Required reading
A treatise on Satan's temptations by Richard Gilpin (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Chapters 7 and 8.
My summary
Firstly, in Chapter Seven, Gilpin shows us that Satan is diligent because of his:
(i) pains in hunting his prey and pursuing his designs;
(ii) peculiar readiness to espy and to close in with fit occasions which may in probability answer the end we drive at;
(iii) never failing to pursue every advantage which he gets against us to the utmost;
(iv) various ways which he takes to show his diligence;
(v) diligence when things are at the greatest hazard or when the hopes of success are ready to bring forth.
Secondly, in Chapter Eight, Gilpin teaches us about Satan's subtlety in:
(i) all his advantages;
(ii) sin of the heart;
(iii) all acts of sin;
(iv) bringing sin in the soul of man;
(v) all kinds of ways described in Scripture;
(vi) various instances.
What grabbed me
I appreciated Gilpin's comments on Satan's diligence: 'First, His pains he takes in hunting his prey, and pursuing his designs. It is nothing for him to ' compass sea and land,' to labour to the utmost in his employment ; it is all his business to tempt and destroy, and his whole heart is in it. Hence intermission or cessation cannot be expected. He faints not by his labour ; and his labour, with the success of it, is all the delight we can suppose him to have. So that, being pushed and hurried by the hellish satisfactions of deadly revenge, and having a strength answerable to those violent impulses, we must suppose him to undergo, with a kind of pleasing willingness, all imaginable toil and labour. If we look into ourselves, we find it true, to our no small trouble and hazard. Doth he at any time easily desist when we give him a repulse ? Doth he not come again and again, with often and impudently-repeated importunities ? Doth he not carry a design in his mind for months and years against us ? And when the motion is not feasible, yet he forgets it not, but after a long interruption begins again where he left ; which shews that he is big with his projects, and his mind hath no rest. He stretcheth out his nets all the day long. We may say of him, that he riseth up early, and sitteth up late at his work, and is content to labor in the very fire, so that he might but either disturb a child of God or gain a proselyte.'
Our enemy shows great diligence, and so must we.
Next week's reading
Read Chapters 9 and 10.
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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