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Title: Is the Devil a Myth?
Author: C. F. Wimberly
Release Date: July 12, 2013 [EBook #43205]
Language: English
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Is the Devil a Myth?
By C. F. WIMBERLY
_Author of "The Vulture's Claw," "New Clothes for
the Old Man," "The Cry in the Night," "The
Winepress," "The Lost Legacy," Etc., Etc._
NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
Fleming H. Revell Company
LONDON AND EDINBURGH
Copyright, 1913, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street
_With the fondest recollections and
appreciation of one, "in age and
feebleness extreme," who taught me
the first lessons about the Being of
these studies; one who contributed
her all to the rearing of noble ideals,
MARTHA M. WIMBERLY,
My Mother,
this book is lovingly dedicated by
the Author_
Preface
It is the writer's firm conviction, in these days when the most
enthusiastic "bookworm" cannot even keep up with the titles of the book
output, that an earnest, sensible reason should be given for adding
another to the already endless list of books. We have enough books to-day,
"good, bad, indifferent," with which, if they were collected, to build
another Cyclops pyramid. The sage of the Old Testament declared in his
day, concerning the endless making of books; such a statement, compared
with modern writing and publishing of books, sounds amusing.
Every possible subject, vagary, or ism, for which a book could be written,
is overworked. Bible themes of all grades, from orthodoxy to ultra higher
criticism, have flooded the land. Especially is the iconoclast in much
evidence; he is free lance, and shows no quarters. Cardinal tenets of
Bible faith, so long unquestioned, are being smitten with a merciless
hand. Disintegration is the most obvious fact among us; nothing is too
sacred for the crucible of what is termed "scholarship."
But why this book? Let us take a little survey. Over against the modern
idea, that the race is endowed with all the inherent elements of goodness
necessary to its regeneration, there is a correspondent belief that _evil_
is only an error. When the race by social and mental evolution succeeds
in eliminating all the superstitions and false dogmas, the body politic
will be self-curative, like the physical body, restoring itself by means
of inspiration, respiration, exercise, sleep, food, etc., once the causes
of disease are eliminated from the system.
For several decades we have been approaching the doctrine which denies all
Personalism--either good or bad. When we repudiate the Bible teaching,
that the source of all evil emanates from a great Personality, the Bible
teaching of the Incarnation suffers in the same proportion.
The title of this book is a question, and one by no means strained, if
considered from the view-point of modern thought. We have undertaken an
answer. If by reason and revelation we can arrive at a satisfactory
conclusion, the gain thereby cannot be overestimated. If the personality
of Satan can be successfully consigned to the religious junk pile, our
Bible is at once thrown into a jumble of contradictions and
inconsistencies. The result will be even worse than our enemies claim for
it now. One of the late recognized writers on the Old Testament says: "The
Old Testament is no longer considered valuable among scholars as a sacred
oracle, but it is valuable in that it is the history of a people." _If the
Devil is a Myth, our Bible can be nothing better than historical chaos._
In the preparation of these pages, we wish to acknowledge with deep
gratitude the assistance of Mr. S. D. Gordon, author of "Quiet Talks"; Dr.
I. M. Haldeman, author and preacher; Dr. Gross Alexander, editor, author,
and preacher; Dr. W. B. Godbey, an author of great learning and extensive
travel; Dr. B. Carradine, evangelist and author; Dr. H. C. Morrison,
college president, editor, author, and evangelist; Prof. L. T. Townsend,
and Hon. Philip Mauro.
If the reading of this book shall bring to any struggling soul helpful
information concerning our common Enemy, we shall be doubly repaid for the
labour of its preparation. We send it forth saturated with prayer.
C. F. W.
_Madisonville, Ky._
Contents
I. THE PROBLEM OF EVIL 11
II. THE ORIGIN OF EVIL 16
III. LUCIFER 20
IV. DEVIL--SATAN--SERPENT--DRAGON 24
V. DIABOLUS--DEMONIA--ABADDON-APOLLYON 28
VI. THE DEVIL A "BLOCKADE" 31
VII. THE GREAT MAGICIAN 34
VIII. THE ROARING LION 37
IX. AN ANGEL OF LIGHT 41
X. THE SOWER OF TARES 46
XI. THE ARCH SLANDERER 50
XII. THE DOUBLE ACCUSER 54
XIII. SATAN A SPY 58
XIV. THE QUACK DOCTOR 62
XV. THE DEVIL A THEOLOGIAN 66
XVI. THE DEVIL A THEOLOGIAN (_Continued_) 71
XVII. THE DEVIL'S RIGHTEOUSNESS 75
XVIII. THE WORLD'S TEMPTER 80
XIX. THE CONFIDENCE MAN 84
XX. THE TRAPPER 89
XXI. THE INCOMPARABLE ARCHER 93
XXII. THE FATHER OF LIARS 96
XXIII. THE KINGSHIP OF SATAN 100
XXIV. THE DEVIL'S HANDMAIDEN 105
XXV. THE ASTUTE AUTHOR 110
XXVI. THE HYPNOTIST 114
XXVII. DEVIL POSSESSION 119
XXVIII. DEVIL OPPRESSION 124
XXIX. DEVIL ABDUCTION 129
XXX. THE RATIONALE OF SUICIDE 134
XXXI. DEVIL WORSHIP 138
XXXII. VICTORY THROUGH THE VICTOR 143
XXXIII. THE ARREST AND IMPRISONMENT 148
XXXIV. THE FINAL CONSUMMATION 152
XXXV. SATANIC SYMBOL IN NATURE 156
I
THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
"And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and
that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil
continually."--_Genesis vi. 5._
That we may appreciate this discussion, removed as far as possible from
theological terminology and theories, and get a concrete view-point, the
following head-lines from a single issue of a metropolitan daily will
suffice: "War Clouds Hanging Low;" "Men Higher Up Involved;" "Eighty-seven
Divorces On Docket;" "Blood Flows In the Streets;" "Gaunt Hunger Among
Strikers;" "Arrested For Forgery;" "A White Slave Victim;" "Attempted
Train Robbery;" "Kills Wife and Ends Own Life;" "Two Men Bite Dust;"
"Investigate Bribery."
This fearful list may be duplicated almost every day in the year. Our land
is deluged with crime, without respect to person or place; its blight
touches all circles from the slum to the four hundred. Wealth and poverty,
culture and ignorance, fame and obscurity, suffer alike from this Pandora
Box scourge. The march of history--the pilgrimage of the race, has enjoyed
but little respite from tears and blood. Those who strive to maintain a
standard of purity, righteousness, and honour, are beset by strange,
powerful, intangible influences, from the cradle to the grave. The child
in swaddling clothes has a predisposition to willfullness, deception, and
disobedience; paroxysms of passion and anger are manifested with the
slightest provocation.
Notwithstanding the barriers thrown up by the home and society; the
incentives and assurances for noble, industrious living, the dykes are
continually giving way, so that police power and the frowning walls of
penal institutions are insufficient to check the overflow. The Church of
God, with its open Book, ringing out messages of life and hope at every
corner; the object lessons on the "wages of sin," sweeping in full view
before us, like the reel-film of a motion picture--do not seem to lessen
the harvest of moral shipwreck.
According to some recent police records and statistics, only about
one-half of the country's criminals are apprehended; if this is true of
those who violate the law, a much smaller per cent. of those who break the
perfect moral law, as related to domestic and religious life, are ever
exposed. When these facts are considered, the perspective for the reign of
righteousness is lurid and hopeless. The country has been amazed,
recently, at the revelations of how municipal and national treasuries are
being looted by extortion, extravagance, and misrule, on the part of men
holding positions as a sacred trust. Civilization fosters and maintains a
traffic which has not one redeeming feature; besides killing directly and
indirectly more men daily than were blown up in the battle-ship _Maine_.
Let us view the problem of evil from another angle: a writer on the
subject of food supplies says the earth each year furnishes an abundant
quantity of fruits, meats, cereals, and vegetables to feed all her
peoples; yet gaunt famine is never entirely removed. Even in America a
surprising per cent. of our people are underfed and underclothed. "Fifty
thousand go to bed hungry every night in New York City," declares a
professor of economics. The same ratio obtains in other large cities of
our land. Scenes of pinching poverty occur within a few blocks of the most
wanton luxury and extravagance. One lady spends fifty thousand
dollars--enough to satisfy all the hungry--on one evening's entertainment.
Oranges rot on the Pacific coast by car-loads, when the children of the
Ghetto scarcely taste them.
Nature fills her storehouses, and tries to scatter with a prodigal hand,
but her resources are cornered and controlled by a criminal system which
revolves around the "almighty dollar"--the root of all evil.
Are we to conclude that man's free agency is responsible for this moral
monstrosity? Or, to be theologically particular, shall we say, free agency
dominated by an innate disposition to evil: human depravity, original sin,
the carnal mind? Allowing the fullest latitude to the free moral agency of
the race; allowing the evil nature, like the foul soil producing a
continuous crop of vile weeds, to produce an inexorable bent, or
predisposition to sin, operating on man's free agency--have we a full and
sufficient explanation of the presence and power of Evil?
The carnal mind is enmity with God, not subject to His laws; but the
carnal mind is in competition with a _human_ nature, wherein are found
emotions and sentiments that are far from being all sinful: sympathy,
tenderness, benevolence, paternal and filial love, sex-love, and honesty.
Again, we rarely find environment as an unmixed evil. Notwithstanding
these hindrances the press almost daily has details and delineations of
crimes so fearful and shocking that no trace of the human appears.
Frequently we hear of a man, who has committed some dreadful outrage,
personified as "beast," "fiend," "inhuman," etc. A young man in his teens,
wishing to marry, but being under age and without sufficient means,
decided that if he could dispose of his father, mother, brother, and
sister--the farm and property would all be his, then, unmolested, could
consummate his matrimonial plans. Whereupon, armed with an axe, at the
midnight hour, he executes his "fiendish" plot. Another man, with a young
and beautiful wife, and the father of two bright children, becomes
infatuated with a young woman in a distant state; he woos and wins her
affections; he returns home to arrange "some business matters" on the day
preceding the wedding. This business matter was to dispose of his wife and
children, which he did; on the following night, led to the marriage altar
an innocent, unsuspecting girl. A young minister commits double murder,
and on the following day enters his pulpit and preaches from the text:
"Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of my heart, be acceptable
in Thy sight, O Lord."
These cases are actual occurrences, mentioned for emphasis only, that the
problem of evil may be studied from life. These examples prove
conclusively that the problem goes deeper than human depravity or free
agency; both are accessories--conditions, binding cords, as it were, but
the jarring stroke comes from a mightier hand.
The unregenerated heart has been called a "playground," and a "coaling
station" for the headmaster of all villainies. It was more than wounded
pride and vanity that propagated the scheme of Haman, whereby a whole
nation was to be destroyed at a single stroke. Vengeance and hate are
terrible passions, but only as they are fanned by the breath of an
inhabitant of the Inferno can they go to such extremes. It was more than a
desire to crush out heresy that could instigate a "St. Bartholomew's Day,"
then sing the Te Deum after the bloody deed was accomplished.
We shall endeavour in the subsequent pages to throw a few rays of light,
in obscure corners, on the problem of evil through its multiform phases
and ramifications.
II
THE ORIGIN OF EVIL
"And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the
Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out
into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him."--_Revelation
xii. 9._
It requires but a casual survey of this problem to reach a conclusion that
its hideousness cannot be explained by any other hypothesis than the power
of an invisible Personality. When we scrutinize the footprints of the
race, it will be found that progress has been along a dark, slimy trail;
the infidels and philosophers who are loud in their boastings of inherent
goodness will have difficulty in reconciling this fact. All who think are
confronted with an ever-recurring question--yea, exclamations: why do such
things happen? What meaneth these barbarities, ravages, cruelties? Why so
much domestic discord, ending in ruin--so many suicides? Why do men and
women hurl themselves over the precipice of vice and deadly
indulgences--when even a novice might easily see the inevitable?
For a parallel we are reminded of an incident in war: log-chains were used
when the cannon-ball supply was exhausted; lanes the width of the chain
length were mowed through the ranks of the opposing army. These chasms of
death were closed up each time, only to be cut down again by the next
discharge. The pathway of ruin is thronged--the "broad road" is easy;
however, there is something stranger than this utter blindness: the
victims laugh and shout on this highway, paved as it is by the macadam of
crushed humanity.
Now, can there be found a rationale for this dreadful twist in human
affairs--this seeming unfathomable conundrum? We cannot believe that God
would create a "footstool" in which sin, suffering, and misery were to
abound; no such provision could have been in the divine plan. In the Word
of God alone we find the explanation of it all. The Word gives an
unmistakable account of an insurrection in heaven: "Michael and his angels
fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels, and
prevailed not." This strange warfare was inaugurated by the great
archangelic leader.
This "war in heaven" could have but one ending: the complete overthrow of
the disturber and his followers. They were cast out, and are, beyond a
doubt, swarming around this sin-blinded planet--invisible, yet personal
and all but omnipresent. When we remember that one-third of the angelic
population of heaven cast their lot with this chieftain, his strength and
personality can be somewhat understood. It is written: "The tail
(influence) of the dragon drew the third part of the stars (angels) of
heaven, and cast them down to the earth." In their relation to heaven, the
dragon and his angels met with irremediable ruin; now, defeated,
humiliated, maddened, doomed, this fallen archangel and his innumerable
myrmidons are filling the whole earth with every curse that can be
conjured up by their superior, supernatural intelligence. There can be no
room to doubt the truth of this hellish propaganda, as he is called the
"god of this world."
It must be kept clearly in mind that the powers of darkness can, in no
sense, mean an ethereal, impersonal spirit of evil--or perverseness of
weak human nature; but rather a Being who rules and commands legions upon
legions of subjects--_demons_, each of them endowed with all the powers
and gifts possessed when they were ministering emissaries of God. They are
now "the angels which kept not their first estate."
We have no way to estimate the size of this satanic army, marshalled for
the destruction of the race and the overthrow of Christ's kingdom.
However, we read in the tenth chapter of Revelation that two hundred
million were turned loose in the earth at one time. Ten thousand were in
the country of the Gadarenes when the Master entered there; no wonder the
entire land was kept in terror, even though their incarnation seemed to
have been limited to one man living in a graveyard. Seven demons were cast
out of one woman.
We should keep in mind the distinction between "the devil" and demons;
there is but one _Devil_, but the demons are swarming the length and
breadth of the whole earth. Just as God directs His angels in ministeries
of righteousness, so this god of darkness directs his angels to do his
nefarious will. There are feats so daring and important that the Devil, it
seems, will not trust to his underlings. He engineered in person the
temptations of the Master; he entered the heart of Judas, and caused him
to sell his Lord, then commit suicide.
The Bible undoubtedly teaches that Satan and his cohorts, having access to
our fallen natures (which became so through his contribution of "forbidden
fruit"--his great triumph in the Garden), are inciting this world to all
the crimes known to our criminal dockets. Think of the train wreckers,
rapists, incendiaries, white slavers, riots, strikes, grafters, gamblers,
etc.; and as Paul has catalogued them: "unrighteousness, fornication,
wickedness, maliciousness, envy, deceit, malignity, whisperers,
backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil
things, disobedient to parents, covenant breakers, without natural
affection, implacable, unmerciful."
No one can consider this long, gruesome list of iniquities without a
feeling that they originated, somehow, in the realm of supernatural
darkness. The worst things that can be said of fallen humanity is its
availability and susceptibility to the machinations of this past master of
the Pit, whose only ambition is to rob the blood of its purchase
possessions by wrecking the souls for whom Christ died. Our sinful nature
responds to his touch; the wonderful gamut of the soul is capable of being
swept its entire length by his skill. A master player on God's greatest
instrument--His masterpiece. All the fearful deeds committed seem to be
acts of volition, and they are; but in the dark background lurks another
superior will responsible for the initiative.
III
LUCIFER
"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How
art thou cut down to the ground, which did weaken the
nations!"--_Isaiah xiv. 12._
"And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven,
burning as it were a lamp."--_Revelation viii. 10._
"And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto
the earth; and to him was given the key of the bottomless
pit."--_Revelation ix. 1._
It is reasonable to believe that all intelligent beings are morally free;
and if free, are on probation. Intelligence, will-power, free agency, and
probation are logically inseparable, regardless of place or environment.
Without question, in the natural world this is true, and therefore must be
true in the spiritual world. That men, angels, archangels, and redeemed
spirits never attain a state of character beyond the possibility of free
choice is a most fearful responsibility.
But for the imperialism of intelligent will, the _fall of angels_ is
unreasonable, improbable, impossible. Just how temptation can assail the
inhabitants of heaven--the land, we are told, "where the wicked cease from
troubling and the weary are at rest"--is beyond all human comprehension.
Startling as this truth appears to be, the Bible teaches it in
unmistakable language.
"Lucifer, son of the morning," an archangel, a great being, created in
holiness, standing near the Throne of God. His name means "light bearer,"
indicative of his glorious office. We can scarcely imagine such honour,
such power, such distinction. Just what the high-calling of "light bearer"
was, as it was performed under the highest commission in the universe, the
Book fails to tell us; but the office of Lucifer was surely the peer of
Michael or Gabriel, if not above them in rank. Brilliancy and splendour
radiated from his person.
May we dare, not altogether by the imagination, to venture into that
remote, prehistoric time when the Second Person of the Trinity--the
Anointed One--the Logos, a being of perfection, made in the image of the
invisible God, became a Manifestation. That One of whom "the whole family
in heaven and earth is named"; sharing the glory and honour equally with
the Father, on a throne in the heavenlies. Milton and others believe that
the presence of this Manifestation aroused in Lucifer a consuming spirit
of ambition and envy; he at once aspired to the place and power which God
reserved for His only begotten Son.
We get still another side-light on the personality of Lucifer, when we
consider his gigantic scheme. Aaron Burr planned the overthrow of his
country, and dreamed of rulership; such a vision were impossible in the
mind of any but a master of assemblies--an empire builder. Lucifer saw
himself a ruler above that of a Creator, as "all things were made by Him."
No wonder the inspired exclamation concerning him: "How art thou fallen,
O Lucifer." When the climax of his overthrow came, he "fell like lightning
out of heaven." The honourable cognomen is now lost forever; the glory of
holiness has given place to the dishonour of despair. In the language of
the poet, he "preferred to rule in hell rather than serve in heaven." This
light bearer of Paradise is still a prince, but in the dark regions of
endless woe; "ruler of the darkness of this world."
This archangel who felt himself capable of heavenly authority finds an
easier task here below. Speaking to the Master, hear his presumption and
audacity, "all these things (the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of
them) will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me." What was
the condition named? The restoration of what he had lost: that the Son of
God pay him homage and obeisance. Baffled in this crowning stroke, he
slunk away only to study the vantage more discreetly, reinforce, and
reassert.
Let us keep in mind that intelligence and personality are not affected by
the status of character; magnetic power and influence over others are not
lost when the life is wholly given over to evil. Piety and holiness may be
displaced by treachery and hate, but the force of personality remains. If
any change takes place, the individual becomes more subtle and more
insidious in schemes to further selfish interests. If a righteous man,
endowed with unusual powers, fall into a life of sin, he carries over into
his wickedness all his former gifts and faculties--nothing is lost.
This proposition enables us to further appreciate the marvellous
capabilities of the fallen Lucifer. Besides the Trinity, there are none
superior in the universe. God allows His enemies, both men and devils, to
continue a proprietary control of their talents, whether they be one or
ten. There will be no devestments until the last shifting of the scene.
When we remember all the attributes, previous advantages, and present
opportunities of the greatest of all apostates, the conundrum of human
actions, individually and nationally, begins slowly to unravel. The fight
is not alone with men in sin, but with the "prince of the powers of the
air."
When Lucifer rebelled and met the just rebuke of God's wrath, all his
glory, power, and brilliancy became demonized. Then, through all the
millenniums there has been not one hour of relaxation; no armistice for
the invisible warfare. Just as saints grow in faith, vision, and divine
illumination, devils sink lower and lower; but at the same time develop in
skill and efficiency by a continual application of their debased energies.
It is therefore reasonable to believe that our "common Enemy" is far more
formidable than the day he was cast into the earth. Our ability to
encounter him successfully becomes a more hopeless struggle with the
passing days. If, in the days of Paul, it were expedient to have on the
"whole armour of God" to meet him, nothing short of "all the fullness of
God" is the paramount need to-day.
IV
DEVIL--SATAN--SERPENT--DRAGON
"And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against
the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not;
neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon
was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which
deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his
angels were cast out with him."--_Revelation xii. 7-9._
Names were significant in Bible times; they are given to-day at random,
but then names were indicative of character. When character changed, the
name changed: Jacob to Israel; Saul to Paul, etc. While the subject of
these pages remained the holy, shining light bearer of heaven, he was
Lucifer, but that name was lost to him forever. So varied were his
passions, characteristics, and powers that must be known by appropriate
names, and each, as given, designates some phase of his multiform
personality.
_Devil._ Not only did Lucifer lose name and character; he exchanged a
brilliant, glorious external appearance (to eyes that penetrate the
invisible) for one ugly, loathsome, beastly. If language can be
interpreted literally, the eye of inspiration and revelation sees him a
_Devil--sair_ in the Hebrew, "hairy one," "he goat," etc. The he goat, in
the Bible, stands for all that is low and base. Those who partake of the
_sair_ nature, in the Last Day, are called _goats_. He divided the sheep
from the goats. God teaches us spiritual lessons in all nature, especially
by the animal kingdom, and as the goat is a synonym for the lowest
instincts of the animal; we find a being created in the highest realm of
spiritual life sinking to the lowest level of brute life. If no further
delineation were given--no other name than Devil--the fall was from one
extreme to the other.
This cognomen carried further has a second meaning: _spoiler_, one whose
touch soils and besmirches, rearranges; bright spots are smeared with
black soot; flowers with sweet odour, after his blight passes over them,
send out a stench; hearts of purity are defiled and debauched; faces of
beauty become marred and ugly. Whenever and wherever it serves his
purpose, cosmos becomes chaos. He is a spoiler.
