35. DEVICE 2. By engaging them against the people of God, against those who are his jewels, his p...
DEVICE 2. By engaging them against the people of God, against those who are his jewels, his pleasant portion, the delight of his eye and the joy of his heart.
Thus he drew Pharaoh to engage against the children of Israel—and that was his overthrow. So he engaged Haman against the Jews—and so brought him to hang upon that gallows that he had made for Mordecai (Esther 7). So he engaged those princes against Daniel—which was the utter ruin of them and their relations (Daniel 6). So in Rev 20:7-9, "When the thousand years end, Satan will be let out of his prison. He will go out to deceive the nations from every corner of the earth, which are called Gog and Magog. He will gather them together for battle—a mighty host, as numberless as sand along the shore. And I saw them as they went up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded God’s people and the beloved city. But fire from heaven came down on the attacking armies and consumed them."
Remedy (1). The first remedy against this device of Satan is, solemnly to consider, That none have engaged against the saints—but have been ruined by the God of saints. Divine justice has been too hard for all who have opposed and engaged against the saints, as is evident in Saul, Pharaoh, and Haman ’He reproved kings for their sakes, saying, Touch not my anointed, and do my prophets no harm’ (Psa 105:15). When men of Balaam spirits and principles have been engaged against the saints, how has the angel of the Lord met them in the way, and jostled their bones against the wall! How has he broke their backs and necks, and by his drawn sword cut them off in the prime of their days, and in the height of their sins!
Ah! what a harvest has hell had in our days, of those who have engaged against the Lamb, and those who are called, chosen and faithful! Ah! how has divine justice poured out their blood as water upon the ground! how has he laid their honor and glory in the dust, who, in the pride and madness of their hearts, said, as Pharaoh, ’We will pursue, we will overtake, we will divide the spoil, our lusts shall be satisfied upon them. We will draw our sword, our hand shall destroy them’ (Exo 15:9). In the things wherein they have spoken and done proudly, justice has been above them. History abounds in many instances of this kind.
Remedy (2). The second remedy against this device of Satan is, To dwell some time every morning upon the following scriptures, wherein God has engaged himself to stand by his people and for his people, and to make them victorious over the greatest and wisest of their enemies. ’Associate yourselves,’ says the Lord by the prophet, ’O you people, and you shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all you of far countries: gird yourselves, and you shall be broken in pieces. Take counsel together, and it shall come to nothing; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us.’ ’Fear not, you worm Jacob, and you men of Israel: I will help you, says the Lord, and your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. Behold, I will make you a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: you shall thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shall make the hills as chaff. You shall fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them, and you shall rejoice in the Lord, and shall glory in the Holy One of Israel.’ ’No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against you in judgment, you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, says the Lord.’ ’Now also many nations are gathered together against you that say, Let her be defiled, and let our eye look upon Zion. But they know not the thoughts of the Lord, neither understand they his counsel; for he shall gather them as sheaves into the floor. Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion: I will make your horn iron, and I will make your hoof brass, and you shall beat in pieces many people, and I will consecrate their gain unto the Lord, and their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth.’ ’Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege, both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.’ (Is. 8:9, 41:14, 15, and 54:17. Mic 4:11-13; Zec 12:2-3.)
Remedy (3). The third remedy against this device of Satan is, to consider, That you cannot engage against the saints—but you must engage against God himself, by reason of that near and blessed union that is between God and them. You cannot be fighters against the saints—but you will be found in the casting up of the account to be fighters against God himself. And what greater madness than for weakness itself—to engage against an almighty strength! The near union that is between the Lord and believers, is set forth by that near union that is between a husband and his wife. ’They two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church; we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones,’ says the apostle (Eph 5:32). This near union is set forth by that union that is between the head and the members, which make up one body, and by that union that is between the graft and the stock, which are made one by grafting. The union between the Lord and a believer is so near, that you cannot strike a believer—but the Lord is sensible of it, and takes it as done to himself. ’Saul, Saul, why do you persecute you me?’ (Acts 9:4); and ’in all their afflictions he was afflicted’ (Is. 63:9). Ah, souls! who ever engaged against God and prospered? who ever took up the sword against him but perished by it? God can speak you to hell and nod you to hell at pleasure. It is your greatest concernment to lay down your weapons at his feet, and to ’Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the midway’ (Psa 2:12).
Remedy (4). The fourth remedy against this device of Satan is, solemnly to consider, That you are much engaged to the saints, as instruments for the mercies that you do enjoy, and for the preventing and removing of many a judgment that otherwise might have been your ruin before this day. Were it not for the saints’ sake, God would quickly make the heavens to be as brass and the earth as iron; God would quickly strip you of your robes and glory, and set you upon the ash-heap with Job. They are the props that bear the world from falling about your ears, and that keep the iron rod from breaking of your bones. ’Therefore he said that he would destroy them, had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath, lest he should destroy them’ (Psa 106:23).
Ah! had not the saints many a time cast themselves into the breach between God’s wrath and you, you had been cut off from the land of the living, and had had your portion with those whose names are written in the dust. Many a nation, many a family, is surrounded with blessings for the Josephs’ sakes who live therein, and are preserved from many calamities and miseries for the Moses’, the Daniels’, the Noahs’, and the Jobs’, sakes, who dwell among them. That is a sweet word (Pro 10:25), ’As the whirlwind passes, so is the wicked no more: but the righteous is an everlasting foundation, or is the foundation of the world.’ The righteous is the foundation of the world, which but for their sakes would soon shatter and fall to ruin. So the psalmist (Psa 75:3), ’The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved: I bear up the pillars of it. Selah.’
’He could have what he would of God’, said one concerning Luther. Prayer is the gate of heaven, a key to let us into paradise. ’When the danger is over, the saint is forgotten’, is a French proverb and that which many saints in England have found by experience. The emperor Marcus Antoninus being in Germany with his army, was enclosed in a dry country by his enemies, who so stopped all the passages that he and his army were likely to perish for lack of water. The emperor’s lieutenant seeing him so distressed, told him that he had heard that the Christians could obtain anything of their God by their prayers, whereupon the emperor, having a legion of Christians in his army, desired them to pray to their God for his and the army’s delivery out of that danger, which they presently did, and presently a great thunder fell among the enemies, and abundance of water upon the Romans, whereby their thirst was quenched, and the enemies overthrown without any fight.
Mary, Queen of Scots, was accustomed to say, ’That she feared Knox’s prayers more than an army of ten thousand men.’
I shall close up this last remedy with those sweet words of the psalmist: ’God is well known in Judah; his name is great in Israel. Jerusalem is where he lives; Mount Zion is his home. There he breaks the arrows of the enemy, the shields and swords and weapons of his foes.’ (Psa 76:1-3).