Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. (18) For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. (19) For your obedience is come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore on your behalf: but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil. (20) And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.
What a refreshment hath this promise been found to thousands! The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. Let the Reader observe the sweetness of it, and the certainty of it. Satan is a subtle foe, a powerful foe, an everlasting foe. But the promise is absolute; he shall be bruised under the feet of the Lord's people shortly. He is come down with great wrath among the inhabitants of the earth, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time, Revelation 12:12. But how is he to be conquered, and brought under our feet? The promise doth not give the least encouragement, that any of God's redeemed shall subdue him, in any strength of their own, Alas! the strongest of God's people, are but as feathers, if left to themselves, to the wind of Satan's temptations. But, the great blessedness of the promise is, that the God of peace will do it. And there is another precious part in this promise: when the God of peace bruiseth Satan, it shall be under our feet. Sweet consideration! Though you, and I, have nothing to do in the work; yet we have all the blessedness, in the victory. Our God will bruise him, and bring him down; but it shall be under our feet. As Joshua said to the men of war, which went with him to the holy war: Come ye near, and put your feet upon the necks of your enemies: So our Almighty Joshua will do by all that war with him, when he brings Satan under their feet, Joshua 10:24-25. And though the child of God, when harrassed with temptations, thinks it a long season, and frequently groans under the exercise, saying: how long shall mine enemy afflict me? yet the Lord saith, shortly he will bruise Satan under our feet. The Lord doth by his people now, as he did by his people of old, in driving out their enemies before them from Canaan. The Lord thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little. Thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field encrease upon thee. But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they be destroyed, Deuteronomy 7:22-23. If the Lord were to destroy Satan at once, and if no foes from within, nor temptations from without, were to exercise the people of God; the beasts of the field in a man's own heart, namely, Spiritual pride, and Pharisaical righteousness, would increase upon him, and be more deadly in evil, than all the other devices of Satan. The Lord keeps his people humble therefore, by continually letting them see, and feel, the plague of their own heart. And Satan, for this purpose, is not wholly destroyed as yet. Neither at length shall the people of God have any hand in his destruction. This is our Jesus's work, and our Jesus's sole glory. It is the Lord thy God which shall drive all out, and consume all our foes with a mighty destruction, until they are destroyed. Reader! do not, no, not for a moment, lose sight of this sweet promise. The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly!