in. One is a black thread, inky black, pot-black. The other is a bright
thread, like a bit of glory light streaming across. These two threads
everywhere. The one is this--the black thread--there is an enemy. Turn
where you will from Genesis to Revelation--always an enemy. He is keen. He
is subtle. He is malicious. He is cruel. He is obstinate. He is a master.
The second thread is this: the leaders for God have always been men of
prayer above everything else. They are men of power in other ways,
preachers, men of action, with power to sway others but above all else men
of prayer. They give prayer first place. There is one striking exception
to this, namely, King Saul. And most significantly a study of this
exception throws a brilliant lime light upon the career of Satan. King
Sauls seems to furnish the one great human illustration in scripture of
heaven's renegade fallen prince. These special paragraphs to be quoted are
like the pattern in the cloth where the colours of the yarn come into more
definite shape. The gospels form the central pattern of the whole where
the colours pile up into sharpest contrast.



Praying is Fighting.


But let us turn to the Book at once. For we _know_ only what it tells. The
rest is surmise. The only authoritative statements about Satan seem to be
these here. Turn first to the New Testament.

The Old Testament is the book of illustrations; the New of explanations,
of teaching. In the Old, teaching is largely by kindergarten methods. The
best methods, for the world was in its child stage. In the New the
teaching is by precept. There is precept teaching in the Old; very much.