I recognised uneasily the hand of what I sometimes thought to be my personal nemesis, the spirit of farce.

In the Louvre there is a picture, by Guido Reni, of St. Michael with his foot on Satan's neck. The richness of the picture is in large part due to the fiend's figure being there. The richness of its allegorical meaning also is due to his being there—that is, the world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.

I gave all up to him to do with me as he pleased, and was willing that God should rule over me at his pleasure

The submission which you demand of yourself to the general fact of evil in the world, your apparent acquiescence in it, is here nothing but the conviction that evil at large is none of your business until your business with your private particular evils is liquidated and settled up.

Unfortunately, most Christians do not understand the battle they are fighting, the enemy that they face, or the means God has provided to overcome the temptations and deception of this present world system.

The existence of the devil is so clearly taught in the Bible that to doubt it is to doubt the Bible itself.

Some spiritual leaders try to be more committed. What they need is to be more submitted.

If Christians around the world were to suddenly renounce their personal agendas, their life goals and their aspirations, and begin responding in radical obedience to everything God showed them. the world would be turned upside down. How do we know? Because that's what first century Christians did, and the world is still talking about it.

How can you pull down strongholds of Satan if you don't even have the strength to turn off your TV?

Christ conquered him two thousand years ago. Satan fools and feints, blows and bluffs, and we so often take his threats to heart and forget ''the exceeding greatness of God's power to usward.

I personally claim no special insight into Satan's methods, but I have at times been able to identify his influence and his actions in my life and in the lives of others. When I was on my first mission, Satan sought to divert me from my future path and, if possible, to destroy my usefulness in the Lord's work.

She prayed. Not merely for wisdom, but for submission. Would she ever be ready—and willing—to let God work out the details of her future?