ARMOUR OF GOD

spiritual growing-up into stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph.
4 : 13). He sometimes petrifies the new, glad faith of recent converts
and pushes the soul liberated by Christ back into the slavery of some
organisation with all its inhibitions whereby the Holy Spirit, Who
can only act in freedom, is grieved and quenched.
The Holy Spirit wants to guide man as a free son of the
promise, not as Ishmael, the son of the bondwoman. Satan forces us
into a position in which we are not free, just as Hagar's son was not
free. And he hopes we will be satisfied with that, not counting God's
promise of freedom for us, like Isaac was free.
He will try to persuade us to deny his existence and regard him
as a myth, a horned, goat-legged, ridiculous caricature, or as the
Mephistopheles known in literature. But he is a living personality,
our real hereditary enemy. He is the enemy of friend and foe alike,
whereas Jesus is the friend of friend and enemy alike. Satan poisons
our drinking wells, turns warm love cold, quenches the light of God's
Spirit wherever he can.
He tries to establish his rule over earth and time. Satan acts as
if he were Lord (Matt 4 : 1-11), but only Jesus is Lord and unto
Him is given all power in heaven and in earth (Matt. 28 : 18).
Who is Satan and where does he come from?
Many people think that Satan is a myth, an idea. One prefers to
speak of 'evil', in the abstract rather than of a person with his own
identity. One has no idea how much pleasure one gives Satan by
doing this, because it is his policy to make his existence as mystifying
as possible, to veil and shroud it in a cloud. He is a living personality.
' ... because greater is He that is in you, than he (not 'that' - the idea,
but 'he', the person) that is in the world' (1 John 4 : 4).
He is God's rebel, whom God cast down into the darkness.
'Thou art the anointed cherub thatcovereth; and I have set thee
so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up
and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy
ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in
thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst
of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee
as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee. 0
covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thine heart was
lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by
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