_Satan._ In this familiar title we see him in the character rôle which
dominates all his actions. As Satan he is the _hater_. Of all the evil
passions of the soul, hate is the most terrible. As manifested in human
relationships, the hater is a murderer. Somehow hate seems to be a
resultant of wrath, malice, envy, jealousy, and revenge. Hatred in the
bosom of the weak or cowardly affects only its possessor; but hatred
burning in the soul of one who is strong and courageous, nothing belonging
to the object of his hatred is secure: life, personal property, or
reputation.
We want carefully to note the full significance of hatred; then place
beside it the one who hates--yes, as no other being in all the universe
can hate. He is the father of haters; the tragedies of all kinds, filling
the world with terror, because of murders, bomb explosions, incendiaries,
poisonings, are but the scattered rays reflected and deflected from this
full orb of hate as he revolves in his sphere of darkness.
Satan hates God, hates the Holy Ghost, but the full force of his hate, of
necessity, is directed towards the _Son_ of God, his rival for place and
power. The supreme work of the Son was the Atonement; now, the interest
and anxiety of heaven has been transferred to this planet. The supreme
triumph of the Second Person of the Trinity was accomplished on the Cross
where He paid the price of human redemption. His energies are now directed
to the breaking down of all that was accomplished on the Cross. Every
movement, every motive, every virtue, coming directly or indirectly from
the merits of the Atonement, become at once the object of satanic hatred.
Therefore every inch of territory conquered by the gospel propaganda was
and is a victory over his hateful protest.
_Serpent._ At the very suggestion of this title our nature recoils. The
"nachash," and "zachal," mean "_fearful_"--"_creeper_," therefore a
fearful creeper. The snake is the most repulsive and dangerous of all
reptiles. There is a strange antipathy about a snake; his nature is so
still, so sneaking, so oily; the appearance of one produces an involuntary
shudder. Who has not felt the disgust at seeing men and
women--"charmers"--take a number of the sleek, slimy monsters from a cage,
and wind them around arms, neck, and body? The horror felt towards the
snake is not an accident; it was in the guise of a serpent the downfall of
the race was accomplished.
Men and women who are subtle, smooth, deceitful, treacherous, secretive
are called "snakes in the grass." Their plans and movements are under
cover; they strike or sting from an hidden covert. The serpent is
synonymous with the hiss, the blazing eye, the forked tongue, the poison;
once it catches the eye of a bird the poor thing may wail and flutter, but
it is powerless to escape. The bird is drawn into the jaws of death by a
strange magnetism.
This enemy of God and race is a serpent, slipping cautiously, noiselessly
through all the dark, tangled mysteries about us. No one can fathom or
interpret his cunning movements; we are stung, poisoned, charmed, fastened
in the slimy coils, and yet do not know it. We have most to fear from the
enemy who operates in the dark. This fallen archangel is never so
dangerous as when acting in the personification of a serpent.
_Dragon._ In the Hebrew it is "tannoth," _howler_--_jackal_; making a
noise like the howling jackal in the wilderness. Again we are appalled at
this title. The dragon is represented as a monstrous animal having the
form of a serpent, with crested head, wings, and tremendous claws;
ferocious and dangerous. The Scriptures have appropriated this fabulous
monster--believed to have existed in days of mythology as the most dreaded
creature on land or sea--to enforce and emphasize the danger of him who
seeks our destruction. He is called the "great red dragon"--or fiery
dragon, howling like a vicious jackal.
It was in this peculiar manifestation that he stood before the woman and
sought to destroy the Man Child as soon as He was born; then cast a flood
after her as she fled from his presence. The dragon incarnates himself,
and King Herod at once seeks to destroy the infant Jesus (Matt. ii.; Rev.
xii. 1-5).
V
DIABOLUS--DEMONIA--ABADDON-APOLLYON
"Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye
cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his
angels."--_Matthew xxv. 41._
"And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless
pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek
tongue hath his name Apollyon."--_Revelation ix. 11._
We now desire to analyze more minutely the Greek names Diabolus and
Demonia; reference was made to this distinction in a former chapter. In
the Authorized Version the two names are often translated or rather _used_
interchangeably; devil for demon, and vice versa. We read of a "legion of
devils," "seven devils," "cast out devils," "possessed with devils," etc.
Technically--literally translated, these statements are incorrect. Demonia
should never read devil--but _demon_; diabolus always means, not a devil,
but _the Devil_.
_Diabolus._ This name designates him more as to his ruling and authority
than to the elements of his character. We have noticed already the meaning
of Devil, but from the original word we get more explicit meaning as to
his rank of authority. As Lucifer we do not know his ruling rank, but in
his lost estate he ranks as Commander-in-chief. Whatever we may say of
him, the prefix, "arch," designating his angel rank, can be logically
attached: archspoiler--arch-deceiver--archaccuser--archslanderer, etc.
However, if accurately defined, diabolus means
_Calumniator_--archcalumniator; a propagator of calumny. Acting in the
capacity of calumniator, he seeks out and defames the innocent. He sends
out a million rumours daily which would be, if tangible, cases for libel
in any court.
_Demonia._ A demon--a fallen angel--evil spirit, an imp. Literally, a
_shade_--a dark spot, moving as noiselessly and rapidly as a shadow. The
many references in the New Testament to "devil," and "devils," should
always be _demons_; the great multitude, so often found in one place, come
from the innumerable concourse which constitute the "powers of darkness."
Shadow spirits, men and women who are controlled by these dark, shadowy
imps, "love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil." The
transformation, as we learned, which took place with Lucifer was just as
great and radical with his angel followers; the difference was only that
of degree of rank.
_Abaddon-Apollyon._ We have coupled the Hebrew and Greek names together,
as each means exactly the same. We call the attention of the reader to the
variety of names, all of which are so nearly alike, but convey a
significant difference. Abaddon-Apollyon means _destroyer_. He has been
discussed as a "spoiler," but one who destroys carries the work farther
than the spoiler. As Abaddon or Apollyon he is the king of the abyss, or
"Bottomless Pit," and when he appears it is with purpose and equipment for
destruction. Just as God sent the "Destroying Angel" throughout Egypt,
bringing a curse upon Pharaoh for his hardness of heart, this mighty
messenger of the Abyss visits his destruction wherever and whenever he
finds, not the absence of the typical blood upon the door, but when he
finds it, or any evidence of allegiance to the One whose sacrificial blood
he seeks to destroy.
As Abaddon-Apollyon he assumes the part of Finisher of his task; when we
see him a _destroyer_, we have a full-sized photograph--leaving out not a
single line of countenance, or a single character or attribute of his
composite nature. He may soil, spoil, deceive, traduce, accuse, slander,
wound, etc., but the ultimate aim is destruction. "When sin is finished it
bringeth forth death." We see how the two great Rivals stand over against
each other in their respective spheres: "For this cause the Son of God was
manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil." With the same
degree of purpose, the Devil seeks to destroy the work of the Son of God.
The Devil seeks to destroy truth, righteousness, virtue, religion, hope,
faith, visions of God, power of the Blood, thoughts of eternity and
heaven. Every beautiful, holy thing on earth he would destroy, leaving
behind only black, charred cinders where once were the flowers of Eden.
Just as he destroyed the earthly Paradise in the long ago, so he would
blot from our hopes and aspirations the Paradise of the soul. His ambition
and supreme joy would be to turn this world over to God blighted and
wrecked by his finishing touches, while hell echoed with triumphant
shouts--an infernal jubilee. Abaddon-Apollyon: archdestroyer.
VI
THE DEVIL A "BLOCKADE"
"Wherefore we would have come unto you, even I Paul, once and again;
but Satan hindered us."--_1 Thessalonians ii. 18._
"But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty
days; but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help
me."--_Daniel x. 13._
We find another striking interpretation couched in the title of devil. The
Church in its organization is called _militant_, because it is engaged in
a moral and religious warfare. The writings of Paul bristle with military
terms, as two mighty armies are contending and contesting for dominion.
Each army is fighting under a leader; the surging campaign has changed its
base of operation--the battle-field has been transferred from heaven to
this planet. The rivalry between Christ and Satan has, many times, changed
_modus operandi_, but the spirit of the contest and the end--all for which
they contend--change not.
The title-word of this chapter is not a Bible term; we appropriate and
accommodate it because of its military meaning. Strictly in keeping with
the use of terms, the "blockade" belongs to naval operations; but any
movement, reconnoitre, or countermarch, which interferes, hinders, or
hedges up the way of progress, is a blockade. A campaign ends in failure
because of obstructions thrown up, access to base of supplies cut off,
reinforcements thwarted in reaching the scene of activities, etc., convey
the idea set forth in the key Scriptures used giving emphasis to the
chapter heading.
The Apostle Paul had all the advantages of equipment; his intellectual
attainments the very best; he was a recognized leader of men, a chosen
vessel of the Lord, and full of the Holy Ghost. No man besides the Master
was more able to withstand the opposition of the "prince of darkness." Yet
Satan actually prevents him from going to Thessalonica to comfort and
strengthen the struggling church at that place--literally hedges up the
way.
A careful examination of the tenth chapter of Daniel gives us a
conversation between the prophet and a "voice,"--a "vision"--having an
appearance "like the similitude of the sons of men"; evidently an angel of
high rank, whose mission was to encourage Daniel, but he also acknowledges
that the "prince of Persia" hindered him from coming twenty days. This
mighty angel, it seems, was helpless trying to reach Daniel, until Michael
came upon the scene. It was Michael who led the triumphant battle against
him when he was overthrown in heaven. He alone was able to meet the
"prince of Persia," the _Devil_.
We can, therefore, understand how successfully Satan can hinder--blockade
the progress of righteousness wherever he chooses to concentrate his
depraved energies. Volumes would be required to record the worthy
enterprises in the Church of God which went down in failure, yet with no
tangible explanation. Sudden reverses, turning the whole current of
affairs, are daily happenings; revival efforts to reach certain
communities, certain individuals, find insurmountable hindrances. It is
the work of the "blockade."
Such occurrences are generally regarded as "unfortunate coincidents"
rather than a resultant of some deep-laid plans--invisible and impersonal.
A baby cries at a critical moment, a dog creates an uproar, the fire-bell
rings, the engine becomes disabled; landslides, swollen streams, sudden
illness, and many others similar, which are never credited to the proper
source or cause. The Bible concedes to Satan the dignity of being the god
of this world; therefore he must of necessity control, to some extent, the
physical phenomena, directing them to an advantage. We do not venture a
dogmatic position as to what extent the hindrances in the physical world
are due to his power; but the Bible most clearly teaches that he is an
obstructionist.
There are hundreds of ways and places where moral and religious blockades
obtain. It would seem that in the blaze of the last century of
civilization war would be impossible. Why could not our Civil War have
been averted? In the retrospect, we can see how easily it might have been
settled without such horror and bloodshed. The Hague with its millions of
endowment is grinding away on international troubles, yet arbitration
fails more often than it succeeds. But war continues, and all efforts in
that direction generally meet a "stone wall of opposition."
Must we conclude that all these lapses, coming in direct conflict with
human weal and happiness, are just "happen-sos"? Unthinkable! "Satan
hindered," declares the great apostle. "The prince of Persia withstood me
twenty and one days," says the angel.
VII
THE GREAT MAGICIAN
"Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against
the wiles of the devil."--_Ephesians vi. 11._
"For they are the spirits of devils working miracles, which go forth
unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world."--_Revelation xvi.
14._
From the earliest records of history men have lived who seemed to possess
strange, occult powers. Magicians--performing miracles, setting aside,
apparently, well-known physical laws. Moses met the sorcerers and
magicians of Egypt in close competition. There are men to-day, on lecture
platforms, performing feats which are miracles; there seems to be no
visible explanation.
"The hand is quicker than the eye," it is said; watches are pounded to
pieces before your eyes, the fragments crammed into a gun; the gun is
discharged, and the watch will be hanging on a hook, running as if nothing
had happened. We once saw a man sewed up in a tarpaulin, placed in a huge
trunk, and the trunk strapped securely. In less than five minutes the man
came out from an enclosure where the trunk was placed; not one buckle
loosened, and not one stitch in the tarpaulin broken. Cannonballs are
taken from hats; live ducks, rabbits, and a dozen tin vessels are drawn
from one hat in rapid succession. Cards are made to jump out of the deck
when called by name. One magician laid his assistant on a table, cut off
his head with a large knife, lifted the gory head by the hair and placed
it on another table; then carried on a conversation with the severed head
in the presence of the astonished audience.
Every one knows these wonderful feats are done by some kind of magic, but
for all we can see they are done; the most astute observer cannot detect
the secret. The Apostle exhorts the believers to put on the whole armour
of God, to be able to stand (not to be swept away or captured) against the
wiles of the Devil. Then the Devil is a trickster--a sleight-of-hand
performer--a magician. One of his many methods to accomplish his purpose,
we find, is delusion: practicing sleights, tricks, and works of magic on
the gullibility of his victims.
How many unsophisticated men and boys have been robbed in daylight on a
street corner by some little "game," or trick, by a sharper. Farms have
been deeded away for nothing in return. Now, if we were to catalogue all
the tricks of all the conjurers of all ages, we have in this evil
chieftain a consummation, an embodiment of them all; he is not only a
magician, but the chief of them. He incessantly seeks victims more
astutely than the crook seeks the ignorant with a purpose of robbery.
Observe the text says, "wiles of the devil"; not one, but many; while we
are penetrating and avoiding one of his "wiles," behold, we are in the
meshes of another. Human intellect cannot fathom the feats of magic
performed in friendly entertainment, where every opportunity is given to
examine--then how much more are we at the mercy of séances concocted, not
to entertain, but to delude and capture.
The astrologers, soothsayers, and magicians; the clairvoyants, ancient and
modern, are insignificant compared with this great magician. Is he not
superior and supernatural, possessed with unearthly powers? Are there any
combinations and hidden laws of which he is unacquainted? Besides, no one
is more familiar with the weaknesses and susceptibility of human nature
than he. So astute and cunning are his "wiles"--tricks of magic--Paul
seems to feel that only the girdings and enduements of God, giving
spiritual illumination to the things invisible, can withstand them. The
antithesis of the Apostle's exhortation leaves no doubt in our mind as to
his meaning: if we strive and contend in our own wisdom, deception and
defeat are inevitable.
To be explicit, does it not look as if multitudes are under a
delusion--seeing things through distorted and false lenses--when words and
actions, by the best and truest people on earth, are seen as blatant
hypocrisy? Does it not look as if a sleight-of-hand expert were
manipulating the ideals of this pleasure-mad generation; hiding the true
character and dangers which lurk in every indulgence and excess? "Presto,
veto--change;" there you are, safe, satisfied, happy. "Spirits of devils,"
declares the seer of Patmos, "working miracles, going to the kings, and to
the whole world." The arena wherein he practices his deadly delusions is
the whole world. No places exempt; no peoples immune. The whole armour of
God is the only sure protection.
VIII
THE ROARING LION
"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring
lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour."--_1 Peter v. 8._
Thus far we have studied Diabolus under various titles and cognomens which
deal almost exclusively with the secret side of his nature: the propaganda
of hidden arts. The caption of this chapter will indicate quite a
different proposition. This title swings him into full view, stripped of
all deception and legerdemain. The lion walks up and down the earth,
showing no quarters, making no apologies for his presence. When he roams
in the forests, he is king; he allows no beast to interfere or question
his rights, and none dare to do it. He kills, tears to pieces, and devours
whatever he can catch; his roar strikes terror to all the forest dwellers.
The lion, therefore, is noisy; his approach is with loud demonstration.
There is something in noise that weakens and frightens; the keen clap of
thunder, the shout of an approaching army, the blast of ram's horns, the
loud proclaiming of the sword of the Lord and Gideon are historical
examples of victories by noise. The lion is also powerful; no other beast
has a chance in a match with him. One stroke with his mighty paw is death.
He walks about conscious of his strength; an ox or a buffalo are no more
his equal than a mouse contending with a cat. The lion is vicious; his
going forth has one definite object--"seeking to devour."
The lion presupposes that all the earth belongs to him; deer, antelopes,
panthers, buffaloes, horses, cattle, etc., have no rights or possessions
of which he feels under the slightest obligation to respect. The Devil
does not come out _in person_: hoofs, horns, claws, bushy mane--the
make-up of a lion, building up his kingdom by tearing down and destroying
men and institutions opposed to him. He does these things, as a lion, by
incarnating himself in men, evil combines, corrupt politics, vicious
society, the liquor traffic, the White Slave system, etc. As he
appropriates and embodies these institutions by entering in and possessing
the men who are leaders, he no longer acts as a conjurer or snake, but a
_Lion_. The fullness of the earth, and they that dwell therein, belong to
him, to use, desecrate, prostitute, kill, devour, or destroy, just so he
may best serve and satisfy his insatiable appetite. Cities are to be
officered and governed, not for the peaceful protection of their citizens,
but for plunder, boodle, and graft. Men who desire to be public servants
in deed and in truth must fight "a roaring lion." The man who steps to the
front with a desire to question and curtail the exploitations of the
"officials," the "traffic," the "gang," places his life at once in
imminent peril. Threats, black hand letters, pistols, poison, bombs, and
torches are the instruments boldly used to destroy the man or men who do
not believe that these human lions should be allowed to filch and devour
the privileges and possessions of others.
We find our "adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walking about,
seeking whom he may devour," has three methods which he uses according to
the exigencies of the case. It is first a "roar," a bluff, or bulldoze:
the threat of the "boss," whether he be a political boss, an
ecclesiastical boss, or a liquor boss, accomplishes wonders in coercion;
it frightens and cowers the weak-kneed and backboneless. The crack of the
slave-driver's whip brought the obstreperous negro into humble submission.
Men in office, in pulpits, in editorial rooms, have been awed into silence
by the roar of men "higher up." Then truth, righteousness, justice, and
conscience are crucified; and behind the scene leering devils hold a
jubilee of triumph.
However, the bluff and bulldoze will not always succeed; and when these
loud, but mild methods fail, the boycott is ordered. Those who can stand
undaunted in the presence of roaring threats will quail before the
prospects of financial ruin. Employees are discharged, patronage cut off,
positions given to others, preachers asked to resign. Somehow evil is so
compactly organized, wires of connection are so completely in touch with
every nook and corner, that the "boss" sits quietly at the switchboard and
issues orders. The "big stick" and boycott have carried many elections;
municipal, state, and national; they have made merchandise of sovereignty,
and bargain counters of conscience. "Your clerk must take his name off
that petition, or we will withdraw our patronage;" "His wife is an active
worker in the W. C. T. U.--you must discharge him," were the identical
words overheard in a private office. Business and public men dread the
boycott. Behind the boycott is our "adversary, the Devil."
But the bluff and boycott by no means mark the limit when the self-assumed
rights and privileges of the lion are questioned. Few can rise above the
threat and intimidation; but the roaring activities of the boss will not
always suffice. The lion in corrupt politics, in evil traffics, in
priestly bigotry and intolerance, will not hesitate to stab, shoot, or
burn to get rid of an offensive opposer. It is not necessary to discuss
facts so well known as these; but we are investigating the sources; we
want to locate the bacilli rather than examine the pustule.
We wish to reiterate a previous statement; the "roaring lion" is never
heard if the still fight, the oily snake methods serve to a better
advantage. The Apostle's exhortation is timely: "Be vigilant, be
sober"--be on the alert constantly, and be at your best, as an "adversary"
who knows no boundary lines in his work of subjugation and destruction has
declared war to the end.
IX
AN ANGEL OF LIGHT
"For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming
themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan
himself is transformed into an angel of light."--_2 Corinthians xi.
13-14._
The Devil is a person, with a great personality; but like human beings, he
is not equally endowed in all the attributes of his nature. However, the
Book gives us no information as to his weaknesses. He is all superlative
strength; but if at any point there is a special endowed faculty that
would seem to overshadow the others, it is surely manifested when Satan is
transformed into an _angel of light_. The reason for this is obvious; it
is a return to his old office of "light bearer." When he can effectively
serve his purpose by this startling transformation--darkness to light--he
is at once in a realm where he is familiar with every inch of the
territory.
A close observation of the signs of the times--the happenings in social
and religious circles--will reveal the fact that _light_ is not only his
most familiar rôle, but his favourite rôle. The world is attracted by
things that are bright, beautiful, cheerful; anything that hides the
sombre side of life, throws a mystic veil over its realities, and helps us
to forget--whether it be books, music, lectures, or the nonentities of
society--outweigh all else in the casting of accounts and in forming
comparative estimates.
If Satan were allowed to pose for a full sized picture of himself, just as
he wishes to be seen by the children of this generation, no portrait
painter could produce a specimen of rarer beauty; it would grace the walls
of the most exclusive parlour, and attract special attention in any great
art gallery of the world. There would be no sharp angles, no coarse,
sensuous lines, no out-of-date adornment--the traditional fiery-red would
not appear, but rather the most delicate tints and shades of colour. The
features would be the most graceful and artistic combination of curves and
circles. The "hairy one," the jackal, the snake, the lion, the shadow, the
spoiler at once become as "beautiful as a dream." Amazing transformation!
"The devil of to-day" is not only an apostle of sunshine, but of beauty.
This world is full of beauty; and why should we not forever keep the ugly
and distorted in the background? The development of the beautiful should
be one of the fine arts. Think only of beauty; speak only of beauty; see
only the _beautiful_; then the sinful and unlovely will disappear. An
angel of light--how suggestive!
As an apostle of sunshine his mission is to flood the world with light,
and he does it; but observe--it is _his_ light; it neither warms nor
illuminates, but for spectacular purposes it answers every demand. It
reveals new standards of duty; proves the wrathful things in the Word of
God to be spurious, and the old plan of salvation obsolete and unsuited to
the present day needs. Such words as self-denial, crucifixion, dead to
sin, judgment day, cross bearing, etc., so prominent in the New Testament,
must not be given a literal interpretation. Such truths cast an
unnecessary gloom over the souls of otherwise happy people.
"The devil of to-day" believes that ethical culture should be the slogan,
the watchword, the shibboleth of every pulpit and rostrum. Religion
without refinement is absurd; the esthetic taste should be looked after
more than belief in some abstract Bible doctrine; then the race would be
free from the bondage of creed and fear. True religion is nothing more
than a just appreciation of art, literature, science, philosophy, and
nature. God is in all these things rather than some musty, stereotyped
statement of faith.
