IN THE HOUR OF BATTLE
"Like as the children of Ephraim, who being harnessed and bearing bows,
turned themselves back in the day of battle."[1] Thus does the
Psalmist recall a day of shame and humiliation in the history of God's
people. Well prepared for the battle, with every hope of victory
before them, the children of Ephraim failed in the hour when they faced
the enemy.
Thus has it been with many souls in the spiritual warfare. We may be
forewarned, we may be armed with the manifold gifts of the Spirit, and
yet fail, for the preparation is not everything. When in the actual
presence of the foe, the soul must smite boldly and well. The weapons
God supplies must be used. Not to use a grace is to lose a grace.
I. _Realizing God's Friendship_
It is easy to find theories of opposing temptation; but often hard to
apply them in the actual {129} moment of the assault. The cause lies
in the fact that we do not realize our relation to God. God is our
friend; and we must think of Him in the ordinary terms of earthly
friendship. The Eternal Son came to earth and was Incarnate, just in
order that we might find in Him an earthly relation, by means of and
through which we might be able to rise up to the heavenly friendship.
So far as mere intellectual knowledge is concerned, we know quite well
what we are to Him, and yet so dull is our appreciation of it that it
is only with painful care that we are able to keep from mortally
offending this good God. We should have slight regard for an earthly
friendship that rested on so precarious a foundation. When shall we
come to that blessed time when our friendship with God will be as
spontaneous in its action, and as free from peril of violation at our
hands, as the friendships we enjoy with those fellow-mortals whose
hearts are knit up with ours in loving earthly friendship!
Before we go on to consider definitely the methods we may profitably
employ when the battle is actually upon us, let us use an illustration
that may help us to grasp very practically just what our relationship
is to God.
You know a man whom you look up to with profound regard and reverence.
Not only this, {130} but his unfailing goodness to you under many and
various conditions has claimed and won your deepest love and gratitude.
This man has an enemy, a despicable character, universally known to be
devoid of every sentiment of common decency and honour, who has for
years scrupled at no means, even the foulest and most contemptible, to
injure the object of his hate. You know these facts to be true, and
have yourself had the misfortune to have many dealings with him, and
have always found that his actions justify the low opinion that all
right-thinking men have of him. One day this creature has the audacity
to approach you, and try deliberately to turn you against your
benefactor, and to induce you to consent to something that would be to
the dishonour and contempt of the one to whom you owe so much. How
long would you listen to him? Do you think you would stop to weigh
calmly the arguments for and against his proposition? Or would you
not, without a moment's hesitation, turn upon him with indignation, and
drive the contemptible creature from your presence, with a sense of
loathing, almost of contamination, that you had been made to listen to
such a suggestion?
We do not have to go far to find a key to the parable. The benefactor
whom we regard with {131} so deep a reverence is our loving heavenly
Father, who has claimed and won our love through the goodness and mercy
with which He has followed us all the days of our life. The enemy
whose age-long efforts have ever been for His dishonour is the devil,
who seeks to make us the instrument by which he would dishonour God.
When illustrated thus, the audacity of the tempter, and the insulting
character of every temptation, are made plain.
This simple parable will surely enable us to grasp the relations
between God and ourselves and Satan, and with this realization fresh
upon us, we can go on to consider some of the special methods we may
use to overcome God's enemy and ours.
II. _The Divine Example of Humility_
It is interesting to note that when our Lord was assailed in the
wilderness by the Tempter, His method of resistance was to turn
immediately to the consideration of His Father's word. He did not
address Himself to the pros and cons of the Satanic suggestion. He
inflicts instant and crushing defeat upon His adversary by turning His
attention, not to the character of the temptation, but straight to the
will of the Father.
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In this our Lord showed by His action what He afterward taught
concerning Himself when He said, "I can of Mine own self do
nothing."[2] His first act in His temptation was to declare His entire
dependence on His Father. So, if in our temptations, we would share
His victory, our method of battle must follow His. The tempted soul
must fling itself instantly upon God in the humblest acknowledgment of
dependence. Much of our failure in the conflict arises from a
forgetfulness of this. How often does the very dread of the sin so
agitate the soul that instead of turning to God, we stand, as it were,
fascinated by the horror of the suggestion, losing precious moments
that should be devoted to flinging open all the channels of
communication with God, that His own strength may flow into us for the
battle. This course of defence is effective in two ways.
