THE TEMPTER: HIS CHARACTERISTICS AND METHODS
I. _Satan, the Deceiver_
The foremost characteristic of Satan is that which marks him as a
Deceiver. It was by deceit that he brought death into the world and
all our woe. Our first mother was "beguiled through his subtilty,"[1]
and "being deceived, was in the transgression."[2] Our Lord declares
him to be the father of lies,[3] and the constant apostolic warning is
against his falsehood and deceit. He secures the active allegiance of
men by "blinding the minds of them which believe not";[4] he is able to
lead astray God's people by being "transformed into an angel of
light,"[5] and through his wiles and lying wonders he seeks "to seduce,
if it were possible, even the elect."[6] So we are taught to watch and
pray "lest the devil find room to deceive, who never sleeps, but goes
about seeking whom he may devour."[7]
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Nevertheless there is great consolation in the fact that his chief
weapon is deceit. By using it he bears his testimony that, though we
be far gone from righteousness, yet, should we be permitted to see
clearly, truth rather than error would appeal to us.
No man chooses evil for evil's sake.[8] Before he makes such a choice
he is deceived into thinking either that the thing is good, or that
under the particular circumstances it is right for him to make what,
under other conditions, would be a sinful choice. Thus, much of the
sin we commit comes from making ourselves an exception to rules which
we ourselves acknowledge, and it has been said that such action is of
the very essence of immorality.
One of Satan's favourite deceptions is practised upon us in regard to
himself. It has been well said that Satan's master-stroke in these
latter times is his policy of persuading men that he himself has no
existence. If an army disbelieves in the existence of an enemy, no
guard will be kept, and it will be easily surprised and overcome.[9]
{30} So we may be sure that those who deny the personality of Satan
will sooner or later be his captives. Knowing this he operates as
hiddenly as possible.
How different is his plan of warfare from what it was two thousand
years ago. Men believed in him then, and he fought them in the open.
Now they question his existence, and he goes softly lest they should
discover their error through his too manifest activity. In our Lord's
time, for example, demoniacal manifestation was common; it is rarely
heard of now. Satan does not care to be too much in evidence. He
encourages us to think lightly of him that we may all the more surely
fall into his snares.
Here we see the evidence of his absolute devotion to his cause. Wiser
in his generation than the children of light,[10] he is willing to be
effaced if thereby the glory of the kingdom of hell can be enhanced.
We often mar what we do for God by conspicuously claiming the credit;
he asks for no credit if only the result redounds to his power.
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II. _The Fact of his Personality_
The question of the personality of Satan is one that we must briefly
consider here. Do we believe in a personal devil? The answer to this
question will show what is our attitude towards the spiritual conflict.
We may go further, and say that it will show whether, in the last
analysis, we believe there is any spiritual conflict.[11]
In these days when man is made the measure of all things, both divine
and devilish, we often hear it said that every soul is its own tempter,
that what revelation calls temptation is but the working out of a
so-called "evil principle" that resides by nature in every human
spirit.[12]
Of course, there is a partial truth in this, for {32} when we yield
ourselves to Satan's power by consenting to sin, we then become his
servants, and just as one man often acts as Satan's agent in tempting
another, so, too, we can act as his agent in tempting ourselves. But
it is none the less his personal work though carried out through
another.
To deny the personality of Satan involves one in all manner of denials
of Scripture and Church teaching. Revelation declares that God made
our first parents and pronounced them "very good."[13] Whence then
arose the inherent "principle of evil" that wrought their temptation?
Did God create in them and pronounce "very good" that which asserted
itself so desperately against His will, or did it come from a
personally directed intelligence outside of them?
Again, in the second Adam, if He is indeed the God-man, the Incarnate
Jehovah, whence came His temptation? If it came from some principle
within Him, then just in so far as His temptation was greater than ours
must the evil principle dwelling in Him have been greater; and when we
consider the extent of His temptation we must then conclude that His
human nature had more inherent evil in it than that of any other who
has ever braved the perils of the spiritual conflict.
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Again, the verdict of the Christian experience of all ages has been
that the more nearly men attain to the likeness of Christ, the more
they are tempted. Does then the increase of the Christ-character give
added virulence and strength to the evil that is within?
These illustrations of temptation show that those who reject the
personality of Satan and of his evil angels, and substitute for it the
idea of temptation arising from an evil principle within, are involving
themselves in conclusions which strike at the very fundamentals of
divine revelation concerning God and His relations to man.
III. _His Experience and Wisdom_
One of Satan's most powerful means of warfare lies in his experience in
dealing with the souls of men. We dare not presume to think that we
can oppose or overreach him with any gift of discernment that we have
of ourselves. His experience in this warfare has been age-long. Ours
has covered but a few brief years. His devotion to his cause has been
unflagging, and so, by his strenuous attention to the business in hand,
he has acquired vast stores of knowledge as to methods of temptation.
