Page:On The Spiritual Battle.pdf/12

 Then He says, “Under him are rays of sunshine.” These are the dazzling rays that come from the sun and illuminate the darkness on the earth. By that are understood people bright with learning and wisdom, like the rays from the sun that can illuminate others with their wisdom. And these will also fall beneath the devil, being subject to him.

And He says, “He spreads gold under his feet like mud,” that is, underfoot so that he walks on them. Spiritual people are gold–tested, devout, and pure in many things. The devil spreads these people out under his feet like mud.

“He makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment.” The fleshly, blind, contentious, and proud people of this world are like a deep and bitter sea, which the devil easily afflicts like the restless sea, and makes them churn like boiling oil. The devil incites these kinds of evil people to great unrest in the same way through quarrels, battles, and murder; just as such revolts and fomenting with great rage against one other are plainly seen today. In this discourse, the Lord God shows how easily the devil brings such unwise, contentious, and impure people into great wickedness. When he spreads peaceable people out under his feet like gold, of course that sea full of pus (love of evil desires) comes back out and everyone who sees them will smell their stench. But it is awful and grievous when such fair and noble people do not stand up against him, and because of that it does not seem that anyone could be saved. If he can deceive such people, then he can deceive everyone. Nevertheless, we should not suppose that no one could be saved because the devil can deceive such fair and noble people. Of course he can and has deceived from the inception of the world, and deceives today, and there is no person here in the world so established in goodness that he or she could not be lost if not guarded. That is why the Lord God speaks of the devil’s great and cunning wickedness. He deceives even great people and, knowing that, both the small and the great should be careful and give themselves to God Himself for safe-keeping. But while many people strive to attain, increase, and prosper in different kinds of goodness, achieving such goodness through faith and diligent efforts, few are equipped for how they would be able to maintain those good things. Few labor for goodness, and not every person who labors for goodness labors for it according to true sincerity. They look elsewhere for it and not to God. When such people are insincere, without humility and discretion, they can be deceived, even though they are otherwise lofty and noble. Insincere, careless, and inattentive things are done by the devil’s deception.

Therefore, that exceeding cleverness of the devil that knows each person so ingeniously in his motivations is also able to deceive him in his life. He approaches a person charmingly and virtuously because that person does not fear him or perceive his approach as evil; he neither knows the devil’s deceitful approach nor supposes that it would be him coming in that moment. That is why the Lord God speaks about the devil and his profuse cunning again, saying, “Who can discover the face of his garment? Or who can come to him with his double bridle?” (Job 41: 13 KJV) To say it another way, it seldom happens that a person understands what the devil is clothed with and what kind of clothing he has. Who discovers the face of his garment so that, looking at him, he would say, “That is the devil, because I know him by his face”? It does not happen quickly that someone knows what covering he has disguised his face with. His cunning ingenuity is able to dress himself in this way so that, bumping into him, people do not say, “Here comes the devil, our enemy,” but “Here comes God or his angel,” or “Here comes our friend so that he can do good for us.” Because of that disguise, a person does not easily discover the garment of his face and to know him in the way that he is deceitfully covered up. The garment of his face is honorable and seems too nice. That is why people catching sight of him will not be afraid of him and why the Lord God says about him, “The path will have shone behind him.” His