made over new in your bodies 
 as well as in your mental power. Fear is one 
 
128 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 of the most slavish results of sin. Adam said, 
 " I was afraid, I was afraid." And he repeated 
 the sentence that is used more times on human 
 lips than any other, I think. " I am afraid ! I 
 am afraid! I am afraid." It is so common that 
 we use it when we are not afraid. But the 
 sense of fear is woven into the whole life of 
 the race. And fear always affects the body, 
 intensely and potently and subtly. If I am 
 swayed by a spirit of love and a perfect confi- 
 dence my body is freer; its functions are dis- 
 charged more freely; I am stronger physically; 
 and I am clearer mentally. But fear locks up 
 the body. It deprives it of its strength; it af- 
 fects the mind; it affects the whole nature, 
 body, mind, and spirit. The whole thing began 
 that Eden day. 
 
 Now that is the Eden trail. Have you ever 
 seen it down your way? Is it a strange trail to 
 you? If you have seen it, or any part of it, 
 you may know it is by that old Satan serpent. 
 You don't see him; he is under cover; but you 
 see his trail. It is very plain in the Bible. If 
 you will run through the whole Book of God, 
 you see the serpent trail. Satan himself is 
 mentioned only a very few times. I can almost 
 repeat the times, they are so few. But his trail 
 is everywhere. 
 
 What about the trail in the book of life? 
 Any trail down your way? Shall I repeat these 
 
Eden: How the Tempter Works 129 
 
 things? Doubt, with its offspring of misunder- 
 standing, criticism, and violence; lying, unholy 
 ambition, disobedience, impurity, moral cow- 
 ardice, fear, bodily disorder, mental disorder, 
 the lack of a clear, quiet, sane mind! How 
 about the trail? Because wherever that trail 
 is, in small degree or large, there is evidence of 
 the serpent's presence. 
 
 And coming to the close of our quiet talk to- 
 gether, and I wish you might listen very quietly 
 here, if there be any of this sort of thing, any 
 doubt of God, any failure to obey, any moral 
 cowardice, lies of any colour or any size or 
 degree, any sense of fear which means a lack 
 of a quiet faith, any using of a pure holy bodily 
 function in a way not intended, if there be any 
 of these, then you may know that there, hidden 
 away, maybe half out of sight, but allowed his 
 corner, is Satan. 
 
 I wonder how many of us are giving the en- 
 emy covert and comfort. I suggest that we go 
 into some quiet corner, and breathe the prayer 
 of the Psalmist, '* Search me, oh God, and know 
 my heart, and help me know what Thou dost 
 know; try me, and know my thoughts, motives, 
 purposes, loves, innermost, undermost; and help 
 me know what Thou dost know. And lead me 
 to see if there be any way in me that grieves 
 Thee and gives Satan a hold against Thee." 
 And then, if you will, add this bit to your 
 
130 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 prayer, — " Lead me out of that way, into Thy 
 way, the way everlasting." 
 
 And if perchance you are thinking, " Ah ! you 
 don't know how tight on my Hfe some of these 
 things are; you don't know how fear can grip, 
 and disobedience grip, and cowardice grip, and 
 other unnamed things, how they can grip." And 
 you say, "How can I put them out?" Well, 
 the last word just now is this, the last word is 
 from the last book of the Bible. Our message 
 was from the beginning of the first book. The 
 last word is near the last of the last book,' 
 *' They overcame him because of the blood of 
 the Lamb." That is the common reading. But 
 I like the other reading of it : " They overcame 
 him on the ground of the Blood of the Lamb." 
 
 I want to tell you this — there is only liberty 
 to-night from every bit of the Eden trail 
 through the Blood of the Lamb; only so; but 
 so. Bodily disorder, bodily weakness, mental 
 disturbance, fear, impurity, doubt, disobedience, 
 moral cowardice, lies, all the rest of it; there is 
 victory over all through the Blood of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ. And while we have been think- 
 ing of that precious blood as the entrance into 
 the Christian life, let us remember this, that 
 day by day there is victory for us, and there 
 is freedom for us from every bit of the whole 
 Eden trail, on the ground of the Blood of our 
 * Revelation xii. 11. 
 
Eden: How the Tempter Works 131 
 
 Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. Shall we 
 go out to-night and see to it that Satan is 
 undercut so far as we are concerned, and that 
 the Lord Jesus Christ may have the use of us 
 as He will in His great outreaching plan for 
 His world? 
 
THE WILDERNESS: HOW THE 
 TEMPTER IS DEFEATED 
 
 Forestalling the Tempter. 
 
 We have talked a bit about the temptation by 
 Satan, in Eden, upon Adam, the first head of 
 the race. Now we want to talk about the sec- 
 ond great attack by Satan upon our race, 
 through its second Head, our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 And I want first of all to remind you of this, 
 that the temptation in the Wilderness was a 
 necessity. It was a necessity for Satan be- 
 cause his kingdom was in peril, and he must 
 fight for that which he wanted. It was a neces- 
 sity for our Lord Jesus Christ as the new Head 
 of our race, because He was to worst the 
 tempter in the temptation, and win back the 
 dominion of the whole earth for our human 
 kind. 
 
 I think we will, perhaps, understand a bit 
 better the necessity of the Wilderness tempta- 
 tion if we remember this, that when Adam was 
 created he was given the dominion over the 
 earth; he was the earth's undermaster. He was 
 lord of the creation by the Father's appoint- 
 ment. The prince of darkness was eager to get 
 133 
 
How the Tempter Is Defeated 133 
 
 that dominion for himself from man and over 
 man, and through man, and so he made the 
 attack in Eden, and man fell and Satan suc- 
 ceeded. 
 
 Now our Lord Jesus Christ stepped on the 
 scene to win the earth, and the whole race of 
 men, back to its original allegiance to His Fa- 
 ther. Satan must fight Him. Satan was steal- 
 ing men's allegiance by deceiving them. The 
 temptation in the Wilderness was a necessity for 
 Satan because he must fight his way against 
 the new Man, God's new Man. His stolen king- 
 dom was in peril because of this Lord Jesus. 
 The Wilderness temptation was a necessity to 
 Jesus Christ because in it He met the head of 
 the opposing forces and foiled him. The vic- 
 tory of Calvary has the first striking of its note 
 in this temptation. In winning over Satan there 
 He began His victory on Calvary. And, if you 
 mark it keenly, the whole kingdom of evil 
 spirits knew of the Lord Jesus' victory in the 
 Wilderness. Whenever and wherever He came 
 they were afraid and fled. 
 
 I want to say what I have to say under three 
 very simple heads. The first, the Holy Spirit's 
 preparation for the temptation. I ask you to 
 mark the fact that the Holy Spirit made prepa- 
 ration for this temptation. He took control of 
 the situation. The initiative in this temptation 
 was not taken by Satan; it was taken by the 
 
134 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 Holy Spirit. It says very plainly, " Then was 
 Jesus led up by the Spirit into the wilderness 
 to be tempted ! " ' He took the initiative. He 
 displayed masterly generalship. He did not 
 wait until the tempter came, but obliged the 
 tempter to come. He forced the fighting. It 
 was a fine bit of generalship. We ought to fol- 
 low His lead far more there. Most of us, may 
 I say, wait until we are tempted, and then, half- 
 scared, seek for help. But we should always 
 pray ahead, and watch ahead, and take the 
 ground before the Evil One can come. That is 
 what the wondrous Holy Spirit does here. He 
 forestalled the evil one. 
 
 At one time Mr. Moody was on an ocean 
 liner, in a great storm, and they were sure the 
 boat was going to the bottom. They were all 
 praying; everybody prays in a bad storm, you 
 know. A gentleman told about going to one of 
 the decks, and to his great surprise he saw Mr. 
 Moody standing on the deck, not in the prayer 
 meeting down below, but standing quietly look- 
 ing out over the raging waters. And he said, 
 '* Why ! Mr. Moody, aren't you down in the 
 prayer meeting ! " And in his quiet way Mr. 
 Moody said, " Oh ! I am prayed up." 
 
 There is a marvellous generalship in praying 
 ahead. We must not wait till we are driven to 
 pray, if we would forestall the evil one. Do 
 * Matthew iv. i. 
 
How the Tempter Is Defeated 135 
 
 as the Holy Spirit does here. He took charge 
 of the situation. That is the first suggestion in 
 the Holy Spirit's preparation. 
 
 The Holy Spirit's Generalship. 
 
 And then the second suggestion is this. He 
 took possession of our Lord Jesus. Jesus was 
 filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit 
 took possession of our Lord. Before the temp- 
 tation came, the Spirit filled Him with Himself, 
 to meet the temptation. 
 
 And yet I want to remind you of this, and I 
 ask you to listen keenly that you may not mis- 
 understand — the Lord Jesus was not filled with 
 the Holy Spirit in a sense peculiar to Himself. 
 Now I say that reverently, but I say it because 
 of this, — He insisted at every point in living 
 the life of a man, dependent entirely upon the 
 Holy Spirit. And the thing to mark is this, 
 that just as the Son of Man as man was filled 
 by the Holy Spirit before the temptation came, 
 that He might meet and resist the temptation, 
 even so you and I will be filled if He may have 
 His way, filled beforehand that we may meet 
 temptation as He did, prepared ahead. It is 
 immensely suggestive to us. So many of us 
 play a back-handed game. We wait until we 
 are pushed, and then we do the best we can. 
 If we yield to the Holy Spirit's sway we will 
 
136 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 be prepared ahead and force the fighting, and 
 make the devil hunt his corner. 
 
 Then note very keenly, please, the Holy 
 Spirit took charge of our Lord's temptation; 
 not in a pecuhar way; in just the same way 
 that He takes supervision of our temptation. 
 He takes supervision of all our temptations. The 
 whole thing is to yield to His filling, to His 
 sway; He takes care of the rest. In i Corinthi- 
 ans X. 13 we are told, " There hath no tempta- 
 tion taken you but such as man can bear: but 
 God . . . will not suffer you to be tempted 
 above that ye are able." He is the Superin- 
 tendent of our temptations. If we yield to His 
 sway, he attends to the victory always. If we 
 appreciated this, it would change our whole atti- 
 tude toward temptation. 
 
 Most folks fear temptation. We are afraid 
 of it. We are afraid we will be tempted. But 
 instead of that we ought to think of the tempta- 
 tion as a chance to defeat the devil. A temp- 
 tation is two things: it is a chance to make the 
 devil go; secondly it is a chance to win a great 
 victory. We ought not to think of the tempta- 
 tion from the evil one's side only, who will over- 
 come us if we stand alone. Were we to magnify 
 the Holy Spirit, and think of the temptation 
 from His side, that would mean a fresh defeat 
 for the tempter, and a fresh consciousness of 
 the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ. We 
 
How the Tempter Is Defeated 137 
 
 would go to the ground of the temptation, in 
 the path of duty, never otherwise, but we would 
 go there with a zest because we know in our 
 Lord's power it means victory, and it means de- 
 feat; defeat for Satan, and the victory of our 
 Lord Jesus anew in our lives. 
 
 Then please mark keenly, the Holy Spirit 
 stays with our Lord Jesus through the tempta- 
 tion. He took charge ahead of the whole situ- 
 ation; He prepared our Lord for the temptation 
 as a man; He stayed with Him throughout. 
 There is one thing you can count on all the time, 
 the blessed Holy Spirit's presence v/ith us. He 
 does not leave us. H there is any parting of 
 company here, it must be after the old Eden 
 pattern; that is, you go, God doesn't go. It 
 was Adam who hunted the cover of the trees. 
 The blessed Holy Spirit stays. 
 
 And then the fourth thing to mark in the 
 Spirit's preparation is a very keen thing, the 
 place of the temptation. The place was the 
 Wilderness. The Wilderness of Judea prac- 
 tically begins at the door, or the gate of Jerusa- 
 lem, and it runs down that eastern slope to the 
 great Dead Sea. What does the Wilderness mean ? 
 What does the Dead Sea mean? You know. It 
 is the greatest sin-scar on the surface of the 
 whole earth. There were the cities of the plain, 
 beautiful and fruitful as Eden, as the garden of 
 the Lord for beauty and fertility. They are 
 
138 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 sunken out; they are swept away. Judgment 
 upon sin is scarred into the earth's surface. Will 
 you mark keenly that the Dead Sea — and the 
 Wilderness is the fringe of the Dead Sea — the 
 Dead Sea, the whole Wilderness is the fact of 
 judgment upon sin scarred into the very earth's 
 surface. If folks do not believe the Bible, the 
 Old Testament, let them go to the Dead Sea, 
 and simply study the case historically. The 
 Dead Sea speaks out the terrible fact of sin, and 
 the sure coming of judgment upon sin. 
 
 Now this is the place where the temptation 
 took place. Who chose it? Satan? Not a bit 
 of it. It was the last place he would choose. 
 He did not like the Wilderness. It was too 
 uncomfortably familiar to him; it told too much 
 of his trail for him to choose it. No! The 
 Holy Spirit set the first bit of the temptation in 
 the place where sin's scar was burned deepest 
 in. A bit of his strategic generalship ! 
 
 And then, fifth point in this preparation of 
 the Holy Spirit, the time of the temptation, 
 forty days. That is to say a long time. It was 
 a full test; it was a severe test. You know the 
 time test is the hardest test. We are all fairly 
 good, I suppose, at short-suffering, but a few 
 of us do not know much about long-sufifering. 
 *' The fruit of the Spirit is . . . long-suffer- 
 ing." ' The time test is the hardest test for 
 ^ Galatians v. 22 
 
How the Tempter Is Defeated 139 
 
 everybody. You keep sweet for a while, but 
 how about keeping sweet all the while. Forty 
 days long the Holy Spirit plans the temptation 
 for Satan. Listen, keenly, that Satan may have 
 the fullest sweep of his power, and do his best 
 and his worst, and that he might know a cer- 
 tain defeat, and the more certain because the 
 temptation lasted so long. 
 
 And just one last minor suggestion under 
 that preparation is this — the wild beasts were 
 there. What does that suggest? Would they 
 help the Lord, do you think? Or would they 
 hinder? That bit about the wild beasts is an 
 added touch to show the terribleness of the 
 situation for the man Jesus. I wish I had a 
 company of missionaries here just now, foreign 
 missionaries, to remind them particularly, and 
 all of us, that a calm confidence in our Father 
 gives us peculiar power over the whole lower 
 creation. Man was given the dominion over 
 the lower creation, and as we rest in the vic- 
 tory of our new Head, the Lord Jesus, we shall 
 just quietly, calmly, meet any situation, any wild 
 beasts. A calm confidence in the Father gives 
 man his real dominion power over the lower 
 creation. 
 
 Our Lord's Unfailing Response. 
 
 The second point that I want to speak of is 
 our Lord's response to the temptation. He was 
 
140 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 " in the Spirit." That means this, He yielded 
 the control of His life to the Holy Spirit. That 
 is the first " how " of meeting temptation, a sur- 
 render, complete, unfaltering, habitual, to the 
 sovereignty, the gracious mastery of the Holy 
 Spirit. That is the first bit in His response. 
 He was " in the Spirit," yielding to the mastery 
 of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 And the second bit here is this: full simple 
 obedience to the Father. You search through 
 these records in Matthew and Mark and Luke, 
 and mark the emphasis more and more on this, 
 that our Master's strength in all His temptation, 
 as in all His life on its purely human side, was 
 this. His full, simple, cheery obedience to His 
 Father's will, because it was His Father's will. 
 I would say, not because it appealed to His 
 judgment, but because it was His Father's will. 
 Doubtless it did appeal to His judgment, but if 
 our Lord had been obliged to obey the Father 
 where He did not understand why He should. 
 He would have obeyed blindly. 
 
 That is the very key on the human side to 
 His whole marvellous career from Nazareth on 
 to Calvary. There was an acquiescence in the 
 Father's plan because it was the Father's plan, 
 and there was a confidence in the Father's love. 
 He knew He could trust His Father. This is 
 the very underneath basis of His side of this 
 whole story. I may open my Bible to the first 
 
How the Tempter Is Defeated 141 
 
 chapter of the first page of Genesis, and if I 
 were to read every passage or illustration of 
 obedience or failure to obey I must stop at 
 every page clear through. Obey! obey! obey! 
 simply, intelligently, the will of the Father, be- 
 cause it is the Father's will, whether you see 
 your way out or not. That is the very under- 
 ground work of our Master's victory in the 
 wilderness. 
 
 And then the third bit is this. He used the 
 Word of God. I suppose it is true that men 
 have superstitiously worshipped the old Book 
 of God, merely as a book. And yet, keeping 
 that in mind as a thing to be avoided, the use 
 of the Word of God cannot be over magnified. 
 It is God's own Word. There is more than 
 print here. There is a Person here, in these 
 very pages, speaking to us of our need and touch- 
 ing our hearts. Our Lord Jesus used the Word 
 of God in meeting the adversary. And we shall 
 see by and by what the adversary thought of 
 that method. 
 
 The Temptation itself. 
 
 Then mark the temptation itself. The temp- 
 tation ran through forty days. The bit we get 
 is simply the climax. Those three great temp- 
 tations are simply the last terrific onset, but the 
 temptation has run through forty days, as 
 
142 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 Mark's note makes quite clear. And you can 
 imagine how subtle old Satan was. How 
 suavely and sneakily and smoothly the old ser- 
 pent began his attack. Through forty days it 
 ran until the climax in the bit that is given 
 to us. 
 
 It was a real temptation. Our Lord was 
 tempted. That is to say, please listen keenly, 
 and do not misunderstand, it could not have 
 been a temptation unless there was present the 
 possibility of a yielding to temptation. There 
 is no temptation where there is no possibility 
 of yielding to it. You can say on one side of 
 the question that our Lord could not yield. 
 Theoretically, ethically you say quite truly, that 
 He could not yield to temptation. But prac- 
 tically it was entirely possible for Him to yield. 
 He was really tempted. He faced the question 
 of yielding. He felt the power of each tempta- 
 tion. But He asserted His will, and in full de- 
 pendence upon the blessed Holy Spirit, He met 
 the tempter at every point. He did not meet the 
 temptations as Son of God; please remember 
 that. When you are tempted, please remember 
 that He met every temptation as a man, just as 
 we must meet ours, and as we may meet them 
 in dependence upon the Holy Spirit. 
 