(1) First, as regards God. Nothing can so completely open the channels
of communication with Him as an utter abandon of humility in His
presence. Scripture is full of the divine teaching on this point. The
Holy Spirit declares by the great Prophet of the Incarnation, "Thus
saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is
Holy, I dwell in the high {133} and lofty place with him also that is
of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble."[3]
St. James declares, "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the
humble;"[4] and St. Peter, repeating the same teaching, adds this
exhortation, "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God
that He may exalt you in due time."[5]
(2) But not only does this self-abasement in the first moment of
temptation bring down new power from God for the struggle, but it has a
direct and disastrous effect on Satan. Nothing so completely bewilders
him as self-humiliation. He, the very personification of pride, cannot
understand how a soul can for a moment so humble itself. He is
puzzled, nonplussed. He knows not how to proceed. He thought he
understood us; he had studied our lines of defence, and thought he knew
just how to approach and break through them; but this unexpected
manoeuvre shatters his plan of battle. Many a soul that, in the
approach of temptation, has thus flung itself at the feet of God has,
while lying there awaiting the divine word, felt the awful sense of the
Satanic presence pass, and the sickening tug of temptation cease. The
enemy in the face of a situation so far beyond his power of {134}
understanding had made haste to withdraw his attack, lest while thus
fighting in the dark he should meet still more humiliating defeat.
III. _Instant in Prayer_
The humble soul is always the praying soul. The soul that realizes its
dependence will lose no time in calling upon Him on Whom it leans, and
this earnest prayer is the weapon in the warfare, without which certain
overthrow must ensue.
As in the case of humbling ourselves, the use of this weapon is to be
considered in its relation both to God and to Satan.
(1) Its relation to God. We know that prayer for help must of
necessity bring help, because the divine promise is given and repeated
a hundred times in Holy Scripture, that the Lord will hear us in the
day of trouble.[6] It is needless to multiply texts. One word of God
the Eternal Son suffices, "And shall not God avenge His own elect which
cry day and night unto Him, though He bear long with them? I tell you
He will avenge them speedily."[7]
Impossible as it may seem, the prayer of the humble heart can command
the very Godhead. {135} Ascending to the throne of grace in union with
the intercession of Christ, the cry of the hard-pressed child of God
has power to liberate the divine Omnipotence, and set in motion all the
infinite energies of the kingdom which come forth in their
unconquerable might to wage war on our behalf.
This power that the praying soul has over God (we dare use such an
expression with entire freedom) is one of the mysteries of our union
with Him, and since He has given us so repeated a revelation of it, we
can expect nothing of Him if we neglect it.
One or two Scripture passages will make this clear to us. When Israel
rebelled and Moses prayed for them, God's answer was, "Now therefore
let me alone that my wrath may wax hot against them."[8] Why should
the Omnipotent One have spoken thus since none is able to hinder Him or
bind His hands? The Holy Ghost, speaking by the Psalmist ages after,
gives us the meaning when He says: "He said He would have destroyed
them had not Moses, His chosen, stood before Him in the gap."[9] The
wrath of God was paralysed in the face of the prayer of the Saint.
Isaiah, sounding his lament over the lost condition of Israel, says,
"There is none that calleth {136} upon Thy name, that stirreth up
himself to take hold of thee."[10] The Hebrew tongue affords us no
stronger expression than that which the Spirit here inspired the
prophet to use. The meaning is, to lay, as it were, violent hands upon
God, by means of prayer, and with a holy audacity to hold Him back from
launching the thunderbolt of His wrath against the apostate nation.
The expression "stirreth up himself" indicates by a bold rhetorical
stroke the power which the prophet knew such a one would have if he
could be found among the sons of Israel. When used in the Old
Testament it invariably implies the arousing of some mighty force,
which when once awakened would sweep all before it, as when Balaam
prophesied concerning Israel, "He couched, he lay down as a lion, as a
great lion; who shall stir him up?"[11]
Thus in the power of prayer shall we be able to sweep all before us, if
in the hour of temptation we pray with a like holy audacity.
(2) But not only does prayer in the hour of temptation call the power
of God to our succour, but the bare fact that we pray at such a time
completely overreaches Satan. The primary reason {137} of his
temptation is to draw us away from God. If the invariable result of
temptation is thus to draw us the more surely and closely to His feet
in prayer, the tempter will not be slow to realize that he is being
used as the instrument, and his assault as the occasion, of
accomplishing this very thing that his labour is directed against.
When he realizes this, baffled and discouraged, he will have no
alternative but to withdraw.
We must say a word about ejaculatory prayer, for in the hour of
temptation this method of prayer is to be our chief source of strength.