He further believes it is a waste of energy for women to be organizing
into societies to study and help conditions among the slums or heathen
lands, and urging upon the hard worked people to pay a tenth of their
income to support missionaries who are better fed and housed than
themselves. Far better devote the time to social clubs, book circles,
euchre and bridge parties, and dressing properly.
We want to call attention again to a truth often overlooked: the Devil and
demons are never satisfied in a disembodied state; when they cannot enter
the souls of men, they seek something else. They will enter a swine when
there is nothing better available. We believe "the prince of the air" can
wield a powerful influence, unincarnated, _in the air_, but he schemes
and works best when he can possess and direct intelligent flesh and blood.
Just now the machinery of the Church and all the auxiliaries are devoting
their energies to various branches of social service; this is good,
Christlike, and necessary; the point we raise, germane to this subject, is
not the work, but the abuse of the idea: social service and
humanitarianism are not religion. They are the fruits of the Good
Samaritan spirit in the world, but they cannot take the place of personal
relationship to God. "Though I give my body to be burned, and all my goods
to feed the poor," says Paul, "it profiteth me nothing" without
love--divine love. The angel-of-light gospel places the emphasis on works
without faith. Love the world, enjoy its lusts and allurements, disregard
all Puritanic ideals of life, be a part of all worldliness--but be kind,
cheerful, optimistic, generous, benevolent: help humanity. "Pay the
fiddler," then dance as you please. Do penance when your conscience lashes
you; but buy indulgences by works of supererogation. "On with the dance,
let joy be unconfined."
A concrete example will illustrate the proposition before us, and also
reveal the power of polished, cultured emissary of "sunshine and smiles."
The little city had a population of about fifteen hundred people; there
were four churches of nearly equal strength. Each congregation had a large
flourishing organization of young people. Scarcely any worldliness
obtained--dancing and card playing rarely ever. The pious, consecrated
young people attracted no little attention. Finally there came to the
place a young woman fresh from college and conservatory as teacher of
music and delsarte. She was an adept at all the niceties of modern
society; things took on new colour at once. The work began with a literary
club, then cards, then the dance. She was beautiful and magnetic; in six
months the "stupid meetin's" of the League and Christian Endeavour were
abandoned for things more exhilarating. The religious foundation which had
been crystallizing for years among the simple hearted boys and girls gave
place to the gayeties imported from the classic circles of city and
college life. She moved among them "an angel of light."
X
THE SOWER OF TARES
"The kingdom of heaven is like a man that sowed good seed in his
field: but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the
wheat and went away."--_Matthew xiii. 24-25._
"The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the
kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; the enemy
that sowed them is the devil."--_Matthew xiii. 38-39._
The parable of the Sower is one of common-sense appeal; the sensible
farmer sows only good seed. The growing of tares among the wheat is not in
the original plan. Good seed were sown, but behold the tares! Whence came
they? While the servants slept an Enemy came and sowed them. The Master
gives us His own interpretation: He is the sower--the good seed are the
children of the kingdom, men and women into whose hearts the Truth has
entered--the converted part of the Church. The sleeping of the servants is
the unwatchfulness of the Church: coldness, indifference, backslidden. The
Enemy seizes the opportunity--the carelessness of Christ's servants--and
sows _bad seed_. The enemy is the Devil--the Wicked One; the bad seed are
the children of the Devil. Growing side by side in this world-field are
the children of God and the children of the Devil.
The tare, or cheat, in appearance resembles the wheat; it grows exactly
the same height, and viewed casually, or at a distance, cannot be
detected from the genuine. Only the threshing and sifting bring out the
difference. These tares are the propaganda of the Devil, but a perfect
imitation of the children of the kingdom. They make a profession, adhere
to the same rules and regulations, profess and maintain, outwardly, a
standard of morality, wear all the regalia--even particular about details.
We observe another striking resemblance: strange as it may seem, these
tares--children of the Devil--seek as their guide no books of heathen
philosophy, or twentieth century atheism; they make great capital of the
Bible; the ceremonies and ordinances are carried out to the letter. On a
day of dress parade and review they meekly grade A 1.
Such an inconsistency is so glaring as to be almost unthinkable; but the
parable teaches it beyond a doubt. The Devil sows into the Church his
children: _a corrupt profession of Jesus Christ_. In a former chapter we
studied the Devil as a _destroyer_; and it will be remembered that in a
preceding parable he came as a vulture devouring the seed; now he seeks to
further weaken and hinder by adulteration. While continuing the
battering-ram process from without, a reversed method is used; he scales
the ramparts and places his cohorts on the inside, and, wherever possible,
assumes leadership in a campaign of self-destruction. We are amazed at
such audacity, but the Master, who is a rival in the field, has
illuminated the parable for us.
There is a note of optimism ringing out in the land to the effect that the
day of triumph is at hand; doors are opening, walls are crumbling,
conservative nations are studying our religion, municipalities are being
renovated, higher standards in public life are demanded, the Church is
lifting the race out of superstition and prejudice--we are about to see a
"nation born in a day." What does it mean? It means that Satan is being
chained--defeated, etc. This sounds good and plausible; but a closer
inspection will reveal, not a retreat, not an armistice, not a victory,
but a _change of base_.
Twenty years ago a leading teacher said: "Unless the signs of the times
fail, the true Church of Christ is about to enter upon the most serious
struggle of her history. She is no longer called merely to fight an open
foe without, but as Dr. Green, of Princeton, says, 'the battle rages
around the citadel,' and she is forced to fight the traitors within. The
real enemy is to be found on the inside." If such a condition were true
then, what is it to-day, since the last two decades have been the most
revolutionary in the history of the Church on the line of skepticism and
advanced thought?
The _Free Thinkers' Magazine_ recently had this to say: "Tom Paine's work
is now carried on by the descendants of his persecutors; all he said about
the Bible is being said in substance by orthodox divines, and from chairs
of theology." Another writer observes: "No need of Bridlaughs and
Ingersols wasting time preaching against the early chapters of Genesis,
sneering at the story of temptation, cavilling at the record of long
lives, denying the confusion of tongues, doubting if not denying the
deluge, when Christian ministers, on account of their official position,
are doing the same work more effectually."
"Freedom of thought in religion," said an orthodox preacher at Tom Paine's
one hundredth anniversary, "just what he stood for, is what most of us
have come to. In his own day vilified as an atheist--to-day he is looked
upon as a defender of just principles of faith." There is a wide range of
opinions found in the growing crop of tares: some are literalists,
touching Biblical interpretation, getting the minutia of husks, but
rejecting the kernel--the envelope, but missing the message; others remain
in the Church, preach a gospel shelter under her roof--eat her bread, but
deny the supernatural _in toto_. Few, if any, are honest enough to step
out.
The Devil prefers his _cheat_ to grow in the same soil prepared for the
wheat. No place is so wholesome and convenient for the children of the
Devil as inside the Church of God. Why is not the wrath of God poured out
on the children of the Devil who have assumed place and power in His
Church? The same processes used for the removal of the tares would injure
and uproot some of the wheat. There is now no remedy; at an unguarded
moment the harm was done. The Enemy continues to enter every available
door, sowing, sowing, sowing--beside all waters. Not until the angelic
reapers thrust in their sickles for the harvest will the children of the
Devil cease to occupy, influence, and control.
XI
THE ARCH SLANDERER
"For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes
shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and
evil."--_Genesis iii. 5._
"But put forth thine hand now and touch all that he hath, and he will
curse thee to thy face."--_Job i. 11._
It is the first scene of the human drama; the staging is in an earthly
Paradise; perfection is written on everything animate and inanimate. With
but one restriction man roams through Edenic beauties, a being "good and
very good," happy and holy. His communion with God is unbroken; fountains
of love are opened in his heart as he beholds the beautiful mate at his
side. Our wildest imaginations cannot estimate the glories of that
life-morning; but behold the Serpent. He utters his first words in the
scheme of ruin, and it is a slander against God. "Aha, He knows if you eat
you will be like He is--knowing all things, be as gods; He is not treating
you fairly; the case is misrepresented. You will not die, but you will be
wise. Why does He keep back such privileges from you?" As a result of this
slander, the Paradise is lost. Flowers, fruits, peace and plenty are
exchanged for weeds, briers, toil, sweat, suffering, death.
Again we find his impudent presence on the day Job is offering sacrifices.
Reading between the lines, we can imagine a conversation like this: "You
here? You are looking for some pretense to discount My people; you say
none are good--all hypocrites. What do you think of My servant Job? What
have you to say about him?"
"Oh, of course," says the slanderer, "you have him hedged around--blessing
him continually. It pays Job to be good; just take away your special care
of his material welfare and see--he will curse Thee to Thy face."
An artist once painted a picture of the human tongue in a way to represent
his conception of how the "tongue of slander" should appear. It was long,
coiled like a serpent, tapering at the end into a barbed spear point; from
each of the papilla, scarcely visible, was a needle point, from which
oozed a green, slimy poison. The slandering tongue is "a fire, a world of
iniquity--it defileth the whole body--it is set on fire of hell."
The slanderer is no respecter of persons; he rakes and scrapes the
uttermost parts of the earth for victims: king and peasant, rich and poor,
priest and prophet; living or dead suffer alike when once this vile,
inhuman spirit touches them. Bacon said: "Calumny crosses oceans, scales
mountains, and traverses deserts with greater ease than the Scythian
Abaris, and, like him, rides on a poisoned arrow." The winds of the
Arabian desert not only produce death, but rapid decomposition of the
body; so doth slander destroy every virtue of human character. The
cloven-hoof slanderer, like the filthy worm, leaves behind a trail of
offal and stench though his pathway wind through a bower of earth's
sweetest flowers. A writer has said: "So deep does the slanderer sink in
the murky waters of degradation and infamy that, could an angel apply an
Archimedian moral lever to him, with heaven as a fulcrum, he could not in
a thousand years raise him to the grade of a convict felon."
"Whose edge is sharper than a sword; whose tongue
Out-venoms all the worms of Nile; whose breath
Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie
All corners of the world; kings, queens, and states,
Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave
This viperous slander enter."
Iago is said to be the greatest villain in fiction or history; the
revolting crimes of Herod--slaughtering the innocent--does not compare
with Iago. Herod saw in the Man Child a possible rival, and blinded by
jealousy and ambition, he becomes the most heartless murderer--of all
times. But what was the crime of Iago? Slander! With no object in view, no
advantage to gain, and too much of a coward to make an open charge, he
slanders by insinuation the beautiful Desdemona until the enraged Othello
strangles her to death.
How can we reconcile this base passion in human character, as slander has
no other avenue of expression? It is unnatural, inhuman, and hellish. The
wolf and tiger devour to satisfy hunger; the vulture eats and fattens on
rotting carcases, but the slanderer does neither. With the blood cruelty
of a savage beast, the degraded appetite of the scavenger, the destroyed
victims of fiendish passion only intensify and burn, but never satisfy the
slanderer. This spirit was never born among men; its origin is the region
of the damned, where hunger gnaws, thirst fires, lust arouses, revenge
consumes--but satisfaction is unknown. The hot breath of slander comes
from a bourne where dead hopes spring up eternal.
The caption of the chapter denominates the Devil as the arch slanderer; we
use it because there is no word of sufficient strength to convey the idea;
"arch" fails to convey the whole truth in this case. Archangel is an
intelligible term, as there are many of high order; there is, however, but
One slanderer. Just as he is the "father of liars"--propagating all
lies--his relation to liars does not admit of comparison. He slandered
from the day of his fall; he is the father of slanderers. Whether it be
circulated in the "submerged world," the quiet circles of church life, or
among the "Four Hundred" of fashion--it is a deflected arrow from the one
great quiver.
No being--holy men, angels, or the Son of God--can escape the tongues
dripping the venom of slander through the subtle incarnation of that
fountainhead of every evil suggestion or insinuation. Whatever destroys
happiness, creates doubt and suspicion among the people, ending in
litigation, divorces, and murders, fulfills the mission of slander. The
caldron from which exudes this vile stench--filling all the earth--is
seething and boiling in the Bottomless Pit, or wherever the throne of his
majesty--the Devil--is located. The society of earth will never be free
from the poison of evil-speaking until the Archslanderer is arrested,
chained, and located in the penitentiary prepared for him from the
foundation of the world.
XII
THE DOUBLE ACCUSER
"Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about
all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his
hands, and his substance is increased in the land."--_Job i. 10._
"Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and
the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down,
which accused them before our God day and night."--_Revelation xii.
10._
When we consider the Diabolus character--his strength and opportunity,
whereby he visits his vengeance upon a weak, susceptible race, we can
readily understand that his make-up would be far from complete without a
continuous outflow of slander. But his courage and audacity stand out in
glaring relief when we find him an Accuser. It does not require large
intelligence or bravery to be a slanderer--only baseness of character--but
to be an accuser, face to face with false charges, especially in the
presence of One who has power over all things, reveals an impudent bravery
that dazes the judgment.
When questioned of God about his presence among devout spirits--as they
were assembled for worship--he answered in the manner of a guilty boy:
"Just going to and fro in the earth." Peter tells us that his mission of
going to and fro is of seeking and devouring. He is then reminded of Job's
character--how that this saint is perfect and just; Satan's blighting
influence has not been able to touch and overthrow the aged Job. In his
shrewd rejoinder Satan accuses God of two sins: _partiality and
falsehood_.
Translated into its literal meaning, the language would be about as
follows: "I deny that Job is perfect; but for the protection you have
thrown around him he would be as other men. His pretended piety is
hypocrisy; he serves you because you have blest him with abundance; he has
not fallen into sin because you have hedged him about. If you treated Job
as you treat others, his holiness would soon be about as genuine as mine."
Satan accuses God of protecting His servant and blessing him in material
things in a special and partial manner, viz: "a respecter of persons." But
the fiercest accusation is hidden in his reply to God's question, also put
in the form of a question, and finished by an emphatic declaration: Job is
not the man God said he was; "but put forth Thine hand and touch all that
he hath, and he will curse Thee to Thy face." A being who can stand before
the Lord God, of whom the hosts of heaven sing and shout--he, himself,
once among the number--saying: "Holy, Holy, Holy," and accuse Him of being
guilty of partiality and falsehood--what may _we_ expect from him? The
Word says he accuses the saints day and night.
Observe that he accuses the _saints_, those who are striving in
righteousness. The man who lies, cheats in business, accumulates a
fortune, and lives all the vices without apology is not an object of
malicious accusation. The scandals in select circles cause only a ripple,
even though the offenses occupy much space of the associated press. The
principles of such affairs are often staged as heroes and heroines for the
entertainment of a morbid public taste. Satan accuses the saints; the
presumption is shouted from the housetops: "There is none that doeth good,
no not one."
The saints--every good man and woman--must at some time face charges
against their moral or religious character. This hellish machination goes
on day and night. It is reasonable to conclude that much of the unrest,
depression, and backslidings among the people of God may be traced to this
cause; innocent men and women have not only cast away their hope through
rumoured accusations, but have been driven to desperation and suicide.
The reader must keep in mind the suggestion made in a former chapter: that
while Satan has the power by his presence of himself, or his minions, to
create an atmosphere, unfathomable, impenetrable, yet surcharged with
horror and dread; but his activities are seldom apart from human
instrumentalities. Just as he is the arch slanderer, through the word of
mouth, so is he the accuser, both of God and saints, through human
personalities under his control.
A flood sweeps away, or lightning destroys a man's possessions; he looks
up, curses and accuses God of cruelty and injustice. Death enters the
home; the mourners charge God falsely. His accusations are confined to no
particular method; the one most suited to the case is used, whether
self-condemnation or from another. Self-reproach, through memory and
meditation, is a most powerful agency in carrying on this work. Once we
begin to think on our ways--seeking to turn our steps unto the testimony
of God--we face a life of sins and blunders mountain high and
unsurmountable. But when faith takes wings and lifts the agonizing soul
"out of the mire and clay," an everlasting reminder of the _past_ clings
to us, often robbing us of peace and joy. How many Christians have grown
weary and given up because of memories blackened by consequences of past
sins--sins which God said, if we confess and forsake, He would "remember
them against us no more forever."
If the truth, which can never be revealed until the Judgment Day, could be
known! Our asylums are swarming with unfortunates who have lost mental
balance because of remorse and condemnation, resulting from an accusing
memory. Wherever Satan is unable to lure the saints into actual
transgression their life and usefulness are often destroyed by tormenting
spirits accusing them day and night The Book holds out no deliverance from
this scourge until the Accuser is forever cast down by the wrath of God at
the final shifting of the scene.
XIII
SATAN A SPY
"And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered
the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from
walking up and down in it."--_Job i. 7._
The spy is the most dangerous man in the army; more is he to be feared
than the genius of a Napoleon or a Lee. The sphere in which he operates
has no duplicate in military activities; his bravery, boldness, and daring
are unexcelled. Whether he be called from the ranks, or from among the
commissioned officers, his counsel and suggestions get a hearing in the
highest commandery of the army.
The movements of a spy are unknown even to his own corps, much less to the
enemy. After receiving authority for such a perilous undertaking he is a
free lance, going and coming at will. Not only does he go beyond the
enemy's line, but mingles freely with them in the camp. There is nothing
in his appearance to indicate who or what he is. To-day he is a civilian
peddling fruits among the soldiers, or innocently driving a yoke of steers
along the street or country road; to-morrow he is within the camp, dressed
in their gay uniform, familiar with passwords and countersigns. Then he
appears as a decrepit old woman, seeking a son who "run away to jine the
solgers." In a few hours he is quietly resting or joking with the boys of
his own regiment.
When a spy is captured all military courtesies are set aside; he is not
even allowed the honour of a court-martial; but without trial he is
executed at once.
It is of special interest, in view of the application to our subject, to
notice the particular business of a spy. Just as his movements are
unknown, so is his mission unknown. He hurries to and fro, gathering up
such bits of information here and there as he deems important for the
cause he represents. If he belongs to the Federal forces he appears
clothed in the "butternut gray"; then by tactics of bravery and nerve he
enters the Confederate gray lines. The slightest blunder is certain death.
He takes a mental inventory of the whole situation, but in such a way as
to attract the attention of no one. The strength of the fortifications,
the size and number of the batteries, the commissary department, and the
chances and probabilities of reinforcements. In a moment, under the cover
of night, he fades out into the darkness and is gone. The budget of
information is placed at the earliest possible moment into the war
councils of his own army.
Satan plays the rôle of a crafty spy; he has access, by some mysterious
power, to the heart life of men. At no point of the game for immortal
trophies is he so dangerous as when he can take advantage because of his
secret knowledge of men's weaknesses and sins. Only a vicious degenerate
can be tempted into all the crimes known to the docket of the Bible; few
beings on this planet but are fortified at some point of character. They
may be weak in many ways--but early training or environment have helped
them to become strong in some particulars.
The spy seeks to know when and where a blow may be struck in the enemy's
lines, at a place of least resistance. The soul battles are exactly the
same; we have no special battles where we are strong; things that might
overcome another will mean nothing to us. Our battles are ever fought
around the points of weak fortification; the enemy rarely, if ever, has
the pleasure of shouting over our downfall from the best that is in us.
The victories of athletic games--the pugilistic bouts in the sporting
arena, the mortal duel with rapiers, the battle-fields where thousands
fell--have been lost and won by the application of this principle. The
general with his field-glass sees a weakening in the enemy's line and
orders a charge; the duelist observes a shortening of breath or an awkward
movement and seizes the opportunity. It is the weak link in the chain of
life that breaks; sins of the lower nature--sensuality--might not appeal
to some who fall an easy victim to pride, ambition, or covetousness;
others who are liberal, honest to the cent, unassuming, are helpless when
tempted in the realm of lower passions. We are at an incalculable
disadvantage when our enemy is familiar with our vulnerable points.
So long as the heart is unregenerated and unpurified by the cleansing
power of the Holy Ghost, Satan has access to every nook and corner of our
heart life. He enters and discovers every vulnerable and invulnerable
section of the soul's fortification. The tempted and fallen are often
unable to tell how it was done. "Why did you go there?" or, "Why did you
do it?" Oh, so many, many times do we hear the answer: "I do not know." A
friend once showed me a little iron safe in which he kept his valuable
papers. This safe had a very ingenious lock; the combinations were such,
and the mechanism so wonderful, that it was capable of _three hundred
thousand combinations_.
Why and how are sane men and women overcome? They were met at a certain
place, under peculiar circumstances; met by several--a word, a smile, an
argument, a pressure of the hand. How was it done? They do not know.
Somehow the attack came in a way which rendered them helpless to resist.
One effort failed--a dozen failed; but as often as it failed the Expert
changed the _combination_, until the door yielded, and an entrance into
the citadel of Mansoul was effected. _Three hundred thousand
combinations._
The spy has information from within; and, therefore, the most dangerous
man in the army. Satan, by his supernatural powers directing his practice
and experience for several millenniums, is a crafty, sagacious spy,
acquainted with all the weaknesses and emotions of the human heart. Who is
equal to such an enemy? Contending alone, _no one_ on this sin-burdened
footstool.
XIV
THE QUACK DOCTOR
"Having the form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from
such turn away."--_2 Timothy iii. 5._
We do not agree with some late views of the nature of sin--that it is a
physical and mental disorder: the resultant of heredity, food, soil,
climate and social environment. If the root of the difficulty springs from
these primary causes, the whole problem of evil could be wiped out in one
generation by the application of sanitary laws and social betterment. In
the Bible sin is known by several disease terms, but always such diseases
as were incurable by any treatment known in those days: leprosy, born
blind, deadly poison, paralytic, etc. Sin is a disease, and the whole man,
body, mind, and spirit, is more or less affected therefrom; but it is, in
particular, a soul malady, going deeper than human remedies can reach,
whether social or medicinal.
To cure this soul disease the race has sought eagerly from the day Cain
and Abel built their altars. All the ramifications of civilization have
had one all-absorbing desire: a readjustment of something fundamentally
wrong within. This fight for an atonement with the Creator has been a
long, heart-sore pilgrimage; it has painted the blackest pages of history
and committed the bloodiest crimes. This human drama has been enacted in
tragedy and tears. Why is it so? Because deeper than any other heart-throb
is the consciousness of personal uncleanness, and the bitter anguish it
has caused.
