Ephesians 6:15, 16; Luke 2:34,35

No sooner does Mary know the sweetness of having this Babe, than it is told her, while she might well count herself blessed, " a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also." No sooner was He born into the world, than nothing but slaughter of babes is heard of. And so, in our hearts, no sooner is Christ there than Satan, who does not like to give up his power, brings in conflict. Some old suppressed habit will, perhaps, break out with new power. Do not be surprised if Christ has displaced Satan in you, that Satan should try to regain the mastery. We cannot stand without knowing this.
The first thought with a newly-saved soul often is: Now I have God; I have Christ for my peace; and now all will go on quietly. Instead of which we find that we have to do with a God who brings in death and resurrection on all that is in us, that we may know that the excellency of the power is of God and not of us. We are connected with the triumphant party-with the One who has conquered; so there is peace, in spite of all that Satan can do, made good by God in the very field where Satan seemed to have triumphed.
" Your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace."-The shoe-sandal, not for strength, but for comfort. The heart uninstructed in God's ways is often tripped up, where, if it knew the ways of God-if it understood His thoughts, it would find cause for thanksgiving.
God does not come off His own ground in dealing with us; He expects us to come on to His ground. Often when 'Christians get a quiet standing before the Lord, and look back on their past history, they see how their restlessness arose from want of understanding God's way. They thought to get something for themselves; God's thought was to get something for Himself. God does indeed hold forth something good for us, but his thought is to train us to know that-He has taken us up for Himself. He does not always care for us according to our own thoughts for ourselves, and then we are astonished. He told us before that it would be a desert-a conflict-but we have not taken in what He told us. You know the position God has claimed for Himself. You know how He took up at Pentecost a people connected with the Lord Jesus Christ, and subject to the guidance of the Holy Ghost. You must not then make yourselves the center of your system, but you must take in this God with whom you have to do.
"Taking the shield of faith "-That by which all the counter movements of Satan are met. You have a wicked one to contend with. I, individually, have to compete with an enemy who has been well nigh six thousand years skilled and versed in the heart of man; an enemy who has tripped up every individual but One, because he has found in ever other in the world something of which he could say: There is a tender spot in you, in which I can put a ring, and lead you captive. He has given servant of God after servant of God heavy falls, and has found but One who could bruise his head, and who will shortly bring it down bruised under our feet.
If you go into the battle thinking it is a fine scene, you will soon find out the solemn truth that Satan is against you, and will give you no quarter. He thoroughly hates Him who puts you forward in the battle; he abominates from the bottom of his soul the object God is making good through such poor worms as you and I are—that he should have, though us, a witness for Himself on earth.
Ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one."-It is important to judge whence evil is. It is all in one sense from Satan; but, when in the presence of God, judging yourselves, you cannot always quietly put things off on Satan, for Christians often tempt Satan, instead of his tempting them; they often put themselves where they know there is temptation, even if Satan were out of the way. They lay the train, and invite Satan to put the spark to the tinder. They then bear the moral guilt of it before God.
We cannot calculate about fiery darts hurled by Satan. God will put up an object before a young Christian, and Satan will hang up another. You may set off thinking of God's object, and, on the way, Satan may get you off to another; and God will teach you by it. You did not know it; but perhaps you loved money-a little bit of power-something of that sort; and you have perhaps learned that you did by a fall. Or again: there may be some service God is going to launch a man in, and He may allow Satan to come in and try him with fiery darts, so that he may be humbled right down before Him at the first, and then may go into the work softly.. There need be no setting on fire, for the shield of faith is ours. And which is best? for God to teach us the evil of our hearts by fiery darts, or by falls which dishonor His name? Mark, I do not say it is necessary to learn your hearts in either of these ways, but you must learn them in some way. Peter learned something of his by his falls. Luther learned his, to an immense extent, by fiery darts from the enemy. The proper way is to learn them by that which comes from communion with God, and using the shield of faith. Satan stands plying his fiery darts, and the man of God stops, holds up the shield of faith, and shuts them out. The child of God in communion with his Father can say: I know what you are about. The Christian taught of God finds in God's presence what Christ is, and how Satan could not get one bit of dross out of Him, for there was none there.
Satan's ways with us are three fold. " The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life." The temptation will take the form of the mind, and of the position of the person addressed. Where is the answer to each? Is it the lust of the eye? and is my answer to be: Oh, I am to please my eye? I am to admire what is beautiful?-When I get to the scene God tells me to admire,-I will admire it the lust of the flesh?-I am no debtor to the flesh to minister to it, for it is because I have this bad flesh, that will lust, that Christ died.
If you cannot get to see that your portion is not here-that you are passing through a world that crucified Christ-I do. Something for myself, is it? and my Lord not glorified? Oh, the power of knowing that God has taken you up for Himself! Oh, the power of a single eye enabling you to meet all that Satan can do against you What would trouble you in your troubles if you had this thought; God has set me here, and He would have me here-exactly here.
A cross on one shoulder, and a cross on the other, and is there not peace? " The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" God says: Take that weak body. And can you not take it from Him? Fiery darts coming in thicker than hailstones, and can you not say: I will bear them all for the sake of
Him who has called me to be a soldier? Would they disturb your peace, if the sense of God's_ having gut you there were fresh in your mind?
One t sing o notice is, that Satan does not make a stand with a passing shot; he will keep to it. But God does not like to be constantly troubling the quiet walk; so He will come times let things accumulate, and then take the soul apart to learn it all at once. So the enemy may be allowed to ply his fiery darts a long time before God will come in about it. Evil suggestions-a sort of whispering in the ear-sometimes it is a heresy Satan-inspired, which none but God could meet. You cannot account for many things without seeing that they come direct from Satan into the minds and mouths of persons.