 The first temptation was an appeal to the 
 body. Just as in Eden so still he tempts through 
 the body. It is a favourite mode. Satan is still 
 
How the Tempter is Defeated 143 
 
 coming to each of us through our bodies, far 
 more than we suspect. The temptation was to 
 a perfectly proper appetite. The desire for food 
 is a perfectly normal desire. Satan prefers the 
 normal paths of life. He always comes along 
 the regular road of life. And then he ap- 
 proached Him at His likeliest point. The like- 
 liest point, the openest point was the hunger, a 
 perfectly normal condition of His body. He is 
 always watching for the likeliest point. And 
 because a man's strong point is very apt to be- 
 come, in turn, his weak point, therefore guard 
 your strong points and guard your weak points, 
 and, I would suggest, guard all between, from 
 my experience. 
 
 Then note the temptation itself: Satan said, 
 '' If Thou be the Son of God." I think the bet- 
 ter reading in English would be this, " Since 
 Thou art " ; " If " in the sense of " since." 
 " If " raises a doubt about Jesus Christ's divin- 
 ity, and asks Him to prove it. " Since " means 
 he is asking our Lord to use His divinity to 
 help out His humanity. It was a temptation 
 not to prove that He was divine, but to use 
 divine power to help Himself as a man. Jesus 
 said, " Man shall not live by bread alone." Sa- 
 tan said, " You are Son of God ; go up to the 
 God level." " Ah, no," our Lord says, " I came 
 down for my brothers' sake. I will never leave 
 My brothers. I will stay with My brothers. I 
 
144 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 will meet every temptation as My brothers must 
 meet it. Man shall not live by bread alone, but 
 by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth 
 of God." 
 
 He answered as a man. I love that. Our 
 Lord was a man, tempted in all points like as 
 we are. He knows how things are going with 
 you: He knows all about your life. He comes 
 down alongside in the Wilderness and says, 
 *' Let us pull together. I will stay right by you." 
 
 The second bit in the answer was this, full 
 trust. He said, *' Even if I starve, My Father 
 will attend to that. Maybe I will starve. I have 
 had nothing for forty days, nothing but stones. 
 You can't live on stones. It loo!;3 Hke starving. 
 Well, I am willing to starve if that is the Fa- 
 ther's wish. I am not concerned; the Father 
 will take care of the starving. Man shall not 
 live by bread alone, but by every word of God." 
 And this is far more true to-day in the things 
 that touch our physical strength than most of us 
 know yet. 
 
 The thing that Satan asked Him to do was 
 not wrong in itself. Our Lord supplied food 
 afterwards in far greater measure. The mere 
 changing of stones to loaves would not have 
 been wrong, if underneath the Father was guid- 
 ing. But the wrong would have been in doing 
 anything that the evil one suggested. And I 
 want to say this, it is bad to do good at Sa- 
 
How the Tempter Is Defeated 145 
 
 tan's suggestion. It is a very common thing 
 among Christian workers to say '' This is a good 
 thing to do." Yes, this is a good thing to do — 
 if the Master told you to do it. It is not good 
 to do good unless it is God's will for you. 
 
 Now mark very keenly the effect upon Satan. 
 He left that temptation. Practically he gave in. 
 He could do nothing. Apparently he closed. If 
 you notice keenly you will see he closes only 
 to start again. Have you found that out? If 
 you have met him at one point of temptation, 
 and he has left you, just remember this, he is 
 around the corner figuring out where he can 
 best strike in next. He leaves to come back. 
 The Word of God forces him to leave. It is 
 very striking: he is afraid of that Book. The 
 quotation shuts him up at once. He leaves, yet 
 only to shift the attack, only to come back on 
 another line of approach. 
 
 ''Lead us not into Temptation.'* 
 
 The second temptation cunningly plays upon 
 our Lord's mood. Our Lord says, " Not by 
 bread, but by trust." " Ah ! " the devil says, 
 *'we will just play on His trust in His Father. 
 He is in a deeply religious mood. We will have 
 a religious temptation." And so he shifts the 
 scene. I think he is very glad to do this. He 
 gets away from that Wilderness; he is uncom- 
 
146 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 fortable there. He takes the very height of the 
 temple. It is a religious atmosphere. I some- 
 times think the temptations hardest to meet are 
 those that have a religious setting. 
 
 The tempter said this time, " Since Thou art 
 God's Son, cast Thyself down." That is to say, 
 " You trust the Father. That is splendid ! Now 
 just show the w^orld how you do trust Him. 
 Cast yourself down before it, and they will ac- 
 cept you as their Messiah. Just show all the 
 world how you trust your Father." Satan 
 preaching the Gospel of Trust ! Have you ever 
 known that temptation? I have. 
 
 There is an inner response here. The inner 
 response to the first temptation is in the hunger ; 
 the inner response here was His settled pur- 
 pose to trust His Father. But His reply comes, 
 " Thou shalt not test. To throw Myself down 
 v/ould be testing God's love. Does God love? 
 I will not test it. I will rest upon it. Love 
 never tests. Love trusts. Thou shalt not make 
 test of the Lord thy God, but go in the way 
 He leads." 
 
 The third temptation was the last attempt. 
 Satan takes Him up to a high mountain and 
 shows Him the whole world, the glory of it, 
 with a very quick panoramic view. It is not 
 an impossible thing to do in that country, for 
 Moses from one of those neighbouring moun- 
 tain tops saw the whole land. So Satan comes 
 
How the Tempter Is Defeated 147 
 
 to Him with a swift world view. He thought 
 he would sweep the Master off His feet. Again 
 this is one of his favourite methods. 
 
 A great many people have met the first tempta- 
 tion and resisted; and the second and resisted; 
 and have been swept off their feet by the dazzling 
 view of the third. I think it is pathetic to the 
 point of weeping to find how one leader after 
 another in Christian service has been swept off 
 his feet by a dazzling view of the kingdom of 
 this world, and been set aside as no longer use- 
 able by the Father. It was the temptation of 
 the Church in Constantine's time, and some of 
 us think the Church has never recovered from 
 that temptation of the fourth century. 
 
 There is a real temptation here, an inner re- 
 sponse. Man was given the dominion of all the 
 world; that belongs to us. And our Lord Jesus 
 was come down to restore that dominion. Here 
 is the point of inner response. Somebody might 
 say, " Did Satan really think that the Lord Jesus 
 Christ would do such a thing as fall down and 
 worship him ? " At first flush you might say, 
 " No, surely he could not think that." But the 
 more you think into it, the more you see that 
 his proposition is this : " Let us make a com- 
 bination. You tie up with me. Of course God 
 is over all, and you will have the dominion of 
 the world, which is your right. Let us com- 
 bine." It is a favourite word of his — " com- 
 
148 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 bination." It has slipped many a man off his 
 feet who has given in a bit to the devil, work- 
 ing under cover, that he might have the domin- 
 ion over the kingdom. I sometimes think it 
 has led more, far more, Christian leaders off 
 their feet than have been able to withstand its 
 dazzling lure. 
 
 The answer was, '' Get thee hence." That is 
 a bit that I like. " Leave! " Don't ask him to 
 go; tell him to go. And the marvellous thing is 
 this, he obeyed. 
 
 And just one word as we close our talk to- 
 gether. What did our Lord Jesus mean in the 
 prayer He gave us to use when He taught us 
 to say, " Lead us not into temptation " ? It has 
 puzzled a good many to know just what that 
 means. Would God lead a man into temptation ? 
 What does that mean? There are three or four 
 interpretations, and each has some shade of 
 truth. But I keep swinging back to this: this is 
 what the Master meant, " Yon cannot stand 
 being tempted alone. You alone cannot stand 
 temptation. I know; I have been there; I have 
 been there forty days. I know temptation as no 
 other man knows it, in its storm, in its subtlety, 
 in its persistence." And now He says, " The 
 thing for you to do is this. I have gotten the 
 victory. You pray, * Lead me not into tempta- 
 tion, but help me in fighting, help me to live 
 under the shadow of Thy victory.' " 
 
How the Tempter is Defeated 149 
 
 You cannot meet temptation alone. You are 
 no match for the evil one. There is not one of 
 us here who is any match for him. It is only 
 as we come up close to our Lord Jesus, under 
 the shadow of His Cross, that we get victory. 
 But we can get it there. Let us remember that 
 Revelation word," " They overcame him on the 
 ground of the Blood of the Lamb, and the word 
 of their testimony " carried to the point of a 
 sacrificial life. May our Lord Jesus Christ help 
 us to live in the strength of His victory. 
 
 ^Revelation xii. 11. 
 
IV.— THE SECRET OF VICTORY 
 
IN THE VICTOR 
 
 The Tempter afraid of Jesus. 
 
 Fear is the beginning of defeat. I do not 
 mean the fear of reverence, but fear that is 
 afraid. Of course defeat is a fighting word. It 
 means that the enemy has been recognized and 
 resisted. There are persons who do not know 
 fear because they don't recognize the enemy, and 
 don't oppose him. They move smoothly along 
 the lines of least resistance regardless of moral 
 issues. The absence of a sense of fear there 
 simply tells of cowardice or childishness. But 
 where the fight is on, and blows being ex- 
 changed, there fear is a sure element of defeat. 
 
 It recognizes and realizes that some one 
 greater and stronger is actively opposing, and 
 that makes it shrink and tremble. A false fear 
 thinks the enemy is stronger. Real fear knows 
 it. Fear sucks the spirit out of one's fighting, 
 it takes the nerve out of one's courage, and the 
 vim and zest out of one's action. Fear is the 
 beginning of defeat. 
 
 Now the tempter knows fear. That is a fact 
 of great comfort for us. And the fear he knows 
 is not a false one; it is founded on fact and 
 153 
 
154 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 experience. He has met One greater and 
 stronger than himself. The two have measured 
 strength in a long and bitterly waged contest. 
 And he knows the bitter sting of defeat. That 
 defeat taught him fear. He is afraid of his 
 Victor. He knows what it means to be thwarted 
 and resisted, beaten back steadily, and defeated 
 clear off the fighting ground. There has been 
 a man upon the earth of whom Satan is afraid, 
 whom he can neither touch nor resist — that man 
 is Christ Jesus. 
 
 Satan is afraid of our Lord Jesus. He learned 
 to fear Him in Nazareth early in the fight. In 
 the Wilderness fear became a real force in his 
 life, weakening, dispiriting, and even terrifying 
 him. That Wilderness siege of temptation was 
 as carefully planned out as it could be. It began 
 on Satan's part with eagerness mingled with 
 fear. There was eagerness because everything 
 the tempter prized and wanted was at stake. 
 There was fear because of his previous deal- 
 ings with our Master during those Nazareth 
 years. Though the Wilderness temptation be- 
 gan with eagerness and fear, it ended with rage 
 and a fearsome terror, because this new Man, 
 Jesus, was so strongly steady in His obedience 
 to the Father. Satan was having a new expe- 
 rience. There was something new and strange 
 and terrifying to him in this quiet, steady, obe- 
 dient Man, who knew only Another's plan for 
 
In the Victor 155 
 
 His life. The tempter became afraid of Jesus, 
 and is afraid of Him. 
 
 The Tempter couldn't touch Jesus. 
 
 The tempter could not touch Jesus. He 
 tempted Him at every turn, but he could make 
 no impression. His sword only dulled and 
 nicked and bent against the rock of Jesus' steady 
 obedience. He attacked in every conceivable 
 way, and at every possible opening, but his at- 
 tacks failed. The person of our Lord was the 
 bright centre attracting the keenest shafts the 
 enemy could hurl. But His person never was 
 touched until the hour came when Jesus chose 
 to yield. The Nazareth precipice, the Jerusalem 
 stones, the storm on Galilee's blue waters whose 
 unusual violence frightened those old storm- 
 beaten sailors — each in turn failed to touch the 
 person of Jesus. There was absolutely no way 
 of getting within to attack. And all outer at- 
 tacks failed until Jesus chose — for a great pur- 
 pose, as counselled and foreknown * by the Fa- 
 ther — to yield up His person and His life. The 
 tempter could not touch Him, and failed in 
 every attempt. 
 
 And more striking yet, the tempter could not 
 resist Jesus. Jesus did not act on the defensive 
 merely. He was aggressive. He attacked Sa- 
 *Acts ii. 23. 
 
156 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 tan. His very presence here was a challenge 
 and an attack. Every demon cast out, every 
 disease healed, every advancing step on His on- 
 ward way, every hour spent in public ministry, 
 every personal interview with a cultured Nico- 
 demus, or a Sychar outcast, was an attack on 
 the enemy's stronghold. Each bit of steady, 
 faithful obedience to the Father, each touch of 
 gentle love upon human life, each warm, sym- 
 pathetic approach to needy men, each humble, 
 self-forgetful giving of Himself out in glad serv- 
 ice for others — each was an aggressive attack 
 upon the " strong man," whom He Tiad come to 
 rout out of his usurped territory. 
 
 And the tempter could not resist these at- 
 tacks. He was defeated at every turn. Satan 
 is afraid of Jesus our Lord. And well he may 
 be. There has been a man down on the earth 
 of whom Satan was afraid, whom no attack of 
 his could touch, and whose attacks in turn he 
 could not resist, try as he would. 
 
 Why was the tempter afraid of Jesus? Why 
 is he afraid of Him? Aside from this experi- 
 ence with our Lord, he has not been in the 
 habit of showing fear. The general impression 
 he has given has been one of boldness, of a dar- 
 ing, fearless driving on. What is the explana- 
 tion of this fear? Why was our Lord Jesus able 
 to resist his temptations and attacks so unfail- 
 ingly, and then to completely turn the tables and 
 
In the Victor 157 
 
 make this great spirit-being actually flee, terror- 
 stricken, before His attacks? 
 
 It seems almost like a useless question, be- 
 cause the great strength of our divine Victor, 
 and the sweeping character of His victory have 
 been so acknowledged and embalmed in the 
 hymns and literature of the Church. Yet there 
 is no question better worth asking just here. For 
 the answer will make us sing the praises of our 
 wondrous Jesus-Saviour with all the more fer- 
 vour of heart. And it will do more than that, 
 too. It shows us the path of victory along which 
 we must walk if we would know the power of 
 His victory in our daily lives. 
 
 No Sin. 
 
 There are five things to be noted in the an- 
 swer. Two of them are negative things, but of 
 immeasurable positiveness in their very negative- 
 ness. The other things are positive in form as 
 well as in fact. 
 
 The first thing to note is this: there was no 
 sin in Jesus. It tried to get in. Most careful 
 search was made for any crevice or crack of 
 an opening however slight, through which sin 
 could find an entrance. But no entrance was 
 ever found. He was sinless. He Himself chal- 
 lenged His foes to find any sin in Him/ That 
 *John viii. 46. 
 
158 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 was a daring thing to do. It was the daring of 
 purity and of truth. Certainly if there had been 
 sin or fault these were the very men to have 
 found it, and ruthlessly held it up to the stron- 
 gest light. By consent of all who had to do with 
 Him during the hours of His trial and death, He 
 was free from sin so far as could be discerned. 
 The agreement among doubters and critical 
 sceptics regarding the perfection of His charac- 
 ter is most striking. 
 
 I am speaking wholly now of the practical 
 side of this fact. Leaving aside all discussion 
 just now of the nature of our Lord's person, 
 and of the theoretical possibility of His sinning 
 — this is the bit of truth which I want to em- 
 phasize now : Jesus was sinless because He chose 
 to be. He refused to sin. He resisted earnestly 
 and actively and prayerfully every temptation to 
 sin. 
 
 Practically sin is entirely a matter of the will. 
 It is an act of choosing. Our Lord chose to 
 keep sin out. He had the immense advantage of 
 having no inheritance of sin to weaken Him. 
 Against the most cunning and insidious attempts, 
 He deliberately and habitually chose not to sin. 
 It cost Him effort. It meant active choosing on 
 His part, a constant choosing. It meant as great 
 a use of will power as ever human made. He 
 was obliged to choose. All about Him, the pres- 
 ence of sin and temptation forced Him to 
 
In the Victor 159 
 
 choose. His sinlessness practically consisted in 
 this, that He chose not to sin. 
 
 A New Experience for the Tempter. 
 
 This was something new to the tempter, 
 strangely new. It was perplexing and non- 
 plussing. He had had no such experience all 
 through his long career of tempting. Only once 
 had he met a couple who had no sin inheritance 
 to trouble them. And by a bit of cunning they 
 had been deceived and were quickly ensnared. 
 That was long, long before. This man with His 
 steady purpose to please the Father, this Jesus 
 was utterly disconcerting. The tempter could 
 do nothing against such a man. 
 
 This sinlessness, both in will and in act, in 
 purpose and in life, was the basis of our Lord's 
 victory. It was the basis of Satan's defeat. He 
 feared such a Man. He could not touch Him. 
 He could not resist Him. It was this that gave 
 and gives such value to Jesus' death on our be- 
 half. It was a sinless life that was poured out 
 to the very death on Calvary. This very fact 
 made His death zvkolly on account of others. 
 Of Himself Jesus would never have died. For 
 death is the logical outcome of sin. Where 
 there is no sin, either by entail or act, there is 
 no death. The purity and obedience, the per- 
 fection and sinlessness of the Man who died. 
 
i6o Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 gave the great value to that death. Of very 
 necessity it was for others. Here is the ground- 
 work of the stinging defeat administered to the 
 tempter by our Lord. 
 
 It was the sinlessness of this Man who gave 
 up His life that made His death such a satis- 
 fying forever of the righteousness of God. It 
 was the utter lack of all claim upon Jesus by 
 Satan, that made His death settle forever so 
 utterly all of Satan's claim against us sinners. 
 Herein was shown the wondrous love that melts 
 the stubbornness of the human heart into peni- 
 tent softness. Jesus need not have suffered and 
 died as He did unless He chose to. But He 
 made that choice for our sakes. It was His love 
 that led Him to that choice. This deliberate, 
 determined keeping of sin out was the basis of 
 the tempter's defeat. 
 