The dead civilizations, on their monuments and mausoleums, have left
behind, carved indelibly, one story--whether on the banks of the Nile, the
Areopagus of Greece, or the land of the Montezumas--it is the story of
feeling in the dark after God. They had the disease and sought for a
remedy. From the days of the astrologers and soothsayers, anxious souls
have been victimized by every fad, fake and fanaticism in their search for
relief. The venders of pulverized snake skins and lizard tongues, in their
day, found as willing a patronage as the cultured proprietors of
sanitariums to-day. The long-haired man on a goods box can do a
flourishing business, if he has the gift of gab to convince the crowd his
stuff will _cure_.
The quack doctor does not handle a variety of medicine; he knows just
enough of anatomy and materia medica to make his speech sound
scholarly--but his remedy, costing less than the price of one visit from a
physician, will cure all the ills of the human body. Like De Soto, we are
seeking the fountain of perennial youth--the elixir of life.
Just as the disease of the body and a passion to live open wide the door
to charlatans, fakirs, and "healers" claiming powers direct from Gabriel
to Beelzebub, so the disease of the soul, and a hunger for eternal
life--"deep calling unto deep"--has opened the door of the heart to the
religious doctor with his cure-all prescriptions. Out from unknown depths
comes the yearning for readjustment and reconciliation with God.
No being, beside the Godhead, is more familiar with the secret hopes and
impulses of the soul--than Satan. The long-haired quack on the street,
bawling his "junk," is not half so anxious to defraud the crowd as Satan
is to prescribe remedies that will not cure. His chief aspiration is to
flood the land with bogus treatments which not only fail to cure, but they
preempt the disease-infected spots so as to prevent the introduction of
the genuine remedy.
The quack doctor is, no doubt, pleased when an imaginary cure has been
wrought by his wares; but Satan is filled with wrath if some of his
formulas strike deeper than he anticipated, and a soul emerges from
darkness unto light. This, however, does not often occur; he is too
cunning to advertise to a hungry, sin-sick world that which will bring
permanent relief.
The beating of tom-toms by an upper Congo medicine man to drive away evil
spirits has about the same efficacy as much that may be found in the
esthetic circles of the world's religiosity. "A form of godliness," be it
ever so beautiful and orderly, which does not seek and obtain the inner
power is just another way of beating tom-toms.
We look with compassion upon the poor benighted heathen woman who trots
around the temple of her god one hundred times on a moonlight night; but
how much improvement over her plan of salvation do we find in the blaze of
twentieth century Christian enlightenment, if our religion consists of
just "doing something," rather than having _faith_ in a power that saves
through the impartation of the Holy Ghost? At no time in the history of
the Church have we done so many things as we are doing now--all good; but
observe: the Church and the world go hand in hand. It is a rare exception
when an essential difference can be seen in the life and business methods
of the professor and non-professor. "They will have a form of godliness,"
says Paul, "but deny the power."
It was not a dream or hallucination which took the rich and poor, in the
long ago, out from the world and caused them to give up even their lives
cheerfully; it was an application of the power. They had tested the
"fountain opened in the house of David for sin and uncleanness."
"Oh, that fountain deep and wide,
Flowing from the wounded side,
That was pierced for our redemption, long ago;
In thy ever cleansing wave, there is found all power to save;
It's the power that healed the nations long ago."
In the multitude of pretenses, makeshifts: forms, ceremonies, chantings,
genuflections, ordinances, will worship, self-righteousness, "wondrous
works,"--"form of godliness"--who is responsible? It is the great Quack
Doctor that is deceiving the world; those who will not be dragged into sin
and ruin he surfeits their lives with a "form of godliness, but deny the
power" plan of salvation.
XV
THE DEVIL A THEOLOGIAN
"Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some
shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and
doctrines of devils."--_1 Timothy iv. 1._
Theology is defined as "the science which treats of God, His existence,
character, government, and doctrines," or the science of religion--a
system of truth derived from the Scriptures. The caption of this
article--The Devil a Theologian--jars our spiritual nerve centres. There
are three things necessary to produce a theologian: experience,
information, ability. From every possible view-point the Devil is
preëminently qualified to formulate a system of doctrinal statements
having all the earmarks of genuineness and credentials of authenticity.
In our discussion of the Devil's theology we shall not, at the present,
touch upon the theories and vile imaginations of demon-possessed men, but
the finer phases of truth, beautifully presented by his apostles with a
show of orthodox reasonableness. By the term Devil's
theology--doctrines--we do not mean his beliefs--get the distinction--but
what he wants us to believe. He is every whit orthodox; he believes the
Old Book; he does not indorse the _new theology_, or the so-called higher
learning, only as it may be turned to his advantage. The Word of God is a
mighty reality to him; he has met its blazing truths, and has been burned
by its power. He has millions of skeptics and doubters blindly following
his delusions, but he is a believer in the "old school"; he "believes and
trembles."
We call attention to the term "doctrines"--therefore religious beliefs:
reasonable, plausible, satisfying beliefs. What are they? First: Ritualism
is Religion; when we have gone through a certain proscribed
programme--whether it be a chant, reading prayers, or burning a dim
light--there you are. How do we know we are religious? We have gone the
rounds, said the required number of Ave Maries, counted the rosary, etc.,
etc., therefore the work is done. It sounds harsh to place these beautiful
ceremonies, which have doubtless comforted so many hearts, in the enemy's
catalogue; but the Pharisees were rigid ritualists, yet Christ denounced
them as miserable hypocrites--"whited sepulchres." Anything he can get us
to adopt, having a semblance of reality, yet does not save--does not deal
directly with the sin question, he shouts over our delusion. He
appropriates Ritualism for Religion and it becomes his doctrine.
A second doctrine: Good Resolution for Regeneration. There has never been
as much strenuous evangelism, of a certain quality, as we are having
to-day. Great cities unite in stupendous revival effort; no expense is
spared; the leading masters of assemblies are called as workers. The zeal
and motives of it all are commendable; but the bane of such evangelism is
this: the work stops at the resolution period. Men are brought under
conviction, and the Devil at once proposes his compromise. Not until the
"big meeting" closes do the convicted multitudes discover the deception.
Herein is the explanation of the lethargy, depression, and utter
indifference which so often obtain after a "sweeping revival." Faith is
then shaken, and sometimes permanently, in the truth of a conscious,
know-so salvation. If the Prodigal Son had stopped after passing a good
resolution with himself he would have died at the swine pen without the
knowledge of the father's love, the kiss, the robe, the ring, and the
fatted calf. A sinner must not only "quit his meanness" but straighten out
his meanness. Regeneration is not by the will of the flesh, the will of
man, not of blood; but it is to be born of God--born from above--a new
creature. Doctrines floating under the banner of evangelism which do not
get believers into the kingdom must be listed with the enemy.
A third doctrine: Sentiment is Salvation. We are a sentimental people;
esthetic and humanitarian developments of recent years have done much to
soften our barbarian instincts. If sentiment were salvation, this land
would be redeemed. Many think we are rapidly becoming a saved nation;
those who enjoy such reflections should stand at the entrance of any
theatre on Sunday, or a pleasure garden, or a ball park; then hurry around
to the entrance of the finest, best equipped church in the city for
comparison. Sentiment is educated emotion. Rome used to shout over the
bloody scenes in the amphitheatre; now we can weep over the unfortunate
girl who goes down in spectacular glory behind the footlights. Sentiment
makes us rejoice with those who do rejoice, and weep with those who weep;
it moves us to deeds of charity. Satan then has no difficulty in
persuading us that we are religious--spiritually redeemed; if we weep over
our loved ones, our emotions are very religious. The most grief we ever
witnessed at a funeral was in the home of a saloon-keeper; the dead wife
and mother, a depraved opium and morphine eater; the home was utterly
irreligious, but the grief was hysterical, explosive. The sacrifices of
God are a broken and a contrite heart--over sins committed, producing a
godly sorrow, and not a sentiment.
Again, the Devil takes great delight in telling the unsaved and unchurched
masses that religion is all selfishness; the poor are made to feel that
the Church is the rich man's institution. Notwithstanding the efforts of
God's people to reach and help the lost they are represented as mean and
selfish, pretending a pious fraud, with no bread for the hungry and no
helping hand for the needy. We build stately temples of worship to gratify
our pride and vanity with money earned by the sweat and toil of the poor
man; money that ought to be given to the poor. Judas protested against
breaking the alabaster box. The church is a place for dress parade; the
humble and meanly clad are not wanted. All such is malicious slander
against God, His Church and His people; but as stereotyped as this may
sound, it is being used effectually everywhere. If a church preaches
salvation from sin, it is the poor man's best friend; but reference to the
church and the preacher is often hissed in gatherings of toiling men.
Unless there shall come to this land the establishment of the
righteousness of Christ, as taught in His Gospel, we shall see another
reign of terror; the fires of restlessness, hate, and discontent are
smouldering in every shop, factory, and mine. "The Golden Age will never
come until it is brought in by the Golden Rule of Christ." The Devil is
busy keeping these facts from becoming known. The doctrine stated: we are
in it to serve a selfish end; take away our hope of advantages, and our
faith becomes religious junk.
XVI
THE DEVIL A THEOLOGIAN (_Continued_)
One of the Devil's tactics is to make much ado about nothing. It is
astonishing how sane people can be deluded over childish non-essentials.
Think of the doctrine of Abstinence; at certain seasons be holy with a
vengeance. It is a mortal sin to let down during certain days and moons;
no meats, no riotous gormandizing, no wine, no dancing, no theatre going,
when the season is holy. But are we not so commanded concerning the
Sabbath day? The Sabbath day must be kept holy, but if our moral standard
and relationship fall below during the week what we are supposed to make
them on Sabbath, our piety is a farce.
An incident will illustrate. It was a steamboat excursion; drinking and
dancing were freely indulged in by the hilarious passengers. A _parson_
was among them; he danced not, neither did he look upon the wine that was
red. He looked sad--_it was Lent_. One week later we beheld this same
_parson_ in full evening dress gracefully waltzing with one of the lambs
of his flock. Amazing spectacle! Robes of holiness to-day, with fastings
and prayers; to-morrow, broadcloth, perfume, patent leathers, and arms
encircling a maiden in the dizzy whirl of the dance. Paul saw such times
coming and warned against them.
There are many more, but we shall mention only one more: the gigantic
system of saints' worship. What does this mean? Anything that diverts and
absorbs the attention away from things fundamental is surely of evil
origin. His fall began when he conceived hatred and jealousy of Jesus; now
if he can get people to pay a part or all of their homage to Mary, or any
one of the many "saints," just so the Son of God is robbed of His glory
and neglected, his devilish malice is somewhat gratified. There is a long
list of dead worthies who are reverenced and supplicated unto daily; but
high over all is the "Virgin Mother of God." After the birth of the
Saviour Mary was the wife of Joseph, and bore children as a natural
mother--she was not a virgin. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me;"
"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images--thou shalt not bow down
to them." "Doctrines of Devils."
Spiritual minded students of the Bible and human conduct are forced to the
conclusion that the Devil is not only a wise theologian, but he is a great
_preacher_; and, as we have learned, he has a mighty gospel which he
preaches with effectiveness and power. He has clearly defined doctrines
which he promulgates at such times and places as will best meet the
desired end. But with cunning craftiness he preaches his dogmas and tenets
everywhere: housetops, society parlours, centres of business,
legislatures, court rooms, barrooms, and bawdy houses, as well as in
pulpits. This sounds like a strange mixture: "the sacred desk" associated
with such an array of evil--_ad absurdum_. If the pulpit is immune, why
Paul's exhortation? Doctrines presuppose a preacher, and also an effort to
gain an audience whenever and wherever possible.
Yes, the Devil preaches, and if doors are barred he forces an entrance:
home and foreign missions, slums, emigrants, aristocrats and sports. He
has access to scores of avenues where the Gospel of Christ never enters;
but under the cover of human interests he takes the field with our Lord
Jesus and His ministers, offering a more beautiful, excellent, easier and
successful way. As God's method of saving the world is by the foolishness
of preaching, what better agency of opposition could be launched than
_preaching_? Nothing. Far stronger is the expulsive than the opposing
power. The most dangerous poison in the world is the kind that hides its
death in a cup of sweetness; a child eats a sugar-coated pill and never
recovers. Hell is peopled by the multitudes who have drunk at the Devil's
fountain of soothing, satisfying poison. He keeps his deluded patrons from
the fountain of cleansing by an easier way to delectable fountains, the
waters of which paralyze with the chill of death.
We note another very remarkable fact concerning the Devil's doctrines and
his style of preaching. Christ's ministers often fail because of a lack of
adaptability; "he overshot his crowd" is the comment often heard. The
genius of this subject does not make this mistake; he is a past-master at
adaptability; to those who have a feeble, fluttering conscience for
spiritual things he has the sincere milk of the word that soothes and
sustains; but for his robust followers, whom he has bound in chains
stronger than those which bound Prometheus, he gives the meat of
diabolism, prepared and seasoned by a skill of six thousand years'
practice.
Place your ear at the keyhole where his children are conducting a "revival
meeting"--high carnival of sin--and hear the ideas of God, salvation,
preachers, the Church, and the hereafter. This is the strong gospel
referred to; the gospel that fires the masses with hate and prejudice
against the only means of human redemption. Yes, he preaches, preaches,
preaches, and from every nook and corner; ten messengers to one preaching
the Christ; his preachers support themselves, and touch the highways and
byways; his lines are gone out into all the earth, circumscribing sea and
land. The Devil gets an intelligent hearing. He has a long catalogue of
doctrines, but he does not believe a single one of them. We should be wise
enough to eliminate them from our creed also.
XVII
THE DEVIL'S RIGHTEOUSNESS
"Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain."--_Jude 11._
"For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to
establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto
the righteousness of God."--_Romans x. 3._
We are becoming, according to the canons of this world, a righteous
nation; the standard of civic and commercial righteousness is elevated as
never before. Sleuth-hounds are scenting every indication of misrule and
running to earth evil-doers, high and low. Our cities are keeping tab
rigidly on sewerage, cesspools, and outhouses; a persistent war is being
waged on flies, mosquitoes, and germs of all kinds. Private citizens are
everywhere organizing to coöperate with officials for public welfare.
Corporation and municipal rings must answer at the bar of an outraged
public conscience.
Righteousness is in the air; it resounds from the pulpit, platform and
press. Chautauqua specialists who have discovered some deflection in the
political and social woof and warp declare, amid salutes of fluttering
handkerchiefs, the righteousness of twentieth century standards. Preaching
on the cardinal doctrines of the Bible has been displaced by rhetorical
messages on altruism: light, ethics, mercy, cleanness, goodness. "The
fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man," with a flavour of
intellectualism, is the gospel that is now being emphasized with much
gusto, and never fails to solicit the indorsement of all denominations.
"Be good and do good" is the _multum in parvo_ of present day
righteousness.
Who but a chronic faultfinder could object to this upward move, so obvious
now in all directions? The world is getting kinder, more sympathetic, more
charitable; creed lines are dissolving like snow under an April sun;
sectarian prejudice is dying under the withering frown of new ideals. Does
this not indicate a gradual leavening of the "whole lump"? The spirit of
Christ, they tell us, is being adopted everywhere. He is mounting the
throne of universal empire, and the time surely is not far distant when
the social, political, commercial and domestic life will be regenerated by
His influence. Yes--it would appear so to be; much that is done bears a
Christian label; it comes in the name of Christ; but, says a writer, "it
is the Christ of Bethlehem and not the Christ of the Cross." It is the
human Christ and not the sacrificial--the exponent of a blood Atonement.
The righteousness that has the full swing of modern religionists makes
much of Christ's "example," His beautiful character and
self-abandonment--"He went about doing good." Much attention is given to
studying His leadership, His pedagogy, His art of public address, His
humanity. His example and not His sacrifice saves the world; step by step
the human Christ has displaced the Christ of Calvary; His atonement was
misguided zeal. This propaganda, on the surface, is reasonable and
popular; but close scrutiny will reveal a poison as dangerous as it is
subtle. It leaves out the Blood; it is a glorification of Man. "Count the
number of the beast, for it is the number of man."
This issue is an old one; it became an entering wedge in the religious
life when the first services were held after the Fall. Cain and Abel made
altars; Cain piled his high with beautiful, luscious fruits of the field.
No festal board ever looked more tempting, loaded with sweet smelling
fruit, having variegated colours, than the altar which Cain presented to
God. They were the results of his own sweat and toil; he offered them as
the "first fruits." But God rejected the offering; somehow the very beauty
and attractiveness of it all insulted Him.
Abel's altar was smeared with blood; on top lay a limp, bleeding lamb.
Nothing attractive about this picture; our esthetic nature recoils at the
gore and cruelty of such an offering. Yet God graciously accepted this
bloody, unsightly offering; and no doubt rained fire upon it--anyhow, Abel
was justified. Why did God reject the one and accept the other? Cain and
Abel alike had been taught from their infancy that "without the shedding
of blood there shall be no remission of sin." By transgression man stood
as an alien before God; he had forfeited divine favour. Notwithstanding,
Cain boldly brought before God a bloodless sacrifice, and presumes to
force Him to accept it. Through all the millenniums before Christ every
approach to God must contain in the sacrifices and offerings an element
which reminded God of the coming Atonement. He declared: "For the life of
the flesh is the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make
an atonement for your soul. For it is the blood that maketh an atonement
for the soul" (Lev. xvii. 11).
Coming directly to the point: all this new notion of things, touching
Man's religion, fast becoming prevalent is the "way of Cain," with a
twentieth century touch and terminology. What is the essence of this new
righteousness? what does it do? Observe, it sets aside God's estimate of
man, and ignores the plan of redemption He established at the beginning in
types and shadows, then consummated in the atoning death of His Son on the
Cross. The righteousness of to-day has much in it to commend; but it
utterly disregards the only feature upon which God places emphasis. The
Blood and the Cross, as of old, is an offense; they have found a more
excellent way, but it is the "way of Cain." It is offering
self-righteousness rather than seeking the righteousness of God. The
bloody offering of Abel suggested suffering, punishment, death,
judgment--but it honoured God. Modern righteousness scoffs at the Abel
offerings by hanging a wreath of flowers on the Cross, bearing a perfumed
tag, "With sympathy." It is Cain setting up business in town once more. A
sacrificial propitiation for sin is unnecessary when we have "inherent
goodness." The modern righteousness contends that each man has
self-redemptive qualities; all he needs is a chance. Salvation is not
internal, but external.
The Cainites are filling the earth; they are preaching the popular
sermons, writing the magazine articles, the poetry, the fiction; they
occupy the chief synagogue seats of seminaries; they are conspicuous at
all chatauquas and baccalaureate occasions.
It is a well-known psychological fact that evil cannot exist apart from
Personality--whether it be bad laws, bad books, bad town, or a bad house.
Whence comes all this audacious, undermining insult to the whole sweep of
God's plan for saving the world? Whence comes all this preaching about
righteousness which places the crown on man, and robs the Cross of its
glory? The righteousness being sounded in double diapason and angelus keys
is _the righteousness of the Devil_. Bear in mind it is _Righteousness_,
and a high type of it, he demands; he wants the offering of Cain to cover
up all the needs of the soul--cheat the blood of its merit--insult God,
and lead the race through a bowery of flowers, fruits, and music on to its
ruin. Anything to cheat the depositum of the Gospel--that which gives a
title to heaven--the precious Blood. The righteousness that leaves out the
Blood is the "way of Cain"--"the righteousness of the Devil."
XVIII
THE WORLD'S TEMPTER
"Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and
showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and
sayeth unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall
down and worship me."--_Matthew iv. 8-9._
Temptation is a seduction: meaning to allure or entice one to evil. It is
submitting a proposition which carries with it inducements of pleasure or
gain. The mind that accedes readily and willingly to an act is not
tempted. A temptation is a clash of wills, one being superior to the other
if the contest results in a yielding. The word embodies the idea of an
elastic--"stretched to the snapping point." If there is no response, no
struggle against desire--it is not a temptation. The Master was very man
as well as very God; yet strange as it may seem--_He was really tempted_,
and just as we are.
Our purpose in this discussion is not to analyze the different phases of
our Lord's temptation--the tests to which He was subjected,--but we wish
to emphasize one thing: He was _tempted_. The appeals came from His old
time enemy; His rival for supremacy. He was not taken unawares; the facts
were clearly before Him, just who and what it all meant--yet He was
tempted. The diabolical assault did not cease until His threefold nature
was "stretched to the snapping point." It came from an inferior being, and
for sake of illustration, had the scheme succeeded, the Sun of
righteousness would have gone down forever. Not only would the great plan
of human redemption have proved abortive, but Satan would have snatched
the sceptre from the hand of the Anointed One and shouted his victory in
the face of God. We are amazed to think of the only Begotten being near
the yielding point in the presence of the fallen Lucifer, but the Book
says He was tempted.
Some may contend that He could not have yielded; all the while He was
conscious of divine security. This conclusion forces another untenable
proposition: If He could not have yielded, His humanity was not real, but
veiled in His divinity; the temptation was only a shadow. We insist that
as a man Jesus was tempted; He could have called to His aid supernatural
intervention, but He did not. The issue was met as every man must meet it;
it was manhood that conquered. Had He yielded, both manhood and divinity
would have become subservient to the enemy. "Fall down and worship me" was
the proposition.
Now we wish to make a few deductions from our Lord's temptation. Whatever
includes the greater includes the lesser--_a fortiori_. Natural man
reached his highest expression in Jesus of Nazareth; He was God's exponent
of human perfection. There were no weaknesses, no lack of pose or
symmetry; His penetration and judgment of others were absolutely accurate.
From the beginning He had known the Evil One who faced Him. Now, with all
those perfect endowments, the record says _He was tempted_. The ingenuity
of Satan was sufficient to bring out all the resources of the Son of God.
Here was the greatest, wisest, purest and strongest man that ever walked
upon the earth--susceptible, influenced, strained to the "snapping point,"
when attacked by the Tempter. What will be the inevitable fate of you and
me, dear reader, whenever he selects us as his victims?
The unmistakable teachings of the Word are that every temptation to which
man is or ever has been subjected came fresh from the seething caldron of
the pit. The student of human conduct has observed universal adaptability
of all temptation. A great sagacious intelligence seems to be managing
personally, through his cohorts, this campaign of promising propositions.
