Basic HTML Version
Physical Attacks of Satan, November 18
And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan
answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth,
and from walking up and down in it.
Job 1:7
.
Satan was “a murderer from the beginning.”
John 8:44
.
His temptations are leading multitudes to ruin. Intemperance de-
thrones reason; sensual indulgence, strife, and bloodshed follow. Satan
delights in war; for it excites the worst passions of the soul, and then
sweeps into eternity its victims steeped in vice and blood. It is his object
to incite the nations to war against one another; for he can thus divert
the minds of the people from the work of preparation to stand in the day
of God.
Satan works through the elements also to garner his harvest of
unprepared souls. He has studied the secrets of the laboratories of nature,
and he uses all his power to control the elements as far as God allows.
When he was suffered to afflict Job, how quickly flocks and herds,
servants, houses, children, were swept away, one trouble succeeding
another as in a moment. It is God that shields His creatures, and hedges
them in from the power of the destroyer....
In accidents and calamities by sea and by land, in great conflagra-
tions, in fierce tornadoes and terrific hailstorms, in tempests, floods,
cyclones, tidal waves, and earthquakes, in every place and in a thousand
forms, Satan is exercising his power. He sweeps away the ripening
harvest, and famine and distress follow. He imparts to the air a deadly
taint, and thousands perish by the pestilence. These visitations are to
become more and more frequent and disastrous.
The power and malice of Satan and his host might justly alarm us,
were it not that we may find shelter and deliverance in the superior
power of our Redeemer.... Those who follow Christ are ever safe under
His watchcare. Angels that excel in strength are sent from heaven to
protect them. The wicked one cannot break through the guard which
God has stationed about His people.
[329]
341