 Sin is Satan's doorway into a human life. 
 Wherever there is sin there is a wide open door 
 to him. Where there is no sin, as with our 
 Lord, there is no opportunity of getting in. Sin 
 is Satan's only doorway in. Sin is Satan's 
 stronghold. It gives him footing for his fight- 
 ing. It gives him atmosphere. No sin means 
 no chance for Satan to work. Absence of sin 
 cuts the very ground out from under his feet, 
 I am talking about our Lord's sinlessness just 
 now. But we shall see a little later the prac- 
 tical power of this tremendous fact in our own 
 
In the Victor i6i 
 
 lives. In thus refusing to let sin in Jesus was 
 utterly neutralizing Satan's power. 
 
 No Self. 
 
 The second thing in Satan's defeat by our 
 Lord is this: there was no self-seeking in Jesus. 
 That is included, of course, in saying that there 
 was no sin ; for sin at its core is self-seeking, 
 that is, preferring one's own way to God's. Now 
 Jesus was wholly unselfish; there was none of 
 the self-spirit in Him. 
 
 We ought to take a moment to talk of just 
 what that means. It does not mean a careless- 
 ness or a thoughtlessness about the needs of His 
 bodily life. It is not selfish to care properly 
 for one's health and strength, in the matters of 
 food and sleep, air and exercise, and needful 
 dress. One can easily go to a selfish excess in 
 these things, and that is very common. That 
 temptation is always at hand. And one can go 
 to the other extreme of not giving thought and 
 care enough to these things. 
 
 And if you will note it, this is just as selfish 
 as the other extreme, though it is a sort of 
 thoughtless, unconscious, unintentional selfish- 
 ness. It is selfish because it is very sure to lead 
 to conditions that will make one a charge upon 
 or a care to somebody else. And at the same 
 time we are not able to do for others what they 
 
1 62 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 need. Whatever makes one weaker in any way, 
 which by due care and thought could have 
 been avoided, has the taint of selfishness at its 
 root. 
 
 Our Lord's unselfishness, undoubtedly, would 
 be the genuine, thoughtful sort that made Him 
 take proper care of His bodily needs and 
 strength for other's sake, as well as because it 
 was right in itself. And in this He gives an 
 example that many earnest godly people need 
 to take note of and follow. 
 
 And His lack of the self-spirit does not mean 
 the ignoring of His personal identity, or of the 
 great service entrusted to Him. He continu- 
 ally asserted His personal identity, telling plainly 
 who He was, and why He had come, and that 
 He was sent by the Father for a great mission 
 among men. 
 
 What is Unselfishness? 
 
 His unselfishness meant simply this, that He 
 lived for the Father, and for others, not for 
 Himself. The passion of His life was for His 
 Father. Selfishness at its core means that the 
 passion is for one's self. The passion of Sa- 
 tan's heart is wholly and only for himself. Un- 
 selfishness is the strong thoughtful giving of 
 one's self out in doing the Father's will in glad 
 service among men. 
 
In the Victor 163 
 
 Selfishness is a passion for self; unselfishness, 
 or selflessness, is a passion for God, and that 
 always means for others in their need. The 
 streams of life naturally turn out. Wherever 
 Satan has been able to control or influence with 
 His subtle cunning, those streams all turn in. 
 And wherever the streams all turn in there is a 
 Dead Sea. Many a man's life, many a so-called 
 Christian man's life, is simply the coast-line of 
 a Dead Sea. We ought to be studying more 
 carefully the direction of the current of that 
 stream, I mean the under-current. 
 
 Jesus was swept by a passion for Another. 
 He was utterly unselfish, selfless in this strong, 
 good meaning. And, if you will please note very 
 sharply. He was so because He chose to be. 
 The air about Him was thick with temptations 
 luring the other way. He had to choose, and, 
 very reverently let me say, that that choice was 
 not easy. It took a real, positive, continual ac- 
 tion by His will. 
 
 The self -life came to Jesus in very subtle 
 guise. The temptation to self-assertion for His 
 own sake came to Him incessantly throughout 
 that humble Nazareth life clear up to the tragic 
 end of Calvary's ninth hour. But neither self- 
 pity nor misunderstandings of His purpose by 
 others, nor the pleadings of mistaken love, as 
 when His mother seems to have sought — not 
 realizing what she did — to use her influence with 
 
164 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 Him, none of these swerved Him. He chose to 
 keep all considerations of self severely out. 
 
 In this He was simply being true to the deci- 
 sion that sin should find no entrance. And in 
 this He was defeating Satan. Self-seeking is 
 the inner heart of the Satan-spirit. It gives him 
 footing and freedom. The absence of the self- 
 seeking spirit was a complete under-cutting of 
 Satan. In that He emphasized His own victory, 
 and Satan's defeat. Every advancing hour of 
 His life made greater that victory, and that de- 
 feat, until the great climax at Calvary. 
 
 These are the two tremendous negatives in 
 Jesus' human character that underlie the great 
 victory. And no words could ever tell how much 
 of strong choosing power was called forth by 
 these two negatives — no sin, no self. 
 
 Obedience. 
 
 Then there are three positive traits underlying 
 that defeat and victory. The first of these is 
 obedience. Jesus was obedient. I have already 
 spoken of this, and emphasized it. It cannot be 
 spoken of too often, or two much. It is a truth 
 practically lost by the Church that obedience is 
 the first law of the true life. There has been 
 much service, but little obedience, propor- 
 tionately. 
 
 There may be much of self, of pride, of mere 
 
In the Victor 165 
 
 human energy in service, and there is. Obedi- 
 ence may be humiliating, and painful; quite 
 likely. It may lead to misunderstanding of one's 
 motives, to a not-understanding, and so to non- 
 appreciation, and to all that goes with that. But 
 obedience, simple, full, glad, is the great law 
 of life. Service counts only as it grows out of 
 obedience. 
 
 Jesus obeyed fully, perfectly, musically. It 
 was the joy of His heart and life to obey His 
 Father. The commonplaceness of Nazareth 
 mattered not if only the Father's voice said " in 
 whom I am well pleased." The sharpness of 
 the Wilderness conflict, the daily duelling with 
 Jerusalem leaders, the agony of Gethsemane, 
 the awful experience of Calvary, were gladly 
 accepted and even rejoiced in, for they came in 
 the path of obedience to the Father's will. 
 
 His obedience was intelligent and full. And 
 the keenness of that remarkable intellect of His 
 — I am speaking of Him just now as a man, all 
 the strength of His tremendous will, all the love 
 of His great heart, were brought to bear on 
 this — obedience to the Father's will. 
 
 That implies several things underlying the 
 obedience. It meant a trained ear; an ear 
 trained by listening, trained by study of the 
 Old Testament Scripture, trained by prayer, yes, 
 trained by obedience; for disobedience, failure 
 to obey, dulls and deafens the ear. It meant 
 
1 66 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 study of the Word of God. So there came to 
 be the clear understanding of the Father's plan. 
 It meant a discerning mind, a simple, sane sense. 
 Don't forget the perfect humanness of our di- 
 vine Lord. He learned His Father's will as we 
 may learn it — by studying the Word. He was 
 wondrously familiar with the old Hebrew rolls. 
 He was saturated, not simply with their teach- 
 ing, but with their very language. Indeed He 
 talked in the words of the Bible. It is remark- 
 able how far His talks can be reproduced out 
 of the Old Testament. He knew it by heart. 
 
 Yet remember that knowledge came to Him 
 in the same way as to any man — namely, by 
 study, by repeated examination of, and poring 
 over, and meditation over, and praying over, 
 the old Hebrew rolls, to which He had access 
 in Nazareth. That carpenter shop was a study 
 shop, too. And that obedience meant prayer too. 
 Through prayer there came the intelligent un- 
 derstanding of the Word of God. Through 
 prayer there came the grace that enabled Him 
 to obey. 
 
 Obedience never so hard. 
 
 And obedience meant a choosing to obey. 
 There was not simply the general choice to obey. 
 But as the Father's plan grew in His conscious- 
 ness bit by bit. He chose to obey at each ad- 
 
In the Victor 167 
 
 vancing step. As He drew on nearer, step by 
 step, to Gethsemane and Calvary, as there came 
 in upon Him with terrible realness just what 
 obedience meant, of pain and shame, He chose 
 to obey. Herein lay the strange power of His 
 obedience in defeating the evil one; He chose 
 to obey. His obedience was the result of his 
 calm repeated choice. 
 
 Obedience was the touchstone of all His hu- 
 man career. He lived that humble shut-away 
 Nazareth life, with its daily round of carpenter 
 shop, narrow home, intercourse with men who 
 did not understand Him — He lived so because 
 so the Father planned. And He obeyed. The 
 feeding of the hungry five thousand, the raising 
 of Jairus' daughter, and the raising of Lazarus, 
 were not greater to Him than the Nazareth 
 round. All came to Him in the pathway 
 of obedience. The underlying principle was 
 obedience. 
 
 Yet obedience was never made so hard. The 
 tempter attended to that. Obedience never 
 meant so much pain and shame. The tempter 
 planted that path with thorns, and planted all 
 the cruelty of a cross directly in its middle. And 
 obedience was never so joyously given. Jesus 
 made music by His obedience. Obedience is 
 the rhythmic melody of a human will keeping 
 tune with God's. No sweeter music is ever 
 made. 
 
1 68 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 Obedience took Jesus up the hill of the Cross. 
 It drew from Him the life-blood that washed out 
 the blot made by sin on the righteousness of 
 God, and that redeemed us 'forever from its 
 curse. He obeyed though His heart broke in 
 doing it; and so He has broken our hearts with 
 His unmatched love. Obedience ! Obedience ! ! 
 This was the one gripping purpose of His life. 
 In this he ran exactly counter to the evil one 
 whose dominant trait is his disobedience. In 
 his obedience Jesus foiled and defeated the 
 enemy at every turn till the climax of Calvary 
 was reached. 
 
 Fearlessness. 
 
 Now out of these very traits of our Lord's 
 character grew another trait which was of im- 
 mense power in the victory over the evil one. 
 I mean the trait of fearlessness. Jesus was ut- 
 terly fearless. 
 
 Fear is bred of sin. It is as common as sin. 
 Its influence upon our lives is immense, clear 
 beyond all our conception. It cripples our 
 bodies, dulls our minds, stupefies our power of 
 action, and is a continual drag upon our lives. 
 If we could be wholly free of any and every 
 sense of fear we would have new bodies, new 
 minds, new spirits, new faith, new courage, and 
 new power. The chains of this slavery wrought 
 by sin are never out of sight, nor out of earshot. 
 
In the Victor 169 
 
 In being wholly free from sin our Lord was 
 wholly free from all sense of fear. This very 
 fearlessness made Satan fear Him. It lead him 
 boldly on where he felt he should go, utterly 
 regardless of circumstances and of consequences. 
 Once the way of obedience, and of service in 
 obedience, was clear to Him, He went straight 
 ahead regardless of difficulties. This greatly in- 
 tensified His victory over the evil one. It aided 
 greatly in the crippling of the evil one's attacks 
 upon Him. 
 
 The tempter plays upon our sense of fear to 
 an extent that is nothing short of startling. The 
 fear of being in personal want is to-day holding 
 back millions of gold, that, if loosened out as 
 God planned, would utterly change the condition 
 of the whole heathen world, and actually move 
 forward the date upon the calendar when our 
 Lord will return to set up Kingdom conditions 
 over all the earth. It is quite probable that 
 nine-tenths of all our action is controlled by 
 this wrong, slavish, sin-bred sense of fear. 
 
 In His utter absence of all sense of fear, and 
 with the simple, unquestioning faith in His Fa- 
 ther that would go with that, our Lord was 
 defeating the tempter, and treading down smooth 
 the path of victory for our feet. 
 
170 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 Aggressiveness of Love, 
 
 The fifth trait also grew up out of the first 
 three. Our Lord was aggressive. He pushed 
 steadily, aggressively on in the way marked out 
 for Him. Fear is cowardly. Faith is aggres- 
 sive ; it finds the right path and then its onward 
 steady moving can't be stopped. Purity is ag- 
 gressive. The unselfish passion for God has a 
 strange power of aggressiveness. Love is ag- 
 gressive. Goodness is aggressive. Fearlessness 
 is always on the move forward when the need 
 calls. 
 
 Jesus' aggressiveness was tremendous. His 
 mere presence here showed His aggressiveness. 
 Here, where sin reigned, and death and misery 
 and suffering through sin, here He came. Down 
 into the very thick of Satan's sphere of action 
 He deliberately came with His sweet purity and 
 obedience. Into the midst of demon-possessed 
 and diseased men, into the midst of prejudice 
 and superstition and cruelty that sin has bred, 
 He quietly came, and by His very presence at- 
 tacked all of this work of Satan's hands. 
 
 Every added hour of that life of purity was 
 a hard aggressive attack upon the evil one. 
 Every beating of His great heart in compassion- 
 ate love for the multitude scattered like torn 
 sheep, made aggressive inroad on the tempter's 
 domain. We think that sin is aggressive, and 
 
In the Victor 171 
 
 it is. But it can't compare with the steady ag- 
 gressive energy of goodness and love. The 
 tempter seems to be all aggressiveness, of a very 
 tenacious, persistent sort, especially if you are 
 trying to get away from him. But our Lord 
 Jesus was aggressive in a way that made a new 
 record. 
 
 Now dig down under those five words — sin- 
 lessness, unselfishness, obedience, fearlessness, 
 and aggressiveness — and you will quickly find 
 the consonants and vowels that spell the one 
 word — love. God is love. Jesus revealed His 
 deity in the love which He lived. Only the word 
 takes on a new meaning, or rather reveals its 
 own true meaning, as He lived it. Love is pure. 
 Love is utter unselfishness. Love is obedient — 
 " he that hath my commandments and keepeth 
 them, he it is that loveth me." ^ Love is fear- 
 less — " perfect love casteth out fear." ' Love 
 is aggressive — " the love of Christ " * is an irre- 
 sistible, constraining force driving us ever on- 
 ward to meet the needs of men. 
 
 It was love as incarnated in Jesus that de- 
 feated the prince of hate. This is the secret 
 of victory, love, as its meaning is revealed by 
 Jesus. In all of this our Lord defeated the 
 enemy. He was cutting the ground out from 
 under the enemy's feet. Such a life completely 
 neutralized the tempter. In what He was, and 
 
 *John xiv. 21. 'i John iv. 18. "2 Cor. v. 14. 
 
172 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 in what He did, our Lord defeated the evil one 
 at every turn, and left him no possible chance 
 of recovery. 
 
 Calvary was the climax. The death was the 
 climax of the life. It gathered up into itself 
 all the meaning of the life. It was the crown- 
 ing act of the defeat administered to the traitor 
 prince, and of the victory won on our behalf. 
 There the sinless one was made sin for us. In 
 that He forever defeated the prince of sin, and 
 settled His claim upon us. The Cross was the 
 greatest act of unselfishness ever done. And in 
 that fact lies the defeat of the selfish one. The 
 obedience of our Lord's life reached its highest 
 and finest point when He poured out His life- 
 blood with such shame and pain. " He was 
 obedient unto death, yea, the death of the 
 cross." ^ In that obedience, carried to the 
 farthest possible point against the extreme of 
 difficulties. He defeated the disobedient prince. 
 And he fearlessly and aggressively pushed His 
 victorious way through until the great work of 
 our redemption was completely finished. This 
 is the secret of our Lord's sweeping victory over 
 the tempter. 
 
 *Philippians ii. 8. 
 
FOR THE OVERCOMERS 
 
 A Call out of the Glory. 
 
 Our Master has spoken once since He left 
 that group of men, with up-turned faces, on 
 OHvet's top. Out from the glory, His voice 
 comes to us clearly in John's Revelation. That 
 little closing book of the Bible begins with the 
 Master's seven-fold message to His Church.^ 
 Each part of that message begins with a de- 
 scription of Himself ; then He speaks clearly and 
 plainly of what the Church looks like to His 
 searching eye ; and then each ends with the ring- 
 ing cry, " to him that overcometh." 
 
 Down from the glory comes this earnest 
 pleading call to us to take up the fight which 
 He began, and to carry it to a finish in the power 
 of His victory. That seven-times repeated " to 
 — him — that — overcometh " tells that the con- 
 flict is still on, that each man must settle it for 
 himself, that each of us must overcome or be 
 overcome, and that we may overcome if we will, 
 but it will only be through fighting, and real 
 fighting too. 
 
 Our Lord got the victory; He got it only 
 * Revelation ii., iii. 
 173 
 
174 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 through fighting for it. He means that each of 
 us shall get the victory also. We can get it 
 if we will. We get it through His victory. We 
 stand no chance at all save as we go in the 
 power of what He has done. But even so we 
 get it only through our own fighting for it. We 
 must fight if we would win. There is no other 
 way. 
 
 We must fight in the strength of His victory. 
 And each of us must fight as really as though 
 the conflict had not already been decided by 
 Him. Only as we fight can we know victory. 
 If we don't overcome, we shall be overcome. If 
 we don't actively push the fighting, we shall be 
 pushed over into defeat. 
 
 Our Lord plans that we shall follow in the 
 victory He has won. Each of us is to be an 
 overcomer. In the upper room that Resurrec- 
 tion evening He said, " As the Father hath sent 
 me, even so send I you." ^ We are to be as 
 He — the same life to live, the same earth to live 
 on, the same earnest service to do, the same 
 enemy to fight, and by His grace the same vic- 
 tory to achieve. We are to be the same sort 
 of man as He, one of whom Satan is afraid, 
 whom he can neither touch nor resist. 
 *John XX. 21, 
 
For the Overcomers 175 
 
 " Follow Mer 
 
 The practical question is, How can you and 
 I be that sort of a man? Well, the Master has 
 shown us the secret of victory. We are to be 
 as He. Let us look at the road He has beaten 
 down for our feet. You will remember that 
 there are five finger-posts marking the road. 
 
