“Like as the children of Ephraim, who being harnessed and bearing bows, turned themselves back in the day of battle." 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 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, 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 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.

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." 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 and lofty place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble." St. James declares, “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble;" 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."

(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 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. 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."

Impossible as it may seem, the prayer of the humble heart can command the very Godhead. 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, Gods answer was, Now therefore let me alone that my wrath may wax hot against them." 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." 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 upon Thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee." 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?"

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 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 Gods presence, and put us perpetually in mind of our duties."

To this, it may be added that ejaculatory 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."

Save, Lord, and hear us, O King of Heaven."

Save me, O God, for Thy Names sake, and avenge me in Thy strength."

Have mercy upon me, O God, after Thy great goodness."

“Lord, he whom Thou lovest is sick."

“Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks, so longeth my soul after Thee, O Lord."

“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."

O God, Thou art my God, early will I seek Thee."

Thou, Lord, art my hope."

O help us against the enemy, for vain is the help of man."

Out of the deep have I called unto Thee, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice."

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 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 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.

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."

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, 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."

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 troubles.Let us be so attentive to Him, that we have neither leave nor leisure to give ear to Satanic suggestions."

VI. Staying not the Hand

We are told in the Second Book of the Kings 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 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."

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 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."

“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."

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 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, 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 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!"

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 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.