Satan Assaulting the Christian’s Faith1 by Ralph Erskine

1An extract from The Works of Ralph Erskine, vol 3. The six-volume set of Ralph Erskine’s Works is again available from Free Presbyterian Publications.

Question:

Why does Satan most fiercely assault the faith of a Christian?

Answer:

1. Because there is more of the power of God laid out on this grace than on almost anything else.

2. Satan knows that it is the Spirit of God that works this faith in us; he therefore envies it and opposes the work of the Spirit.

3. He knows that God is most delighted with this grace, and glorified by it. Without this grace it is impossible to please Him, and He is still pleased when it is exercised.

4. Satan knows that, of all other graces, faith is the strongest to overcome him; therefore we are exhorted to be, “above all, taking the shield of faith” (Eph 6:16). And it is said: “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith” (1 Jn 5:4).
   On the contrary, no sin damages the soul more than unbelief. By our unbelief we blaspheme God and make Him a liar. He has said that He has magnified His Word above all His name (Ps 138:2), but unbelief discredits His Word. Unbelief is the greatest sin, because it is the mother of all sins: “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God” (Heb 3:12). When once we turn from God, then we lie open to all sin. Therefore Satan envies our faith above all graces.

5. Faith is the most uniting grace. It unites the soul to God in Christ, whereas unbelief divides the soul from God.

6. As faith furthers good things to us, unbelief keeps outward good things from us. So the lord on whose hand the king leaned, who would not believe, had no benefit by the plenty in Samaria (2 Ki 7). It was unbelief that hindered Moses from entering the land of Canaan. Therefore Satan sets himself most against our faith. And because Satan sets himself so much against our faith, Christ takes care of our faith most of all. The whole Word of God is written to encourage and strengthen our faith: “These things are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through His name” (Jn 20:31).

Hence, whatever objection is made against believing in the Son of God, there is an antidote somewhere in Scripture to refute these objections. Again we may find that, by the very ways Satan takes to weaken our faith, the Lord Jesus Christ strengthens it. For example, Christ strengthens our faith by these temptations, by which Satan plans to overcome us (2 Cor 12:7-9). So, as we shall one day see, we could not have done without them. Again Satan plans to hurt us by exposing us in the world; therefore Christ does us good by these oppositions.

Hence learn the excellence of faith, although it seems the poorest and weakest grace, the most beggarly of all the graces. Love brings ointment to Christ’s head, and repentance brings tears to wash His feet, but faith gives nothing and brings nothing to Christ. Yet it is intended to occupy a higher office than any other grace: it is the hand that receives Christ and receives all from Him. What cannot be said of any other grace can be said of faith. As faith justifies, the same thing may be said of it as of Christ. It is Christ that justifies and Christ that saves; yet we are said to be justified by faith and saved by faith – but not in opposition to Christ. But to live by faith is to live by Christ; to be saved by faith is to be saved only by Christ. Again, in the matter of justification, faith is alone; no other grace is said to justify.

Further, observe these six particular points concerning it:

1. Faith is that grace by which we have access to God. Many times a poor soul is as a ship that is tossed in a furious tempest and cannot see land. Faith is like someone getting to the top of the mast and telling that he has seen the haven. It brings Christ and the soul together.

2. As faith is the grace that brings us to Christ, so it is the grace that keeps Christ and the soul together, that preserves the soul in Christ; you “are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation”.

3. Faith is the grace that presents us to God spotless and blameless. Faith receives the righteousness in which we appear spotless before God, saying, “In the Lord have I righteousness”.

4. Faith is the leading and commanding grace. It leads forth all the other graces that are in us. It is the holy centurion that says to someone: “Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh,” for the working of all the graces is according to the measure of faith.

5. Faith is the binding and uniting grace. Love also unites the soul to Christ; yet, though it is a uniting grace, the union that love makes is only a moral union, as one heart in two bodies. But the union that faith makes is a mystical union; it makes us spiritually and mystically one with Christ.

6. The excellence of faith lies in this: it is the one grace that Christ specially enquires after. “Where is your faith?” is the great question. When a storm seems to drive hope and courage and all else away, the question is, “Where is your faith?” “If thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God.” “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” There are two things our Lord is said to wonder at: one is that He wondered at the people’s unbelief, “He marvelled because of their unbelief” (Mk 6:6). Another is that He marvelled at the centurion’s faith. So it appears that faith is the only grace that Christ enquires after and is careful about; therefore it must be a grace that excels all the other graces.

On the other hand, we may hence see the vileness of the sin of unbelief. As faith is the most excellent grace, so unbelief is the most abominable sin.

1. Unbelief is seated in the most noble part of the soul: in the understanding it is darkness; in the will it is rebellion and opposition to God.

2. Unbelief is a seminary of all kinds of evil; it lets out the heart to all manner of sin. It is the unbelieving sinner that despises heaven and mocks at hell.

3. Unbelief is spiritual self-murder. It shuts out the soul from mercy, by rejecting the kindness of God and the Christ of God.

4. See what God says of it: “He that believeth not God hath made Him a liar” (1 Jn 5:10), as if no notice was to be given to what God speaks, no regard to what He says. Hence Christ’s greatest care is to have unbelief dashed and faith furthered: “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not”.

It is due to the mediation and intercession of Christ that, though the faith of disciples may fearfully languish, it shall not utterly fail. If you are left to yourself, believer, you will fall, especially in a day of temptation, in a winnowing and sifting time; but you are to expect keeping, by the power of God and the prayer of Christ. The prayer of Christ is not only general – for all believers – but for particular believers: “I have prayed for thee”. This is an encouragement for us to pray for ourselves and an obligation to pray for others.