When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace:
Satan is the armed strong man who guards his house, holding captive the minds and bodies of those he has seduced from God and ruling their thoughts and affections in bondage. His goods being at peace means a false, undisturbed quiet, with no conflict while they remain his willing slaves. Christ is the One stronger than he, who met him in the wilderness, in Gethsemane and on the cross, overpowered and bound him, stripped away the weapons he trusted in and took his prey from him. When the captive longs to be free and lays hold of Christ by faith, the Stronger One becomes his helper, abides in his heart, makes him stronger than Satan and keeps him victorious as he stays close to Christ, resists in His strength and uses Scripture rather than arguing with the tempter.
The Strong Man's Rule
The armed strong man who keeps his palace is Satan, and his palace and his goods are men and women under his dominion. He holds their bodies and minds, governs their thoughts and affections, and keeps them in bondage after seducing them away from allegiance to God, even as he seduced Adam into rebellion against God's law. Under his control the masters of iniquity in the world become strong and terrible, and the sin-tortured soul is held as his prey in undisturbed possession.
His goods being in peace is a false, apparent peace and rest, an undisturbed captivity while they remain his willing slaves. While they remain bound he keeps them with no conflict and no special enmity toward them, and his domain appears secure until it is invaded. Every advance into that domain meets fierce opposition, yet that apparent strength does not prevent his complete overthrow.
He was next in power to Christ and highly exalted as the covering cherub, and he united evil angels and evil men with himself in an unholy confederacy of rebellion to make war on God and His government. None but Christ could meet him and endure successfully the temptations with which he beset the human family.
As the strong man he is continually on the watch to penetrate to the very heart of God's working force and to mar God's work. He works with all his power to bring questionable methods of dealing and specious, evil, selfish theories into the business dealings of God's people, seeking to eclipse the brightness of God's pure, elevated, unselfish principles by selfishness. If he can he tarnishes the pure gold of character, and if he can place the false where the true should be his object is gained. He comes with stealthy tread presenting plausible theories that a questionable course will gain great advantage and that the end will justify the means, even dimming spiritual eyesight so that good and evil can no longer be distinguished. He persuades that eating the forbidden fruit will bring great good, and when men listen one unrighteous action paves the way for the next, weakening the power to distinguish good from evil and dishonoring God.
Christ Stronger Than Satan
The Stronger than the strong man is Christ, who came to overpower Satan, overcome him, bind him and cast him out, strip away the weapons he trusts in, take his prey from him, dispossess him of his captives and limit his power. Those who do not know God are held in bondage under Satan's rule, yet their apparent peace is only captivity until the Stronger draws near with salvation by His own arm to make them free. He rescues sinners from slavery to sin to make them His own children, and to make them His own He suffered humiliation and agony and a most humiliating shameful death, so that He is their owner.
Christ measured weapons with Satan in the wilderness and in Gethsemane and on the cross at great cost, receiving His death wound as the trophy of His victory. In Gethsemane He met the final conflict, where failure would have let Satan master the earth, while His victory means the kingdoms of the earth will finally become His. That wound annihilated Satan's power over every loyal believing subject, opening the gates of Paradise so that fallen intelligences through acceptance of Christ and faith in Him and in His righteousness are elevated to become heirs of immortality and an eternal weight of glory, and rebels against God's law may lay hold upon the Infinite and become partakers of everlasting life through living working faith. He had seduced Adam into rebellion against God's law and held fallen men in that rebellion, stealing the livery of heaven to deceive even the elect, and the victory decides the last great conflict now just before us when Satan is more fiercely stirred than ever to inspire apostates and hold minds in error at the very time the third angel's message of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus goes to the world.
Christ, though seemingly helpless, was pure and uncontaminated as the Prince of Life humbling Himself to take human nature to meet the strong man armed. He was stronger because He remained meek and humble, trusted His Father, relied on God's Word and stood firmly on it against deception and falsehood while fallen angels watched through the different stages of His humiliation. Satan's efforts to make Him sin and break His allegiance failed, and the armed strong man's apparent power could not overcome Him. Every victory He gained over Satan is precious in behalf of the human family, exalting, elevating and ennobling God's workmanship in contrast to Satan's work through centuries of degrading, debasing and prostituting all his powers to do his hellish work.
