CONFLICT

CONFLICT

It is not wickedness to be harassed by bad thoughts if you resist them. It is Satan’s effort to get you to adopt them, and thus you are sifted. You will find, if you keep near the Lord, that you are more established after an assault of the kind than you were before; and the only way to combat Satan’s attacks is by the word; therefore you must not trust to some one passage only, but you must keep reading the scriptures, and the word which helps you will strike home. If Satan can get you to become indifferent to these assaults, then they will lead you to great damage; but if, on the contrary, they urge you to be more dependent on the Lord Himself and on His word, they will eventually cease, and you will be settled. “After that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you” (1 Peter 5: 10).

I give you an interesting study: the ‘law of the war’. Those who went to battle had to divide with those who remained at home — share and share alike. See 1 Samuel 30: 24. Was that fair? But those who went to battle gave of their acquisitions, one out of five hundred to the priests; while those who were at home had to give one out of fifty (ten times more!) to the Levites. The truth you acquire in battle — in conflict, you must share with others, but your share will carry you to the priest, while the share of the non-combatant will only carry him to the Levite.