EVER IN ARMOUR
[p. 128] EVER IN ARMOUR
In our course here the armour must never be laid aside. The point in which we have most excelled or triumphed through grace, is the one where we may fail many years after. David began by slaying the Philistine giant; but when he was king and fought against the Philistines, “David waxed faint. And Ishbibenob, which was of the sons of the giant ... being girded with a new sword, thought to have slain David” (2 Samuel 21: 15, 16). The Meribah at the beginning of Moses’ history is very different from the Meribah at the end of it. I think Satan is set on casting us down in the point or deed where we have most triumphed through grace; so that if you know anything in particular, where the Lord has given you power to act for Him in victory over your own nature, there you may look for a continual assault from Satan, in order to undo and counteract what the grace of God has enabled you to do to His praise. Satan never forgets a defeat, and his vengeance is not directed against us so much in general, as with regard to the particular occasions in which he has been defeated.
As a rule God humbles us either in our health, or in our circumstances, before He exalts us; at least before honour is humility, and this casts us on Him, and prepares us for the favour which He confers; for if not, there will be a defeat immediately after a success. If Satan has been foiled in one instance, he spoils what he cannot prevent, unless one is sensibly humbled after the victory itself. This was why there was need of the thorn in the flesh to Paul. Jacob was crippled before the blessing, Paul after it. The before prepares me for it, the after saves me from malice of Satan. The greater the victory any one has had, the more he needs to be dependent on God to save him from Satan; because Satan is more set against him, and in the particular point where he has been defeated, than against another.
[p. 129] Satan is more against Job than other men at the time, and Job’s success only exasperated him the more. To make him fail where he had succeeded was the great effort of Satan. I feel this constantly myself, and the assault comes round just as winter comes, and the soul like a tender plant is tried again and again. A dozen winters are not sufficient to test the power of endurance in the plant, but year after year the chilling cold sets in, and the question arises, Will it die or survive? These are the exercises we have to go through; and through mercy the finest summer succeeds the bitterest winter, though it is also true the coldest winter succeeds the hottest summer.
You may be like David - a king in comparison to what you were in other days, I mean as to progress and power in truth, and yet like him be in danger of being slain by the giant; or, like Moses, you may be more in the sight of the land than at the beginning of your course and get debarred by failure from entering in; for neither height nor light secures us against the malice of Satan, who seeks to cast us down from our excellency.