The breach in the pope's citadel represents Christ as the mightier one breaking into Satan's guarded domain and overcoming him. Satan as the strong armed enemy is not invincible, for the Lord God is mightier than he. Though the enemy works to keep truth from triumphing, the Lord can make room for truth in receptive hearts. He defends the faithful and delivers them from Satan's power, so those who remain loyal to God and stand for His law need no longer fear force or fraud. Believers are victorious by staying close to Christ, depending wholly on God, standing firm in His strength, and using Scripture as their weapon rather than arguing with Satan or repeating his deceptive claims.
Freedom and Faithful Endurance
While his captives remain willing slaves they are left at rest, but when the message of mercy reaches them and they begin to seek freedom to follow the true Shepherd, he tries to tighten their bondage with additional chains to hold them. The conflict really begins when the captive tugs at the chain longing to be free. When the human agent cooperates with the heavenly intelligences and faith takes hold upon Christ, then the Stronger than the strong man armed becomes the helper of the soul, and man is strengthened by the Holy Spirit to obtain his freedom.
Jesus overcomes by His own power to rescue sinners from the slavery of sin and make them free, because He wants to save them as His own children. To make them His own He suffered humiliation and agony and a most humiliating, shameful death, so that He is their owner. When the sin-tortured soul held by Satan in undisturbed possession as his prey accepts the Saviour through one pointing him to Jesus as the sin-pardoning Saviour who heals every physical disease and every spiritual malady, Satan loses his prey, peace comes to the sufferer, and melody is awakened in the heavenly courts.
When Christ takes possession of the soul and abides in the heart by faith, He makes the person stronger than Satan so that Satan cannot take possession of it. Christ abiding within makes the person one with Him and an instrument through whom God works. This protection is joined to obedience, cooperation with Christ, and winning others to Him.
A life hid with Christ in God is safe because Jesus overpowers Satan, though Satan comes in every conceivable form to distress, annoy and delude every follower, bringing stormy times and severe tests. Safety is found through faith in Jesus as personal Saviour, as righteousness, Substitute and Surety who is able to save to the uttermost, giving rest of soul, body and spirit and peace not as the world gives. This requires walking by faith and not by feeling or sight, daily hourly communion with God, living close to God abiding by His throne in prayer, and advancing step by step in experimental knowledge of God. It requires looking to Jesus and living, rather than looking to one's own imperfect life or trusting self-confidence and human wisdom, which leaves one to one's own weakness and loss of hope.
Believers are victorious by staying close to Christ, depending wholly on God and standing firm in His strength. They must keep their eyes on Christ the Captain of salvation, give the tempter no advantage, resist temptation through Christ's strength, and fight sin without retreating. Their weapon is Scripture rather than arguing with Satan or repeating his deceptive claims. Faithful believers will win the conflict through Christ and receive eternal glory.
The Mightier One who is stronger than the strong man armed is set for the defense of the just and delivers the faithful from Satan's power. As long as they are loyal and true and stand in defense of truth and God's law they have nothing to fear from force or fraud. In the end those who have believed and stood firmly in defense of truth will be given all power and greatness and excellence of character, and will be before the throne in the splendors of eternal day, no longer a scattered feeble company suffering the passions of a rebellious world.
God as the One stronger than the enemy has charge of His afflicted servant and keeps his case in His own hands, with His arms beneath him. Because the stronger One guards him, the afflicted one need not fear the enemy. He must dismiss fear, anxiety, doubt and unbelief and calmly trust in the great yet merciful God who pities, loves and cares for him. By relying by faith on the evidences God has given he will gloriously triumph in God, and God will be glorified in hearing prayer and restoring His servant to health.
In the last days Satan is on the track of everyone corrupted by false principles, determined to hold dominion over them as he holds dominion over the world. He knows his time for destroying is short, so he uses every deception he can devise to ensnare souls. Every advance of the gospel and every inroad into his dominion is met with fierce opposition from his forces, and the last conflict will be most terrible. Yet his overthrow will be complete, and everyone who unites with him by choosing apostasy rather than loyalty will perish with him. That victory is decided at the very time the proclamation of the third angel's message of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus is going to the world, when apostates are stirred to rebel and to hold minds in error.
When the love of Christ is absent from the heart, enmity springs into life and holds its place like a strong man armed. All in every place are called to pray and confess sin, so that the melting mercy of Christ creates stronger love, stronger faith and stronger temperance. That stronger grace keeps the soul-temple from moral defilement, selfish greed for first place, grasping what is not one's own, and indulgence of appetite that destroys the moral image of God in man. It leads to self-denial and self-sacrifice.