Our knowledge of attack and resistance is a poor and beggarly thing,
because when God would place us in the school {34} of temptation that
we might learn this military science, we are wanting in devotion to our
cause and miss the numberless opportunities that are offered.
Furthermore, Satan has dealt with millions of souls of the same type as
ours, dealt with them and mastered them. It were the height of folly
for us to imagine that there might be any thing in our nature, or in
our aim and purpose, that he has not met and studied in characters far
stronger than ours. Taken apart from God, there is nothing in us that
can for a moment baffle so powerful and experienced a foe. We can
present no new front to him. Only the infinite strength and variety of
God's grace can supply that which will surely baffle and defeat him.
As we study the history of his dealings with the souls of men we see
not only that he is faithful to his own abominable ideals and aims, and
so acquires great knowledge of the methods which avail against us, but
that he is faithful and methodical in using the experience he has
gained.
He makes the most of what he has. If he discovers that a certain mode
of temptation is effective against men, he wastes neither time nor
force in wandering afield after new things. He works one method
thoroughly, getting out of it {35} all possible dishonour to God,
before seeking new ways and means. He never scatters his force, but is
ever intensifying and concentrating it, daily seeking to perfect more
and more his method of warfare.
Let us see how careful he is to utilize his own tremendous experiences.
Take the first recorded temptation that he brought against man. What
was his course of reasoning in devising it? "I fell through the desire
to be like God," he reflects. "This same temptation will ensnare this
new handiwork of God whom He has made in His own image and likeness."
It was to him unthinkable that any intelligent being should not have
that aspiration, and he approaches our first mother, promising as the
reward of sin, "Ye shall be as gods."[14] His confidence was not
disappointed. The lure attracted, man fell, and sin and death entered
the world.
We note that he again falls back upon his experience in tempting the
second Adam. He hears the Father's voice declare, "Thou art My Beloved
Son,"[15] and immediately he proceeds to test Him. Mark the substance
of his insolent assault. "If thou art the Son of God, prove it,
vindicate your claim. I challenge it. Turn {36} these stones into
bread, and by this miracle show me that you are like God."[16]
This he believed would be the supreme test. His own fall had come
through his ambition; the fall of the human race had its beginning in
the same proud aspiration; and surely, he argued, it would prove
effective against this new opponent of his power as prince of this
world. We know what was the issue of the attempt. No sin could enter
the heart of the Sinless One, and yet He allowed Himself to be thus
tempted that we might find in His example a means of offsetting the
advantage our enemy has in his vast experience with men and their
frailties.
IV. _The Methods of his Might_
Not in a single chapter, nor yet in many chapters, would it be possible
for us to discuss all the forms of the might with which Satan wars
against the servants of God. We must hasten on to the consideration of
some of those that he most commonly employs.
(1) His activity. He never sleeps; he never rests on his arms. What
seem to be pauses in the battle are only intervals he is employing to
study us more carefully, and to plot some more {37} subtle and
ingenious method of attack. Even in moments of defeat he is alert to
recover even the smallest advantage. How often when we have just won
from him some hard-fought battle, and are pausing, as it were, for
breath, our vigilance relaxed ever so little, does he discharge a
Parthian shot of pride in our victory, or of impatience which, if it
does not wound us grievously, at least mars the perfection of the
victory we had secured by God's grace.
(2) His aggression. We are, perhaps, in many instances, ready to use
the opportunities that present themselves to labour for God's glory,
but how salutary a lesson have we to learn from him who, in the
interests of eternal unrighteousness, does not wait for opportunity,
but labours unceasingly to _create_ occasions for the dishonour of our
God. He goes up and down the world "seeking whom he may devour,"[17]
letting nothing slip that can forward his infernal designs.
In furthering the glory of God and the work of the kingdom we count
ourselves to have done well if we have been fairly faithful to the
opportunities that come. We hear much, among even the best of
spiritual teachers, of seizing opportunities of grace, but little is
said of _making_ such opportunities, of watching and labouring, keen
{38} and alert to turn to good account and to God's glory every
circumstance, whether or not it seem in itself to bear the hall-mark of
heaven-sent opportunity.
How much more zealous is Satan in the evil cause! He not only uses
every opportunity that comes, but he counts himself to have done little
unless he has forced occasions for wounding the divine Majesty and
enslaving souls made in the image of God.
(3) His persistency. Though it is within the power of the soul, by a
stout and persistent defence, to discourage Satan in regard to certain
particular temptations, yet in regard to temptation in general he is
never discouraged. However many times we may inflict defeat upon him,
however mighty in battle the soul of saint or sinner may wax, he never
resigns the hope that he may yet secure dominion in the heart in which
God now reigns.