There are some who can be incited to commit horrible crimes, such as
murder, incendiary, born perhaps with vicious tendencies, but this class
is comparatively small; others are susceptible to deeds of milder
character. It would matter little to an army approaching a fortification
where or how the attack should be made if the walls at every point were
weak and crumbling. No time is spent in reconnoitre and playing for
position; but if the battlements be strong, a faulty place must be located
if there be one. Satan rarely ever blunders in laying his temptations; he
is a most skillful strategist. As the world's tempter he reveals an
ingenuity that is truly astounding; it should cause the bravest heart to
shudder once the eyes are opened to the source. Knowledge of his
approaches, marches, countermarches, advancings, and retreats--all with a
specific object--ought to be a great breakwater.
A writer gives us a striking word picture of Satan's methods: "As the
enemy who lays siege to a city finds out the weakest portion of the wall,
or the best spot to batter it, or the lowest and safest place to scale it,
or where the intervening obstacle may be easiest overcome, or where an
advantage may be taken, or where an entrance may be effected, or when is
the best time, or what is the best means to secure the desired end, so the
arch-deceiver and destroyer of souls goes about, watchful, intent upon
ruin, scanning all the powers of the mind, inspecting all the avenues to
the heart and assailing every unguarded spot. Sometimes he attacks our
understanding by injecting erroneous doctrine; sometimes our affections by
excessive devotion to things we love; sometimes our wills by strengthening
them in wrong directions; sometimes our imaginations by vain, foolish,
trifling thoughts; and sometimes our feelings by too high or too low
excitation."
Some one has called Satan and his subordinates not omnipresent, but
"shifting imps." They swarm the air, invisible, because they are spirit,
watching for opportunities to edge their way into the hearts of mankind.
They are shifting position, always to a point of least resistance. Like a
current of electricity, always flowing from a point of higher potential
pressure to one of lower, if points are connected by a conductor. The
metallic substances from which the current starts and towards which it
flows are called "electrodes," and are always of different potentiality.
The current passes from the one of higher to the lower. Man in his own
strength is the lower, and unprotected by the Spirit of God cannot resist
the evil currents flowing from Satan continually.
XIX
THE CONFIDENCE MAN
"In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which
believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is
the image of God, should shine unto them."--_2 Corinthians iv. 4._
History is one long, tragic recital of human sorrow and suffering; but
there is far more unwritten history than has ever been recorded on the
printed page. Along the march of civilization all that has come down to us
are the lives and doings of great men; we know little of the heart agonies
of the race--such as cannot be recorded--language is inadequate. Most of
history is a record of man's inhumanity to man, but historians deal with
these dark pages only on the higher levels. The greatest suffering, the
bitterest cries of anguish, the deepest wails of despair are in the
lowlands of human life: down where its pathos can never be known. The
darkest tragedies of war are lost by the gallant heroism of some officer;
the blood and carnage are overshadowed and forgotten by the heralds of
victory. The real pathos of war remains unnoticed by the chroniclers and
correspondents; it is found in the heart suffering of the dying in the
trenches; the black pall that settles over the homes made desolate by the
news from the front.
The saddest stories of life will never be told; they are the voiceless
agonies and smothered sobs from victims of human treachery and deceit.
Millions are shambling on their weary way, waiting for the end, whose
hearts are dead and buried in graves of misplaced confidence. More
domestic lights have been extinguished, more love dreams turned from a
sweet phantasy to an horrid nightmare, more bodies fished from the river,
more shocking tragedies have resulted directly from this cause--misplaced
and wrecked confidence--than from all other causes of human wretchedness.
An illustration from actual life will serve to bring the caption of this
chapter--the Confidence Man--out in bold relief. An honest old farmer,
whose horizon had not extended beyond the obscure Indiana neighbourhood,
sold his little home and started for Kansas, hoping to enlarge his
possessions and give his sons and daughters a larger sphere of
opportunity. That they might see the wonders of a great city, arrangements
were secured for a three days' stop-over at St. Louis. The Confidence Man
saw them pass through the iron gate into the lobby. He first noted the
train on which they had come to the city. With great enthusiasm he greeted
the old gentleman, introduced himself, extending a business card of his
"firm." With cunning palaver, and the guilelessness of the farmer--item
after item of information as to name and where they came from were
obtained. The man who said he thought he recognized the old gentleman soon
became satisfied of it--having an uncle living in the same county--and "I
have often heard him speak of you, etc., etc."
It required only a short time to not only gain the confidence of the
whole family, but also to get all the facts concerning their business
affairs: how much the little farm brought, and how much they had left to
begin life in the west, and actual cash on hand. There was not a hitch in
the scheme; the new friend (?) loaded them with kindnesses and courtesies,
paid all the bills at lunch and theatre--took the young people into the
mysteries of the great wonderland--all so new and strange.
It was the last afternoon; father and Mr. Confidence Man were returning
from a tour of sightseeing. They met a man walking in great haste; looking
up he saw the two men, and suddenly laid violent hands on the "farmer's
friend," demanding the payment of a note three days overdue. They
quarrelled; all manner of apologies were made, that he was "entertaining
an old friend, etc.," all of which caused the Shylock to grow more enraged
and unreasonable; they almost came to blows.
Finally the old man's benefactor asked to see him for a moment alone. Then
meekly humble, and with many regrets, asked for a loan of enough to pay
the note. "We will go right down to my office, and I will reimburse you
with big interest for the kindness." The honest old man was only too glad
for an opportunity of returning, by such a little act, the kindness that
had been shown him. The note was almost one thousand dollars; when the
bills were counted out, less than ten dollars remained in his purse--the
savings of a lifetime.
Proceeding on their way until they reached the first saloon, "It is my
treat, uncle," said the man. After the drinks were served, he asked to be
excused for a moment, and stepped into a back room from the bar--he was
seen no more. After a long time, the barkeeper informed the old man that
his _friend_ was one of the worst crooks in St. Louis. With less than ten
dollars he staggered out of the saloon, wandered over the city dazed and
half insane. On the following day he was found down on the wharf crying
like a child. What had happened? He had been in the hands of a Confidence
Man.
There are being formed in all walks of life--high and low--associations
and alliances, spurred on and incited by extravagant promises--the hook
baited according to the fish--which culminates in certain disaster. The
pathway of life is strewn with victims of Confidence friends--instead of
friends. As in all these subtle and dangerous diversions we believe every
trap and scheme are under the direct control and supervision of
Satan--playing the rôle of Confidence Man. Many with a natural impulse for
pleasure knock, and at once arms are wide open to receive them; lust
beckons, and the Broad Way becomes choked with her votaries; covetousness
shouts her promises, and the love of money soon burns out every high and
holy aspiration. Fame holds the chaplet in full view, and men are ready to
exchange heaven in order to have it pressed upon their brow.
But alas, in the end--in the end--"it biteth like a serpent and stingeth
like an adder." When the curtain falls, too late to recover, we shall be
found on eternity's shore, shipwrecked, robbed, ruined--victims of the
great seducer. No one but an incarnate devil could stoop to the low plane
of Confidence Man in business and social life; but think of what it means:
by flattering promises, smiles, and kindness force an entrance into the
heart life, and when once in possession, desecrate, prostitute, and
destroy. We insist that it takes a devil-possessed man to operate in this
particular field, and the world is full of such. We therefore conclude he
is the god of this planet, blinding the eyes of his unnumbered victims.
XX
THE TRAPPER
"And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil,
who are taken captive by him at his will."--_2 Timothy ii. 26._
"Surely he will deliver thee from the snare of the fowler."--_Psalm
xci. 3._
To be a trapper requires something more than setting traps and baiting
them. The old trapper returns from a season spent among mountains, rivers,
and forests--ladened with valuable furs of every kind: beaver, bear,
otter, fox, mink, wildcat, coon, opossum, etc. Remember the animal kingdom
is infinite in variety; no two alike. A trap that will catch a beaver will
not answer as a bear trap; a coon and a mink are as far removed from each
other as a polished American and a native of Madagascar. A coon will not
go within a rod of a chain, but have little if any keenness of scent for
protection. A rat will not go near an object if the smell of human hands
is on it.
Volumes of natural history would be inadequate to give the details of
differentiation of the animal kingdom. The old trapper in his log cabin
has never read a page of zoölogy, but is far more familiar with the ways
of the furry folk than the scientists who write our books on natural
history. The trapper is a graduate from the school of Association; he has
studied the traits and pranks of the forest inhabitants by observation at
close range. He knows just where the mink can be caught, and just how the
trap must be baited and concealed; he has the same information about all
the rest, and can apply it. Once when a child, we were enraptured until
late bedtime by the stories of an old trapper: telling about "the
different varmints." Without drawing on his imagination, he could have
added many chapters to the tales of "Uncle Remus." The facts about our
furry friends are far more interesting than fiction; the trapper knows
about these facts.
The Psalmist calls Satan a fowler; one who sets traps for old and young as
the fowler sets traps for fowls. How is it done? Leaves and weeds are
carefully cleared away, and the trap is skillfully set by a trigger, so
that the slightest touch will spring it. The ground is also cleared for
several rods leading off in front of the trap; suitable food is scattered
under the trap and all along the clean strip of ground. The birds
excitedly follow the line of "food"--walking under the trap where it is
scattered in abundance. In the scuffle, the trigger is soon touched;
behold the trap falls, and they are caught; oh, how they beat their heads
against the prison bars until they are covered with blood, but all is
over. They are caught in the snare of the fowler.
Every animal and fowl will flee from the approach of danger; the trap must
be hid, or in some way made to appear as something harmless; nature has
endowed them to seek always self-preservation. With nothing but instinct
to guide, they are easily caught by the skill and cunning of man, but
never caught in the open; some, however, are more easily caught than
others, but they must be trapped.
The Bible teaches that the Devil is a trapper; his snares are set
everywhere--they are man traps; no spider ever spun a web more accurately
for the moth than Satan's traps to catch men. It requires certain bait and
certain traps for each particular animal and bird, but the snares for men
are legion. Man has a threefold nature: body, mind, and spirit; each of
these have many avenues of approach. As the trapper gains his knowledge of
the furry tribe by association, so the Trapper of men, by the application
of supernatural powers, in close contact and intimate association through
the past millenniums, has become intimately acquainted with man.
There are no facts touching his habitat, food, passions, ambitions,
weaknesses, yearnings, etc.--whether in the realm of body, mind or
spirit--but the cunning trapper of the pit is more minutely acquainted
than man is acquainted with himself.
If guileless and unsuspecting men and women were the only victims, the
situation would not be so serious; not that one soul is of more value than
another, but the facts are: _no one_ seems to be capable of discovering
his hidden snares. The greatest and wisest--Alexanders, Anthonys,
Napoleons, kings, sages and philosophers--have been captured by him at his
will. What a shudder would go over the race if it could penetrate the veil
of mystery and see the traps towards which we are moving; moving on to
certain capture, but for Providential oversight and guidance. Domestic
traps, political traps, social traps, business traps, religious traps;
the location and bait are suited to individual likes and dislikes.
"My soul be on thy guard; ten thousand foes arise."
Our country is just beginning to awake to a system of trapping now being
carried on in every city and town, so gigantic and heinous that we are
dazed and frightened at its boldness. The great White Slave Traffic is
carried on by traps, pure and simple; as carefully planned and skillfully
executed as the methods of an old trapper who remains in the primeval
forest to supply the fur market. The feelers and tentacles of this human
devil-fish are running out in the highways and hedges: the factories,
mills, department stores. But the traffic is not confined to the poor,
uneducated girls at the ribbon counter or waist factory; girls of culture
and experience are caught, but the bait used is very different. When once
caught, not one in ten thousand ever escapes.
A being less than a fallen archangel could never have instituted the White
Slave Traffic. A man or woman not incarnated by the Devil or some of his
minions could never promulgate a system so vile, so inhuman, so hellish,
as the traffic of innocent flesh and blood, to be offered and burned on
the altars of lust for gain. Compared with the White Slave Traffic, as it
is prosecuted by the panderers and procurers, negro slavery, at its worst,
the extermination of which the bloodiest war ever fought on this planet
was waged, is like the vilest ribaldry ever sung in a den of vice to a Te
Deum. Lest we forget--Satan is an expert trapper--the king of trappers.
XXI
THE INCOMPARABLE ARCHER
"Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God.... Stand therefore,
having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate
of righteousness.... Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith
ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the
wicked."--_Ephesians vi. 13, 14, 16._
When traps, tricks, seductions, and quackery, temptations, etc., fail,
Satan adds victims to his long list by destroying them at long range.
While in a mountain peak vision of inspiration Paul sees the enemy as a
wrestler, a trickster, a schemer, and even a more dangerous rôle than
either: a skilled marksman. By keeping close to God, and keeping ourselves
unspotted from the world, we may stay his blighting touch from personal
contact; but there seems to be no absolute safety until we are shielded by
the "whole armour of God."
There are "evil days," days of visitation and distress, over which no one
has control; at such times we may not be conscious of any satanic
presence; yet confusion, doubt, fear and anxiety have complete control
over mind and heart. These days, and their depressing effect, can only be
warded off by the protection of the "whole armour"; for emphasis, Paul
mentions it twice in the same paragraph. An armour is a coat of mail
covering the body, made so as to be impenetrable to the missile of death.
The Apostle does not stop with a partial equipment; the head and feet
also must be properly covered. Especially does he emphasize the
_shield_--that great polished, concave steel disk, strapped to the left
arm, so that a thrust from sword, arrow, or spear can be easily deflected.
As it is carried on the arm it can be raised or lowered so as to protect
the whole body.
This arrow-protecting shield must be wrought in faith, that mysterious
relation which unites the soul with God. The antithesis of Paul's language
implies that when Satan makes certain efforts to wound the soul, the
shield of faith alone can save. The fight is not ended when we come out
victor in a hand to hand conflict, but must next prepare to meet a shower
of "fiery darts." A dart is an arrow shot from a bow; a fiery dart is a
flaming torch attached to the arrow.
In all ages, until the days of powder and firearms, soldiers were equipped
with bow and arrows. Arrowheads were made of steel, and as keen as
needles. The battle-axe and broadsword were used when the lines met, but
showers of arrows would fall upon the enemy with as much fatality as a
round of grape and canister. Often the arrows would be freshly dipped in a
deadly poison, and in that case the slightest wound would result in
certain death. When a fort or city was being besieged, the arrows would
carry a ball of tow, having been saturated in oil; hundreds of these
flaming darts would fall on the inside of the fortification and start a
general conflagration.
This method was practiced by the American Indians when they could not
reach a fort, blockhouse, or stockade because of the white man's gun;
these flaming torches, falling in great number, were more to be dreaded
than the tomahawk and scalping knife of the savages.
Satan shoots "fiery darts"--arrows--at us; he may come, as he did to the
Master, and find nothing in us; our hearts may be clean. But from a source
entirely unexpected--here comes a flaming arrow--burning its way into the
heart, igniting with hatred and misunderstanding friends and enemies in a
manner never dreamed of before. How often the blow comes from the one
place least expected, and for that reason all the more deadly. We are
guarded in some directions, but over the walls of our stockade the Devil
sends his fiery darts, and we are swept away in a satanic conflagration.
It requires the "whole armour"--and the shield of faith to quench the
flaming arrows from his quiver. He is the world's incomparable archer;
when all other methods fail, he shoots us with poisoned, fiery darts.
The mother of Achilles baptized him in the river Styx, making him
invulnerable to the weapons of the enemy; she held him by the heel during
the baptismal ceremony; the heel only remained untouched by the protecting
waters of the fabulous Styx. One of the gods became acquainted with this
fact, and shot him to death in the heel, the one vulnerable spot. Again,
we repeat, we are not safe without the "whole armour of God," and the
"shield of faith." Bear in mind, also, the Incomparable Archer takes a
more deliberate aim if it is a shining mark, and exults most when he can
lay low in the dust, wounded and disabled, one dowered with unusual
capacity for noble service.
XXII
THE FATHER OF LIARS
"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will
do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth,
because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh
of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."--_John viii. 44._
"Sin has many tools, but a lie is a handle which fits them all."--_O.
W. Holmes._
Satan opened his propaganda with a slanderous lie; this lie was believed
by the innocent parents of the race. Simple and modest as this lie seemed
to be, it opened a crevice in the moral government of God. Confidence,
fellowship, and filial relations were destroyed by the breach. The nature
and character of a lie may best be understood, and we can get the estimate
God places on it, by carefully studying the damages it wrought. Eden was
lost, God's favour lost, peace and plenty lost, innocence lost;
humiliation, fear, banishment, toil, sweat, suffering and death took the
place of Eden's pristine glories.
Nothing so reveals the depths to which Lucifer had fallen--and his great
intelligence, losing none of its acumen, exercised in a way fitting to his
depravity of character, as the launching of a lie. He has done nothing
since--which more clearly exemplifies the Being our Bible teaches that he
is. An egg was laid and a lie was hatched; this lie has gone out
spreading at a geometrical progression until the infinitude of God's
footstool has felt the discordant jar.
A lie, and the Father of it; think of this tremendous statement. The
thought will overwhelm our intelligence. Suppose all the peoples that have
lived on the earth were lined up: to simplify matters--consider the
billion and a half supposed to be living on the earth to-day; just a small
part of the number belongs to civilized, christianized nations. What is
the situation? Under all the light of education and moral standards,
justice, full and untrammelled, can scarcely be had, because of false
swearing. An eminent authority says nine-tenths of the race has a price;
this means that only one-tenth will rigidly adhere to the whole truth. How
few will swear to their own hurt and change not.
Let us study this gigantic proposition from another view-point: every
unregenerated heart is full of deceit. In every unregenerated heart there
is a germ of all the sins of the Decalogue; lying is one of the "shall
nots." A close student of men will agree with the Apostle Paul, when he
said: "I have no confidence in the flesh." Carnality will not swear
against its own interests; the status of civilization, whether in religion
or morals, does not seem to control this matter. When we consider the
falsehood and false swearing which obtain among the _best_ people,
socially, financially, and so often religiously, then think of the
millions living without moral standards, we can begin to appreciate the
amount of lying carried on in this world.
As lying is one of the outputs of carnality, and human selfishness is the
tap root of carnality, and selfishness dominates the entire race, with
rare exceptions here and there, we can understand how easily and naturally
prevarication and lying become efficient tools to further personal
interests. We once attended a celebrated criminal case in court; scores of
witnesses were summoned on both sides; a bar of attorneys fought
desperately every inch of ground. The prosecution covered the case beyond
any question to the perfect satisfaction of the jury. And the witnesses
were, in the main, both respectable and intelligent.
But behold, when the defense produced their side of the case, the
witnesses equally honest looking and intelligent, every point of evidence
made by the prosecution was absolutely refuted. A new story was told; a
new case from the one just stated. Think of it--on both sides there were
eye-witnesses; then every witness on one side or the other perjured
themselves--and perhaps all of them on both sides.
So completely has the father of liars woven the spirit of falsehood into
the moral fibre of men that a sense of its fearful character is almost
obliterated. Men make fortunes, secure positions, are elected to office,
destroy rivals, win unsuspecting love, seduce innocence, and subdue
kingdoms, by being an obedient offspring of their father, inheriting his
disposition and ability to breathe out falsehood. Liars are children of
the Devil.
Think of the almost infinite resources for evil: "father of liars" does
not fully justify the situation. While it is true he originated the first
lie, and the lying spirit has ever widened through the stream of racial
propagation; but the clearer interpretation signifies that he is the
father of _lies_. "See," he whispers, "the advantages to be gained--don't
be white livered--tell it; get the hush money--make the promise--swear you
did not see it--tell her how devotedly you love her, etc." Who has not met
these insidious pulls on the conscience?
Yes, but he is only acting now as a tempter. Quite true; but when the will
gives away, the oath, the promise, the false statement is made under a
furious lashing of the conscience. The lie belongs to him; he
originated--suggested--formulated it; then literally drew it out with
quite as much pain as is felt during the extraction of a tooth by a
dentist.
It has been said: "The Devil will leave his own brat on your door-step,
then accuse you of being its father." This is an inelegant, though a
striking statement of a great truth. When he is unable to bring
forth--deliver, etc.--his own conception, he at once charges us of being
guilty of the thing conceived: the lie, vile imagination, or whatever it
may be, quoting Scripture to prove it: "As a man thinketh in his heart, so
is he." "Now," he declares, "you are guilty anyhow; why not enjoy the
benefits?" Father of lies; millions of them spawned every day and hour:
big lies, little lies, business lies, social lies, political lies, and not
a few--religious lies, black lies, white lies, church lies.
XXIII
KINGSHIP OF SATAN
"Wherein in time past ye walked according to the prince of the power
of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of
disobedience."--_Ephesians ii. 2._
"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of
this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."--_Ephesians
vi. 12._
In a former chapter we discussed the origin of Satan, he being an
archangel--Lucifer--a great shining leader of the heavenly hosts; now in
his fallen estate he is no less a leader. A writer has said: "He seems to
have been the rightful prince of this earth, but he has become the
traitor-prince through being untrue to the trust; and the usurper-prince
through seeking to retain control of the earth as his own dominion,
through deceiving man, to whom the earth's dominion was given, into
obeying him, and in utter defiance of God." The angels which kept not
their first estate, but went down with his insurrection, are his subjects.
He is superior in all villainies, but the Scriptures call him a King
ruling his cohorts, and is the "angel of the bottomless pit." As angel he
retains his old title, but as _king_, his relations stand out
significantly. As chief Devil--archdemon--the title would imply rather
_Primus inter pares_; as commander-in-chief, a general of the highest
rank. He is all these things: he gives special oversight to field
operations, conducts personally great campaigns, retreats here, advances
there, charges yonder--but his real aim is to get this world back under
his own control; he would put himself in God's place--drive Him out,
dethrone Him, kill Him off, that he might take it all to himself, and rule
supremely.
However, he is _king_, and as such he is raised above the rank of
leadership and commander. We are already familiar with his rank, but the
purpose of this chapter is to show, specifically, that as a king his
kingship has a much wider range than the bottomless pit. It is threefold.
First, as angel of the bottomless pit, he is king of the _underworld_, the
land of shadows, gloom, utter darkness; the land of eternal despair. We
must depend upon the _Infernos_, evolved from a burning imagination, in
order to get any conception of that region. Fearful as the scenes are, a
close reading of the Scriptures will reveal a condition of things so
terrible that the things seen by Dante and Virgil are not overdrawn. Over
this land of woe and suffering Satan is the unlimited monarch.