Satan is the armed strong man who guards his house, holding captive the minds and bodies of those he has seduced from God and ruling their thoughts and affections in bondage. His goods being at peace means a false, undisturbed quiet, with no conflict while they remain his willing slaves. Christ is the One stronger than he, who met him in the wilderness, in Gethsemane and on the cross, overpowered and bound him, stripped away the weapons he trusted in and took his prey from him. When the captive longs to be free and lays hold of Christ by faith, the Stronger One becomes his helper, abides in his heart, makes him stronger than Satan and keeps him victorious as he stays close to Christ, resists in His strength and uses Scripture rather than arguing with the tempter.
The Strong Man's Rule
The armed strong man who keeps his palace is Satan, and his palace and his goods are men and women under his dominion. He holds their bodies and minds, governs their thoughts and affections, and keeps them in bondage after seducing them away from allegiance to God, even as he seduced Adam into rebellion against God's law. Under his control the masters of iniquity in the world become strong and terrible, and the sin-tortured soul is held as his prey in undisturbed possession.
His goods being in peace is a false, apparent peace and rest, an undisturbed captivity while they remain his willing slaves. While they remain bound he keeps them with no conflict and no special enmity toward them, and his domain appears secure until it is invaded. Every advance into that domain meets fierce opposition, yet that apparent strength does not prevent his complete overthrow.
He was next in power to Christ and highly exalted as the covering cherub, and he united evil angels and evil men with himself in an unholy confederacy of rebellion to make war on God and His government. None but Christ could meet him and endure successfully the temptations with which he beset the human family.
As the strong man he is continually on the watch to penetrate to the very heart of God's working force and to mar God's work. He works with all his power to bring questionable methods of dealing and specious, evil, selfish theories into the business dealings of God's people, seeking to eclipse the brightness of God's pure, elevated, unselfish principles by selfishness. If he can he tarnishes the pure gold of character, and if he can place the false where the true should be his object is gained. He comes with stealthy tread presenting plausible theories that a questionable course will gain great advantage and that the end will justify the means, even dimming spiritual eyesight so that good and evil can no longer be distinguished. He persuades that eating the forbidden fruit will bring great good, and when men listen one unrighteous action paves the way for the next, weakening the power to distinguish good from evil and dishonoring God.
Christ Stronger Than Satan
The Stronger than the strong man is Christ, who came to overpower Satan, overcome him, bind him and cast him out, strip away the weapons he trusts in, take his prey from him, dispossess him of his captives and limit his power. Those who do not know God are held in bondage under Satan's rule, yet their apparent peace is only captivity until the Stronger draws near with salvation by His own arm to make them free. He rescues sinners from slavery to sin to make them His own children, and to make them His own He suffered humiliation and agony and a most humiliating shameful death, so that He is their owner.
Christ measured weapons with Satan in the wilderness and in Gethsemane and on the cross at great cost, receiving His death wound as the trophy of His victory. In Gethsemane He met the final conflict, where failure would have let Satan master the earth, while His victory means the kingdoms of the earth will finally become His. That wound annihilated Satan's power over every loyal believing subject, opening the gates of Paradise so that fallen intelligences through acceptance of Christ and faith in Him and in His righteousness are elevated to become heirs of immortality and an eternal weight of glory, and rebels against God's law may lay hold upon the Infinite and become partakers of everlasting life through living working faith. He had seduced Adam into rebellion against God's law and held fallen men in that rebellion, stealing the livery of heaven to deceive even the elect, and the victory decides the last great conflict now just before us when Satan is more fiercely stirred than ever to inspire apostates and hold minds in error at the very time the third angel's message of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus goes to the world.
Christ, though seemingly helpless, was pure and uncontaminated as the Prince of Life humbling Himself to take human nature to meet the strong man armed. He was stronger because He remained meek and humble, trusted His Father, relied on God's Word and stood firmly on it against deception and falsehood while fallen angels watched through the different stages of His humiliation. Satan's efforts to make Him sin and break His allegiance failed, and the armed strong man's apparent power could not overcome Him. Every victory He gained over Satan is precious in behalf of the human family, exalting, elevating and ennobling God's workmanship in contrast to Satan's work through centuries of degrading, debasing and prostituting all his powers to do his hellish work.