What a frightening suggestion this offers! He who knows us so well,
better than we know ourselves, better than anyone knows us save God and
our Guardian Angel, sees ever in us possibilities of final and eternal
failure. There is always some definite thing in us that buoys up his
hope that he may yet be able to persuade or deceive us into rejecting
the service of God and accepting {39} his. Every time we yield to the
slightest sin or laxity, we encourage and embolden him still more,
until he feels that he can safely attack the soul that but a little
time before he feared. It is thus that we become responsible for our
own temptations, raise up occasions for sin, and give, by our often
deliberate acts, vantage ground and footing to him from which he can
drive home a deadly stroke.
(4) A fourth characteristic is the patience with which he works. He
bides his time. We should naturally think that when he found a soul in
a sinful environment he would immediately use the occasion to lead it
into some serious sin, but by no means does he always take this course.
Often in the most sinful surroundings he does not, for a long time,
allow the sight of sin to suggest participation in it. He waits until
we are accustomed to its presence; until the sense of shock wears off.
He begins by getting us to tolerate the fact of sin about us, for he
knows that any toleration of sin in the general life with which we are
surrounded is a long step towards tolerating it in ourselves.
So he waits with a patience born of a deep-laid plot. He notes that
after a while we see our Lord fearfully dishonoured, and our souls are
not thereby grieved and outraged; that we come {40} and go in a world
where He is being crucified daily, but with a smiling countenance that
masks no broken heart beneath.
Then he begins to insinuate his suggestions to evil. Perhaps the
temptation at first is to some slight sin only, merely venial. He
would not rouse our slumbering conscience by the frightening
temptations to that which is serious. But Satan has no interest in a
soul committing venial sins merely for their own sake. Venial sin
cannot deliver us into his power, and cannot keep us out of heaven.
It is well for us to remember this. Satan cares nothing for venial sin
_per se_. He never tempts a soul to it save as a cunningly laid
preparation for that deadly sin which follows logically upon a long and
reckless course of venial sin; and the soul that deliberately yields to
little temptations is knowingly, wilfully, and deliberately aiding and
abetting the devil in his plan for the supreme dishonour of our God.
So through all these steps the Satanic patience endures. He sees the
soul's sensibilities becoming more and more blunted; the conscience
less and less sensitive. He sees the little act of sin lightly
consented to, then the habit formed. He marks the soul's defences
crumbling, and in a well-chosen hour, subtly and in some familiar {41}
guise, he presents the temptation to the great offence, and his triumph
is complete.
(5) The last characteristic we shall consider is his ready adaptability
to every circumstance that transpires in the midst of the battle. He
cares not how we are tempted, if only our fall can be secured. We, in
our self-will, often desire to serve God in some particular way, and
lose interest when we have to change our method. Satan gives us an
example in this, for he cares not how he fights, if only he can, in
some small measure at least, accomplish God's dishonour. He has no pet
plans to which he clings in a self-willed way. Utterly devoted to his
cause, he feels no reluctance or sense of personal chagrin at having to
give up a certain method he has been using to dishonour God in us. He
gladly and immediately resigns what he finds is not to the purpose.
We see this illustrated in the swiftness with which he shifts the point
of attack, often with great readiness and seeming graciousness
accepting as his own the point of view from which we reject his first
overture.
This is vividly illustrated in his temptation of our Lord in the
wilderness. In response to the first temptation, our Lord shows that
man is not to live by bread alone, not by merely natural means, even
though in themselves they may be {42} good, but that he is to be
sustained by a trust in God. Instantly Satan changes his front. He
takes Him up upon a pinnacle of the temple and delivers the second
temptation, which in substance is this: "You are entirely right. God
must be trusted implicitly and in all things. Now give an evidence of
your trust in Him. Cast yourself down, for it is written--(and here we
see how the devil so completely shifts to our Lord's point of view that
he begins to quote Scripture himself),--'He shall give His angels
charge concerning thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up,
lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone." But the Blessed
One could not be deceived. Again fell the crushing _Scriptum est_, and
again the tempter is vanquished.
As we have just seen in his quotation from Scripture, if it suits his
purpose he will make use of the best and holiest things if only he can
balk God's will,--things which, in themselves, he must fear and hate.
"So he may cozen and deceive thee, he cares not whether it be by truth
or falsehood," says a Kempis.[18] He will try to induce us to go to
church when he knows that in so doing we may be neglecting plain,
God-sent duties at home. He could not possibly desire us to meditate
on holy things, and yet a {43} self-willed meditation, to the neglect
of charity or obedience, is most pleasing to him, and he will incite us
to it, even smoothing the way for us, suggesting to us beautiful and
holy thoughts, and glad to help us with our meditation because he knows
it is being made selfishly, and therefore contrary to the divine will.
