Outside the Church he is ever persuading men to maintain barbarous customs and destructive superstitions. Human sacrifice to idols,—gross, revolting, cruel, disgusting worship of abominable false deities,—persecution, slavery, cannibalism, child-murder, devastating religious wars,—all these are a part of Satan’s handiwork, and the fruit of his suggestions. Like a pirate, his object is to 'sink, burn, and destroy.'
Inside the Church he is ever labouring to sow heresies, to propagate errors, to foster departures from the faith. If he cannot prevent the waters flowing from the Fountain of Life, he tries hard to poison them. If he cannot destroy the medicine of the Gospel, he strives to adulterate and corrupt it. No wonder that he is called 'Apollyon, the destroyer.'
The Divine Comforter of the Church, the Holy Ghost, has always employed one great agent to oppose Satan’s devices. That agent is the Word of God.
The Word expounded and unfolded, the Word explained and opened up, the Word made clear to the head and applied to the heart,—the Word is the chosen weapon by which the devil must be confronted and confounded.
The Word was the sword which the Lord Jesus wielded in the temptation. To every assault of the Tempter, He replied, 'It is written.'
The Word is the sword which His ministers must use in the present day, if they would successfully resist the devil.
The Bible, faithfully and freely expounded, is the safe-guard of Christ’s Church."
--J.C. Ryle, Knots Untied: Being Plain Statements on Disputed Points in Religion(London: William Hunt and Company, 1885), 347–348.