 First of all there must be no sin in us if we 
 are to be overcomers. Sin is Satan's footing. 
 He works through the sin in us. There must 
 be no sin. " But," you say, " that rules us out 
 at once, for we have all sinned." The answer 
 to that is very simple — our sin must be put over 
 upon our Lord Jesus. There was no sin in 
 Him; but there was sin on Him — ours. There 
 is sin both in us and on us. But it can all be 
 put upon our sin-bearer. We meet this first 
 condition by trusting the Lord Jesus as Saviour. 
 There is no sweeter verse in Holy Writ than 
 this of John's, " the blood of Jesus Christ con- 
 tinually cleanseth from all sin." ^ There is never 
 a moment when we do not need to trust that 
 precious bloodshedding of His on account of 
 our sins. 
 
 Out of the midst of that great conflict be- 
 tween the heavenly host under Michael, and the 
 forces of evil under Satan, with the great vic- 
 tory for Michael that settled it, there comes this 
 * I John i. 7. 
 
176 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 ringing cry, " they overcame on the ground of 
 the blood of the Lamb." ' We can overcome 
 daily by trusting the blood of the Lamb, and 
 only so. The tempter hates that Name, and 
 that truth, and he flees before it. When tempta- 
 tion comes to you, claim the power of the blood, 
 and both temptation and tempter will flee. 
 
 Then there is a second word to be put in 
 here — It can be true that there is no sin in you 
 as far as the purpose of your life is concerned. 
 We can be sinless in purpose. And as we tread 
 that road we shall become more and more free 
 from sin in actual life. We can choose that sin 
 shall be put out and kept out. That choice must 
 be daily. It must control every action of life. 
 It must be as constant as temptation is. 
 
 A Narrow Path, 
 
 Then there is the second finger-post — there 
 must be no self-seeking in us. Self-seeking is 
 the Satan-spirit. Through the self-seeking 
 spirit in us, he gets a free hand to do what he 
 chooses. And here we are just as helpless in 
 ourselves as on the first item. Yet there is a 
 way of victory here, too, and not a difficult way 
 for the earnest man. We can yield the control 
 of our daily Hfe to the Holy Spirit. The Holy 
 Spirit will burn the old self-spirit out. The 
 * Revelation xii. 11. 
 
For the Overcomers 177 
 
 blood of Jesus Christ to wash the sin out, the 
 fire of the Holy Spirit to burn the self-spirit 
 out — this is the sure way of victory here; 
 it is the only way, but it is an unfailing 
 way. 
 
 There needs to be the most rigorous discipline 
 here. I do not mean in a morbid, extreme way, 
 but simply a sane, sensible choosing to keep out 
 of your life whatever comes from this source. 
 And the quiet daily touch alone with the Mas- 
 ter will cultivate your good sense to know what 
 is to be kept out, or taken in. Whatever of the 
 old self-spirit is allowed in will make just so 
 much less the victory of your life. 
 
 And the third finger-post is this — simple, full 
 obedience to the Master's will for you. Obedi- 
 ence is the one pathway of power. We should 
 serve less and obey more, or rather, we should 
 do no serving save as it comes in obeying the 
 Voice. When will the Church learn to put 
 obedience before service! When it does there 
 will come new power and new triumphs. 
 
 Yet, mark keenly, obedience to be intelligent 
 and wise means a clear vision. Moses, killing 
 the Egyptian, was zealous, but he hadn't a clear 
 vision. Paul, persecuting the Christians was full 
 of zeal, but he hadn't a clear vision? Elijah de- 
 pressed under the juniper tree, Peter refusing 
 to eat with the Gentile Christians at Antioch — 
 these men were earnest, but they lacked the 
 
lyS Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 clear vision. The secret of victory is this — a 
 clear vision of God's purposes, and of His plan 
 for you, and then a faithful steady unflinching 
 obedience to that vision. The tempter can do 
 nothing with or against the man who obeys. 
 This is a sure road to victory. 
 
 Pushing Bravely on. 
 
 And the fourth finger-post to the victory-road 
 is fearlessness. Nothing weakens us like fear. 
 Nothing weakens the tempter in his assaults 
 upon us like a quiet, bold, steady fearlessness. 
 Satan can't operate in an atmosphere of trust; 
 it chokes him. God cannot act in an atmosphere 
 of fear; it hinders Him. One of the commonest 
 phrases on the lips of God throughout this Bible 
 is this, '' Fear not." Like a bit of sweet in- 
 spiriting music it runs throughout these pages. 
 And, if He may have His way it will be the 
 unfailing music of our lives. " Fear not," is 
 His continual word to you and me. 
 
 No matter how tight the corner, how steep 
 the road, and how rough, how difficult the cir- 
 cumstance, however fearsome the growling of 
 the tempter — yet "fear not." Let this be the 
 continual song of your life. The tempter can't 
 stand up before a fearless spirit. And there 
 is no need for fear ; our Lord is Victor. He has 
 all power. And His power is at our disposal. 
 
For the Overcomers 179 
 
 Tfiere is always need of prayer, but never cause 
 for fear. 
 
 That Revelation cry of victory has a tremen- 
 dous second clause to it. " They overcame on 
 the ground of the blood of the Lamb, and be- 
 cause of the word of their testimony." ^ Their 
 voice rang out clear, and boldly fearless. The 
 human was coupled with the divine. The testi- 
 mony made the overcoming power of the blood 
 effective. Bold, wise fearlessness in life and 
 speech, in action and spirit, undercuts the power 
 of the tempter. 
 
 And the fifth finger-post needs sharp empha- 
 sis. There must be aggressive warfare against 
 the evil one. I do not mean by " aggressive," 
 making a noise and raising clouds of dust, but 
 the steady on-moving of the sun in its course. 
 I mean the aggressiveness of love, of sunshine, 
 of goodness. There needs to be the fearless 
 standing up' against the wiles of the tempter. 
 We should get our fighting clothes on and well- 
 girded too, for sharp decisive action. 
 
 There is a good deal of meek submission by 
 Christian people that is both cowardly and sin- 
 ful. What comes along is yielded to as God's 
 will. Whereas a great deal of what comes along 
 is not His will, but is the result of the planning 
 of the evil one. Aggression means a thinking 
 keenly into God's way of working, a seeing 
 ^Revelation xii. ii. 
 
i8o Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 clearly what is His will, and what is opposed to 
 His will, and then a vigorous resisting in the 
 Victor's Name of anything not God's will. 
 
 We should be ambitious to be able to repeat 
 dear old Paul's words at the end of his strenu- 
 ous life, *' I have fought the good fight." ' 
 There's great need of more fighters, wise, 
 steady, sane, hard fighters against the evil one, 
 in Jesus' great Name. 
 
 " Ne'er think the victory won 
 Nor lay thine armour down; 
 Thine arduous task will not be done 
 Till thou obtain the crown." 
 
 That victorious cry of Michael's host has still 
 another clause, '' They overcame him on the 
 ground of the blood of the Lamb, and because 
 of the word of their testimony, and they loved 
 not their life even unto death." There was the 
 aggressiveness of sacrifice. There is nothing so 
 aggressive in the fight against the evil one as 
 the sacrificial spirit of love, that counts not its 
 own life a thing to be prized in order that vic- 
 tory may come. 
 
 Overcoming Armour. 
 
 Paul gives a fine picture of the overcoming 
 man. It is in the last chapter of the Ephesian 
 *2 Timothy iv. 7. 
 
For the Overcomers i8i 
 
 Epistle.* He describes first the foe against 
 which we are to fight. Then follows the descrip- 
 tion of God's fighting man. The overcomer 
 must be a fighter. The victory comes only 
 through conflict. Notice God's fighting man — 
 " having girded your loins with truth." That 
 is, a clear, simple grasp of God's truth as re- 
 vealed in His Word. It means such a grasp of 
 it as grips the life, girds the loins, and puts you 
 into fit shape for vigorous action. 
 
 Then follows this : " Having put on the breast- 
 plate of righteousness." There must be a clean 
 pure life. The truth has girded so tightly that 
 the advance of sin has been fought off. " And 
 having shod your feet with the preparation of 
 the gospel of peace," or having the gospel as a 
 sure footing in your fighting. That is, a clear 
 grasp of the essence of the Gospel, namely, that 
 salvation is through the blood of the Lamb, and 
 only so — this is the only sure footing for this 
 fight. Any other will fail you in the thick smoke 
 and din of the battle. 
 
 "Withal taking up the shield of faith." A 
 strongly simple, childlike faith in God is the sure 
 defence against the attacks of the enemy. " The 
 helmet of salvation " is a clear unshakeable as- 
 surance of one's own personal salvation. There 
 can be no effective fighting while any doubt of 
 this lingers. " The sword of the Spirit " is the 
 *Ephesians vi. 10-19. 
 
1 82 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 good strong grasp of the truth, for the enemy, 
 when he tries the Wilderness tactics on you, as 
 well as for your service among men. And the 
 description closes with the chief emphasis on 
 prayer. 
 
 Leaving Paul's armour figure aside, those 
 seven things might be put into this simple shape. 
 First, dependence upon the blood of Jesus 
 Christ, which is the whole of the gospel of 
 peace. A continual claiming of the power of 
 His death and resurrection. Second, a pure, 
 holy life. Third, obedience based upon an in- 
 telligent grasp of the Word. Fourth, fearless 
 aggressiveness both in attack and defence. And 
 then underlying and overlapping, and breathing 
 through all the rest, a spirit of quiet confident 
 praying. This sort of a man will be an over- 
 comer. There will be sure victory for him at 
 every onward step of the way. He will fight 
 and he will win. 
 
 And mark you keenly, all of this is entirely 
 practicable and possible through grace. The 
 Holy Spirit is living in you and me, wherever 
 the door has swung for Him. He has come in, 
 partly, to make us good fighters and overcomers. 
 He can be depended upon to do it, too. Our 
 part is to yield intelligently and actively to His 
 generalship. 
 
 There is great need for more overcomers, and 
 our Lord earnestly calls from the glory for men 
 
For the Overcomers 183 
 
 to follow in His steps and His strength. He won 
 the decisive victory over our enemy. But every 
 man must make that victory his own on the bat- 
 tlefield of his own life. And in Jesus' great 
 Name we can, and, please God, by His great 
 sweet grace we will. 
 
FIGHTING TACTICS: THE 
 TEMPTER'S AND OURS 
 
 Recognition half the Fight. 
 
 An attacking enemy unrecognized has his bat- 
 tle half won. Recognition is a long step toward 
 His defeat. If we know something of the 
 tempter's way of fighting it will be an immense 
 help in recognizing and resisting and defeating 
 him. Our Lord Jesus was victorious in the Wil- 
 derness, partly because He was keen in recog- 
 nizing the tactics used against Himself. His 
 keenness in recognizing made him quicker in 
 resisting. 
 
 The tempter has one of two aims in coming 
 to us. First and most of all, he wants to get 
 us away, and keep us away from God. That is 
 his first aim, of course. But there is a second 
 aim, which has not been recognized so quickly 
 or so much. It is against those of us who are 
 Christians. No small part of his efifort is di- 
 rected against those of us who want to be true. 
 And the thing he is driving at there is to steal 
 away our peace and our power. 
 
 There are many who would not do anything 
 they know to be displeasing to the Master. They 
 184 
 
Fighting Tactics 185 
 
 conscientiously guard that side of their lives. 
 The tempter's favourite mode of approach with 
 such is to steal away their sweet peace of mind 
 and heart. For in stealing away peace, he is 
 also stealing much of their power. There can 
 be fulness of power going out, only as there 
 is fulness of peace within. 
 
 And he is also constantly trying to take away 
 our power directly, or to make it less so far as 
 possible. By sin, by selfishness in some subtle 
 shape, by attacks upon bodily conditions, by 
 making us tired, or depressed, or discouraged, 
 or switching us on to some side track, he can 
 do much to switch us off from the full touch 
 with God, through which only can come fulness 
 of power in life and service. If we are to enjoy 
 full peace of heart, and a steady even poised 
 course of action full of God's power, we must 
 know something of the tempter's fighting tactics, 
 and be prepared to meet and match him 
 constantly. 
 
 Let me begin with just a word about his tac- 
 tics against us corporately. He is a keen fighter 
 against the Church as a whole. The main thing 
 he Is driving at here is to divide the Church. 
 He is an adept at divisive tactics. Under one 
 cover or another he aims to separate one body 
 of believers from the others. He knows the 
 tremendous power there is in unity. He knows 
 so well the resistless power against himself of 
 
1 86 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 united prayer, of united action, of a united spirit 
 controlling, that he has done his utmost to kill 
 that spirit of unity. 
 
 I do not mean to speak disparagingly of the 
 term, when I say that Satan is a keen theologian. 
 Anything of any sort that divides the Church, 
 or splits up any group of Christ's followers, 
 suits his purposes. And in saying that I am not 
 now pleading for a universal unity of churches, 
 for unity sometimes means dishonour: Loy- 
 alty to the essential Gospel of our Lord, and 
 to His person, will prevent the union that is 
 sometimes thought of. 
 
 Two Lines of Approach. 
 
 But the chief thing we are to talk together 
 about now is his tactics in dealing with us per- 
 sonally. And here he has two avenues of ap- 
 proach — he tempts, and he attacks. The tempta- 
 tion is an attempt to induce us to do wrong, to 
 lead us, by much or by little, aside from the 
 one right path. The attack is an attempt to 
 injure us regardless of our consent. He tempted 
 Eve in Eden. He attacked Job. He did both 
 with our Lord. Every weapon at command was 
 used against Him. Jesus met every sort of 
 temptation and attack on our behalf. He was 
 tempted in the Wilderness, and when the Greeks 
 came. He was attacked by that unusually vio- 
 
Fighting Tactics 187 
 
 lent Galilean storm; and in Gethsemane, and on 
 Calvary. 
 
 The temptation is for all, the attack is for 
 those resisting the temptation. When he fails 
 in tempting, he tries attacking. Of course it is 
 true that the attack itself may become, and often 
 does become, simply a subtler form of tempta- 
 tion. It throws a flood of light upon the charac- 
 ter of Job that he was attacked by Satan. Those 
 attacks told this story, that Job had been tempted 
 and had resisted. He had become skilled in 
 recognizing and fighting the tempter's tempta- 
 tions. Then the tempter, having failed so largely 
 there, cunningly changes his line of approach. 
 
 In temptation he seeks our consent to his pro- 
 posals. In his attacks he does what he is al- 
 lowed to, acting within the limitations set by 
 God, to injure without seeking our consent. So 
 the attack itself becomes a temptation, usually 
 a temptation to doubt God, or to depart from 
 the path of obedience in seeking our own com- 
 fort or ease or protection. The attack is really 
 the second hard drive when temptation fails. 
 
 In these temptations and attacks, he is some- 
 times subtle, like a snake crawling along in the 
 tall grass to strike its fangs in when you least 
 think it is there. Sometimes he comes with the 
 rush of a sudden wild storm down the valley, in 
 an attempt to sweep you off your feet. 
 
1 88 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 The Outworks. 
 
 Now notice, please, the rule he follows in 
 these temptations and attacks. He always aims 
 at the weakest point; that is by weakest I mean 
 the point where he is most hkely to succeed. If 
 successful there, of course, his point is achieved. 
 If defeated at that point of approach he pro- 
 ceeds to the next likeliest, and so on. In Eden 
 his first approach was successful. It is rather 
 humiliating that our oldest kinsman yielded at 
 the first point of approach. In the Wilderness 
 he went from one point to another, until having 
 failed in each he was obliged to leave. But 
 note, too, that though he may fail at some one 
 point of approach, he is sure to come back to 
 that same point in some changed guise. 
 
 It is always good tactics for us to guard our 
 weak points, or our likeliest points of approach. 
 And as a man's strong point is quite likely to 
 become his weak point through over-confidence, 
 therefore guard all points, but especially the 
 weak, the likeliest points of approach. 
 
 Then mark that it is a favourite method with 
 the tempter to come through our bodies. He 
 tempts through the natural appetites and desires. 
 He attacks through weakness or sickness or dis' 
 ease. Eve was tempted first by the appeal to 
 a perfectly proper bodily desire. When that 
 temptation was yielded to, the next came like- 
 
Fighting Tactics 189 
 
 wise in the realm of the body, to use a proper 
 function for a purpose not intended. 
 
 Our Lord was tempted first in the appeal to 
 His sense of hunger. It was a bodily tempta- 
 tion. It is striking that the tempter made no 
 headway with Job until he attacked his body. 
 Job remained true through the disasters that 
 came by war, and storm, by loss of children and 
 property, but when his body was touched his 
 strength of resistance began to weaken. 
 
 Many a man who would scorn to yield to what 
 he recognizes as a sin in the bodily realm will 
 over-use his bodily strength in doing God's serv- 
 ice, or will eat imprudently, or eat such things 
 as are not wholesome, not thinking of these as 
 temptations. But the result is that he is either 
 weakened in his work, or set aside from doing 
 it. And that is, at least, a partial victory for 
 the tempter. When we come to realize that 
 whatever weakens our bodies is a temptation to 
 be resisted, we shall have gone far in defeating 
 the evil one, at one of his subtlest points of 
 approach. 
 
 Attacking the Citadel. 
 
 Another common mode of approach is through 
 the mind. First, there is the indirect approach 
 to the mind. Whatever weakens the body, by 
 so much robs us likewise of mental strength. I 
 
190 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 know that it has been commonly said that some 
 of the most saintly men have had weak bodies. 
 But I am quite clear that their saintliness was not 
 due to their weak bodies, but in spite of them. If 
 God may have His way, we will have strong 
 bodies as well as saintly lives. There is no 
 temptation or attack harder to resist than that 
 which comes through or to the body. 
 
 Then there is the direct approach to the mind. 
 The commonest form here is to make us over- 
 pleased with ourselves and with what we have 
 done. Egotism is one of the commonest of all 
 vices. The undue sense of our own importance 
 or ability can get in through a very thin crevice, 
 and does. Yet this is a bit of the very core 
 of the Satan-spirit. The line between a proper 
 self-esteem, and an improper thinking more 
 highly of ourselves than we ought to think, is 
 a very thin line, very easily crossed, indeed very 
 hard not to cross. 
 
 Only an eye fixed steadily upon Him, who 
 gave us all we have, and to whom we are in 
 debt to do the very best we can with our abili- 
 ties — only that steady watching of His face will 
 keep our feet steady too, and keep our heads 
 from getting dizzy, when the path leads up some 
 unusual height, with a crowd watching. 
 