V. _The Soul's Safety_
Our assurance of escaping the power of this malignant and tireless foe
lies:
(1) In never parleying or arguing with him. He is far cleverer than we
are, and if we stop to consider his proposals, or to reason about them,
our fate will, sooner or later, be that of our first mother, who,
because she was willing to hear what the tempter had to say, found
herself deceived to her utter undoing. Our only safe course lies in
instant and vigorous rejection of all that he suggests.
(2) But, although we shall see later that it is often wise to ignore
him wholly,[19] our resistance is not to be merely a passive one. We
are to meet point with point, attack with counter-attack. If he is
tirelessly active in his cause, there must be in us a corresponding
activity and zeal for God's {44} service and for the safety of our
souls; a like aggressive spirit, a forcing of circumstances and
conditions, wherever possible, that glory may be won for our King, and
the power of the devil diminished; a like persistency, and equal
alertness, a ready trying of one method, then another; and no matter
what past failures may have been, a continuing the fight, that in the
end we may be worthy of the victory.
If we can learn these lessons, though the strength and prowess of Satan
be an hundred-fold greater than that which human might can own, yet we
shall have no fear of him. On the contrary he will fear us, delivering
his attacks warily, lest he find his power shattered by the weapons
with which we shall be able to oppose him.
We were considering a little while ago how Satan "walketh about,
seeking whom he may devour."[20] These words of St. Peter have another
significance. True, he goes about with strong and ceaseless
aggression, but he goes about seeking only those whom he _may_ devour.
He does not fall without discretion upon the throngs of men, as the
lion upon the flock. He seeks only those who will, he thinks, in the
end yield themselves to him. He skulks about, hiding himself, seeking,
as we have seen, to blind men to the {45} very fact of his existence,
until he finds opportunity for attack when he thinks the soul will
yield. Some strong souls he does not openly seek, for too often has he
been defeated by them, and he fears to tempt them save in some
insidious, hidden way. In dealing with such souls he loses his
lion-like character, and lies in ambush like the coward who is afraid
to strike save from behind.
A great comfort, therefore, we must draw from the thought that Satan's
career has been one of failure as well as of victory. God's Saints,
following the lead of the King of Saints, have on a thousand
battle-fields trampled him under their feet; and with whatever insolent
confidence he may approach us, it is never without a haunting,
unnerving fear lest the issue be what it has been many times before, a
crushing defeat.
It is not the weak human soul only that trembles at the impending
conflict, but the soul of Satan, so often beaten down and humiliated at
the hands of the weakest of the soldiers of God.
[1] 2 Cor. xi, 3.
[2] 1 Tim. ii, 14.
[3] St. John viii, 44.
[4] 2 Cor. iv, 4.
[5] 2 Cor. xi, 14.
[6] St. Mark xiii, 22.
[7] _Imitation_, I, xiii.
[8] "The soul, from her nature, always relishes good, though it is true
that the soul, blinded by self-love, does not know and discern what is
true good."--St. Catherine of Siena, _Dialogue_, p. 122. (Thorold
Trans., London, 1907.)
[9] "There is something satanic in the contempt and the ridicule with
which men treat Satan. I say it is satanic because it is a Satanic
illusion to make men cease to fear him, or cease even to believe in
him. He is never more completely master of a man than when the man
ridicules his existence,--when, as we hear in these days, men say,
'There is no devil.'"--H. E. Manning, _Sin and Its Consequences_, pp.
168-169.
[10] St. Luke xvi, 8.
[11] It is perhaps best to avoid such expressions as "personality of
evil," lest they be misunderstood. "Evil cannot be personal in or of
itself; it can only obtain the advantages of personal embodiment and
action by being accepted by an already existing creature, endowed with
will,--a creature which freely determines implicitly to accept it by
rejecting good.... In Satan evil has become dominant and fixed as in a
previously existing personal being; there was no such thing in the
universe of the Almighty and All-good God as a self-existing or
originally created devil."--Liddon, _Passiontide Sermons_, p. 95.
[12] "What do they exactly mean by this imposing phrase? How can evil
itself be, strictly speaking, a principle? The essence of evil is
absence of principle, principle being something positive. Evil is
contradiction to positive principle."--Liddon, _Passiontide Sermons_,
p. 88.
[13] Gen. i, 31.
[14] Gen. iii, 5, or rather "as God." The word in the Hebrew is simply
_Elohim_.
[15] St. Mark i, 11.
[16] See Pusey, _Parochial Sermons_, Vol. II, p. 148.
[17] 1 St. Peter v, 8.
[18] _Imitation_, IV, xxx.
[19] See page 142.
[20] 1 St. Peter v, 8.
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