Today I came across my notes and highlights from reading Thomas Brooks’ Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Decives. If you’ve never had the opportunity to read Brooks, I cannot stress how powerful this work is, and how helpful it can be in your walk with the Lord. As with most Puritan writers, his study on the devices of Satan to tempt and lure the Christian into sin is exhaustive.  He will tell you what he’s going to tell you, tell you, then tell you what he just told you. It can, at times, seem overdone, but it aids you in knowing the enemy and his tactics, and in learning to lean entirely on the Word of God and His saving grace through all of life.

Here is a summary of the final chapter, Ten Special Helps and Rules Against Satan’s Devices.

1. Walk by rule of the Word of God. He who walks by rule, walks most safely; he who walks by rule, walks most honorably; he who walks by rule, walks most sweetly. When men throw off the Word, then God throws them off, and then Satan takes them by the hand, and leads them into snares at his pleasure.
2. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.  It is the Spirit who is best able to discover Satan’s snares against us; it is only he who can point out all his plots, and discover all his methods, and enable men to escape those pits that Satan has dug for their precious souls. Ah! if you set that sweet and blessed Spirit a-mourning, who alone can secure you from Satan’s depths—by whom will you be preserved?
3. Labor for more heavenly wisdom.  There are many educated souls—but there are but a few wise souls. There is oftentimes a great deal of knowledge, where there is but a little wisdom to improve that knowledge. It is not the most knowing Christian—but the most wise Christian, who sees, avoids, and escapes Satan’s snares. Heavenly wisdom makes a man delight to fly high; and the higher any man flies, the more he is out of the reach of Satan’s snares.
4. Resist against Satan’s first motions. It is safe to resist, it is dangerous to dispute. Eve disputes, and falls in paradise; Job resists, and conquers upon the ash-heap. He who will play with Satan’s bait, will quickly be taken with Satan’s hook! The promise of conquest is given to resisting, not to disputing: ‘Resist the devil, and he will flee from you’ (James 4:7).
5. Labor to be filled with the Spirit. It is not enough that you have the Spirit—but you must be filled with the Spirit, or else Satan, that evil spirit, will be too hard for you, and his plots will prosper against you. He who thinks he has enough of the Holy Spirit, will quickly find himself vanquished by the evil spirit. Therefore labor more to have your hearts filled with the Spirit than to have your heads filled with notions, your shops with wares, your chests with silver, or your bags with gold; so shall you escape the snares of this fowler, and triumph over all his plots.
6. Keep Humble. An humble heart will rather lie in the dust than rise by wickedness, and sooner part with all than the peace of a good conscience. Humility keeps the soul free from many darts of Satan’s casting, and snares of his spreading; as the low shrubs are free from many violent gusts and blasts of wind, which shake and rend the taller trees. The devil has least power to fasten a temptation on him who is most humble. He who has a gracious measure of humility, is neither affected with Satan’s offers nor terrified with his threatenings.
7. Keep a strong, close, and constant watch (1 Thess. 5:6). A sleepy soul is already an ensnared soul. That soul that will not watch against temptations, will certainly fall before the power of temptations. Satan works most strongly on the imagination, when the soul is drowsy. The soul’s slothfulness is Satan’s opportunity to fall upon the soul and to destroy the soul, as Joshua did the men of Ai. The best way to be safe and secure from all Satan’s assaults is, with Nehemiah and the Jews, to watch and pray, and pray and watch.
8. Keep up your communion with God. Your strength to stand and withstand Satan’s fiery darts is from your communion with God. A soul high in communion with God may be tempted—but will not easily be conquered. Such a soul will fight it out to the death.  Communion is Jacob’s ladder, where you have Christ sweetly coming down into the soul, and the soul, by divine influences, sweetly ascending up to Christ.
9. Do not engage Satan in your own strength, but be every day drawing new virtue and strength from the Lord Jesus. Ah, souls! remember this, that your strength to stand and overcome must not be expected from graces received in the past—but from the fresh and renewed influences of heaven. You must lean more upon Christ than upon your duties; you must lean more upon Christ than upon your spiritual tastes and discoveries: you must lean more upon Christ than upon your graces, or else Satan will lead you into captivity.

10. Be much in prayer. Prayer is a shelter to the soul, a sacrifice to God and a scourge to the devil. Christians must do as Daedalus, that when he could not escape by a way upon earth, went by a way of heaven— and that is, the way of prayer, which is the only way left to escape Satan’s snares.

     

Brooks, Thomas. Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices (p. 184). . Kindle Edition.