'Voices From The Past' Vol. 1 — July 13

Satan shall never vanquish a soul that is armed with true grace. True saints, who have been sifted by the enemy, will at last come off with an honourable victory. The Holy Spirit who led Christ into the wilderness also brought him off with victory. Satan seeks to defile the Christian's conscience, and disfigure the image of God. God, however, uses the temptation of Satan in one sin, as a preventative against another. God is the saint's true friend. He sits in the devil's planning room and overrules Satan's plan to the saint's advantage. God also can use the fall of the saints as an encouragement, a drop of hope, to others from falling into utter despair. David's sin was great, but he found mercy. Peter fell foully, yet is now in heaven. 'Why do you sit here, O my soul, under the control of despair? Get up and call on your God for mercy, who has so pardoned others.’ God also allows Satan to trounce some of his saints by temptation in order to train them to help fellow-brethren in like conditions. He allows them to train under Satan's lash, to get experience in the ways of Satan's and of their own hearts. No one handles poor souls so gently as those who remember the smart of their own heart-sorrows. A saint may be foiled by the enemy's deception, but a false-heart voluntarily lays himself down to lust. Saints do not commit sin so presumptuously as others. God turns their failings to further establish their faith. True faith rises and fights even more valiantly. God suffers his dear children to fall, to outshoot Satan's design. All the plots of hell have not so much as shaken God's hand to spoil one letter or line he has been drawing. The mysteriousness of his providence hangs a curtain over this work that we cannot see what he is doing.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Devotional Readings 'Voices From The Past Vol.1.'
William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour, I:100-111
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