Second, he is king of the _upper world_. This statement sounds very
strange; it would appear that God is entirely ruled out of His creation.
But observe the language: "prince of the power of the air." Just what this
means in its fullness no one should dare to be dogmatic, but certainly the
language cannot be meaningless words. We can but conclude that Satan, in
some measure, controls the forces of the physical world: storms, cyclones,
cloud bursts, tidal waves, lightning bolts, earthquakes, etc. Certainly,
as a _destroyer_, he uses the agencies of destruction; his business is to
fill the world with doubt, fear, distress and suffering.
A man has a little child killed by lightning, and he curses God. Does this
not look as if a diabolical schemer was manipulating the affair some way?
We must admit his power is permitted, and that proposition forces another
to the front. Why does God allow or permit his ravages? We have no answer;
the ravages go on. We might ask with just as much reason: "Why doesn't God
kill the Devil?" He certainly is able to do it, or at least stop his
progress. But He does not; Satan is evidently running at large, filling
the world with broken hearts and all the accompanying evils which,
otherwise, would not occur.
That we may be able to strengthen our opinion as to the prerogatives of
this "prince of the power of the air," let us remember the circumstances
of Job's calamities. This case is undoubtedly authentic, and the record
says that Satan actually controlled the powers of the air. The servant of
Job thought God rained fire on the sheep and burned them, but the whole
affair had been turned over to the tormentor. The visitations sent on the
faithful man of Uz were not from the hand of God; they were manipulated by
his satanic lordship--the Devil. Then a great wind came--possibly a
tornado or cyclone--and blew the house down wherein Job's children were
enjoying themselves.
Concerning Satan's relation--controlling and directing the forces of
nature--we shall not conture a dogmatic position. The definite statements
and incidents from the inspired record are significant indeed. Strange
things occur: a great vessel loaded with Sunday revellers goes down with
scarcely a moment's warning; a tidal wave destroys thousands; an
earthquake leaves a city in ruins with fearful loss of life. Does the
loving, compassionate Father send these calamities? Would it not be a
terrible indictment? But the Bible gives incidents where He did send
death-dealing visitations upon the people. Certainly. Many believe that
God uses Satan, in his vicious administration, to visit His wrath upon
places and people. However, God has given him the title of "prince of the
power of the air"--the "wickedness in high places."
The third realm of his kingship is terrestrial; in this he is given a
stronger title than prince or king; "The god of this world." Besides, he
is the "prince of darkness," and the "prince of this world." So real are
his presence and power manifested here that Paul declares the contest is
like a wrestling boute. This figure, examined closely, will open up a
great continent of truth concerning our enemy, of whom we must meet in
hand to hand conflict. See the wrestlers writhe and strain; agony is
depicted on their faces; the muscles contract into hard knots,
perspiration bursting from every pore. All the strength of every nerve and
muscle, wrought up to their full capacity, is exerted. "We wrestle," he
declares, and not with flesh and blood; but "against principalities and
against powers," "rulers of the darkness of this world."
The great religious reformers since Paul's day have left a similar
testimony concerning this terrestrial enemy; his personality has never
been questioned by men who were positive powers in the realm of spiritual
warfare. After Martin Luther had produced a nation-wide reformation,
having been delivered from the bondage of a Benedictine monk by a
revelation to his own soul that the "just shall live by faith," he
declared: "Satan semper mehi dixit falsum dogma." Shall we deny the oft
told story that Luther threw his inkstand at them (demons) when they
actually appeared unto him in person? Is it unreasonable? They were
alarmed at his triumphs, and wanted to terrify him. The kingship of Satan
in the under world and upper world are Bible statements; his kingship in
the world about us is a Bible fact confirmed by human testimony.
XXIV
THE DEVIL'S HANDMAIDEN
"Be not drunk on wine wherein is excess, but be ye filled with the
Spirit."--_Ephesians v. 18._
"No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of God."--_1 Corinthians vi.
10._
The fallen Lucifer knew from the beginning that his work must necessarily
be in competition with the Son of God; therefore he has invested his
genius to originate a duplicate for all that Christ has done for us.
Knowing that the letter killeth, but the spirit maketh alive, he seeks to
furnish all the appearances, and as far as possible duplicate experiences:
Reformation without repentance; conviction without conversion; conversion
without regeneration; membership without adoption; baptism with water
without the baptism of the Holy Ghost; physical and emotional pleasure
without the "joy of salvation."
The prophet Isaiah exhorts the people to say: "Praise the Lord," and,
"with joy draw water out of the wells of salvation," and, "Cry out and
shout, thou inhabitant of Zion, etc." The Psalmist, also, gives out a
continuous stream of joyous praise. In all ages people have at sundry
times and places shouted out the joy of the Lord. This emotional
expression is by no means the only test of experimental salvation, as
nothing honours God so much as simple, unemotional faith; but there are
times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. This contrast of
emotional experience we wish to examine.
We must keep in mind the bitter rivalry between the Prince of light, and
the Prince of darkness. The heart of a contest of this character is the
expulsive power of the one over against the other. Satan studies
assiduously every experience, every angle of advancement of Christ's
kingdom, and proceeds to furnish a duplicate. He knows that the followers
of Jesus often rejoice with a fullness of joy--unspeakable, as it were; to
meet this, he soon discovered that the exhilaration of drunkenness
produced a splendid expulsive power. He proposes and promises his
followers all the joys furnished by his rival; however pleasant they are
always shams, and "at last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an
adder."
A beverage that would produce drunkenness has been a curse from the
earliest history. We call attention to two events, each one of which was
so great that it left a blight sufficient to turn the course of human
history into darker and bloodier channels. The first followed closely upon
the remarkable deliverance from the Flood. The Ark had settled; life began
its routine, fresh from the awful calamity. Noah built an altar and
worshipped God; but before the perfume of the holy incense evaporated,
that faithful servant of the Most High became _beastly drunk_, and his son
Ham looked upon his nakedness and shame. The children of Ham must carry
the curse until the end. The other followed closely upon a deliverance
from fire. Lot was a citizen of Sodom, but he had not defiled himself;
the iniquity of the place came up before God, and He destroyed it; not,
however, until His angel led this righteous man to a place of safety.
Through the entreaties of his designing daughters, as they were resting in
the mountains, Lot became intoxicated unto idiocy. We must draw a veil
over the shameful scene that occurred during his debauch; but the tribes
of Moab and Ammon, war-like savages of the desert unto this day, was the
terrible resultant. They are the incorrigible followers of the Crescent
rather than the Cross.
Wherever drunkenness has touched humanity it has blighted and withered
like a Sirocco from Sahara. No one but a fallen archangel could have
invented such a beverage. Yet the character of liquors used by the race in
its infancy for carnival pleasures, compared with the output of the modern
distillery and brewery, are as moonshine to the blistering heat of the
summer sun. Satan profits by experience; he has not been idle during the
centuries. Solomon warned against "looking upon the wine when it was red,
and turneth itself in the cup"--fermentation. If fermented grape juice
should, at that time, bring forth such an inspired warning, what language
would be necessary to depict the character of the low grade, adulterated
fire-water sold in the saloons and dives of America and Europe?
The true spirit and character of liquor cannot be understood if viewed as
a stimulating beverage, satisfying and inflaming human passions. Its
Author soon discovered that such an unmixed evil must answer at the bar of
an outraged individual and public conscience. He saw that if liquor
succeeded in all he had planned, it must send its roots deeper down than
taste and appetite. Hence this handmaiden of the Devil has now become one
of the most gigantic trusts on earth, blooming out into commercial,
political, and industrial proportions. The whole business lives and moves
and has its being on misery and bloodshed on one side of the counter; loot
and plunder, coupled with an insane lust for gold, on the other side of
the counter.
It has not one redeeming feature; but so carefully has it sheltered itself
by a devil-fish organization that it stands like a Gibraltar. It has
become so great that the actual investments in the business aggregate
billions; an army larger than the combined forces, North and South, at any
one time during the Civil War are being supported; over one hundred
millions go annually into the national exchequer. China has been called a
sleeping giant; woe to the nations once she is awakened. In the liquor
traffic we have a giant that never sleeps. Twenty-four hours each
day--like Giant Despair--he enslaves and imprisons the multitudes. So
tremendous has this organization grown that its work does not stop with
social demoralization, but with little difficulty can dictate governmental
policies, throttle legislation, and bribe juries.
Again, we cannot judge or estimate the liquor traffic until we follow it
down through its labyrinth of social, financial, and moral declension. Not
until we see it face to face, glaring and defiant, in the haunts where
finished products are on exhibition. The "Scarlet Annex," temples of
lust, and the White Slaver's headquarters are united in the place where
labour troubles are hatched, mob violence gathers fuel, and feud hatred is
crystallized into bloodshed. Where gamblers, thugs, yeggmen, murderers,
anarchists, jail-birds, and burglars hold high carnival. We must see the
bloated faces, the bleeding Magdalenas, human beasts, and wife beaters, as
they wallow in filth and obscenity, before the perspective is correct.
The inauguration of liquor as a duplicate for God's greatest manifestation
of Himself--the infilling of the Holy Spirit--was a master stroke. In a
wild, reckless debauch it supplements man's every need and hunger. In the
crazed brain there is a vision of wealth, power, revenge, joy. The
drunkard is clay in the liquor-demon's hand; if a coward, liquor makes him
bold; if sympathetic, liquor deadens his heart; if honest, liquor makes
him a thief; if a loving father or son, liquor makes him a brute. Behold
the Handmaiden of the Devil--King Alcohol: the most efficient ally of the
"angel of the bottomless pit."
XXV
THE ASTUTE AUTHOR
"Till I come give heed to reading."--_1 Timothy iv. 13._
"Of the making of books there is no end."--_Ecclesiastes xii. 12._
When we remember the crude methods of book making in the days of Solomon,
compared with the facilities of modern publishing houses, his statement
has in it a touch of humour. To-day manuscripts are turned over to
printers and binders, and in two weeks an edition of from five to fifty
thousand copies are ready for the market. There are three million volumes
in our libraries; and, a writer has said, enough new books come from the
press annually to build a pyramid as large as St. Paul's Cathedral,
London. Mr. Carnegie is planting his libraries in every town and city in
America.
Evening and morning papers are laid at our doors with flaming head-lines
of all that has happened the world over in the last twenty-four hours.
Detailed descriptions of murders, scandals, elopements, court scenes,
betrayals, etc. Magazines, representing every phase of life and industry,
are multiplying continually. The literature of a nation is potentially its
food for character building, morally and spiritually.
Now what are we reading? Editors are calling for "stuff" with "human
interest." The manuscript with "preaching" gets a return slip instead of a
check; writers are governing themselves by this canon. The most popular
writers of fiction a decade ago, who wrote books with high moral and
spiritual tone, have step by step eliminated _religion_, and now deal with
Socialistic questions and New Thought problems.
The most popular novels are teaching false standards of life, and some of
the "best sellers" are base libels on religion and the Church. This is the
situation, and a close observation of the output of the high-class,
reputable publishers will confirm it. Why is this the status of our book
makers? Book writing and publishing, like all other branches of human
endeavour, have become commercialized; writers and publishers are
pandering to a vitiated taste for revenue only. It is not literature
editors are seeking, but stories that will sell.
A librarian of one of our large cities told the writer that seventy-five
per cent. of the books called for and read were positively harmful to the
highest ideals. If such is true on this plane of literature, what can be
said of the publishing houses which produce nothing but books utterly vile
and immoral? It is said there are two thousand publishing concerns in New
York City issuing just such literature, circulated secretly in many
instances. An army of writers are employed to furnish so many "thrillers"
monthly. These "stories" deal with the lowest, vilest passions of
humanity. What is true of New York is also true of Chicago and other
cities.
Enough stories have been written of the James Boys, Wild Bill, Buffalo
Bill, and other border heroes (?), could they have lived to take the
least part in so many situations, to have required a century to pass
through them all. As much blood as was shed actually at Shiloh has been
shed by the writers of border outlawry during the past twenty-five years.
The indirect influence of the books of the James Boys have caused more
bloodshed than those Missouri bandits spilt by their unerring
marksmanship.
A penniless orphan boy was adopted by his well-to-do uncle, who gave him
all the comforts and opportunities of an actual son. Early in his teens he
became a novel fiend--the lowest and vilest type; reading several each
week. When scarcely fifteen years old, he armed himself with his uncle's
pistol, took from the barn the finest horse, and left in the early
morning. The gentleman, suspecting the truth concerning the missing horse
and boy, called a neighbour, and the two gave chase to the young ingrate.
They came upon him late in the day, and as the uncle seized the bridle
rein, the nephew shot him through the heart, and wounded the neighbour
before he could be pulled from the horse and overpowered.
A beautiful girl was found dead in Central Park, New York. Her face, form,
and the fabric of her clothing showed plainly that she belonged to a home
of wealth and culture. In one hand was an empty vial labelled deadly
poison; in the other hand, gripped in the paroxysms of her last struggle,
was a paperback novel. The explanation was simple: the heroine had a
downfall, and rather than face her shame, committed suicide.
If you will observe the throng of factory girls, overworked, underpaid,
heart-hungry from which the White Slaver reaps a rich harvest, they will
be reading the class of book mentioned. They enter into the sacred
relation of married life with false, distorted ideals, the end of which is
often ruin: infidelity to marriage vows, abandonment, and divorce court.
There is another department of literature, written with but one purpose in
view: the overthrow of orthodox faith. A thousand questions are raised
which the common people cannot answer. Why is it the unchurched masses are
continually drifting farther and farther from the Church and what it
stands for? Labour unions have almost repudiated religion; class hatred
was never more pronounced than to-day, notwithstanding the loud
proclamation of human brotherhood. Say what you will as to causes, this
condition is not an accident; we must go far up the turbid stream to find
the source of these defiling waters. When we find the source, it will be
found that behind all these insidious influences stands the inspiring
Author.
Why is there such an incessant effort to divert the minds of the best
people from personal relationship of Jesus through faith in His blood?
Where is the author, the editor--even religious editors--who stand
four-square for the Bible of our fathers and mothers? We are glad to say
there are a few exceptions; but the drift of writers and editors is away
from fundamentals. Satan boldly and thievishly appropriates every
available avenue to the soul; wherever his cold, clammy hand touches, it
leaves a chill of death. Beyond a question more writers than we ever
dreamed are only amanuenses of the Astute Author.
XXVI
THE HYPNOTIST
"Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power
and signs and lying wonders."--_2 Thessalonians ii. 9._
"And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those
miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the
beast."--_Revelation xiii. 14._
"Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead."--_Ephesians v.
14._
Just where the natural and the supernatural exists is a most difficult
psychological problem. Many marvellous doings and strange apparitions,
from the beginning, were attributed to the supernatural. These same
wonders are now known to be the application of physical and psychological
laws. The "enchanters," "soothsayers," "diviners," "magicians," and
"fortune tellers" have awed the simple-minded and superstitious in all
ages. A clear understanding of Hypnotism, Mesmerism, Telepathy, Odylic
Force, Psychological Phenomena, Clairvoyance, Black Art, and Spiritism,
will throw light on many of these supposed supernatural mysteries. Under
whatever name demonstrations may be known, they are all various phases of
certain well-established laws touching our physical, mental, and psychical
being.
One of the most common, and best understood, of these mystery workings is
Hypnotism which, defined, is "an artificial trance, or an artificially
induced state, in which the mind becomes passive." The subject, however,
acts readily upon suggestion or direction; and upon regaining normal
consciousness, retains little or no recollection of the actions or ideas
dominant during this condition. Hypnotism is purely mental and physical;
but this strange power which one can exercise over another strikingly
illustrates the influence which Satan exercises over millions of blinded
subjects. We shall avoid any attempt to discuss the science and philosophy
of Hypnotism; this phase of the subject is not germane to our discussion.
All these subtle laws of mind, acting in relation to the body, only now
being understood by scholars, are undoubtedly familiar to our common
Enemy. We believe that centuries before man knew anything about psychic
laws, as understood to-day, strange, unaccountable influences were
operating on the wills and consciences of men. Hypnotism is a form of
sleep; but during the time the subject can receive and obey instructions.
They are absolutely under the control of the hypnotist.
Paul caught an extraordinary vision of sin when he exclaimed to the
Ephesians: "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead." Here is a
fearful figure of sin: that it is sleep--semi-consciousness--
unconsciousness; yet they think, act, move about, enjoy, love, hate, etc.,
etc., and they are as one asleep. Observe this state is, if allowed to
remain _in articulo mortis_, Hypnotism, conducted by the Master of Black
Art; and they obey his will, over against observation, warning, wisdom,
experience of others, even of themselves. Voices may call loud and long,
but do not awaken the soul under the satanic spell.
There are many freaks of hypnotic influence which illustrate vividly the
power of sin--and back of the sin, the sin Personality. We have seen
subjects placed under hypnotic sleep, and they would remain in this
condition for twenty-four hours. The demonstration was made in a large
department store, facing a stone-paved street, which roared day and night
with cars and heavy traffic. Hundreds of people swarmed about the sleeping
man, laughing and talking loudly. Not until the hypnotist came and touched
the subject did he arouse from the heavy slumber.
A still more remarkable demonstration is reported to have been
accomplished in an Eastern city. We give as authority the _Associated
Press_. After the subject was placed under the hypnotic trance, he was
dressed like one being prepared for burial, then put in a coffin, hauled
to the cemetery in a hearse. The "corpse" was then lowered in a grave of
the proper depth, the grave filled to the ground level. The air tube from
the coffin to the top was large enough to enable a light to be reflected
on the face of the sleeper. "Buried alive," said the report. He was left
in the grave several hours.
If superior mind force can accomplish such marvellous feats on human will,
what may we expect from supernatural mind force with a burning ambition to
subdue? The columns of our _dailies_ are filled with reports of the doings
of men and women that cannot be explained on any other hypothesis. Think
of the insane, unreasonable, illogical risk in all manner of sin--for
what? A momentary taste of some "forbidden fruit." We hear that
self-preservation is the first law of our being; but how often this law is
utterly ignored for sensuous gratification. Those who do these things are
unable to understand their insane conduct until it is all over. "Oh, I can
see it all now," is the despairing cry so often heard. Of course, the
hypnotic spell is removed. How easy it is to sit and philosophize on the
actions of people. "Why would any sane person do such a thing?" A sane
person would not; the why of all these human twists is very simple when we
are willing to admit the literal teaching of God's book concerning our
indefatigable Enemy. "The apostate angel and his followers by pride and
blasphemy against God and malice against men became liars and murderers by
tempting men to do sins" (Jude 6, R. V.).
Why did the Prodigal Son do such an insane, sinful act? Why? Well, he came
to himself, but not until the harm was wrought. Why have ten thousand
prodigals since that day been guilty of the same insane conduct? The
answer is obvious. Why did Judas sell his Lord?--He who had been so highly
honoured: chosen, ordained, sent out? "Satan entered into Judas;" there
you have the whole truth. By and by, Judas came to himself; then remorse
and despair not only caused him to return the money, but destroy himself.
In a subsequent chapter we shall discuss more particularly the suicide
problem; but we are satisfied Judas was a victim of two satanic schemes:
the hypnotic spell deadened his reason and judgment to do the deed; then,
after the Crucifixion, despair gripped him like a vice. Who would say that
Judas was excluded from the Saviour's dying prayer: "Father forgive them"?
Peter denied Christ, then lied and blasphemed about it. He was restored;
but Satan's power over Judas was not broken. His end was Satan's finished
work. What he did to Judas he purposes to do with every "subject"--utter
destruction.
We once saw a snake charm a bird; the serpent's head was lifted several
inches--eyes blazing, and red tongue flashing. The bird fluttered, gave a
piteous wail, but was helplessly walking into the jaws of death. Now the
question arises: what about the freedom of the will? Do we ever cease to
be free agents? Certainly we do not; the hypnotic subject exercises free
choice; that is never destroyed, but he acts under a compelling _vis
uturga_--power behind.
XXVII
DEVIL POSSESSION
"As they went out, behold, they brought to him a dumb man possessed
with a devil. And when the devil was cast out, the dumb
spake."--_Matthew ix. 32-33._
"O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good
things?"--_Matthew xii. 34._
One characteristic, which has been prominent in the varied manifestations
of Satan studied so far, is adaptability. Methods that were available in
the days of our Lord cannot be used successfully now. By some secret
unknown to us the Devil enters into the souls of men. This is a mystery;
so is, also, the filling of the Holy Spirit a mystery. The Devil possessed
King Saul, Judas, Ananias and Sapphira, and many are the instances
recorded in the ministry of the Saviour. Devil possession, it seemed, was
very common; Christ was continually casting them out, and He also gave His
Apostles power likewise to cast them out.
We do not believe the Enemy has abandoned his old profession: an evil
spirit despises a disembodied state; if people are fortified and shielded
against his entrance--then the swine. As cold air whistles and roars about
every crack and cranny, entering in from all directions, so evil
spirits--Devil and demons--press their entrance into the soul. If it is
true they cannot enter except by permission,--they pry and pound until
resistance is impossible, unless divine reinforcement comes to the rescue.
There are maniacs, violent, desperate, incurable, to-day as truly demon
possessed as was the man who lived among the tombs. This, however, is not
his modern _modus operandi_; desperate maniacs could then terrorize a
whole community. Our great asylums have solved this problem; even the
immediate family is relieved of the burden and fear. Those who do not
accept the theory of demon possession should explain a case at present in
one of our institutions. It is a boy, at the time it attracted attention,
only twelve years of age, thin, emaciated, and by no means abnormal in any
particular. This child would remain quiet for days; during this time he
possessed no strength beyond one of his age. At unexpected moments he
would be seized with violent contortions, frothing at the mouth, and
snapping like a mad dog; and a continuous flow of the most obscene
language and blasphemy while the spell lasted. This is not the strangest
part: he had the strength of a giant; it required four or five men to
overpower him. One man was helpless in his hands; he would literally hurl
them to the floor. Compare this story with the one in the fifth chapter of
Mark: "And when He was come out of the ship, immediately there met Him out
of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the
tombs; and no man could bind him, no not with chains, because that he had
been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked
asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man
tame him."
