"A sure sign that Satan is losing...."

“Leaving the first kind of fiery darts — enticing and alluring temptations — we now proceed to the second kind, those that fill the Christian with fear.  It is only the power of faith that can quench these fiery darts.

This is Satan’s weapon held in reserve.  When alluring temptations fail, he opens his quiver and shoots these arrows to set the soul on fire, if not with sin then with terror.  When he cannot carry a soul laughing to hell through the deception of pleasurable temptations, he will try to make him go mourning to heaven by this amazing attack.  It is a sure sign that Satan is losing.

The arrows he shot at Job were of this kind.  When God let the devil practice his skill, why did Satan not tempt Job with some golden apple of profit or pleasure or some other enticement?  Surely the high testimony God gave about Job discouraged him from these methods.  Satan had no tactic left but this.”

-- William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armor (London, 1964), II:91.  Paraphrased.
HT: Ray Ortlund, Jr.