Most frequently, perhaps, in temptation there is no time or occasion
for formal prayer. Our appeal to God in such times must be instant.
These prayers of ejaculation have been described as "short, sharp, and
swift darts [Latin, jaculum, a dart], and desires, shot by our burning
hearts, and reaching heaven in an instant. Our forefathers, the
Saints, frequently used them, for being short, they trouble not the
memory; being fervent, they rouse our dulness and dryness to affection
and devotion; being frequent, they still renew our attention to God's
presence, and put us perpetually in mind of our duties."[12]
To this, it may be added that ejaculatory {138} prayer is apt to be a
measurably perfect prayer, because, being so quickly finished, the
devil has not time to chill its fervour by distractions, such as we
invariably suffer from in longer forms of prayer. Even were it so
disposed, the average mind cannot act with sufficient quickness to
perceive the distraction ere the prayer be finished.
Those who study God's word piously will find numberless prayers in the
very language of the Holy Ghost, which will be most effective in the
moment of danger. The briefer these are, the better. The Psalter is
full of them, and there is no better military exercise for the
Christian soldier than to spend his time when not actually in battle,
in learning as many of them as possible by heart, so that they may be
ready at hand when the battle begins.
Short, quick prayers like the following will be found of great profit:
"O Lord, my God, in Thee have I put my trust; save me from all them
that persecute me, and deliver me."[13]
"Save, Lord, and hear us, O King of Heaven."[14]
"Save me, O God, for Thy Name's sake, and avenge me in Thy
strength."[15]
"Have mercy upon me, O God, after Thy great goodness."[16]
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"Lord, he whom Thou lovest is sick."[17]
"Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks, so longeth my soul after
Thee, O Lord."[18]
"Why art thou so heavy, O my soul, and why art thou so disquieted
within me? O put thy trust in God, for I will yet give Him thanks
which is the help of my countenance and my God."[19]
"O God, Thou art my God, early will I seek Thee."[20]
"Thou, Lord, art my hope."[21]
"O help us against the enemy, for vain is the help of man."[22]
"Out of the deep have I called unto Thee, O Lord; Lord, hear my
voice."[23]
We need not multiply instances of these prayers. Let each one take the
Psalter, the Gospels, and other parts of Scripture, and go over them
for himself, copying them out, committing them to memory in quiet
times, thus filling his quiver full of heaven-tempered darts, the use
of which in time of stress will surely put to flight the audacious
enemy.
It is well to remember in the use of prayer in the moment of
temptation, that the mind must be wholly set upon God. There is real
danger {140} in trying to pray while at the same time our thoughts are
upon the special form of temptation that is being presented. Turn your
back upon it, and cry to God. Think only of Him, His goodness, His
loving protection. The diversion of the mind alone is a victory over
the tempter; and where it is turned from him, and set upon strong and
holy appeals and aspirations, it is not possible but that the enemy
will be driven utterly from our path.
IV. _A Holy Perversity_
Another effective method of resistance is to make a rule of doing, in a
definite and precise way, and instantly if possible, just the contrary
of what Satan is seeking to induce us to do. For instance, he
insinuates into our minds some bitter, resentful, and uncharitable
thought. We know the thought is evil, and we abhor it accordingly, nor
do we give any sort of consent to its presence; but still it is not
easy to crush. Perhaps it is a revival of some old bitterness in
regard to a real wrong done us long ago. We fight hard against it, and
thus save ourselves from sin; but how much shall we add to Satan's
discomfiture, how shall we indeed crown our victory, if, instead of
expending our energy in the merely negative {141} work of refusing
admittance to our hearts of an unloving thought, we proceed to do or
say some loving thing; or at any rate offer a resolution instantly to
God to watch for an opportunity, and, if need be, to go out of our way,
to perform some act of kindness before the day is over.
Or in case of temptation to pride, personal vanity or self-assertion,
to perform some little act of meekness; or when the temptation is to
some form of self-indulgence or selfishness, deliberately to do some
unselfish thing, preferring for our greater self-denial something that
naturally we should not care to do.
A simple illustration will show how discouraging such a course will be
to the tempter. Suppose whenever you had occasion to ask a certain
acquaintance to do something for you, instead of complying with your
request, he did just the contrary thing, and that with a precision and
regularity that gave evidence of a deliberate plan and policy. Suppose
again that this contrary thing was the very act that he knew was most
displeasing to you. How long would you persist in your applications to
him? Surely, not for long. So will it be with Satan. He is far too
intelligent a creature, and knows and serves his own interests all too
faithfully, to continue his efforts long under such conditions.