 But there are other modes of attack upon us 
 through our minds. And I want to speak more 
 fully of these both because they are so very 
 
Fighting Tactics 191 
 
 common, and because they are not recognized as 
 coming from the tempter. Mental depression 
 is a favourite mode of attacking Christians, es- 
 pecially those who earnestly desire to ring true. 
 There is a good bit of mental depression with- 
 out doubt due directly to bodily conditions. But 
 there is also a great deal that comes directly 
 from the evil one or from some of his numerous 
 messenger spirits. 
 
 This depression may be found in all degrees 
 of intensity, from the slightest which yields to 
 help, on to the degree of severe melancholy that 
 leads to insanity, and the taking of one's life. 
 It may begin with a sense of loss of peace, a 
 sense of God's presence being withdrawn, as 
 though He were displeased and had left us. The 
 quiet hour of prayer seems mechanical ; the 
 heart seems cold, and these very feelings deepen 
 and intensify the sense of depression. While 
 much of this may be traced to bodily conditions, 
 without doubt much of it is a direct attack by 
 an unrecognized evil spirit who is seeking to 
 rob us of peace and power. 
 
 Here recognition is half of the remedy, and 
 if it lead to quick resistance in Jesus' Name, the 
 relief will be complete. I recall talking with 
 a Christian lady from Europe, a highly cultured 
 lady of noble birth, whose service has been 
 greatly blest of God to large numbers, but who 
 was suffering from mental depression to a de- 
 
192 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 gree that was painful. Recognition of the evil 
 spirit at work, and resistance in the Victor's 
 Name, quickly cleared the sky for the bright 
 shining of the sun again. 
 
 Obsession. 
 
 Sometimes the attack takes the form of men- 
 tal stupidity or the sense of extreme tiredness 
 when reading the Bible, or praying, or attempt- 
 ing some bit of Christian service. I recall an 
 earnest Christian woman of much more than 
 usual mental keenness, who for a long time was 
 troubled in this way. Her mind was clear 
 enough with other matters or books, but when 
 she turned for her Bible reading, she grew men- 
 tally stupid, and seemed unable to get anything. 
 She would kneel to pray at night and intense 
 sleepiness would come over her, yet when she 
 would rise from her knees, and retire for the 
 night, sleep would leave her eyes. And this con- 
 tinued long until a bit of light broke. She rec- 
 ognized that the evil one, or an evil spirit, was 
 attacking her. And steady resistance in Jesus' 
 Name brought relief which has continued with- 
 out break. And this is only one instance of 
 many of the same sort that I have known of 
 personally. 
 
 I know an earnest Christian whose service 
 has been much used and blest, who was beset 
 
Fighting Tactics 193 
 
 with an abnormal sense of tiredness, which held 
 him back from service, and affected what service 
 he did. No extra sleeping nor resting brought 
 relief, but as quickly as he was led to see that 
 he was being attacked by evil forces, he resisted 
 earnestly and aggressively in the great Name, 
 and he quickly entered into a new life of peace 
 of heart, and of renewed vigorous mental 
 activity. 
 
 I want to say a word here about what is 
 called obsession. We are more familiar with 
 the term demon-possession than with the com- 
 panion term demon-obsession. Demon-posses- 
 sion means that a demon or evil spirit has been 
 allowed to come in and take possession of one's 
 personality. That was extremely common in the 
 Gospel days, and is still very common in non- 
 Christian lands, and much more common in 
 Christian lands than is commonly supposed. 
 
 This other thing of demon-obsession is ex- 
 tremely common too, though not much recog- 
 nized. It simply means that evil spirits are 
 attacking and disturbing and annoying us. 
 Demon-possession is impossible without the con- 
 sent of the man whose personality is taken pos- 
 session of. But obsession is possible without 
 such consent, because it is an outer attack. And 
 the remarkable thing is that obsession by demons 
 is quite a common experience by the saintliest 
 people, though so rarely recognized. Indeed it 
 
194 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 seems to be true that it is the earnest, conse- 
 crated, saintly ones who are singled out for this 
 form of attack. Whatever disturbance or an- 
 noyance an evil spirit may cause in this way, 
 comes under this general head of obsession. The 
 mental depression, the melancholia, and mental 
 stupidity, and tiredness, of which I have spoken, 
 really belong under this head of obsession. But 
 it also takes more vigorous forms than these. 
 
 Some Actual Experiences. 
 
 I recall the experience of a man of matured 
 years and well-seasoned judgment. He had 
 been led to take an advance step in his Christian 
 life which meant much of sacrifice. He has 
 since then been used in his Christian service in 
 a marked way, and to an unusual degree. This 
 experience came just after the step referred to 
 had been taken. He was awakened in the night 
 by the sense of an unwholesome presence in the 
 room, or rather the feeling that the room was 
 full of evil beings. A peculiar feeling of horror 
 came over him, with strange bodily sensations. 
 The air of the room seemed stifling. He quickly 
 recognized that he was being attacked, rose from 
 bed, and attempted to sing a verse of a hymn 
 with Jesus' Name in. It seemed impossible at 
 first to get his lips open, or any sound out. But 
 he persisted and soon the soft singing was clear 
 
Fighting Tactics 195 
 
 and full, and the spirit atmosphere of the room 
 cleared at once. And with grateful heart he lay 
 down again, and slept sweetly until the morn- 
 ing. Yet he is a man of unusual caution, with 
 a critical matter-of-fact spirit of investigation. 
 
 A friend was telling recently of a somewhat 
 similar experience. He is an earnest godly man, 
 of mature experience, and more than the aver- 
 age sanity of judgment. It was shortly after 
 retiring for the night, and before sleep had come, 
 that a peculiar sense of awful blackness came 
 over him. With the strange sense of mental 
 keenness that marks such experiences he seemed 
 to know that his mind was slipping away from 
 his control. He could not recall who he was, 
 and realized that he could not. He could not 
 even remember his name. There was an over- 
 whelming sense of blackness, as though his mind 
 were saturated with a blackness that was press- 
 ing in upon him. And he said he was conscious 
 of being conscious of only one thnig — the Name 
 of Jesus. He clung to that, saying the Name 
 " Jesus " over and again. It was as though 
 every power of thought and speech was gone 
 save that of uttering that Name. Relief came, 
 and with a sense of gratitude that could never 
 be told, he said, he prayed and went to sleep. 
 
 I could repeat many such experiences that 
 have come to my knowledge. These will be 
 sufficient to make clear my meaning in talking 
 
196 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 of obsession. Evil spirits attack the saintliest 
 men and women, in these and similar ways. 
 Failure to recognize the nature and source of 
 the attack has sometimes led to serious results. 
 
 I recall one of the most brilliant, brainy men 
 that ever preached the Gospel, a man of unusual 
 charm of personality and earnest devotion, whose 
 life went abruptly out under the touch of his 
 own hand. The physician used the phrase " in- 
 tense melancholia." But careful study into the 
 case revealed the fact that without question the 
 fuller explanation can be found here in demon- 
 obsession, unrecognized. 
 
 These are some of the tempter's fighting tac- 
 tics. They are given here that we may be 
 quicker and keener to recognize him and his, 
 and so to resist more quickly and successfully 
 in the Name of his Victor, which he so fears. 
 
 '' On the Ground of the Blood/' 
 
 And now we want to talk a bit on the other 
 side — our fighting tactics. What are the true 
 tactics which this enemy of ours fears and can- 
 not resist. There will be a little repetition here 
 of what has been said before. But repetition 
 is the law of deep and lasting impression. 
 
 First of all must come that great statement 
 made of Michael's fight and victory in John's 
 Revelation. " They overcame him on the ground 
 
Fighting Tactics 197 
 
 of the blood of the Lamb," ^ We cannot get 
 beyond that. The enemy is the same, the fight 
 the same, and the means of victory the same too; 
 It was by the shedding of His own blood that 
 our Lord Jesus Himself defeated the enemy. 
 It is only by that same precious blood that we 
 can get victory too. 
 
 This seems like strange fighting, not spear 
 and sword, not gun-cotton and powder but — a 
 Name, the Name of Jesus; a fact, the fact that 
 He gave His blood for us. They overcame on 
 the ground of the blood of the Lamb; so may 
 we. And only so can we. There must be the 
 daily pleading of the power of the blood, the 
 claiming of its redeeming power from all the 
 power of the enemy. In the thick of the hard- 
 est fighting that blood-red banner persistently 
 flung out will rout this foe. We never get be- 
 yond the need of claiming the power of that 
 blood. 
 
 T4ien the second chapter in our book of tac- 
 tics must be this ; habitual surrender to the mas- 
 tery of our Lord Jesus. Only so can there be 
 the fighting that wins. Anything else is letting 
 the enemy within the lines. That surrender 
 must be full and sane and sensible; it must be 
 rhythmic with the glad music of our hearts. 
 It must be habitual, as habitual as breathing. 
 
 It must cover the bodily habits, the mental 
 ^Revelation xii. 11. 
 
198 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 life, the social contacts, the friendships, the busi- 
 ness relations and methods, and even that 
 strangely clinging, subtle stuff called money. A 
 glad cheery yielding of the whole life to the 
 mastery of the Lord Jesus, this is splendid fight- 
 ing tactics, and irresistible. But anything less 
 means loss of power for us, and gain of power 
 by our foe. 
 
 Then there is a daily prayer that our Victor 
 has given us to use — " deliver us from the evil 
 one." It is striking that that is one of the few 
 petitions in the Lord's prayer. It is to be re- 
 peated daily, as the language of the prayer 
 makes clear. The old reading is, " deliver us 
 from evil," but it seems clearly to be the fuller 
 meaning of the Master's language to make it 
 personal — " the evil one." And the word " de- 
 liver " has all the force of the word " rescue." 
 Our Master teaches us daily to bow and pray, 
 " rescue me from the evil one." It is most 
 significant. 
 
 I know a thoughtful man who begins the day 
 by quietly slipping his hands over his body from 
 head down, slowly repeating this prayer, " de- 
 liver me from the evil one, and breathe in afresh 
 Thy own life, in Jesus' great Name." That is 
 good fighting tactics. It is insisting on all the 
 powers of our Victor's victory, in the stress and 
 thick of life's need. 
 
Fighting Tactics 199 
 
 " The Sword of the Spirit:' 
 
 There is a fourth bit in our fighting tactics 
 that needs much emphasis, namely, saturate your 
 mind with the Word of God. Let there be a 
 quiet time daily alone with the Book, until you 
 get full of it, and then fuller. Let the Book it- 
 self have first place in that quiet time. No book, 
 however good, and no collection of verses, how- 
 ever choice, should be allowed to take this first 
 place. Let the reading be wide, by the page; 
 let it be daily, through the year, with sometimes 
 a bit extra, but never a bit less; let it be prayer- 
 ful with the heart held open to God's own 
 touch. So will come the familiarity and clear 
 vision so essential. This was our Lord's method 
 in meeting the tempter in the Wilderness. 
 
 And this leads directly to the fifth thing I 
 want to emphasize strongly. It is this, cultivate 
 a sane judgment, and a quiet mind. One should 
 pray daily for the blessing of a sound mind, one 
 that does not go to extremes. Nothing culti- 
 vates the judgment like this Word of God, in- 
 terpreted to us by the Holy Spirit. Avoid 
 extremes, both the extreme of over-cautiousness, 
 and the extreme of radicalism. 
 
 Faith Street is on a hill. It lies very close to 
 two other streets, one at each end leading down- 
 ward. The one is Queer Street; the other is 
 Doubt Street. You want to avoid each extreme. 
 
200 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 Live on the top of the hill with clearness of 
 vision, sanity of judgment, and quietness of 
 mind. This will help greatly in actively fight- 
 ing the enemy. Satan does not like poise, he 
 prefers the pendulum swing. 
 
 A sixth point has been referred to repeatedly, 
 but miust be given the emphasis of a place in 
 this grouping. I mean this, learn to recognize 
 the enemy's approach, whether he comes himself 
 or through one of his numerous messenger- 
 spirits. Cultivate a keen ear for his voice and 
 step, a quick eye for his hand, however gloved, 
 and a sensitive spirit for his touch and pres- 
 ence. We are to take time a little later to talk 
 together about the tempter's disguises, and how 
 to detect them. That, I hope, will help us in 
 this work of quick and sure recognition. With- 
 out doubt our Lord's keenness and quickness in 
 recognizing both tempter and temptation in the 
 Wilderness was an immense help in the victory 
 won there. Yet that recognition came to him 
 in the same way as it may come to us. 
 
 The Wondrous Name. 
 
 And then a last word must be put in for the 
 hour of stress. When the temptation comes 
 so subtly, and crowds so hard, remember this 
 word — claim Christ's victory. Remember that 
 the victory has been won. Claim that victory as 
 
Fighting Tactics 201 
 
 your own. Go in the strength of what Some- 
 body else has done. The victory you are need- 
 ing just now, when the temptation comes with 
 a wild rush, and nearly sweeps you off your feet 
 at once, remember that victory has been won. 
 It is an accomplished fact. Claim it as your 
 own, and it will be your own in fact. There 
 is far more victory just within grasp than you 
 have realized. Reach out your hand and take 
 as your very own what has been done for you. 
 
 That victory has been enshrined in a Name. 
 All the power of the Nazareth victory, and of 
 the Wilderness victory, all the power of the 
 great climax victory of Calvary, and of the 
 Resurrection morning — all is packed into one 
 word, a Name, the Name of Jesus. There is 
 far more, infinitely more practical help and 
 power in that Name than we have dreamed of; 
 certainly far more than we have ever used. The 
 Name of Jesus is the most valuable asset of the 
 Christian life. 
 
 I remember a young man coming up to me at 
 the close of a service in London. He told me 
 of how sorely he had been tempted, how he 
 seemed to make no headway against the strug- 
 gle in his Christian life, until the suggestion 
 came to him of the practical value of that Name 
 above every name. Instantly he began using 
 it, reverently, prayerfully, eagerly, and reHef 
 and victory came. And the look of eye and face 
 
202 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 revealed how real was the victory and peace that 
 had come to him. 
 
 A missionary in South Africa has told a story 
 of her experience in the use of that great Name. 
 The story has a simplicity and a power, that 
 makes one feel all afresh that we have not used 
 that great Name as we may and should. She 
 was travelling in Bechuanaland, camping by the 
 banks of a badly swollen river. The discom- 
 forts of heavy rains, bad roads, poor food, and 
 stinging insects were very great. But sorer far 
 was the moral havoc being wrought within sight, 
 by the wayside canteen where liquors were sold 
 to the hundreds of poor dark-skinned natives. 
 The distress of the situation seemed unbearable. 
 In her almost despair of soul she was drawn 
 away to pray, then in calmer mood was led to 
 go over toward the canteen. 
 
 Her thought was directed to one man, very 
 old, very poor, clad in a few filthy rags, with a 
 bloated face, bleared eyes, and loathsome sores, 
 all the result of his drinking the cheap adul- 
 terated liquor kept in the canteen. He was just 
 staggering towards the canteen when she called 
 him. And as he stopped to speak with her, she 
 asked him why he drank when it was ruining 
 him. 
 
 With a wild laugh he said, "Why? I can't 
 help it. I am enslaved by this vile white man's 
 drink. I would gladly quit, but I can't." And 
 
Fighting Tactics 203 
 
 she told him there was a way out into freedom 
 from his slavery. It was in a name. " A name," 
 he said with a touch of awe coming over him. 
 " Yes, a name," she said. And would she tell 
 him that name. Praying for guidance, she told 
 him as simply as she could the story of the Gos- 
 pel, and of the power in the Name of Jesus. 
 And the old black wreck repeated the Name, 
 Jesus, which was but a new sound to him. And 
 they knelt in prayer among the trees and parted. 
 
 Her journey took her away, but weeks after, 
 on returning, she met the old black man's wife, 
 and from her gleaned the fascinating sequel to 
 the story. The poor old enslaved heathen man 
 had gone away, and when the fever for drink 
 came upon him, he had with great earnestness 
 repeated the Name of Jesus over and over. And 
 in his simple speech, the fever left him, the 
 craving for the drink went away, and he felt as 
 if he had never tasted the stuff. He said his 
 mouth felt clean as a httle child's, and his body 
 had become strong and well. 
 
 One day he had allowed an old drinking com- 
 panion to persuade him to go with him. As they 
 started toward the canteen, the old fever for 
 drink came upon him. He could feel it burn- 
 ing within his body. He tried to break away 
 from his companion, but the old slavery gripped 
 him anew and held him fast. Then he remem- 
 bered, and with all the earnestness of his soul 
 
204 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 he repeated the Name over, *' Jesus, Jesus, 
 Jesus." And he said, " A coolness came over 
 my brain, and my body, and I was free again, 
 and turned quickly away." 
 
 Tlie meagreness of the man's knowledge of 
 the Gospel makes the story seem almost star- 
 tling. But the earnestness of his purpose, and 
 the simplicity of his faith, fully made up for 
 lack of knowledge, and supplied the sure link 
 with the Lord Jesus, and through that link the 
 power came in the hour of his sore distress. 
 
 I have no doubt that if spirit-beings were visi- 
 ble, any one standing by watching the old black 
 man, would have seen evil spirits hanging about 
 and haunting him, and driving him on in his 
 mad thirst for the drink; and then fleeing, 
 frightened and terrified, before the Name of 
 their Victor, as the old man repeated it, over 
 and again so earnestly. 
 
 Fearless Cheer. 
 
 The Name that brought the old heathen quick 
 relief from bodily appetite is available for every 
 sort of need, and in every sort of emergency. 
 It is our strong tower into which we can run 
 and be safe. Satan hates that Name. He fears 
 it. All the victory of Nazareth, and the Wilder- 
 ness, of Calvary, and the Resurrection, is 
 bound up in that Name. And now it is ours 
 
Fighting Tactics 205 
 
 to use. The Master has bequeathed to us the 
 right to use that Name, and as we do there is 
 as much and as sure victory for us as there was 
 gotten by Him. 
 