In countries where the gospel light has not yet shown full-orbed, demon
possession with manifestations similar to those of Bible times are known
to be common. F. B. Meyer relates numerous cases in Russia; many by prayer
were cast out in the name of Jesus Christ. "I confess," he says, "these
incidents have greatly impressed me. I wonder how far it would be right to
deal with certain forms of drunkenness and impurity as cases of
demon-possession. It may be there is more of this demon work among us than
we know, and especially in cases of mania." Dr. Howard Taylor, of the
China Island Mission, it is said, was accustomed to diagnose the symptoms
of demon-possession in the same way as of any other disease. Dr. Nevins,
of the Presbyterian Mission Board, tells of hundreds of cases, witnessed
by himself, where by faith in the Son of God the demons were cast out, and
the victims were clothed and in their right mind.
Cotton Mather says of Salem witchcraft: "Those persons said to be
bewitched would swoon, froth at the mouth, their bodies would cramp into
irregular shapes; meanwhile they would utter accusations against good
people who, they said, had bewitched them. This excited sympathy of the
court. As soon as the court rendered judgment, those bewitched victims
would be relieved of their physical cramps and mental torture." Salem
witchcraft was real cases of demon-possession, but the court blundered in
that the demons were located in the wrong persons.
Sir Walter Scott says that similar manifestations of Satan as were
witnessed at the time of the Salem witchcraft occurred simultaneously in
every country on earth. He writes again: "Anna Cole, living at Hartford,
was taken with strange fits which caused her to express strange things
unknown to herself, her tongue being guided by a demon. She confessed to
the minister that she had been familiar with a devil." Pages could be
filled with modern examples which coincide so exactly with New Testament
records that we have no doubt the causes are the same.
Professor Webster, late of Wheaton College, said in a lecture before the
students: "I once knew a man possessed of a demon. He became so vicious
that he had to be confined in a cell in jail. When he heard any one swear
or blaspheme, he would go into convulsions of laughter. When any one used
the name of God or Christ, he would curse everything good, and foam at the
mouth. He possessed superhuman strength, like the man living among the
tombs."
The soul is God's masterpiece, created to be the habitat of the Paraclete,
but may, as truly, become the habitat of a demon. We believe that Diabolus
has so organized his forces that his minions represent various sins; they
are specialists--skilled labourers: drink demons, lust demons, lying
demons, anger demons, theft demons, pride, blasphemy, etc. Demon
possession to-day expresses itself in sins we try to control by means of
courts, education, etc. Homes become a miniature hell because of drink,
pride, lust, or lying demons.
Our penitentiaries are crowded with men who were controlled by a demon,
forced them into drink, anger, or theft, until the deed was committed. We
may feel thankful that there are so few Scriptural cases of demon
possession about us--the old time possession. The wise Enemy has shifted,
but at the same time has greatly enlarged his field of operation. There
are no witch victims to-day: the courts would not punish the witches, but
the bewitched would be safely cared for in an asylum. But observe, there
are ten thousand other insidious ways in which he possesses men and women,
enlarging his kingdom daily; his victims multiply, but not among the
tombs. The name of Jesus continues to be the only remedy.
XXVIII
DEVIL OPPRESSION
"So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with
sore boils from the sole of his foot to his crown."--_Job ii. 7._
"Who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the
devil."--_Acts x. 38._
A necessary concomitant of demon possession is its influence upon the
individual's moral faculties; an entirely new type of moral tastes are
developed: tempers, sympathies, and, especially, doctrines which are
diametrically opposed to genuine spiritual religion and revelation. Demon
possession bitterly and persistently rejects, whether by a nominal
professor or unbeliever, the doctrines of repentance, new birth, etc.,
through a blood atonement.
In demon possession the fight is on the inside; in demon oppression the
fight is on the outside. In the one, Satan controls the man: body, mind
and soul; in the other, he depresses, afflicts the man: body, mind, and
soul. In the one, the victim is the incarnation of evil; in the other the
victim is generally the purest and holiest of men and women.
The Devil or demons may be ejected by the power of the Holy Ghost, but the
hellish enterprise is never given up; all the engineering of the pit is
utilized to keep ransomed souls out of the kingdom. Once a choice is made,
all hell is aroused unto wrath and riot to torment, nag, and finally drag
the discouraged pilgrim back into sin and apostasy. This is often
accomplished successfully through an afflicted body. Who knows but that
the drama enacted in the land of Uz has been repeated many, many times
since Job sat on his ash pile?
"But," says the objector, "sickness and disease come as a result of
exposure, natural laws violated, inoculation by infection and contagion."
True, but remember he is the "prince of the power of the air." What he did
once he can do again, and more efficiently. Think of the strenuous war
being waged on germs, microbes, and bacilli; we have diseases more violent
than ever before. Yet when the race of life was less complicated and
simple, none of the modern precautions were thought of; flies swarmed
about everything placed on the table, and their mission thought to be one
of beneficence. There are many actual and implied statements in the Bible
which teach that disease and sickness are often the result of demon
oppression; a large part of our Lord's ministry was relieving those who
were oppressed of the Devil and demons.
Then his work is just as effective in the realm of the mind; the mental
faculties, filled with confusion and doubt, are incapable of exercising
their normal functions. Multitudes are able, because of their
intelligence, to guard the approaches through the physical organism, or to
the extent of subjection at least; but are as completely oppressed in mind
as others are in body. We do not claim that any are entirely immune from
his attacks; but he is wise and sagacious enough to select such victims
for specific oppression as will best satisfy and gratify his diabolical
pleasure in seeing the followers of his rival suffer. He oppresses only
such as he is unable to possess. Many have been so troubled mentally that
Christian living becomes a life and death struggle. Here we find another
example of "wrestling not with flesh and blood."
But some of Satan's greatest victories and rejoicings come from soul
oppression. We believe this to be the real secret of our Lord's agony in
the garden; it was the Devil's last opportunity to thwart the great plan
of salvation. Oh, to cheat Calvary; put our "Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world" in such physical, mental, and soul burdened agony
He would refuse at the last moment to do all the will of His Father. How
near he came to accomplishing the diabolical scheme we learn from the
story as given by inspiration. We remember His piteous remark as they left
the Paschal room: "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death";
then He cries out in anguish: "If it is possible, let this cup pass from
Me." Never was He nearer the great Father heart, and never was He more a
man than at this time; and as a man, perhaps during the terrible crisis,
He did not analyze His sufferings and emotions. All the powers of hell
were combined to crush Him at the hour for which He came into the world.
Every student of soul tragedy can appreciate, in a limited degree, the
experiences of Gethsemane. Paul had this exact experience in mind when he
wrote of the "evil days" in which we had to "wrestle." What are evil
days? Days when the heavens are brass, and the fountains of prayer are
dried up; a cold, sinking sensation clutches the heart. The mind is in a
jumble, plans are thwarted, the mail brings a message of some deception or
betrayal, the hand slips, fires go out, trains missed, pressing duties
remain undone; nervous anxiety and evil forebodings chill the soul. The
mind and heart are filled with dread; cold perspiration swells into beads
upon the brow. Evil days! Oh, how we stumble and blunder; we cannot even
think of advancement. Paul says we can only stand still, and having done
all, stand. Many who are not familiar with the nature of such "days" will
cast away their faith, believing that their "feelings" are the index to
the state of grace in the heart.
But, thank God, a crushing defeat came to this traitor-prince in that the
full programme leading up to the world's great Atonement was carried out
to the letter. It was not the physical fear of death which caused the
blood-sweating agony of our Lord; if so, thousands have met the martyr's
end far more triumphantly than did He. Some believe it was the weight of
the world's sin breaking His heart. Both the physical dread of death and
sin burden may have entered into the garden tragedy; but it was, we repeat
with emphasis, the myrmidons of hell taking the advantage of His humanity
at the crisis of His life: _It was Devil Oppression_.
Devil oppression does not always come in a diseased body, a confused mind,
or in days of soul depression. But sometimes they are new, instantaneous,
fierce, overwhelming, and always from different angles and approaches. A
vile suggestion, a remembered sin, long ago under the blood, a strong
inclination to commit revolting deeds. An eminent, and deeply-pious divine
of the South tells in his autobiography that while alone in his study, in
meditation and prayer, he was strangely assaulted by the Devil. For more
than an hour the inclination to blaspheme was almost beyond his control;
it seemed that vile oaths would well up in his mouth and almost leap from
his tongue. So terrible was the attack that deliverance came only after a
long struggle on his face crying out audibly to God. Then the dark cloud
of bat-winged vampires, almost visible, left as mysteriously as they came.
It was Devil Oppression.
XXIX
DEVIL ABDUCTION
"Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some
shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits."--_1
Timothy iv. 1._
"And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of
light."--_2 Corinthians xi. 14._
We used the above Scriptures in a former chapter, but with special
reference to "doctrines"; the part we wish to emphasize now, "giving heed
to seducing spirits": that is to say, be led away or abducted by the Devil
or demon. There are four classes of people who may be subjected to the
seductive influence of evil spirits. We should keep in mind that the
"prince of this world" and his emissaries were once angels, and of course,
when necessary, can bring their angelic attributes into seductive
usefulness.
One of the problems facing the Church and all religious workers is to keep
the converts or communicants in line; steady them in the presence of
deflecting influences. The Church is suffering from the inroads of every
conceivable brand: isms, cults, fads, worldliness, etc., which always
mean, not only usefulness paralyzed, but the loss of Church and Bible
ideals. How many among us who once ran well, but are now tilted,
side-tracked, derailed, and ditched. We are encompassed about with ten
thousand plausible, seductive tenets, arguments and theories, which if
yielded to will result in utter religious ruin.
There are four classes of possible victims, all sincere and
conscientious, none of which are basely wicked. First: the unregenerate
who are blindly seeking the light, but following the inner voice and
promptings, rather than the Word of God. These become easy victims to the
charms (?) of Christian Science, Theosophy, Spiritualism, Mormonism, etc.
Once inducted, there follows a mental refreshing, and a carnal peace,
which bring the "soul rest" and "assurance" they eagerly sought. These
cults are lauded and believed as modern "revelations," but they are only
_new clothes_ stretched over the dried mental mummies which lived and
moved in the early centuries and dead civilizations. Various shades and
deductions from old Hindoo philosophy, Egyptian magic, Gnosticism,
Stoicism, Æstheticism, Asceticism are paraded so as to catch the cultured,
twentieth century devotee. In whatever form it may come, the beauty
worshippers of Æstheticism, the mental anesthetics of Christian Science,
or the debasing sensuality of Mormonism, it is "led away by the Devil or a
demon."
A writer on modern Spirits says: "Extraordinary spiritism of to-day is but
the continuation of the worship of the old idol Tammuz, as worshipped by
the corrupt Israelites and Canaanites, and the Adonis, as worshipped by
the Greeks. The indecent practices of these mediums made it necessary to
seek darkness to cover their vileness." Ezekiel, in the eighth chapter,
speaks of it; the Delphic Oracle practiced the same iniquity: the
personification of lust.
The second class of possible victims is the regenerated believer or
nominal professor of religion. It is the belief of the writer that no
greater havoc is being wrought anywhere in the realm of religious
aspiration than is being done to-day among professing church-members,
sane, perchance--who once knew the secrets of saving faith. To this class
there seems to be two horns in the dilemma of abduction. As an eminent
author says: "If we give the preponderant attention to the providences
which appertain to the body, there is danger of becoming deistical and
materialistic in our views. If we study the word alone, without due
appreciation of the Spirit and providence, there is danger of drifting
away into dead formality, drying up, becoming creedistic, theoretical, and
unspiritual."
What can check the materialistic trend of the times? What can save the
Church from reflex influences of modern materialism? Somehow, we have
reached the place where things must appeal to the senses: we must taste,
handle, smell, see, etc.; things in the Church, as well as out, have
jostled down to a metallic basis: something for so much. In the same
degree, deny it as we will, our religion ceases to be a religion of faith.
Then, on the other hand, the history of Christendom from the beginning,
without an exception, proves the second horn to the dilemma: as we lose
the spiritual afflatus, we become ceremonial. Upon this reef of rocks our
Church is crashing to-day. We see only the material; we have a mania for
statistics, figures. Our Sunday-schools seek organization, grades,
banners, honour rolls, numbers. Great schools are pushed with enthusiasm
by unconverted officers and teachers. About ninety per cent. swarm out
and away from the Church and rarely if ever remain for the preaching of
the Word. In fearful, glaring reality we can see in all this ceremonialism
and dress parade Demoniacal Abduction.
The third class is much smaller; they are the select few who live in the
inner circle of things. Having been brought from darkness unto light they
seek to walk in all the light, and to live continually in the good,
acceptable, and perfect will of God. This class are the sworn,
uncompromising enemies of Satan's kingdom; but often their zeal is without
knowledge. Perchance, many are weak and unlearned. Satan will leave the
multitude of mystery workers and formalists to make havoc among these
saintly ones. All that he accomplishes here cuts like a two-edged sword:
the individual ruin, and the deadening, paralyzing influence to the cause
of truth. By what method does he gain access? Abduction is only possible
here where preponderant emphasis is placed on the leadership of the Spirit
without careful, diligent adhesion to the Word. The Word is the Spirit's
weapon; without it he is handicapped. What is the result? Fanaticism,
dreams, visions, wild-fire, extreme positions on dress, food, domestic
relations, etc., until they are "led away by a demon beyond recall."
Shipwrecked, "affinities," free love, infidelity, are inevitable. Wherever
societies, communities, or churches become inoculated with the virus of
any of these phases of fanaticism--untold harm surely follows. The Devil
is responsible for the religious "craze," and will then exaggerate by lies
and misrepresentation before the unbelievers.
The fourth class are, of all, the most to be pitied, and no work of the
"angel of the pit" is so hellish as his operation and strategy upon an
awakened soul. Those who are in religious work are grieved continually at
seeing the process chilled and defeated at a point which would soon result
in deliverance from the bondage of evil. Satan actually assumes the person
of the Holy Ghost. Strange and amazing as this sounds, it is nevertheless
true. As soon as the soul is awakened he assumes a general godfather sort
of relation to the penitent one. Advice and suggestions flood his mind:
his pride, clothes, reputation, business, and all are used as arguments.
"You should be a Christian--join the church--it is your duty; but when you
make a start, _be sure_ you have a genuine experience. You are
conscientious--anything but a hypocrite with you. Now this is not an
opportune time, etc., etc.," on and on, until the penitent refuses to
arise and go to his Father's house. Procrastination; Satan literally drags
him away from the mercy seat.
How can he do this? Where is the Holy Ghost all this time? Why does He not
protect His identity? So long as a man is in sin he has a nature that is
not subject to the law of God, and cannot be: carnal mind, old man. On
this territory Satan has right of way; under the guise of one seeking to
help them in their confusion and sorrow, he manipulates until prevenient
grace is grieved away. The poor deluded soul has been "led away by a
demon." It is Devil Abduction.
XXX
THE RATIONALE OF SUICIDE
"And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and went and
hanged himself."--_Matthew xxvii. 5._
"He drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that
the prisoners had been fled."--_Acts xvi. 27._
The Devil was a murderer from the beginning of human history; his first
bloodshed was fratricide--growing out of religious jealousy. He is the
father of murder and murderers. This crime, provoked or unprovoked, is
monstrous; the passions that incite it were born in the pit. Then what may
be said of self-murder: suicide? It is the most fearful, unnatural,
abnormal of all forms of demise. Every impulse of reason and judgment
revolts at the thought. The Master Himself drew back from death; the Book
says death is an enemy.
Various and satisfactory explanations always follow the news of suicide,
"financial reverses," "ill health," "public exposure," "domestic
troubles," "melancholia," etc., etc. These explanations will not stand
under the light of close scrutiny; reverses and misfortunes are generally
contributing causes, but not sufficient to answer fully the horrors of
suicide.
We hesitate to discuss this gruesome subject, but the character study of
these pages would not be complete without it. We speak not with any degree
of dogmatism or claim of superior insight to hidden truth, but in the
fear of God we are persuaded that not a single case of suicide, since the
race took up its painful march, came about from natural causes. Satan, the
embodiment of monstrosities, is responsible.
Suicide is numbered among our vexing problems; reckoned on the basis of
population, suicide has increased one hundred and fifty per cent. in two
decades. Scientists are tremendously interested; thoughtful people are
alarmed. Psychological and sociological authorities tell us that
_poverty_, _disappointed affection_, and _dissipation_ are the chief
causes. The problem can never be solved by social and scientific
speculation. We must cross over the borderland into the supernatural
before all the angles of the problem are met and satisfied.
There is some strange history connected with suicide. Greek philosophers
wrote about it; whether among heathen or civilized peoples, it was
considered a disgrace. The Greeks buried them at night--on the public
highways, and without religious ceremonies; and their goods were
confiscated for the Crown.
We wish to emphasize a former statement: suicide is _unnatural_; it sets
aside her first law. The law of self-preservation holds good in every walk
of life; when we cease to love life, the deepest principle of our being is
out of balance. The body is holy, and when it is destroyed, the highest
_felo de se_ is committed; not only so, it is assuming the prerogative
which belongs alone to God. "It is appointed unto man once to die." Life
is a sacred gift.
There are two kinds of suicide: the responsible and irresponsible. The
first often appears to have been deliberately planned, the act of a sane,
rational mind. However, the best alienists say some phase of insanity
always accompanies this rash act. The second are mentally deranged, for
which there are many causes. Two classes, also, as to character are found
among the unfortunates: the religious and irreligious. What then may we
conclude from the most mysterious tragedy on earth?
Satan always scores a victory when a neighbourhood is shocked by the news
of a suicide; the victory is direct and indirect. If the victim is
prepared or unprepared, sane or insane, the crime can somehow never be
forgiven. A strange demoralizing influence is always felt; a feeling of
horror and depression. If the victim is pious, and many, many are the most
devout in the church, do they forfeit their salvation by the _felo de se_?
Not necessarily. Now we wish to say here, with every word underscored: _no
sane, devout person will destroy themselves_. Where, then, is the motive
and victory of Satan? Much, every way. The whole church or community will
be religiously paralyzed. It is generally believed that no self-murderer
can be saved. But behold a sainted mother in Israel found hanging in the
barn: we have in mind just such an incident, and remember also the gloom,
the depression, the silent whispers, the downcast look on the faces of all
who knew her. Satan may know that he has nothing directly to gain, but,
indirectly, doubt and discouragement prevail. Anything to get the world to
doubt God.
A very devout man, writing of a personal experience, says: "There seemed
to be some designing spirit near me for days that constantly whispered in
my ear, and sometimes it seemed almost audible, "Go kill thyself; you have
disgraced your Redeemer and you are not fit to live." Scores of such
testimonies are on record.
Think of the logical traps used by the Designer to incite the deed: if
poverty, "My family will be cared for better than I can." If a suffering
body, "This will cure me of my pain." If fear of exposure, "That will end
it--charity will forgive me then." If hopeless over some sin, "Better die
than face the disgrace. It will solve all the problems," says the Tempter.
It is often remarked concerning some one: "How cowardly;" but it is not
cowardice; it is inability to answer the Devil's logic to commit suicide.
Again, gruesome as it is, and here is more strange evidence in favour of
the satanic explanation: It is fearfully contagious. Professor Bailey, of
Yale, said that the report of a suicide by any special method will be
followed by others in the same manner. Morbid, despondent people hear of
it and follow the example. That which should be revolting in the extreme
possesses a strange charm. Ingersol toured the country at one time
advocating suicide as the best way out of life's difficulties. Many took
his advice and a fearful epidemic followed. One young man in a rural
community of Illinois committed suicide; three others, all associates,
followed in a few weeks. No special motive could be given for either. We
are forced to place the blame where it belongs, and sympathize with the
victims.
XXXI
DEVIL WORSHIP
"Then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of
his salvation. They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with
abominations provoked they him to anger. They sacrificed unto devils,
not to God; to gods whom they knew not."--_Deuteronomy xxxii. 15-17._
"But I say the things which the Gentiles sacrificed, they sacrificed
to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have
fellowship with devils. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the
cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and the
table of devils."--_1 Corinthians x. 20-21._
Satan's consuming passion is thirst for power. He is the "prince of
darkness," but also the "god of this world," and this long period of
satanic rule is called _night_. God's glorious Sabbath of rest was
superseded by the black intervention of toil and suffering. Satan's
scheming fight has been for the rulership of this world. He succeeded in
winning the entire antediluvian world, which to save the coming
generations necessitated the Flood. He began adroitly with the only
remaining family; swept the postdiluvian peoples into midnight heathenism.
To-day, nearly one billion descendants of Noah worship not God--but
_demonian_--demons, just what the Greeks and Romans worshipped in
Apostolic times. No less than two hundred and fifty million are devil
worshippers by name.
Satan began his fight of opposition by assuming the form or incarnating
himself in the body of a snake. Therefore it is not an accident, growing
out of mythological tradition, that serpent worship has been the chief
religion of many peoples. The Egyptians worshipped Set, which personified
all evil--enemy of all good--they called Typhon, a monstrous serpent-like
animal. To this god human sacrifices were offered on great religious
holidays. It is no accident that the millions who know not the true God
nevertheless, some way, learned to worship the Devil, and generally in the
form of a serpent. The Egyptians had a serpent-god in Typhon; the
Canaanites worshipped a snake in the days of Abraham; the Babylonians
worshipped Python, which is a specie of the most deadly reptile on earth,
and another name for Typhon. On the monuments and tablets of many dead
civilizations the engravings of serpents show their particular customs of
devil worship. The American Indians were snake worshippers; in Ohio an
altar more than a half mile in length remains in good preservation. This
altar is one of the wonders, being a perfect outline of a gigantic snake.
We readily see that tribal association and tradition have had nothing to
do with the customs of our own aborigines; the same being who inspired the
peoples of the Old Orient, millenniums ago, to worship the snake-devil
inspired our red men in his primeval forest.
David speaks of demon worship: "Yea they sacrificed their sons and
daughters unto _Shadim_." Jereboam built places to worship evil spirits;
the ordained priests to serve the altars of "Satyrs," and children were
offered. The Molech of the Canaanites was also devil worship; when the
Israelites forgot God, they "caused their children to pass through the
fire unto Molech," an evil god. The damsel whom Paul delivered possessed
the spirit of Python--the snake. The priestesses of the Delphic oracles
prophesied by the spirit of Python; this was the dominant religion
throughout Greece. The Aztec war god of the Montezumas, where two hundred
and fifty thousand human skulls were found in the temple, was a bloody
system of devil worship. The Yezidis of Persia, descendants of the early
Python worshippers, worship the Devil to-day, and are known as such.