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V. _Scorning the Tempter_
A most excellent method, which can often, though not always, be
applied, is that of ignoring the tempter. It is a helpful thing in the
Christian warfare to remember always that Satan is the embodiment of
pride. Nothing cuts the proud soul so deeply as being ignored. It can
endure opposition, even defeat, but the thing that is intolerable is to
be taken no account of. So when Satan attacks, in not a few instances,
the resistance that to him will be the most cruel will be to go calmly
on one's way, ignoring him. As St. Francis de Sales says: "You should
not answer, or seem even to hear, what the enemy says. Let him hammer
as he will at the door; do not you even say so much as, Who is
there?... Beware that you never open the door, either to peep out and
see what it is, or to drive away the clamour."[24]
An illustration similar to the one employed in our discussion of
resisting by doing the thing contrary to the temptation will help us
here. Imagine yourself having occasion frequently to apply to a
certain person for a service. Imagine such a person deliberately
ignoring you whenever you spoke, pretending not to hear you, {143}
gazing with feigned absent-mindedness out of the window. Do you think
you would long continue your application to such an one? Indeed you
would not. Pride, even right-minded self-respect, would forbid it; and
you can be sure Satan, acting on the same principle, will soon cease to
annoy you when he finds himself the object of so studied a contempt.
Since the human mind, however, always demands something upon which to
be engaged, we can much more successfully ignore Satan's addresses if
we divert the mind by an act of the will into some totally different
channel. "Temptations," says Walter Hilton, "vex the soul indeed, but
do not harm it, if so be a man despise them and set them at naught; for
it is not good to strive with them, as if thou wouldst cast them out by
mastery and violence, for the more they strive with them, the more they
cleave to them. And therefore they shall do well to divert their
thoughts from them as much as they can, and set them upon some
business."[25]
This diversion of the mind will be all the more effective if it is in
the direction of those holy things which Satan abhors. Therefore "let
us turn our hearts to converse with God, which is better than to
reflect upon our temptations and {144} troubles. Let us be so
attentive to Him, that we have neither leave nor leisure to give ear to
Satanic suggestions."[26]
VI. _Staying not the Hand_
We are told in the Second Book of the Kings[27] that when the prophet
Elisha was fallen sick of the sickness whereof he died, Joash, the King
of Israel, came unto him. The man of God commanded him to take the
arrows and smite upon the ground, whereupon the King, weak in ambition,
and with no vision of God's destiny for him as a national deliverer,
smote thrice upon the ground and stayed. "And the man of God was wroth
with him and said, Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then
hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it." If he who goes
forth to fight for God would utterly consume the enemy, he must seek
the vision of His purpose for him, and if he is truly ambitious of
heavenly honours it is not far to seek.
We can quite safely say that God never predestined any soul barely to
win the victory. He plans high things for all his children, but how
many are there who never attain them because, like the king of Israel,
they are giving Him a {145} spiritless service. They smite thrice with
the arrows of deliverance and stay their hand. They are content to
remain on a low spiritual plane, within the pale of divine grace
indeed, but satisfied with this, and using their further energies for
passing earthly things instead of devoting them with a burning
splendour of enthusiasm to an ever higher service in the kingdom that
shall have no end.
How disappointing are such lives to God! He had meant to promote them
to great honour, and they have no aspiration above the lowest place.
Nor can they plead that they know not His purpose for them. The
Scriptural revelation is full of the highest assurances. God lays wide
open before us the plan He has prepared for our glory. He tells us in
a hundred passages, every utterance eloquent with love, what it all is,
and He stays in His description only when the finite mind of man cannot
follow Him; and then He cries: "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard,
neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath
prepared for them that love Him."[28]
If we are to rise up to satisfy the divine measure of our predestined
glory, we must smite not thrice, but five or six times. We must smite
not only {146} until we feel the assault stayed, but until we are sure
that the tempter has acknowledged himself defeated. Some spiritual
guides advise the soul pursuing the tempter, not allowing him to depart
from us without further chastisement and humiliation. "Do not leave
off the conflict until the enemy is, as it were, wearied out, dead, and
yields himself up discomfited."[29]
"When the assaults have ceased," says Scupoli, "excite them again, so
as to have an opportunity of overcoming them with greater force and
energy. Then challenge them again a third time so as to accustom
yourself to repulse them with scorn and horror."[30]
Remember, however, as a point of the most extreme importance, that this
course should never be adopted in temptations against faith or against
purity. In these cases there should be an immediate avoidance of the
thought and occasion of the temptation, and the mind should be
instantly diverted utterly from it by definite occupation of a contrary
nature.
