Required reading
A treatise on Satan's temptations by Richard Gilpin (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Chapter 17 of Part 3.
My summary
This week Gilpin continues his discussion of the temptation of Christ given in Matthew 4:3 'Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple'.
In particular, Gilpin examines what we can learn from Satan's quotation of Psalm 91:11-12.
Gilpin observes:
(xiii) that Satan sometimes imitates the Spirit of God by an officious pretence of teaching the mind of God to men;
(xiv) that whatever be the various ways of Satan's imitation, yet the matter which he works and practiseth upon is still Scripture;
(xv) though Satan useth Scripture in these deceitful workings, yet he never doth it faithfully.
What grabbed me
I've been doing a fair amount of research on Jehovah's Witnesses over the last few days and so today's reading was very relevant.
You could add Jehovah's Witnesses to the list in this quote: 'First, He useth this artifice to beget and propagate erroneous doctrines. Hence no opinion is so vile, but pretends to Scripture as its patron. The Arians pretend Scripture against the divinity of Christ. The Socinians, Pelagians, Papists, yea, and those that pretend to inspirations for their rule, and disclaim the binding force of those antiquated declarations of the saints' conditions, as they call them, yet conform all their sayings to the Scripture expression, and endeavour to prove their mistakes by its authority. '
Such a misuse of Scripture is simply Satanic.
Next week's reading
Read Chapter 18 and 19 of Part 3.
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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