We are not confined to heathenism, ancient or modern, to find the same
religion of "divinations." The best authorities of Spiritualism believe
that the supernatural, occult demonstrations, as produced in their
séances, are from demon agencies. The whole system of mythology grew out
of what is to-day the work of mediums. The Old Testament is filled with
statements concerning "familiar spirits"; they heard voices, received
messages, saw physical disturbances--just as may be witnessed at any
spiritual séance. The most reliable of mediums do not deny that evil
spirits (damned demons) come to them at times. One fact is noteworthy:
when men and women become spiritists, they discard all the essentials of
the Christian faith. They are modern types of demon possession. It is no
unusual thing during a séance to hear a regular clash of voices:
blasphemy, oaths, vulgar, obscene language, terrible threats, etc.
What connection do we find between Devil worship and modern Spiritualism?
First, the moral condition among the spiritists is exactly as it was among
the ancient priests and priestesses in the temples of Devil worship; they
literally worshipped the Devil in their corrupt, degrading practices. Now,
among the votaries of Spiritualism, every iniquity, crime, and indecency
known among men and women are daily carried on. Such is the testimony of
one of their travelling lecturers. One of their noted mediums when under
control delivered this message: "Curse the marriage institution; cursed be
the relation of husband and wife; cursed be all who sustain the legal
marriage." From what source could we expect such a vile deliverance?
Second, their mediums actually pray to Satan. One of their advocates at
the opening of a debate with a Christian minister at San Jose, Cal.,
prayed in the following language: "O Devil, Prince of Demons in the
Christian's Hell; oh, thou Monarch of the bottomless pit; thou King of
Scorpions, I beseech thee to hear my prayer. Thou seest the terrible
straits in which I am placed, matched in debate with a big gun of
Christianity. Remember, O Prince of Brimstone, that when thou stretchest
forth thine arm the Christian God cannot stand before thee for a moment.
Bless thy servant in his labours for thee; fill his mouth with wisdom;
enable him to defend thee from the false charges of thy sulphurous
Majesty, so that this audience may know and realize that thou art a prayer
hearing and a prayer answering devil" (abbreviated). Similar prayers are
frequently published in the _Banner of Light_, the organ of this cult;
prayers formulated in the same language as prayers offered to the God of
heaven.
It cannot be doubted that Pagan religion and modern Spiritualism are Devil
worship, shifting under various forms and ceremonies in different ages and
places. Rev. B. Clough, missionary in Ceylon, says: "I now state, and I
wish it to be heard in every corner of the Christian world, that the devil
is regularly, systematically, and ceremoniously worshipped by a large
majority of the inhabitants of the Island of Ceylon." We repeat: his
consuming passion is to be worshipped.
XXXII
VICTORY THROUGH THE VICTOR
"This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is
he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus Christ
is the Son of God?"--_1 John v. 4-5._
"Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because
greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world."--_1 John
iv. 4._
One of the grave dangers of to-day is that Satan is no longer regarded as
a Personality. Even among those whose faith is founded on the word of God,
the idea of an orthodox devil smacks of superstition and an exploded hoax
from the Dark Ages. "Let us hear the love side of the gospel; away with
this devil and hell business--it's too dreadful," they declare. His real
existence and personality are ridiculed in many pulpits and lecture
platforms. When these ideas become common among the people who think, a
wide open field remains for him to work unmolested.
We can also go to the other extreme: that is, to think him a greater being
than the Son of God. Those who have followed us through these chapter
studies will, we fear, come to some such conclusion. Who can be equal for
such a mighty Prince? Now this biography was undertaken that we might have
a full, life-sized photo of our Enemy. In this we cannot exaggerate the
true status of the case; any less conception of Satan than we have
portrayed will put us at a serious disadvantage in the life struggle. He
is a real foe, and we must meet him in the open, under cover, and
invisibly. Let it be written in black-faced caps, and heavily underscored:
Satan is all we can find out about him--plus, with emphasis on the plus.
We want to keep in mind clearly the Enemy, the battle-ground, and the
battle; we can never match swords with him; to ignore him--big, cunning,
supernatural, eternally at it--will be the most dangerous folly.
But--there is victory, complete, overwhelming victory for every one who
fights; but bear in mind it must be a fighter. There is one Name which
never fails to reverberate from the Throne of God to the cavernous pits of
darkness; this Name shakes loose the grip, untangles the web of all the
allied powers of the Prince of Night. Satan is mighty, Jesus is almighty;
he met his Waterloo. Jesus was never defeated. His first defeat was when
he was an archangel; he was overthrown and cast out of heaven. Jesus said:
"I was present when Satan fell like lightning from heaven." He was also
defeated in the wilderness; again in the Garden, and at Calvary. In fact,
on every battle-field where he met the Lord Christ the defeat was
stunning, humiliating. Now we are in mortal combat with him, and we must
not forget--he has been many times defeated. A writer says: "We have the
advantage of fighting a defeated foe." Standing alone, we are doomed to
utter defeat, capture, ruin; but if our fight is coupled with the Name of
Jesus, our triumph is as certain as our defeat will be without Him.
So long as we muster in as munitions of war our intellect,
self-sufficiency, egotism, etc., the cohorts will laugh at our delusion.
There is but One who can out-general his maneuvres, silence his
thunderings, checkmate his diabolical acumen, know his oily, snaky
approaches, penetrate his angelic beneficence, understand his insidious
schemes: that One knew him from the beginning, and--outranked him in
heaven and conquered him on earth.
This question arises: If Satan has been conquered, and Jesus is yet
contending with him for world-wide supremacy--why the almost universal
triumph of evil? Why is true righteousness at such a discount? Why are the
fighters failing and falling all around us? If these questions cannot be
answered with a degree of sound reasoning, the whole problem of life,
Bible, God, Atonement, Gospel are in a hopeless tangle. A Chinese puzzle
does not compare with a riddle of everything worth while, visible and
invisible.
Satan undoubtedly controls the machinery of this world. Then wherein is
the "victory that overcometh the world"? Let us keep in mind the power,
resources, opportunities, organization, and management of Satan; also the
blindness and bondage of sin, and--the Free Agency of Man. So long as man
remains carnally-minded and free, the Enemy has undisputed right of way;
while the heart is carnal, impure, unsanctified, the controlling motive
power of man's life "is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can
be." He has in his own bosom a traitor, an alien to the government of God.
"To be carnally minded is death," says Paul. The "old leaven must be
purged out"; we must "put off the old man (carnal mind) and his deeds, and
put on the new man, etc." This putting off is absolutely necessary.
Jesus cannot only defeat Satan, but He can destroy the "works of the
devil"--one of which is the alien principle of our nature. "For this
purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of
the Devil." The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus--the God-Man--is an
everlasting Atonement and a propitiation for sin. Sin is the Rubicon of
our battle; once we solve, in all its fullness, the problem of sin, we rob
Satan of his fulcrum power. He came to Jesus and found nothing: no
availability, no sin, no yielding, no fellowship. He was tempted, but
_without sin_.
Our victory must be twofold: first, through the merits of the Everlasting
Blood Covenant we may be saved from sin unto salvation--reconciliation,
forgiveness. Then by the fuller benefits of the Atonement we may "enter
into the holiest by the Blood." Only the pure in heart can stand the
approaches of Satan by way of our natural appetites. The triumphs of
modern surgery are only possible by means of sterilized instruments.
Please observe--with all the meaning that can be couched in language: the
sinful, unregenerated heart is not only in danger of being overcome, but
is already in blind bondage to Satan. The power of sin, both actual and
original, must be broken by the pardoning grace of God through faith in
the Atoning Blood; and the heart cleansed and empowered by the Baptism of
the Holy Ghost.
The second inevitable concomitant of victory is copartnership with Jesus,
the Captain of our salvation--"looking unto Jesus the author and finisher
of our faith." Diabolus and his minions cannot stand before this Name. His
final overthrow was when Jesus cried out on the Cross: "It is finished."
Now at the sight of Jesus, the Cross, or the Blood, the phalanx of
darkness slinks away. Let us lay hold of eternal life by an unfaltering
faith in the Blood that cleanseth, and "The Name high over all: in earth,
in heaven, in hell." "And they overcame him through the blood of the Lamb,
and the word of their testimony." Amen and Amen.
XXXIII
THE ARREST AND IMPRISONMENT
"For the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he
knoweth that he hath but a short time."--_Revelation xii. 12._
"And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the
bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the
dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him
a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him
up, and set a seal upon him."--_Revelation xx. 1-3._
The fact of a possible victory through the Name of our great Conqueror
does not alone satisfy all the items of the indictment. If such were the
only background to the picture, great as it is, the human drama is not
only a fierce tragedy, but a miserable farce. Thank God, personal victory
is not all; there is a rift in the dark satanic cloud which has hung over
the world for so many millenniums. Satan is in great wrath, and his power
and influence grow steadily stronger; more and more his iron grip fastens
about the throat of the world. The Apostasy of which Christ and His
Apostles wrote is becoming a reality.
Satan will score one more gigantic victory; then is our "blessed hope of
His glorious appearing," when He shall come and catch away His Bride--the
Church, both dead and alive; that part of His following who are united to
Him and are earnestly yearning for His coming. This event is called by
devout scholars "The Rapture." Just where, how, when, or how long, we have
only a vague prophetic conjecture. "Where, Lord?" they ask. "And He said
unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered
together."
When the Rapture shall have taken place, Satan will have undisputed
dominion; then shall the "Man of Sin" appear, setting himself up as
God--to be worshipped. His reign will be the Great Tribulation; all the
influences of righteousness will, for the time, be removed--the earth will
reek in corruption and bloodshed. It is implied that, so terrible will be
this time, divine intervention must necessarily shorten the Tribulation,
else no flesh will be left on the earth. The Great Tribulation will be the
climax of the Devil's rule on earth. It seems that he will incarnate
himself in a Man, giving him supernatural knowledge and power.
However, something spectacular and sensational will soon occur. When the
leader of a gang of thugs or desperadoes is arrested, his followers are
filled with fear and consternation; then think of the excitement. An Angel
officer will break in on the scene--yes, that is exactly what the Book
tells us: the High Sheriff of Heaven will suddenly step down from
headquarters, and will lay hold--arrest the Old
Dragon--Satan--Devil--Serpent (observe all his names are mentioned).
Whatever his titles and distinctions of the past have been, they will not
save him in that hour. The Apocalyptic Vision is unmistakable.
Some can see in this wonderful language only an allegory: the good
influences are to gradually bind the influences of evil, and to expect
such an event as the literal arrest of the Devil is a wild, irrational,
unscientific, unreasonable dream. Our Lord said, speaking of the time of
the end, that the same social conditions as prevailed in the days of Noah
were to be repeated: wicked ones waxing worse and worse; scarcely any
living in the fear of God. To expect to see a gradual regeneration of
society, politics, commerce, and the Church--until evil will be overruled,
chained as it were--seems to be a gigantic travesty on language and the
teaching of the Bible.
We prefer to stand by the Book rather than human interpretation--fixed up
to justify the methods and results of modern religious propaganda. An
angel appears--evidently an archangel: one belonging to the rank of which
the fallen Prince formerly belonged. This Sheriff of the skies is equipped
for his undertaking; Officers carry handcuffs with which to bind
prisoners--the angel has a great chain in his hand; he lays hold--arrests
the old skulking, hateful, murderous Devil. This angel-officer has also a
key, and it is the key which locks the door of the bottomless pit. This
door has been wide open; Satan and his emissaries could go and come at
pleasure. Just as an officer arrests a desperado and leads him off to
prison--so will the archangel arrest the Devil and lock him up in the pit
of darkness and despair. What will be done with his millions of cohorts?
We can judge only by inference. We want to stay close to the inspired
record; of one thing, however, we are confident: the footstool of God
will be absolutely cleared of Devil and demons; "that they shall deceive
the nations no more."
The prophetic picture of the divine court proceedings is very specific: we
have the exact length of the prison sentence--_one thousand years_. When
we remember the crimes, unnumbered crimes, the sentence seems to be an
example of court leniency. But this is only a "binding over," as it were,
to the real trial and judgment yet to come. This will be temporary
imprisonment; but oh, it will be such a glad, happy day. The vision of
Isaiah, thirty-fifth chapter, will be literally fulfilled. The sceptre so
long in the hand of a traitor--usurper--will pass into the hand of the
Prince of Peace. Yes, we will strengthen our weak hands and confirm our
feeble knees--Satan at last locked up. We shall witness with joy
unspeakable and full of glory--"the Restoration of All Things." "And the
earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the
waters cover the sea." Thank God forever.
XXXIV
THE FINAL CONSUMMATION
"And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and
brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be
tormented day and night forever and ever."--_Revelation xx. 10._
After the long term of imprisonment shall have ended, we are told that
Satan shall be loosed out of his prison for a season. This is difficult to
explain; but we do not presume to question the administration of God's
government: "Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Satan, like
many other confirmed, apostate criminals, immediately on being released,
plunges more deeply into crime than before. The long term of imprisonment
and punishment hardens and, if possible, more nearly consumes him with
wrath.
At once he launches another world-wide campaign of deception, gathering,
rallying, mustering, and drilling his forces: those who by an exercise of
free choice, notwithstanding the glorious millennium reign, actually fall
away and enlist under the black pirate flag once more. He encompasses the
whole face of the earth; like a deposed crown prince, he leads an
aggressive warfare to regain the honours and influence which he so long
enjoyed on the earth.
Now if the binding of Satan is only a figure of the leavening power of
righteousness overpowering the evil--what is the _thing_ which shall be
unchained and loosened? Such a contention is as unanswerable as it is
untenable. We will repeat once more, with each word underscored: _Good or
Evil cannot exist except in a Personality_. The same school of theologians
who deny the personality of Satan, many of them, see nothing in the Person
of Christ except a _Christ spirit_, inherent good, etc.; all of which is
unadulterated infidelity. Just another method of "blasting at the Rock of
Ages."
Satan shall be locked in a prison for one thousand years--then he shall be
loosed, and every moment of his freedom will be occupied in preparation
for the last Armageddon. He does not foresee future events, and it is
possible he does not understand this to be his final struggle; otherwise
he would be unable to inspire such a following. As we read this brief but
vivid picture of the Gog and Magog engagement, the marshalling and
shifting for position of Napoleon and Wellington, preparatory to their
decisive battle, in comparison to this gathering, will be like a cadet
sham engagement. It seems that the lines of fortification will reach out
over the entire earth, mobilizing around the Holy City. The saints, also,
are gathered into encampment; whether for preparation to meet the forces
of Satan, or for protection, the prophecy does not state; but all the
powers of light and darkness are brought face to face.
The battle never reaches a real encounter; the impudence and rebellion of
the deposed prince and ex-convict arouses the wrath of God as never
before. The cup of His indignation is full to the overflowing, and He
brings the fearful conflict to a spectacular ending. The destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrah was a microscopic event compared with the rain of fire
that shall fall in consuming vengeance upon the Devil and his followers,
both men and demons. The saints shall be delivered in that awful hour, and
this is the last shifting of the scene; the bell will ring, as it were,
and the curtain will fall, closing out the long tragic history of the old
world.
We are not dogmatic as to the chronological order of these mighty events,
but as closely as we can gather them from the Word, the next move of these
wonders in heaven and in earth will be the ushering in of the Last
Judgment. The _Deis Ira_ breaks in upon the universe; the Great White
Throne will swing into view. During the vision of millennial vision, its
reign--John saw "thrones"; Christ and His Church ruling jointly the
kingdoms of earth; He then is the Chief Shepherd, the King of kings and
Lord of lords--holding the sceptre of universal empire. But now when the
_Deis Ira_ dawns, there will be just One Throne, and God Himself will sit
upon it.
If the reader wishes a detailed description of this Last Day, it can be
found in the sixth chapter of Revelation, where the whole programme is
thrown into a composite picture: "The Opening of the Seven Seals." Each
seal is a separate prophecy or act of events from Alpha to Omega of
things. Language breaks all bounds of rhetoric, poetry, and definition:
"And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and lo, there was a
great earthquake, and the sun became as black as the sackcloth of hair,
and the moon became as blood, and the stars of the heaven fell unto the
earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of
a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled
together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places."
Note the effect this marvellous demonstration will have upon the followers
of the traitor-prince: "And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and
the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every
bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks
of the mountains; and said to the rocks and the mountains, fall on us, and
hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the
wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of His wrath has come; and who shall
be able to stand."
All the souls that have lived on the earth, good and bad, saints and
sinners, Devil and demons, will stand before the Throne and be judged. The
words, thoughts, and deeds of men and devils shall be made known. The
final doom of the Devil and his angels will be shown up in detail before
an assembled universe: the Godhead, angels, archangels, cherubim and
seraphim, and all that have lived upon this planet. Hence, the last and
final scene of the Epilogue: "And the devil that deceived them was cast
into the lake of fire and brimstone ... and shall be tormented day and
night forever and ever." Amen and Amen.
XXXV
SATANIC SYMBOL IN NATURE
"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are
clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made."--_Romans
i. 20._
The evolution of Christian scholarship, during the recent decades, has
wrought wonders in bringing about absolute harmony of science and
religion. Under the microscope, and through the telescope, men whose
hearts are trained as well as their brains, the great book of Nature is
found to be a commentator and expositor of the Book of Revelation. They
have not only studied and theorized about the science of religion; but by
laws of induction and deduction have discovered a "Religion of Science,"
and when properly understood and applied is not out of harmony with the
most orthodox faith.
Just as chemistry, geology, zoölogy, botany, astronomy, etc., whether seen
in the protozoa or the highest type of man; the animalculi (creatures
which propagate their specie by millions in a day) or the elephant; the
electrons or Polarius (our North Star which is one hundred times brighter,
larger, and hotter than the sun)--all demonstrate laws, systems, design,
purpose, and beneficence from the hand of a wise Father-Creator: so also
are there other things in the physical world discovered by the student of
nature which suggest an opposite being.
We remember that even the ground was cursed when sin entered with its
defiling touch; where flowers and fruits did once abound has come forth a
crop of vile weeds, thorns, and poisonous vines. These occupy and will
conquer in any soil on the earth--the Poe or Mississippi valleys, without
the diligent, unceasing, systematic toil of man. There must be a
continuous fight against these omnipresent enemies--in garden, in
vineyard, on farm. Clean out every weed, allow none to produce seed of its
kind; then leave the land for one year untouched, and it will be a ragged
wilderness. Fruits, grains, and vegetables left to fight with these
enemies of the soil, and, without a single exception anywhere, they are
soon choked out and will die. Unaided by the skill of the gardener, the
end is inevitable.
But, observe again, fighting the soil demons and conquering them is only
half the battle. There is not a tree, plant, shrub, vegetable, fruit, nor
flower, in any latitude or zone, but that must contend with pests,
parasites, and insects of all kinds. The herbivorous enemies are not
limited to insects and creeping things, but actual diseases. Several of
the choicest fruits have cancer; various blights have destroyed whole
crops of cereals. Trees and vegetables have diseases that must be
diagnosed and doctored as carefully as the family physician treats
pneumonia or typhoid fevers.
But this is not all: whole orchards are killed by the caterpillar; the
boll-weevil has been known to devastate great sections in the wheat belt.
The grub kills the corn as soon as it sprouts; the potato bug, the
tobacco worm, the army worm, the Gypsy moth, celery worm, California
scale, etc., on and on, until we find that every fruit, grain or vegetable
is beset by some vermin destroyer which, if not removed or poisoned, will
sting to death, or gnaw at the vitals until they wither and die. The
horticultural kingdom must contend with imps of death until garnered
safely in the harvest.
When we examine the animal kingdom we find the same conditions obtain;
every animal from the bug to the buzzard, from the ant to the elephant,
from mice to monkeys, have a bitter struggle for existence. A
distinguished German professor has this to say, addressing the Fishery
Association of Berlin: "War is the watchword of the whole of organic
nature; there is a constant war of all organisms against outward
unfavourable circumstances, and there is a constant war among the
different individuals. The seed grain which falls into the ground, the
worm crawling on the earth, the butterfly hovering over the flower, the
eagle soaring high among the clouds--all have their enemies; outward
enemies threatening their existence, and enemies eating their life and
strength." Following these remarks he gave a long list of fish parasites
sufficient to destroy the whole finny kingdom.
Another eminent naturalist, speaking of the perils of insect life, said:
"With such savage murderers prowling among the shadows, life among our
singing meadows is anything but a round of pleasure. The warfare is
broadcast. Not even the fluttering butterfly is safe, but is pounced upon
in mid-air, its wings torn off in mockery, and is then lugged off to some
dark hole in the ground. And the bee returning to its hive is waylaid on
the wing, and its body is torn open for the sake of the morsel of a
honey-bag within."
Still another scientist tells us: "The microscope shows that these
murderous imps appear to have been made to inflict the most excruciating
torture upon their victims." He makes special mention of the sand hornet:
"He is the greatest villain that flies, and is built for a professional
murderer. He carries two keen scimitars, besides a deadly poisoned
poniard, and is armed throughout with a coat of mail. He lives a life of
tyranny and feeds on blood."
Every drop of water is swarming with hideous creatures which, if
sufficiently magnified, would be frightful beyond description; the air we
breathe is surcharged with death: infecting organisms which, if the system
in the slightest degree becomes unable to eliminate them, bring on
dreadful diseases. We must fight for our physical life daily. But for the
immunity provisions of Providence, our bodies may be a charnal house, at
any moment, of billions of bacilli hastening our end. These are stern
facts which face every student of biology or natural history.
As a professor has well said, "He, therefore, who objects to the teaching
of the sacred Scriptures concerning Satan and demons, and appeals to the
Cæsar of the natural world, can get no help, for that Cæsar echoes back
with thunder tones that there are myriads of living, malignant and
destructive organisms in every realm of nature, so far as is known, or so
far as one can reason from analogy, that, like Satan and demons, trouble
and torment the innocent as well as the guilty; that in some instances
these malignant organisms appear to inflict suffering for the sheer
delight of doing it."
What is the conclusion of the whole matter: The existence of Diabolus and
demonia is a fact of Revelation verified by both science and philosophy.
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