 There is a last word that ought to be put in. 
 It should be used as a sort of bright underscor- 
 ing to all that has been said, and to all that will 
 be said. It will affect the spirit of all our life, 
 and of all our fighting. It is a word from our 
 Master's own lips. It comes to us out of the 
 darkness of the darkest night He knew. In that 
 exquisitely quiet voice of His he said, " Be of 
 good cheer; I have overcome."^ Out of the 
 gloom of that betrayal night it shines as a bright 
 gleam of light. It stands out against the back- 
 ground of the betrayal of a sacred friendship 
 trust, as a beam of God's own sunshine out 
 of black storm clouds. 
 
 " Be of good cheer " — the uplift of its music 
 is immense. Let the joyous music of His vic- 
 tory ring its melody in your soul, and then let 
 the gladness of it out in all your life. Be cheery ! 
 Sing as you fight. Be joyous as you push on. 
 There is an enemy; yes, but he is defeated. He 
 is still free to fight ; yes, but every fight is meant 
 to mean a fresh defeat for him. We are living 
 on the battlefield; yes, but it is to be a victory- 
 field for us, because of our Leader. The tempter 
 is cunning and persistent; yes, but he is a 
 *John xvi. 33. 
 
2o6 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 whipped foe. The enemy is more than a match 
 for us; yes, but he has been fairly outmatched 
 by our Lord Jesus. Cheer up! Fasten the flag 
 at the top of the mast, and nail it there, and 
 clinch the nails, cut away the ropes; the flag, 
 the Victor's flag, is there to stay. 
 
 " Be of good cheer ; /." With that glad ring- 
 ing cry of cheer, couple the personality of Him 
 who gives it to us — '' Be of good cheer ; /.'' It 
 is because of Him that we can be of good cheer. 
 He is the basis of the cheer. Let this be our 
 constant fighting cry, ** Be of good cheer ; / — " 
 
THE TEMPTER'S DISGUISES AND 
 HOW TO DETECT THEM 
 
 Working under Cover. 
 
 A disguise is a lie. Its purpose is to deceive. 
 It is something bad hiding its face behind some- 
 thing good. The bad of itself would not have 
 any chance if it came barefaced. It would be 
 refused admittance at once. And if it insisted 
 on getting in would be booted out vigorously. 
 So it steals some good to hide behind. It pre- 
 tends to be as good as the good. The door is 
 opened for the good, and the bad sneaks stealth- 
 ily in to carry out its plans. 
 
 A disguise is a counterfeit. It aims to make 
 things look different from what they are, and 
 to look better. There are, of course, make-be- 
 lieve disguises used in play in carrying out a 
 part; but these only make it more emphatic that 
 the purpose of a disguise is to deceive. 
 
 Now it is a marked charactertistic of the 
 tempter that he uses disguises. It is a most 
 significant characteristic. It puts him at once 
 in sharp contrast with God. God is always in 
 the open. At times He conceals His glory. But 
 that is not that He may hold back something 
 207 
 
2o8 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 from us, but that we may the better take in 
 what is revealed of Himself. Too much light 
 bHnds, and the Winded eyes get nothing. A 
 carefully shaded Hght, restraining the excessive 
 brightness, enables us to see more, and to know 
 what we can't see by what we do see. God is al- 
 ways in the open. Our Lord Jesus said to His 
 accusers, '' I have spoken openly." He was con- 
 trasting His openness with the secrecy with 
 which they stole upon Him under cover of 
 night to arrest Him, and which also marked His 
 trial. 
 
 Satan works under cover. It is immensely 
 suggestive of his character and purposes. In 
 Eden he came behind the covering of the most 
 intelHgent and beautiful of all the lower animal 
 creation. He is seldom mentioned by name in 
 the Old Testament. That is a bit of the faith- 
 fulness of its description of things as they ac- 
 tually are. He carefully conceals his person- 
 ality, but his disguises can be found all through 
 the Book, and all through the book of life. His 
 footprints are easily found in every roadway of 
 life. 
 
 In the story of Job, it is noteworthy that Job 
 supposed that all the suffering that came had 
 been sent directly by God. It is true that it 
 had been allowed by God, for a purpose, but it 
 had not been sent by Him. But so skilfully had 
 the actual instigator of Job's troubles worked, 
 
The Tempter's Disguises 209 
 
 that the suffering man actually mistook him for 
 God. 
 
 The tempter is bad; he is only bad; he is bad 
 clear through ; he has no spots of good, nor any 
 spurts of good. He is bold as well as bad. He 
 is as bold as He is bad. He hides behind God. 
 The worst hides behind the best. Satan uses 
 God's roads. He never makes roads. His bold- 
 ness is startling in its daring. He is as blas- 
 phemous in his unblushing boldness as in his 
 unmixed badness. 
 
 We want to talk in a very simple way about 
 some of the disguises which the tempter uses. 
 We need keener eyes to pierce through the dis- 
 guise to the real thing underneath. Satan is a 
 rare expert in make-up. He is deceiving even 
 the very elect of God. He has great skill in 
 new disguises when the old ones are found out. 
 It takes keen watching and habitual praying, 
 much study of God's Word, and a God-guided 
 judgment if we are to detect and avoid his dis- 
 guises, and yet be controlled by a sane, poised 
 common sense in all our daily relations and 
 contracts. 
 
 Hiding Behind Natural Desires. 
 
 Mark first of all this : the tempter hides he- 
 hind natural appetites and desires. There are 
 certain bodily, and mental, and social, functions 
 
2IO Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 and appetites and desires with which we have 
 been endowed. The appetite for food and drink ; 
 the sense of taste that appreciates fine flavours; 
 the longing for and deHght in personal com- 
 panionship; the desire to fit into the scheme of 
 life and play one's full part in it; the sense of 
 beauty that can appreciate and enjoy and be 
 uplifted by the beautiful in landscape and in 
 artistic handiwork — these are perfectly natural 
 tastes and desires. 
 
 The tempter comes along these natural path- 
 ways of our being. He prefers such roads. 
 They make easier travel for him. He seeks 
 to push us to an extreme, this way or that, in 
 satisfying these natural desires. He appealed 
 to Eve's sense of beauty, her sense of taste, 
 and her desire for knowledge. Had he openly 
 told her why he had come, and what the result 
 of her following his suggestion would be, she 
 would have promptly turned away. But behind 
 these disguises she was deceived, and so fell into 
 the tangling snare laid at her feet. 
 
 The approach to Job was very cunning. The 
 aim of the tempter was to make Job doubt God's 
 love. He came up behind Job's love for his 
 home, for his children, and for peace and pros- 
 perity. This was a perfectly natural love, im- 
 planted in Job's heart by God. The impression 
 made upon Job was that God was taking away 
 his children, breaking up his home, and taking 
 
The Tempter's Disguises 211 
 
 away his peace and prosperity. The natural 
 tendency was to have his sense of trust in 
 God rudely shocked. The approach of the 
 tempter was behind those natural God-given 
 desires. 
 
 In the Wilderness the first approach of the 
 tempter was behind a bodily need. The desire 
 for food was a right thing, of course. The 
 tempter sought to use a right desire to make our 
 Lord do that which it would have been wrong 
 for Him to do, because contrary to His Father's 
 plan at that time. The second approach was 
 through something yet higher up. Our Lord 
 said He would trust the Father to care for His 
 bodily needs. Through that spirit of trust in 
 God's loving watch-care the tempter comes up 
 with his second proposal. Our Lord refused 
 to go to the extreme of a foolhardy going where 
 He had not been led. 
 
 Again, the third approach was hidden behind 
 a natural desire. World-wide dominion was a 
 perfectly natural thing for our Lord Jesus. It 
 was doubly so. As a man merely He had a 
 right to such dominion, even such as was given 
 to Adam, and lost by him. As the new head 
 of the race all things had been given into His 
 hands.' But he would take possession of his 
 world-wide dominion in His Father's way, and 
 time, and only so.' The approach was behind 
 * Matthew xi. 27 'Ephesians i. 20, 2X. 
 
2 12 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 a true natural instinct, the desire for world-wide 
 dominion. 
 
 So the tempter is still doing. It is one of 
 his settled ways of coming to us. Along the 
 path of what is right he comes to push us to 
 some extreme, and especially to push us from 
 the narrow path of obedience to the Father's 
 plan, and way, and time. Our safety lies in 
 remembering that every right desire is to be 
 used only for our Father's glory and as He 
 guides. 
 
 The natural desire is never to be an end in 
 itself. It is to be used only as a means to a 
 high end. That end is to carry out God's pur- 
 poses, and reveal the more His glory. The 
 tempter continually tries to sway us over to 
 using these proper natural desires as ends 
 in themselves. The one thing he is driving 
 at is to sway us away from God's plan 
 by little or by much. It is a cunning dis- 
 guise. 
 
 Hiding Behind Men. 
 
 Then mark that the tempter disguises his ap- 
 proach to us behind men. I do not mean bad 
 men necessarily. I mean that quite uncon- 
 sciously to themselves he uses good men in ways 
 that will work out his purposes. That word 
 " unconsciously " should be underscored. There 
 
The Tempter's Disguises 213 
 
 are four illustrations of this sort of thing in the 
 Hfe of our Lord Jesus. 
 
 The first is the coming to Him of His mother 
 and brethren to seek an interview while He is 
 in the midst of teaching the multitude/ It 
 seems to be a strange incident. It occurs at 
 the time when the opposition to Him by the 
 Jerusalem leaders had reached the aggressive 
 stage. They were following Him up into Gali- 
 lee, hounding His steps, and trying by every 
 sort of means to hinder and, if possible, stop 
 His work. Their opposition had reached the 
 point of danger to Him. For a second time it 
 is said that He " withdrew " from the area of 
 their activity. That word " withdrew " is a sig- 
 nificant one, indicating the seriousness of the 
 danger threatening Him. The awful charge of 
 Satanic collusion had been made against Him. 
 This setting of the story should be kept in mind. 
 One day as He is teaching in the midst of a 
 great crowd an interruption occurs. Strangely 
 enough it is a message sent in to Him that His 
 mother and brethren are on the outskirts of the 
 crowd and desire an interview. It is wholly 
 probable from the records that they had free 
 access to Him ordinarily, when they were where 
 He was. Why this unexpected breaking in while 
 He is at His work? It looks very much as 
 though the leaders had been cunningly working 
 * Matthew xii. 46-50; Mark iii. 31-35; Luke viii. 19-21. 
 
214 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 upon her mother heart. They would use her 
 influence to side-track Him. Surely such a fine- 
 grained man as He clearly is will be open to 
 His mother's influences and to her fears and 
 wishes. It was an appeal to a natural love. 
 It touched the tenderest earthly tie our Master 
 had. He revealed a tender solicitude for His 
 mother amid the pain and distress of hanging 
 upon the cross. 
 
 It looks very much like an approach by the 
 tempter behind the tender relation existing be- 
 tween Him and His mother. She, of course, 
 would be wholly unconscious that it was so. 
 Only so can His words in reply to the request 
 be fully understood, " Who is my mother ? " and 
 so on. He evidently recognized the interrup- 
 tion as something serious. His reply in effect 
 is this: "My mission is not subject to earthly 
 human ties, even though as tender as that of 
 a mother. My relation to my Father is the 
 one controlling purpose and passion of my life." 
 The doing of the Father's will was higher than 
 any human tie or relationship. It is not the 
 first time, nor the last, that the tempter has come 
 behind the sacred, tender tie of kinship. 
 
 The second of these is the story of the en- 
 thusiastic multitudes over this Man, who could 
 supply bread enough for their hunger.' The 
 
 *John vi. 1-15; with Matthew xiv. 13-22; Mark vi. 
 30-45. 
 
The Tempter's Disguises 215! 
 
 violent taking off of His Herald, John, led Jesus 
 to seek a bit of quiet solitude for prayer and 
 thinking. The end was drawing sharply nearef 
 in this event. The multitudes invade His pri- 
 vacy. He patiently teaches, and then feeds the 
 vast crowd with the few loaves and fishes. The 
 crowd is completely swept off its feet by His 
 graciousness and power, and by the sense of 
 inner physical comfort. Their leaders seem to 
 have actually conferred with the disciples, and 
 to have gotten their consent to the proposed 
 plan of making Jesus King. For the Master 
 was compelled to " constrain " them to get into 
 the boat and leave.' 
 
 They propose a great popular uprising to pro- 
 claim Jesus King. It may seem to us like an 
 immature, weak movement. Yet, if such a thing 
 can be imagined as our Lord taking advantage 
 of such a thing, it would have undoubtedly be- 
 come a most formidable movement. At any 
 rate it was clearly a repetition of the old Wil- 
 derness temptation of world-wide dominion 
 without suffering. Many a Christian leader has 
 yielded to that sort of a temptation. All un- 
 consciously to themselves, the tempter was com- 
 ing up behind these multitudes in their pathetic 
 need, with the old temptation under new guise. 
 * Matthew xiv. 22. 
 
2i6 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 The Subtlest yet. 
 
 The third of these is when our Lord first 
 tells the inner circle of the awful experiences 
 ahead to which He would yield/ Peter is 
 startled and strenuously objects. He has the 
 boldness or foolhardiness to " rebuke " our Lord. 
 In impetuous, startled speech he blurts out, 
 *' This be far from Thee." His strenuous ob- 
 jection raises the whole question of a kingdom 
 without sacrifice, of victory without suffering. 
 It made the road harder to travel. The awful 
 sharpness of the experiences which the Master 
 plainly sees before Him is made to stand out 
 with more painful clearness. It is hard to 
 have one of the inner circle of His chosen 
 band, dear, impulsive Peter, try to block the 
 way that is clearly the Father's way for 
 Him. And the Master plainly felt all of 
 this. 
 
 The sharpness of His reply, the blunt plain- 
 ness of His '' get thee behind me, Satan," re- 
 veals at once how real was the struggle of soul, 
 as He unhesitatingly presses on in the way 
 marked out for Him. Here is it plain that the 
 tempter was coming behind the warm heart, and 
 impulsive judgment of Peter, who was quite 
 unconscious of how he was being used. The 
 tempter would make the way just as hard as 
 ^Matthew xvi. 21-27. 
 
The Tempter's Disguises 217 
 
 he could. The very boldness of these dis- 
 guises is nothing short of startling. 
 
 The last of these illustrations is perhaps the 
 most subtle and telling of the four. It came 
 within the last week. It is the story of the 
 Greeks' request.^ Whether they were actual 
 Greeks, or from a Greek-speaking people of 
 some other nationality, or merely representa- 
 tives of a non-Jewish people, matters not. They 
 were the outside non-Jewish world coming 
 eagerly and earnestly to our Lord. The Jewish 
 door was in its last stage of shutting against 
 Him. Here was the door into the whole outer 
 world opening. And our Lord had come for a 
 world. He had not come to Palestine merely. 
 That was only the doorway in. These earnest 
 truth-seekers opened to Him the whole outer 
 'world. He could go to Athens and Corinth. 
 And how the Greek crowds would have yielded 
 to His sway. But He knew well that only by 
 the red road of Joseph's tomb could He reach 
 Greeks and all the world, in the way His Father 
 had planned. 
 
 The language He used shows, with pathetic 
 intensity, how real was the struggle of soul of 
 this Man, now within a few days of the Cross. 
 Listen : " Now is my soul troubled. And what 
 shall I say ? Shall I say, ' Father, save me from 
 this hour ' ? No, I cannot say that, for for this 
 *John xii. 20-28. 
 
2i8 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 cause came I unto this hour. This is what I 
 will say, * Father, glorify Thy name, even though 
 it mean a cross for me.' " It was a sore hour. 
 It was a real temptation. Saying *' no " to 
 these earnest Greek inquirers was one of the 
 hardest things the Master ever did. It is still 
 one of the hardest things for some of His fol- 
 lowers to do. The tempter was making one of 
 his subtlest, strongest approaches behind these 
 earnest seekers, with their plea for light and 
 help, all unconscious as they were of how they 
 were being used. 
 
 These incidents show up at once how subtle 
 and how bold the tempter is in the disguises be- 
 hind which he seeks to hide his approaches — a 
 tender-hearted mother, a warm-hearted friend 
 and follower, an enthusiastic admiring clamorous 
 crowd, earnest seekers after truth. How diffi- 
 cult such pleas are to turn aside our own hearts 
 and experiences tell us, in some part. 
 
 Our Lord detected the presence of the tempter 
 behind each. With all His tender-heartedness 
 for His mother. His love for dear Peter, His 
 heart-moving compassion for the multitudes, and 
 His quick response at all times to earnest seek- 
 ers after light. He still saw that the Father's 
 path led Him quite aside from these. 
 
The Tempter's Disguises 219 
 
 The '' Angel-of-Light" Disguise. 
 
 The tempter has a third way of hiding his 
 approach to us. It is so strange and bold as 
 to make it seem almost blasphemous even to re- 
 peat it. He hides behind God! That is to say, 
 he pretends to be God's own messenger. Paul's 
 way of saying it is that he " fashioneth himself 
 into an angel of light." ^ The boldness and 
 subtlety of this reveals the desperateness of the 
 tempter. It reveals, too, the reality and des- 
 perateness of the fight that is on. It is a real 
 fight; no mere make-beheve. 
 
 The tempter will come to us under pretence 
 of being God's messenger, or of being God Him- 
 self. That is to say, he will, for example, quote 
 some bit of God's Word, so thinking to make 
 us think it is God who is speaking. It is true 
 that the quotation is quite apt to be a mis-quota- 
 tion, or a partial quotation, or a bit taken quite 
 out of its setting, and so away from its true 
 meaning. But it is also true that these quota- 
 tions of his are accepted by great numbers, who 
 do not recognize the personality of the quoter. 
 
 Then, in addition to this is the other method 
 of clothing his suggestions in religious phrase- 
 ology. There is an intermingling of enough that 
 is true and good with what is bad and not true, 
 as to give the impression that all is good. The 
 *2 Corinthians xi. 14. 
 
220 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 impression he seeks to give is that it is God 
 Himself who is talking to us, and so the im- 
 pression that in adopting and following his sug- 
 gestion we are really doing the thing God wants 
 done. This may be called the religious tempta- 
 tion. It is his favourite way of approach to 
 earnest, godly people. 
 
