Page:On The Spiritual Battle.pdf/17

 people live in them, how they are conditioned, and what sorts of concerns they have in that place. The devil approaches according to how he sees someone and that person does not recognize it until he is pulled into a snare someday through it.

He sometimes takes advantage of seasons–Christmas, Carnival, fasts, Easter, a procession, or summer. They are all his garments and he clothes himself in such times with varied cunning. In whatever way he sees vain people changing according to those seasons in which they want to be saintly and in which they do not, all of that is helpful to him as a garment so that he is not recognized until he pulls a person into a snare, misfortune, or death. But because the Lord God says here, “Who can discover the face of his garment?” who is there among the people who discovers his deceitful hypocrisies, approaches, and covert purposes? And when the Lord God says, “Who is that one?” then I answer that we are not able to discover his garment and clearly unveil his purposes and the way that he secretly approaches people from a distance. But I slightly suspect his clothing is black.

Because these words speak about people of understanding who can see very far in truth and faith, which of those people discern his deceitful cunning, cleverly embellished with many beautiful and sacrosanct things? I do not know how many extremely wise people are on earth if I cannot find five people who would escape unharmed by standing up to him. But those people who are blinded by the world outside do not know anything about him. Therefore, if he is clothed in a handsome garment and saunters in front of them, dressing up beautifully, they bow down to him blindly like to God. The devil clothes himself the most in the powerful people of this world, and he is celebrated through the pride of great people in this way so that many submit to those lords in evil things out of fear. The devil also leads many simple people into heresies through hypocrites. The devil takes advantage of all kinds of other things as clothing in order to keep those blind and fleshly people in distress, even though it is evident that he walks ignobly enough among those people today that he could already be recognized rather easily–that not God but the devil walks among them. Therefore, he has so divested those people of truth and encumbered them with profuse wickedness without any excuse that pagans could reprove the evil practices of today’s Christians.

We must examine and understand these words of God still more diligently, where he speaks such awful things about the devil, because he has such great power over lofty people. He speaks of it in these words, saying, “A marksman cannot repel him; sling stones will turn into chaff to him. A club seems to him but a piece of straw; he laughs at the rattling of the lance. Under him are rays of sunshine and he spreads gold under his feet like mud.” I have already expressed some sense of these words of God. By sling stones, rattling lances and rays of sunshine, the Lord God means wise, strong, earnest, pure, blameless, and devout people of a courageous heart and great understanding, which are like gold. And because all such people do not stand their ground against Satan’s incalculable cunning and great strength, here again we can understand that God names gold and rays of sunshine differently. Some are gold according to testing and others are radiant according to appearances, attractive to look at like gold that shines. Many good things are only established and carried out by people, and they shine in those people the way that gold looks pleasing to the eye. Other good things are established and ordered by God, and these good things can follow outward or spiritual works. But not all people have the sufficiency within themselves to follow after spiritual works as well as the outward ones. Many pursue those that are outward works, but neglect the spiritual ones. They are powerless to pursue them perfectly because of the wickedness of their hearts, and they come to God having a very depraved life, wicked with great sins. When they come to God, they immediately go for those good outward things and are bountiful in them,