God may permit, where there is much activity and labor, that Satan should raise up obstacles, in order that we may be kept in dependence on the Lord; but God never allows Satan to act otherwise than on the flesh. If we leave the door open, if we get away from God, Satan does us harm; but otherwise his efforts are only a test for faith, to warn us of some danger or snare, or of something that would tend to exalt us in our own eyes. It is an instrument for our correction. That is, God allows Satan to trouble the mind, and make the flesh suffer outwardly, in order that the inner man may be kept from evil. 378
The rule that is given you is excellent, where and when it can be applied; that is, to do what Jesus would have done in such or such a circumstance. But are we often in the circumstances wherein the Lord would have been found? 378