 It is most interesting that he used this dis- 
 guise with our Lord. In the Wilderness he 
 preached the Gospel of trust in God. He said, 
 " Cast Thyself down. Trust God. He has said 
 He will give His angels charge over Thee, and 
 in their hands they shall bear thee up lest thou 
 dash thy foot against a stone." Was ever 
 preaching more plausible in sound ! And was 
 a bit of God's Word ever more pushed out of 
 its meaning in application! 
 
 Yet the recognition of this guise is really not 
 difficult. For in it the tempter is always sug- 
 gesting something a little extreme. The method 
 is really to make some extreme or unwarranted 
 application of what the Word teaches. And 
 this, be it keenly noted, is one of the sure touch- 
 stones by which to test his temptations, as we 
 shall see a little later. 
 
 It may help to look at a few of his favourite 
 temptations under this disguise. We are taught 
 in Scripture to yield glad submission to God's 
 will for our lives. There has been much preach- 
 ing of this blessed truth of late years. And 
 
The Tempter's Disguises 221 
 
 many have sought to make this the controlling 
 purpose in their lives. 
 
 The tempter's perversion of this is that we 
 are to yield to whatever comes to us, as being 
 the will of God for us. Under that disguise he 
 would lead us to accept as God's will much that 
 he himself — the tempter — sends. The true spirit 
 of submission is an intelligent discerning of what 
 God's will for us is, and then a glad acceptance 
 of it. The tempter's counterfeit is that we 
 should blindly accept whatever comes, as being 
 God's will because it has come. So he would 
 get us to accept his own doings under the sup- 
 position that we are yielding to God's will. 
 
 There is a vast amount of misfortune, and 
 disease, and mental depression that is so ac- 
 cepted. Whereas if there were a prayerful dis- 
 cerning of what is God's will, and what is not, 
 much that comes would be steadily resisted, as 
 an evil thing, in our Lord Jesus' Name, and so 
 deliverance would come from it. The Master's 
 word to " watch " as well as " pray," if used 
 more faithfully and intelligently, would help 
 greatly. We would find freedom from much 
 that has mistakenly been accepted as from God. 
 
 Good, or God's Will. 
 
 A second perversion of this sort is in connec- 
 tion with Christian service. There is much 
 
222 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 Christian service that is done merely because it 
 is a good thing to do. The purpose to ** do 
 good " is the controlling thought. The true con- 
 trolling purpose in service should not be to do 
 good simply, but to do God's will. Doing God's 
 will is always good. But doing something that 
 is good may not be doing the thing that God 
 has planned for us to do. There is a Lord to 
 the harvest. We are not to start in doing the 
 thing that strikes us as being a good thing to 
 do. We are to find out the plan of the Lord, 
 and fit into that. A vast amount of hit-or-miss 
 work, and a vast amount of strength, would be 
 turned to much better account if this " do good " 
 fallacy were exploded. 
 
 Speaking broadly it would undoubtedly have 
 been doing good for our Lord to have met those 
 Greeks, and gone with them to their people to 
 teach about the true God, and to heal their sick, 
 and so on. But we know so well that that was 
 not God's will for Him. 
 
 Mr. Spurgeon at one time was urged to ac- 
 cept an invitation to preach at a certain place. 
 And in pressing the invitation it was stated that 
 he would have the opportunity of speaking to 
 a very large audience of many thousands, includ- 
 ing very influential people. His quiet reply, as 
 he declined going, was that he was not ambi- 
 tious to preach to thousands, but only to do 
 the will of God. 
 
The Tempter's Disguises 223 
 
 God guides the prayerful man to discern what 
 His will of service for him is. But this thing 
 of merely doing good rather than discerning the 
 good that is also God's plan for us, has ever been 
 one of the tempter's favourite temptations with 
 religious folk. We should frequently recall the 
 lines that run: — 
 
 " More anxious not to serve Thee much ; 
 But please Thee perfectly." 
 
 A third " Angel-of-light " disguise is regard- 
 ing that very sensitive stuff called money. The 
 Jews were required to pay a tenth of all into 
 God's treasury. And the giving of a tenth has 
 been widely advocated as the standard of giv- 
 ing for Christians. It is a standard of giving 
 that has been followed by many, and has brought 
 great blessing to the givers, and loosened out 
 much money for God's work. If the whole 
 Church membership could be brought up to this 
 standard the Lord's work would be revolution- 
 ized in the funds that would be loosened out 
 for use, and immense blessing would follow to 
 the Church itself. 
 
 That is all true. But there is more yet to be 
 said that is true also, and that more gives an 
 utter change of view. The giving of a tenth has 
 been taken to mean that we are fully discharging 
 the love obligation laid upon us by giving only^ 
 
2 24 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 a tenth. The Jew practically was taxed a tenth ; 
 the giving was not voluntary ; it was compulsory. 
 The Christian is not under any such law of com- 
 pulsion. Pie is left free to do as his heart moves 
 him, with very strong motives brought to play 
 upon his heart action. The Jew had much less 
 of light, and privilege, and fulness of blessing 
 than the Christian. 
 
 The Jcsiis-passion in Control. 
 
 The tenth is an Old Testament standard. But 
 we are living in the New Testament floodlight. 
 The New Testament standard, in effect, is this: 
 that everything we have is to be controlled by 
 the one purpose of telling i.'\ the world of our 
 Lord Jesus. That is the passion of our Lord's 
 heart, and is to be the passion of ours, too, as 
 we follow Him. Under this light we are to 
 retain what our needs call for, that being left 
 wholly to our individual judgment, guided by 
 the Holy Spirit, to decide, and all the rest is 
 to be controlled in its use by this passion of our 
 Lord's heart. 
 
 There are thousands of Christians who con- 
 scientiously give the tenth, and some even a 
 larger fraction than this, and then keep all the 
 rest for themselves. Many of them live saintly 
 lives, are devoted in their Christian service, but 
 live in luxury, and keep the greater part of the 
 
The Tempter's Disguises 225 
 
 year's income for themselves. Yet the millions 
 are without a saving knowledge of the Saviour. 
 And the one passionate desire of our Lord's 
 heart remains unsatisfied, and His return is be- 
 ing delayed. These people follow this course 
 conscientiously. So they have been taught to 
 do. They are on a higher plane of giving than 
 the majority of Christians. They have not gone 
 past their leaders to the Word itself for its sim- 
 ple fuller teaching. 
 
 The common teaching about giving a tenth has 
 loosened out vast sums, and, it has been so un- 
 derstood and applied, that it has held back far 
 vaster sums that the Lord meant should be used 
 in making Him known, and in bringing Him 
 back. Giving a tenth has practically been taken 
 to mean giving only a tenth, and that is utterly 
 opposed to the whole New Testament teaching 
 and spirit. 
 
 It seems quite a bit startling to say so, but 
 without doubt the tempter's purpose to keep the 
 millions in darkness has been furthered by the 
 teaching that in giving a tenth we are fully do- 
 ing what our Lord expects of us. It has been 
 one of his subtlest modern disguises in with- 
 holding the Gospel of Christ from the vast ma- 
 jority of the human race. 
 
 These suggestions give a little inkling into 
 the meaning hidden within that phrase, " An 
 angel of light." The tempter has great power 
 
2 26 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 of cunning in using religious phraseology. He 
 has fine skill in making use of much of the 
 commonly accepted Christian teaching in fur- 
 thering his own plans. 
 
 The "How" of Training. 
 
 And now we want to talk together about how 
 these disguises may be quickly and surely de- 
 tected. And it is a great comfort to know 
 that even though the disguise be ever so cun- 
 ningly made up, it can yet be easily detected. It 
 does not require intellectual wisdom or keen- 
 ness to pierce through the most subtle disguises. 
 The detection comes easily to a heart kept in 
 tune with our Lord's heart. It comes through 
 a simple training of the spirit and judgment 
 by the Word and by the Holy Spirit. 
 
 There are two '' hows " in the answer. One 
 has to do with ourselves, and the other has to 
 do with the tempter. The first is in the train- 
 ing of our ears and eyes and touch. The second 
 is in getting familiar with some of the tempter's 
 foot-prints. 
 
 First, the bit about our training. The one 
 need here is to have keen ears, and keen eyes, 
 and a sensitiveness to the evil one's presence 
 and touch. With these it is very important to 
 cultivate a simple common sense, a good poise 
 of judgment. We don't want to move from 
 
The Tempter's Disguises 227 
 
 Faith Street, on the top of the hill, down into 
 Queer Street on the slope. 
 
 The great thing here is ears trained to dis- 
 tinguish between the Master's voice and the 
 tempter's. Our Lord said, '' My sheep hear my 
 voice." ^ That word " hear " means recognize. 
 The sheep were trained, by constant contact with 
 the shepherd, to recognize his voice, and to know 
 at once the voice of the pretending thief. We 
 are to be trained to recognize our Master's voice, 
 and to know quickly that other voice that tries 
 to deceive us by imitating His. How shall we 
 get this faculty of quick and sure recognition? 
 
 There are three simple, essentials here. They 
 can be put very simply, and briefly, because they 
 have been spoken of before in these Talks. The 
 first is the act of surrender to the mastery of 
 the Master. That is made a practical thing 
 by the habit of yielding the life to Him, as each 
 day brings new light. Surrendering is turning 
 every last ragged remnant of the evil one, how- 
 ever disguised, out of doors. So only can there 
 come clear keen eyes and ears for his approach. 
 Any unsurrendered bit confuses both eyes and 
 ears. It blurs the moral sense. 
 
 The second essential is in the daily quiet 
 time, alone with the Master, over His Word. 
 It must be daily. It must be with the Word it- 
 self. It must be quiet, unhurried, unflurried 
 *John X. 22- 
 
228 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 time. It must be with the door shut, the outer 
 things shut out, and one's self shut in with the 
 Master. So the mind becomes informed. So 
 the judgment is enHghtened and moulded. So 
 the whole being becomes saturated with God's 
 truth. Through all of this there comes the sensi- 
 ble poised judgment. 
 
 The purpose here is not the Book itself, though 
 it has the central place. It is not even for 
 prayer, though that will have an absorbing place. 
 It is that through the Book, and by means of 
 the prayer, we shall come into direct touch with 
 the Lord Jesus Himself. So the Book shall be 
 enlightened to us. So prayer shall be a real 
 talking with Himself. The Book itself trains 
 the judgment. The direct touch with the Master 
 trains the spirit. 
 
 The third essential is habitual obedience to 
 the Spirit's voice as He speaks to your inner- 
 most heart through His Word. Obedience has 
 a most direct influence on ears and eyes and 
 spirit. If you obey, your spirit senses become 
 keener, and more accurate. If you disobey, or 
 fail to obey, in something about which you are 
 clear, at once ears and eyes and spirit begin to 
 get confused. Failure to obey dulls and deafens 
 the ears. Listening to what we know is true, 
 but what we won't obey, is ruinous to the 
 hearing/ 
 
 * Isaiah vi. 9-13. 
 
The Tempter's Disguises 229 
 
 Mark most keenly that the whole purpose here 
 is to get trained spirit senses, so as to recog- 
 nize surely God's voice, and to detect just as 
 surely the imitation voice that comes. These 
 three things act directly upon the spirit senses. 
 
 The ''How" of Detection. 
 
 Then there's a second " how " of detection. 
 There are certain Satanic ear-marks by which 
 his presence can be detected. And with those 
 I want to group certain contrasted marks of 
 God's presence. First is this: the tempter al- 
 ways suggests doubt of God's love. The sug- 
 gestion m.ay come direct. Or, it may come so 
 subtly that at first you don't think of it in that 
 way. But as you notice keenly you find the prac- 
 tical effect is to make you hold back because of 
 an element of doubt about God. In contrast 
 with this, God's touch always brings a quiet, 
 confiding sense of trust in Himself. 
 
 A second sure ear-mark is that his suggestion 
 is always essentially selfish. It may not seem 
 so on the surface. But if, when sifted down, 
 it proves to be so, it may safely be put to the 
 tempter's account. He is very subtle here. The 
 suggestion to our Lord behind Peter's objection, 
 behind the Greeks' request, and behind the 
 bread-filled multitudes, was the same — namely, 
 that so He could be saved from the suffering 
 
230 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 otherwise involved. In contrast with this, God's 
 touch always gives a passion for Himself. And 
 that passion pushes self clear out, so far as 
 it may hinder God's plan. 
 
 A third ear-mark: the tempter is apt to be in 
 a hurry. He may at times worry you by a slow, 
 dragging process when that suits his purposes. 
 But he is more likely to try to rush you off your 
 feet with a sudden quick movement. He showed 
 our Lord all the kingdoms of the world " in a 
 moment of time." ' That may be conceded to 
 be pretty swift work. He is fond of sudden 
 moves and of rushing tactics. The serpent's 
 voice in Eden kept egging Eve on to action. In 
 contrast with this, note that God never moves 
 in a hurry. He may move swiftly, but never 
 hurriedly nor hastily. There's a quiet steady 
 on-moving when He is guiding. 
 
 Close up to that comes this fourth ear-mark: 
 the tempter's suggestions are apt to make one 
 feverish. This is a sure test for ambitious plans. 
 Any trace or taint of fever produced is a pretty 
 sure indication of the tempter's presence. In 
 sharp contrast with this, God's touch always 
 makes us quiet and clear and deliberate. Our 
 Master's touch still has the same power and ef- 
 fect as when He touched the hand of Peter's 
 wife's mother; the fever leaves. 
 
 A fifth ear-mark: the tempter is fond of flat- 
 * Luke iv. 5. 
 
The Tempter's Disguises 231 
 
 taring you. There was the touch of flattery in 
 the Wilderness suggestion that our Lord make 
 bread out of the stones. He could make bread 
 out of stones, had He been so led. Such a re- 
 minder of one's power has the touch of flattery 
 in it. This is a sure ear-mark. It never fails 
 to tell his presence. In contrast with this, note 
 that the Holy Spirit never flatters. He may lead 
 us to recognize properly what strength we have, 
 or what gifts we have been entrusted with. But 
 with that is always the reminding sense that 
 these are from God, and are to be used as a 
 trust, and farther that they are not used up to 
 their best possible limit save as they are played 
 upon, and permeated by His Spirit. 
 
 Then the tempter has rare power of produc- 
 ing a sense of fear. He makes us afraid. We 
 hold back because of a sense of dread. Much 
 has already been said of this. The fear that is 
 afraid is a sure index finger pointing to the 
 unseen tempter or one of his subs. Contrasted 
 with this is the fact, just as sure, that God's 
 touch and voice bring a sense of quiet confi- 
 dence in Him. His presence recognized brings 
 a touch of awe, always, but never of fear. When 
 He speaks we are willing to undertake the im- 
 possible, to dare and to endure, with equal con- 
 fidence in the outcome. 
 
 Another unfailing ear-mark of the tempter's 
 presence is a sense of depression, either mental 
 
232 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 or of spirit. There may be much depression of 
 this sort due to over-tired nerves. And then, 
 simple food, fresh air, enough sleep and exer- 
 cise, and the grip of a strong purpose, will play 
 a big part in straightening out. But depression 
 is one of the sure ear-marks of the tempter's at- 
 tack, especially with earnest, godly people. But 
 when God's presence has sweep there is peace 
 and joy. These are characteristic of Him. " The 
 fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace. . . ."* 
 
 The last ear-mark to be spoken of here is 
 one that should be noted keenly, and emphasized 
 much. The tempter is fond of extremes. He 
 pushes things out of their right relations. A 
 right thing pushed out of its right place is quite 
 apt to become a wrong thing. He likes the pen- 
 dulum swing, first this extreme, then the very 
 opposite. Truth out of right relation becomes 
 error. Truth is fact held in right relation with 
 the whole circle of related truth. The great 
 theological controversies that have split the 
 Church of Christ up so sorely have been largely 
 due to an undue emphasis upon some phase of 
 truth, pushed out of its due relation to other 
 truth. And they have usually been settled by 
 the same sort of undue emphasis. The creeds 
 of Christendom bear witness to this. 
 
 The precious Cross of Christ through which 
 we are saved can be degenerated into a mere 
 *Galatians v. 22. 
 
The Tempter^s Disguises 233 
 
 superstitious fetish. The blessed teaching of 
 our Lord's second coming can be pushed to 
 the extreme of calendar making, and of white- 
 robed people waiting up all night on the top 
 of some hill. And so the sweet truth itself is 
 brought into contempt. Error is flashy and 
 spectacular and erratic. Truth loves the quiet 
 Quaker garb and speech. In contrast with this, 
 it is worthy of special emphasis that the Holy 
 Spirit is a spirit of sanity. No one is so poised 
 and sane in his judgment and actions as the 
 man who is swayed by the Spirit of God. 
 
 These are some of the ear-marks by which 
 the tempter's suggestion may be tested. Yet, 
 remem.ber, we are not to be going about eyeing 
 suspiciously everybody we meet. Let us quietly, 
 steadily go on the way the Master points out 
 for us, with our face ever turned toward His, 
 our hearts ever in tune with His own, and our 
 hands stretched out in glad, warm service among 
 the needy. And the Master will guide us safely 
 past snares as we keep close to Him, and push 
 on in His way. 
 
AUTHORITY TO TAKE POSSES- 
 SION OF WHAT HAS BEEN EE- 
 DEEMED FROM THE ENEMY 
 
 A New Spelling. 
 
 The defeat of the enemy gives a new power 
 to prayer. The victory of our Lord Jesus gives 
 a new meaning to prayer. That newness of 
 power and meaning can best be told by a new 
 spelling of the word '' ask." *' Ask '* is one of 
 the great Scripture keywords for prayer. 
 
 Six times over on that night in which He 
 was so basely betrayed, our Lord used that word 
 " ask " in talking with the inner circle. " What- 
 soever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do.'* 
 " If ye shall ask anything in My name, that will 
 I do." '' If ye abide in Me, and My words abide 
 in you, ask." " Ye did not choose Me, but I 
 chose you, and appointed you, that ye should go 
 and bear fruit, and that your fruit should 
 abide ; that whatsoever ye shall ask." " If ye 
 shall ask anything." " Ye shall ask in My 
 name." ^ 
 
 Now, there is a new spelling of that little 
 
 * John xiv. 13, 14; XV. 7, 16; xvi. 23, 26. 
 234 
 
Redeemed from the Enemy 235 
 
 word. It is given to us by our Lord Jesus. It 
 is not spoken by His lips, but spelled out for 
 us by what He did in defeating the tempter. It 
 is of immense importance to us that we get this 
 new spelling clearly in our minds and hearts. 
 For if we do it will mean new praying, and 
 greater results in our praying. 
 
