much harm to the devil’s wily purposes as chaff that is carried along by the wind. All physical power and strength cannot destroy him because it is him who gives rise to it with his cunning. In this way, everyone who wants or presumes to destroy his dominion through the strength and power of this world is on his side by it, serves him, and exalts him more than he was exalted in his dominion before.
We have to understand these words in still greater measure when He says that there is not any power on earth that would be able to stand up against him. We can thus understand that no power that a person can receive and have from God is all-powerful against the devil, being on the earth. But we say that with reason, because there is no such power or gift given by God that a person could not lose it if he does not guard it carefully and gratefully and, moreover, particularly if the supreme help of God itself does not keep that person’s gift secure. The devil’s power corrupts and overpowers everything, and nothing stands before him. Therefore, no one in himself is put at ease or secured before the devil’s power, whatever great gifts he has from God. But from these words it would seem that there is no reason to rely on spiritual power, virtues, and other gifts, when such spiritual powers and gifts do not stand up against the devil’s power. Faithful people should not understand it in this way, but it is true that without spiritual power there is no opposing the devil. It is also true that no gift in a holy person is so secure and certain that it could not be lost if God and man do not carefully and thankfully guard it. Otherwise, no person’s spiritual power could stand against the devil’s power here on the earth. That is why, for a person’s further understanding, the Lord God names these physical weapons here. Even though a person has them, and because God’s help is not in them, a man will not stand up against the devil’s power with such weapons.
The Lord God also says, “A marksman cannot repel him,” because the work and activity of a marksman is well known, how far and precisely he aims and shoots. And in that is understood the wise ingenuity of a person to be able to precisely find the right mark for everything, to get to the heart of things in everything he does so that it is not too much or too little, and to sort out the true from the false in everything so that it is not mingled together and everything is in order. Whoever aims at and hits the truth in such necessary and profitable things is a good and accurate marksman. Nevertheless, he does not make the devil flee with such marksmanship if he does not have God’s supreme power to keep him in that marksmanship.
Then He says that “sling stones will turn into chaff to him.” The sling stone crushes and destroys strong things, and by that are understood people of firm resolve in long-suffering, such that they labor for good things and in great difficulties right up to destruction of life by a violent death. They do not destroy others with their strength, but suffer intensely in the destruction of their own lives. The devil could be defeated with that long-suffering as with a sling stone, but it all turns back into chaff when vain praises blow in with the wind; it lifts that heart up like meaningless chaff. That is why that longsuffering will not harm the devil, because it turns into chaff when such trifling praises destroy it.
“He laughs at the rattling of the lance,” because those who take lances and shake them are like fearless heroes standing against enemies. By that are understood people of a fearless heart wanting to go in among enemies wisely with a lance that keeps them at a distance, sparring with it and not like with a club that can hardly protect their heads. These people are diligent and fearless in goodness and do not rue laying their lives down in various labors and painstakingly going far down into the devil’s secret den as with a lance. But the devil laughs at that lance, having more cunning beyond all the understanding of those people. Therefore, the devil will not fear the effect of their efforts. It is all hilarity before him.
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