The breach in the pope's citadel represents Christ as the mightier one breaking into Satan's guarded domain and overcoming him. Satan as the strong armed enemy is not invincible, for the Lord God is mightier than he. Though the enemy works to keep truth from triumphing, the Lord can make room for truth in receptive hearts. He defends the faithful and delivers them from Satan's power, so those who remain loyal to God and stand for His law need no longer fear force or fraud. Believers are victorious by staying close to Christ, depending wholly on God, standing firm in His strength, and using Scripture as their weapon rather than arguing with Satan or repeating his deceptive claims.
Freedom and Faithful Endurance
While his captives remain willing slaves they are left at rest, but when the message of mercy reaches them and they begin to seek freedom to follow the true Shepherd, he tries to tighten their bondage with additional chains to hold them. The conflict really begins when the captive tugs at the chain longing to be free. When the human agent cooperates with the heavenly intelligences and faith takes hold upon Christ, then the Stronger than the strong man armed becomes the helper of the soul, and man is strengthened by the Holy Spirit to obtain his freedom.
Jesus overcomes by His own power to rescue sinners from the slavery of sin and make them free, because He wants to save them as His own children. To make them His own He suffered humiliation and agony and a most humiliating, shameful death, so that He is their owner. When the sin-tortured soul held by Satan in undisturbed possession as his prey accepts the Saviour through one pointing him to Jesus as the sin-pardoning Saviour who heals every physical disease and every spiritual malady, Satan loses his prey, peace comes to the sufferer, and melody is awakened in the heavenly courts.
When Christ takes possession of the soul and abides in the heart by faith, He makes the person stronger than Satan so that Satan cannot take possession of it. Christ abiding within makes the person one with Him and an instrument through whom God works. This protection is joined to obedience, cooperation with Christ, and winning others to Him.
A life hid with Christ in God is safe because Jesus overpowers Satan, though Satan comes in every conceivable form to distress, annoy and delude every follower, bringing stormy times and severe tests. Safety is found through faith in Jesus as personal Saviour, as righteousness, Substitute and Surety who is able to save to the uttermost, giving rest of soul, body and spirit and peace not as the world gives. This requires walking by faith and not by feeling or sight, daily hourly communion with God, living close to God abiding by His throne in prayer, and advancing step by step in experimental knowledge of God. It requires looking to Jesus and living, rather than looking to one's own imperfect life or trusting self-confidence and human wisdom, which leaves one to one's own weakness and loss of hope.
Believers are victorious by staying close to Christ, depending wholly on God and standing firm in His strength. They must keep their eyes on Christ the Captain of salvation, give the tempter no advantage, resist temptation through Christ's strength, and fight sin without retreating. Their weapon is Scripture rather than arguing with Satan or repeating his deceptive claims. Faithful believers will win the conflict through Christ and receive eternal glory.
The Mightier One who is stronger than the strong man armed is set for the defense of the just and delivers the faithful from Satan's power. As long as they are loyal and true and stand in defense of truth and God's law they have nothing to fear from force or fraud. In the end those who have believed and stood firmly in defense of truth will be given all power and greatness and excellence of character, and will be before the throne in the splendors of eternal day, no longer a scattered feeble company suffering the passions of a rebellious world.
God as the One stronger than the enemy has charge of His afflicted servant and keeps his case in His own hands, with His arms beneath him. Because the stronger One guards him, the afflicted one need not fear the enemy. He must dismiss fear, anxiety, doubt and unbelief and calmly trust in the great yet merciful God who pities, loves and cares for him. By relying by faith on the evidences God has given he will gloriously triumph in God, and God will be glorified in hearing prayer and restoring His servant to health.
In the last days Satan is on the track of everyone corrupted by false principles, determined to hold dominion over them as he holds dominion over the world. He knows his time for destroying is short, so he uses every deception he can devise to ensnare souls. Every advance of the gospel and every inroad into his dominion is met with fierce opposition from his forces, and the last conflict will be most terrible. Yet his overthrow will be complete, and everyone who unites with him by choosing apostasy rather than loyalty will perish with him. That victory is decided at the very time the proclamation of the third angel's message of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus is going to the world, when apostates are stirred to rebel and to hold minds in error.
When the love of Christ is absent from the heart, enmity springs into life and holds its place like a strong man armed. All in every place are called to pray and confess sin, so that the melting mercy of Christ creates stronger love, stronger faith and stronger temperance. That stronger grace keeps the soul-temple from moral defilement, selfish greed for first place, grasping what is not one's own, and indulgence of appetite that destroys the moral image of God in man. It leads to self-denial and self-sacrifice.