 The new spelling is t-a-k-e. That is the Mas- 
 ter's spelling. It is the spelling of His life, and 
 of His Calvary death, and of that great Third 
 Morning after. That new spelling puts the 
 whole matter of prayer in a new light, the bright 
 light of our Lord's victory. The old spelling 
 is a-s-k. The difference between the two is 
 sharply marked. We usually think of " ask " 
 in connection with a favour which we desire. It 
 may be granted. We hope it will be. But with 
 it, whether rightly or wrongly, goes the impres- 
 sion of pleading, and persistent repetition. 
 Coupled with that is earnest desire and longing, 
 and also an element of uncertainty, which we 
 attempt, more or less, to get rid of. 
 
 The word '' take " suggests at once that the 
 thing in question belongs to you by right, rather 
 than as a favour you are desiring. It sup- 
 poses that we have a real right to this thing 
 we are wanting to get possession of. It is ours 
 in fact, though not ours in actual possession; 
 so we reach out a hand to grasp it, and so to 
 know by the feel that we have it. " Take " 
 
236 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 suggests a check presented at the teller's counter 
 of a bank where you have deposited funds. The 
 check becomes a demand. You call for what 
 is your own. 
 
 If it be true that we may properly get some- 
 thing of this sort into our praying it will surely 
 make a great difference in our prayers, and in 
 the spirit of confidence with which we will pray. 
 May we indeed use this word " take " where 
 we have been using " ask " ? 
 
 Five Facts. 
 
 Well, there are five simple facts which, I 
 think, will make it quite clear that we may, and 
 if we may surely we should, and surely we will. 
 The first link in the chain is this: when God 
 made man in His own image He gave him mas- 
 tery over the earth." He was made God's under- 
 master over all the creation, and over all the 
 forces of nature. Man was created a prince. 
 He was born to rule. That was God's wondrous 
 love-plan for man. 
 
 The second bit to note is that man lost that 
 mastery through disobedience. It is a primary 
 law in God's world that what He gives is held 
 only through obedience. Disobedience demits 
 the title. Possession is kept only through full 
 obedience to the trust-deed. That is an abso- 
 ^ Genesis i. 26-28; Psalm viii. 4-8 
 
Redeemed from the Enemy 237 
 
 lute law of holding what has been given to us 
 by God. Obedience keepeth the title intact; dis- 
 obedience breaks it at once. Man was subtly 
 tempted to disobey. This was the tempter's 
 whole thought. Man yielded. He disobeyed. 
 In that he lost title to the dominion with which 
 he had been endowed. Instead of being a mas- 
 ter over the earth, he has been, in the main, a 
 slave upon the earth. 
 
 The third link is this: man transferred that 
 mastery or dominion to the one to whom he 
 yielded obedience. He obeyed the evil one. In 
 that obedience he became his vassal, his slave. 
 " His servants ye are whom ye obey." ' Our 
 Lord speaks of the tempter as the " prince of 
 this world." But we do well to remember just 
 what that means. He is the prince, but not the 
 rightful prince. He himself has been untrue to 
 God, and so lost his title to what was given him. 
 He is a traitor-prince. He deceived man into 
 that initial act of obedience to himself, and dis- 
 obedience to God. So he became a usurper- 
 prince. But the word " prince " stands out in 
 both combinations. Though he is a traitor- 
 prince, and a usurper-prince, he is still prince 
 of this world. Man's obedience to him gave him 
 an actual hold, and a strong hold too, upon this 
 earth, and all of its life. 
 
 The fourth fact lets in a bit of glad, golden 
 * Romans vi. 16. 
 
238 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 light. The Lord Jesus came. He was given 
 the mastery of the earth, and of all things, down 
 here, all afresh, by the Father, even as Adam 
 had been. He Himself said '' all things have 
 been delivered unto me of My Father." ' That 
 truth is repeated over three times in John's 
 Gospel.* He was the new Master of all 
 things down here. But He could hold His 
 mastery only by obedience. He was not an 
 exception to this law of title-holding. He 
 could not be. Obedience is an inherent law 
 of life. 
 
 The great fact about our Lord that stands 
 out in brightest light is that He was obedient. 
 This was the touchstone of all His life. He 
 obeyed,* even unto death, aye, the worst sort 
 of death, that of the Cross. Without question 
 the one thing the tempter aimed at all those 
 thirty-odd years was to make obedience by Jesus 
 just as hard as possible, in the hope of diverting 
 Him from that narrow path. But our Lord re- 
 mained true. He held the title to all things by 
 His perfect obedience. 
 
 Then when He went back home again that 
 title was confirmed to Him. He was seated 
 " far above all rule, and authority, and power, 
 and every name that is named not only in this 
 
 * Matthew xi. 27. 
 
 'John iii. 35; xiii. 3; xvii. 2. 
 
 •Philippians ii. 8; Hebrews v. 8; Romans v. ig. 
 
Redeemed from the Enemy 239 
 
 world, but also in that which is to come." * Mas- 
 tery over all things pertaining to the earth was 
 given Him by the Father. It was held by Him 
 through perfect obedience. It was confirmed to 
 Him on His return home. That's the fourth 
 great link in this " take " chain. 
 
 And the fifth is this : He did all of this on our 
 account. It was because we failed that He came. 
 He did what we failed in. In all that He did 
 He was acting in our stead. We love to talk 
 of our Lord Jesus as our Substitute. When He 
 climbed the Hill of the Cross, and poured out 
 His life unto death, He was acting in our place. 
 He was our Substitute, bearing the full brunt 
 of our sin. Through Him, and His precious 
 blood, we are set free. But I think, we do not 
 use that word " Substitute " as much as we 
 should. 
 
 Authorized. 
 
 He was a three-fold Substitute. First, in His 
 life, by His perfect obedience in Nazareth, and 
 on to the end of His life. He was our Substi- 
 tute there. We failed in obedience. He obeyed 
 perfectly in our place. Then on the Cross He 
 was our Substitute, bearing the shame and death 
 that belonged to us. And then on the Resurr^c- 
 
 ^^ ^Ephesians i. 20-22; Philippians ii. 8-1 1; Colossians 
 ii. 10; I Peter iii. 22. 
 
240 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 tion morning, He was still acting for us when 
 He arose. In all of this He was acting on our 
 behalf. 
 
 I used to wonder in my ignorance why our 
 Lord did not finish up at once the whole con- 
 flict with the evil one. Why should Satan have 
 been left free for these two thousand years? 
 Why was he not put finally out of the way when 
 once he had been so disastrously defeated? 
 Well, the answer, after all, is a very simple one, 
 and goes at once to the core of what we are 
 talking about. If our Lord had been acting on 
 His own account simply, and only, the conflict 
 zvotild have been closed up at once, and the de- 
 feated never able to do more. 
 
 But our Lord was not acting for Himself. 
 He was acting for us. And there is something 
 for us to do in settling the conflict. We must 
 accept as our own what was done for us. We 
 must step in and take possession of what had 
 been our own originally, and what is now won 
 back for us. Our Master practically says, 
 " Take possession of what I have redeemed, 
 what I have bought back for you." 
 
 Do you remember that marvellous statement 
 of His in the tenth chapter of Luke ? ' That 
 is a passage that ought to be marked in our 
 Bibles in red, or in gold, or any way that will 
 make it stand out big and plain to our eyes. 
 *Luke X. 18-19. 
 
Redeemed from the Enemy 241 
 
 Listen to it prayerfully, that its tremendous 
 meaning may come home to our innermost 
 hearts. "Behold, I have given you authority 
 to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over 
 all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall 
 in any wise hurt you." And in the midst of 
 the glad rejoicing that such words must bring 
 He adds that our chief rejoicing is to be over 
 what He has done for us. It is all of His won- 
 drous grace that we have such wondrous power. 
 
 Now, we should use this authority given to 
 us; use it in Jesus' great Name; use it as the 
 Holy Spirit guides; use it as the need comes 
 in our lives, and in the opposition that is 
 aroused by service. We have authority to take 
 from the enemy everything he is holding back. 
 The chief way of taking is by prayer, and by 
 whatever action prayer leads us to. The cry 
 that should be ringing out to-day is this great 
 cry of " Take, in Jesus' great Name." 
 
 In my Master's Name I would speak out this 
 message of His all anew to every follower of 
 His in any need or stress. To those out on the 
 far-flung, thin, red firing line of the foreign 
 mission-field, in the midst of Africa's savagery, 
 of China's opposition and apathy, of India's cry- 
 ing need, to those in the midst of London's 
 slums and streets, in the thick and drive of New 
 York's push and scramble ; to any one and every 
 one, wherever the stress of sin and of need is 
 
242 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 being felt. This is His message to you to-day. 
 Listen keenly, *' I, Jesus, have given you author- 
 ity over all the power of the enemy. I have 
 the authority. I have won it by my own life- 
 blood. I won it for you. I give it to you. Use 
 it in my name. Greater works shall ye do be- 
 cause I am with the Father in the place of 
 authority, and you shall act in my place even as 
 I acted in your place." 
 
 Take Possession. 
 
 This is the word that needs sounding out most 
 clearly everywhere to-day. Use the authority 
 the Master has given you. Take whatever is 
 needed in His holy service. *' Every place that 
 the sole of your foot shall tread upon, to you 
 have I given it." ^ Take what the Master has 
 brought back for us. Asking means taking. It 
 doesn't mean pleading with God as though to 
 persuade Him. He is more eager than we. It 
 means claiming as our very own whatever is 
 needed. It means taking possession by faith of 
 what our great Captain has won back for us. 
 
 The last message of our Lord's lips, on Olivet, 
 fits in here with peculiar power. Listen : " All 
 authority hath been given unto Me in heaven 
 and on earth. Go ye therefore." * That little 
 
 ^Joshua i. 3. 
 2 Matthew xxviii. 18, 19. 
 
Redeemed from the Enemy 243' 
 
 preposition " on " in " on the earth " could ac- 
 curately be made to read " over." He has been 
 given all authority on the earth and over the 
 earth. It is because of that authority that we 
 are bidden to " go." We go because of His 
 authority. We go authorized as His plenipoten- 
 tiaries. That " go " underlies all Christian serv- 
 ice. As we '' go " we will need not only 
 power but authority, for every step of our 
 ongoing is contested. In that authority we 
 are to go, and to take what is our rightful 
 possession, in the Name of our Substitute- 
 Victor. 
 
 As your service leads you on to a bit of 
 ground that is held by the forces of evil re- 
 member this; that bit of ground belongs to man, 
 to be held by him for God. It has been lost 
 through disobedience. But it has been won back 
 by the Victor. You have the right to step in 
 and say, " I take, in the name of the Lord Jesus, 
 I take this bit of the earth back for Him ; I take 
 the life of this man, and this man, for whom 
 my Master gave His blood." 
 
 But — but the taking must be as deep as your 
 life; it must be as intense as the opposition. 
 Satan is a stiff fighter; he doesn't yield except 
 what he must. The taking must be definite. 
 Prayer must always be definite. He does not 
 yield until he must. He is a stubborn fighter. 
 Prayer must be persistent. The taking must 
 
244 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 be as insistent as the enemy is persistent, 
 and just a bit more; and there's where 
 the fight comes. The man whom you are 
 trying to win for God, maybe in London, maybe 
 your loved one, maybe in North Africa or South 
 Africa, wherever he is — that man whom you 
 would have come to Jesus Christ, he belongs to 
 Him through His victory. You take him, in 
 Jesus Christ the Victor's name, and insist on 
 taking, and the rest will always come. The new 
 spelling, the Calvary spelling of '" ask " is 
 T-A-K-E, take, in Jesus Christ the Victor's 
 name. 
 
 This brings to us all anew with fresh force 
 the old fact that our Lord gave us the right to 
 use His name. He could have done no greater 
 thing. Using His Name is, in effect, acting as 
 Himself, clothed with all of His power. But 
 it is a serious thing to use that Name. Every 
 one may not use it. Only those who have ac- 
 cepted His invitation into the inner circle with 
 Himself may use it. You remember the men 
 in that Ephesus story in the nineteenth chapter 
 of Acts. They tried to use that name for their 
 own selfish purposes. And the evil spirits 
 leaped upon them and left them wounded and 
 bleeding. The demon world knows full well 
 about that Name, and its great power. It is 
 feared there. And they know, too, who may 
 use it. 
 
Redeemed from the Enemy 245 
 
 If you will turn to that last long talk* in 
 which the Master gave us the right to use His 
 name, you will find certain words occurring re- 
 peatedly. The words " love " and " obey " and 
 " abide " underlie the right to use the Name. 
 Love obeys. It loves to obey. Love abides. 
 The other way of spelling abide is o-b-e-y. The 
 other way of spelling love is o-b-e-y. Obedi- 
 ence is the clear title to the right to use that 
 Name — the obedience of love. Obey as fully 
 and gladly as an obedient child obeys. Hold the 
 whole life open to the Master's touch and con- 
 trol. Then you may ask what you will. You 
 may take what you choose. And the usurper 
 will loosen his hold, slowly, angrily, but surely, 
 and you shall have in actual possession what you 
 have '' taken " by faith. 
 
 Faith that Discerns. 
 
 And that word " faith " ought to have an- 
 other word, too. It will help us to remember 
 just what faith is, in practical effect. Faith is 
 knowing that our Lord Jesus is Victor. That 
 is to say, it is not thinking about how much faith 
 you have. It is thinking about Him. And it 
 is not thinking so much about what He will do. 
 It is thinking most about what He has done. 
 Jesus Christ is Victor. Faith is depending on 
 *John xiv.-xvi. 
 
246 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 that, or, better yet, on Him. It is not working 
 up your feelings, and saying, ** I must believe " ; 
 not that. It is simply fixing my whole thought 
 on Jesus, the Victor. There He is on the throne. 
 That scarred, crowned, enthroned Lord Jesus — 
 I have no doubt about Him. That is faith — 
 looking to Him, resting on what He is, and what 
 he has done. 
 
 There's still another simple word to put in 
 here that we may keep things in poise. A " tak- 
 ing " faith is a discerning faith. Those words 
 " obey " and " abide " point to the close touch 
 with the Master that lets us know what His 
 plans are. The daily study of His Word reveals 
 to us His will, and trains us to discern what His 
 particular will is under the circumstance where 
 you must act. Abiding makes us keen to know 
 what we may take. The whole purpose under- 
 neath everything is to get His great loving will 
 done. There must be a clear eye before there 
 can be a taking hand. 
 
 As I step quietly on, under the gracious guid- 
 ance of His Spirit, I am to '* take " what I will, 
 in His Name — Hfe after life, man after man, 
 gold after gold, strength renewed constantly for 
 new work, anything and everything that is 
 needed, and that should be in His service. And 
 because He is Victor, every hindrance must go, 
 and will go, before the man who presses for- 
 ward where He leads in His Name. 
 
Redeemed from the Enemy 247 
 
 Power in the Name. 
 
 Recently I was up in Sweden. Sitting across 
 the table from me was a missionary from North 
 Africa, from Tunis. One day she told us this 
 story. She had a friend, a sister missionary in 
 Algiers. And this sister missionary told her of 
 an Arab woman whom she had won to Christ. 
 The Arab woman was a Mohammedan, with all 
 the fanaticism, ignorance and superstition that 
 marks that strange Mohammedan belief or su- 
 perstition. This woman was won for Christ. 
 Her family did their best to sway her from her 
 new faith. They coaxed, pleaded, argued, 
 threatened, made her life miserable, but she 
 showed the quality of her faith by her firm, quiet 
 stand. She could not be moved. She knew she 
 was right. 
 
 Then they did what is characteristic of that 
 people, they concocted a poison, very subtle, very 
 deadly, and put it into her food, of course se- 
 cretly. When she had eaten the meal in which 
 the poison had been introduced, she knew 
 quickly what had taken place. She felt the 
 poison. She knew full well about the poison, 
 how deadly it was. She knew the habit of her 
 people. As she felt the thing in her blood, she 
 knew instantly what had happened. And she 
 knew this, that through the poison she was 
 doomed to death. She knew it. You can fancy 
 
248 Quiet Talks about the Tempter 
 
 just how she felt as the poison worked. It 
 would make one very irritable and mean in 
 spirit, then very dull in mind, then it would af- 
 fect the mind still more, and then the body, until 
 death would come. That was the course it usu- 
 ally ran. And she was greatly startled and 
 greatly distressed, and didn't know what to do. 
 
 As she sat at the table, I think without plan- 
 ning it, she commenced to repeat the Name, the 
 great Name. She could not repeat it aloud, for 
 that would mean persecution by those around 
 her. And so to herself, with all the intensity of 
 one w^ho felt the sentence of death in her body, 
 she commenced to repeat that marvellous Name 
 above every name, " Jesus ! Jesus!! Jesus ! ! ! " 
 For two days or three, my friend was not sure 
 which, that went on, and the poison gradually 
 receded from the woman's body, from her 
 blood, while the family watched her with strange 
 eyes. This was something new. The poison had 
 never failed before. But it was failing. 
 
 And as she herself told the story to the mis- 
 sionary, she said, " I felt as though each time 
 I said that Name it was like a wave of life 
 coming in ; and in between like a wave of death." 
 And the conflict between life and death went on 
 for those days, but the death becoming less and 
 the life more, until at the end of the second day 
 or the third, she was free, to their utter aston- 
 ishment, and to her own great joy. 
 
Redeemed from the Enemy 249 
 
 That was a victory in the body, a possible 
 thing as the Holy Spirit guides. But it is only 
 a bit of the larger possibility. We have the 
 right, as we are obedient, to use that Name. As 
 we do use it, under the Holy Spirit's guidance, 
 going step by step as He leads, we may take out 
 of the hand of the evil one, men, and women, 
 and property, and gold, and all that we need, 
 because the Lord Jesus has said — " All author- 
 ity hath been given unto me over all the earth." 
 Shall we go out and take, in Jesus' Name, what 
 belongs to us by the right of His death and 
 resurrection ? 
 
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