May 7

Satan is not challenging you to a mock battle; this war is a life-or-death struggle. If you do not believe me, look what he has done to God's servants in times past. Charging full speed ahead at many a dear saint, he has battered their armor until the grace of God in them was almost unrecognizable. All this he does when he catches a saint off guard.

Do you remember what happened to Jacob when he unbuckled his girdle of truth and sincerity, and used a trick to get his father's blessing? He got the blessing all right, but he also was repaid in kind when Laban switched Leah for Rachel. Think how much suffering he might have saved himself by keeping his whole armor in place!

What about David? Oh, the battering he took by removing his breastplate of righteousness in the matter of Uriah! He sustained a dreadful wound, being shot right through the heart. And Jonah, when God wanted to send him to Nineveh, got caught without his shoes on. By that I mean he lacked the preparation and readiness with which his mind should have been shod, to have gone at the first call. Then there was poor Hezekiah. He had his helmet of hope knocked askew and so badly dented that he cried, "I shall not see the Lord... in the land of the living" (Isaiah 38:11). Even Abraham had fits of unbelief and distrustful qualms that crept in at some rusty spots in his graces.

This war is a spiritual holocaust. Either you destroy the power of Satan in your life by putting on the whole armor of God and keeping it on, or Satan will destroy you. The great saints of every century have been tried in the fires of temptation. And to a man they have been singed whenever Satan found the smallest chink in their graces. Do not disregard what history has repeatedly shown to be true.

Return to Menu
Previous Devotions