VII. _The Final Phase of Victory_
The counsel of the author of "The Spiritual Combat," appeals to us not
only as coming from {147} a great guide of souls, but because (as is
always the case with the wisdom of the Saints), it answers our sense of
the fitness of things. A poor soldier he would be who never planned to
fight on the offensive, who never sought to carry the war into the
enemy's country. The Blessed Christ has organized the armies of the
Kingdom not merely for the protection of a weak and incapable people,
but for the positive conquest of Satan through the strength and
aggressiveness of His soldiers. In the account of the armour of God as
given us by St. Paul,[31] we are, it is true, told of the breast plate,
the shield, and the helmet, all armour of defence; but we are also told
of the feet shod that the soldier might march straight forward; and of
the sword of the Spirit with which we are to slay the adversary.
Under the old dispensation, too, the Spirit taught the like truth. In
one of the chiefest of the Psalms of consolation,--the 91st,--the soul
is spoken of as finding its refuge in the very secret place of the Most
High; as being covered with His wings,--shielded from the mysterious
terror that walks by night, from the arrow that flies by day; and there
is mention of shield and buckler, weapons of defence. But also there
is mention of the splendid feats of aggressive conquest that {148} God
expects from those to whom He accords His almighty protection. "Thou
shalt tread upon the lion and adder; the young lion and the dragon
shalt thou trample under feet."
The contrast between the earlier part of the Psalm and this sudden
promise is startling. Heretofore God and the angels have been the
actors prosecuting their work of protection and defence. Now it is as
though He said, "I have hid thee in My tabernacle, and now it is
_Thou_, the defenced one, who shall tread upon the lion and adder;
Thou, and I only as acting in and through thee!"[32]
The Hebrew form of expression the Holy Spirit employs presents two
powerful word-paintings. When it is said, "Thou shalt _tread_ upon the
lion and adder," there is the suggestion of stamping in pieces, of
treading one's enemies as grapes are trodden in the wine-press; and
where the promise is made, "The young lion and the dragon shalt thou
_trample under feet_," the Holy Ghost is lifting up before ancient
Israel, in their own language, the picture of the terrible onset of
{149} armed horsemen beating down the enemy with ruthless trampling
beneath the iron-shod feet of the horses.
Thus are the soldiers of God called upon not only to vanquish, but to
tread the hosts of hell as grapes are trodden in the vintage; not only
to cause them to flee, but to pursue and trample them with terrible
strength as victorious horsemen trample down the flying foe.
[1] Ps. lxxviii, 10.
[2] St. John v, 30.
[3] Isa. lvii, 15.
[4] St. James iv, 6.
[5] 1 Pet. v, 6.
[6] Ps. xx, 1.
[7] St. Luke xviii, 7-8.
[8] Exod. xxxii, 10.
[9] Ps. cvi, 23.
[10] Isa. lxiv, 7.
[11] Numbers xxiv, 9. See also Job xli, 10, and Ps. xxxv, 23, and
lxxx, 2.
[12] Castaniza, _The Spiritual Conquest_, pp. 405, 406. (Vaughan, 3d
Ed.)
[13] Ps. vii, 1.
[14] Ps. xx, 9.
[15] Ps. liv, 1.
[16] Ps. li, 1.
[17] St. John xi, 3.
[18] Ps. xlii, 1.
[19] Ps. xliii, 5-6.
[20] Ps. lxiii, 1.
[21] Ps. xci, 9.
[22] Ps. cviii, 12.
[23] Ps. cxxx, 1.
[24] St. Francis de Sales, _Spiritual Letters_, xi.
[25] Hilton, _The Scale of Perfection_, I, Pt. II, Sec. 2, chap. i.
[26] Castaniza, The Spiritual Conquest, p. 459.
[27] 2 Kings xiii.
[28] Cor. ii, 9.
[29] Scupoli, _The Spiritual Combat_, chap. xiii.
[30] _Ibid._
[31] Eph. vi.
[32] Compare Romans xvi, 20: "The God of peace shall bruise Satan under
_your_ feet shortly." "The God of peace" goes forth to war, fighting
in order to secure that peace whereby His title of "Prince of Peace" is
justified; and it is His power that will bruise Satan, but the bruising
is to be under _our_ feet. We give ourselves to Him that He may
conquer in and through us.
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