Satan’s Gospel of Preparation
By W. A. S.
A WRITER in the Washington Post some time ago called attention to the great change in religious thought during the last fifty years. As the landmark for fifty years ago he takes the incident of the presentation of a Bible by Queen Victoria, in 1857, to a visiting party of Zulu chiefs, to whom she said that the secret of British progress was that all Christians believed in the authority of that Book. Then the writer refers to an address recently given by Dr. Eden, an English bishop, to a body of Sunday-school workers, squarely denying the altogether divine authority of the Scriptures. He adds:— It is difficult to imagine a greater contrast than the two opinions which reflected fairly the current thought of the two epochs. Queen Victoria just believed what almost every Englishman believed, and Dr. Eden but voiced the sentiments of those he addressed. There can be no two opinions about the matter. To-day only a few men accept the Bible as the Word of God, whereas in 1857 only a few doubted it. To take the place of the old view of religion, according to the observation of this writer, there has sprung up a new philosophy of God. The literature of the New Thought movement he finds flooding the world. “There is hardly a city of any size that does not possess its sage who issues tracts from a calm retreat where deep thinking goes on uninterruptedly.” Of the general tenor of the new teaching he says:— They consider creation as a thing constantly going on, and the Creator as an infinite mother. . . . In the little books of the present century there is no question of salvation, but very much of bodily health. The soul is considered to be an emanation of the divine nature, or, in the language of the theosophists, a ray from a radiant center. . . . The determination of man to worship some god in human form is the weakness that carries humanity away from the path of true progress. Therefore, the present view of God as a radiant center must greatly cheer the humanitarian. And who can not see that these ideas are flooding in from every side? Faith in the authority and inspiration of the Word of God is destroyed by the idea that every man is subject to inspiration, and that he may find a basis of authority in his own nature. Thus the way is opened for the utter perversion of the truth. Long years we have known that at the very end Satan himself is to come as an angel of light, as the great healer and humanitarian and medical missionary. The false gospel of his coming must precede him to prepare the way, just as certainly as the gospel of Christ’s coming prepares the way for that final event. On every hand we may hear the cry of that “other gospel,” which Paul says ought not to be believed even though an angel preach it. The world is being sown with literature of the theosophical, spiritualistic, mind-healing, Christian Science order. New philosophies of God and of life are being propagated, and back of it all is one master mind shaping everything for the last crowning deception. He is to deceive all but the very elect. He will try to deceive those. We are face to face with the last bewitching delusions and sophistries of the evil one. The third angel’s message is our protection, and these things now knocking at our own doors are but signs that we have come to the very last of the last days.