THAT there is something wrong with our world no sane person could think of denying. A world in which there is so much anguish of heart, so many scalding tears — a world marked by the unbroken triumph of death, is most assuredly not a normal world, not an ideally good world. If humanity were morally normal, spiritually ideal, it could neither know nor use such terms as sin, crime, pollution, sorrow; sickness, pain, or death. In the words of Inspiration, sin abounds in this world of ours.
Has sin always abounded? and will it always continue to abound? Impossible! For sin is essentially anomalous, abnormal — an infraction of the law of being, of life, of God. Since God is absolute wisdom, truth, and goodness, He can not be the author of sin. Of course we know intuitively that God alone could have created the material and moral universe. But that He created evil is unthinkable. His own Spirit of truth testifies that “God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good.” Gen. 1: 31.
Whence, then, came sin with all its dire results? Sin implies a sinner. Sin as a mere abstraction can not exist. Sin is an effect whose cause is an intelligence called a sinner. Accordingly, sin had its genesis in some intelligence, who was obviously the first sinner. The identity of the first sinner, or author of evil, is clearly brought to view in Holy Writ. Jesus Christ, who is the manifestation of the righteousness of God, has identified for us the author of sin. To the proud, unbelieving Pharisees He affirmed: “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 8: 44. Since the devil abode not in the truth, he must once have been in the truth. Again, since he is the father of lies, that is, the author of lies, he must have been the first one to forsake truth, and thus the first to introduce evil into the universe of God. “He was a murderer from the beginning” (of sin), for the obvious reason that sin is the cause of death; “for,” says the Holy Spirit, “the wages of sin is death.” Rom. 6: 23. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” Eze. 18: 20.
Origin of Sin and of Satan
In Ezekiel 28, beginning with verse 11, Jehovah, through the prophet, addresses Satan under the appellation of the king of Tyrus, as follows: “Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering. . . . Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. . . . Thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness.” How felicitously concise, and yet how comprehensive is this divinely given story of the origin of sin and its author. Observe that until the very day that iniquity (sin) was found in Satan, he was the embodiment of wisdom, of perfect beauty, and of moral goodness. He was one of the glorious high cherubim whose effulgent wings extended in grace and beauty over the very throne of the Most High. Ah, he was in Eden the garden of God; yea, upon the very mountain of God. But because of his resplendent beauty his heart became lifted up; he became vain, and sinned. Here we behold the birth of sin — of death. Having sinned, he could no longer dwell in the presence of absolute righteousness, and was cast as profane out of the mountain, out of the presence, of God.
Now, supplement these marvelously suggestive facts with a few equally telling facts bearing upon our subject, found in Isaiah 14, verse 12 and on. The inspired prophet here addresses the same personage in language that fairly glows and palpitates with life and force. Thus: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer [day-star], son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!” In this poetic passage we are shown from what awful height to what awful depth Lucifer (Satan) fell as the consequence of his sin — the first sin God’s universe ever knew. Now follows a succinct statement of the motive that incited Lucifer to the commission of that disastrous original sin. “For thou saidst in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. . . . I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I WILL BE LIKE THE MOST HIGH.” Ah, it was pride, self-love, ambition to exalt self to the place of God, that gave birth to sin in the heart of that paragon of all created intelligences.
The sacred writer next gives us a prophetic statement respecting the ultimate fate of the father of sin: “Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell [sheol], to the sides of the pit.” Adverting to Ezekiel 28, middle of verse 18, we read: “Therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, IT SHALL DEVOUR THEE, and I WILL BRING THEE TO ASHES UPON THE EARTH in the sight of all them that behold thee, . . . and NEVER SHALT THOU BE ANY MORE.” This divinely pronounced sentence is unmistakable in meaning. Utter annihilation is the black doom that hangs over him whose heart conceived and brought forth sin. He was not alone, however, in his impious rebellion against the sovereignty of God. He seduced a multitude of the angels from their allegiance to their Creator. At the head of these rebel angels he fought against Michael (Christ) and His angels, in heaven. But, thank God, the rebels “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.” Rev. 12: 7-9. Christ, the conqueror of Satan, testified, when on earth: “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” Luke 10: 18.
Our Lord, in His graphic word picture of the final judgment (Matthew 25), represents Himself as consigning the irreclaimable sinners to the lake of fire “prepared for the devil and his angels.” The Spirit of truth declares (2 Peter 2: 4) that “God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell [Greek, tartarus], and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment.” Lexicographers define “tartarus,” into which Satan and his angels are here declared to have been cast, as meaning the dark, void, interplanetary spaces surrounding the world.
The Malign Mission of Satan and His Rebel Host
We all know the story of how this apostate angel of light, through the medium of a serpent, in Eden, compassed the moral fall of the parents of the human race, by seducing them into sin. By inveigling them into believing that they could not die, he led them into defiant disobedience to God, their Creator and only Benefactor. We see, then, that it was Satan who first enunciated that desolating lie; namely, that man is immortal. In the words, “Thou shalt not surely die,” he flatly contradicted God, and involved the human race in sin and death. He thus brought man into spiritual bondage to himself, and usurped the dominion originally given to Adam as the head of the human race. Hence there is great significance in the title, “prince of this world,” given to Satan by our Lord. John 14: 30. The apostle Paul speaks of the devil under the designation of “the god of this world.” 2 Cor. 4: 4. Recall now the emphatic declaration uttered by our divine Master respecting5Satan: “He is a liar, and the father of it” (lying). John 8: 44. Unmistakably, then, Satan is the master deceiver, the prince of liars. It is his distinctive business to deceive, to delude, and thus to seduce and to destroy.
Note the testimony of the inspired Peter: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist steadfast in the faith.” Paul, too, bears witness to the fact that spiritually, “we wrestle not against flesh and blood,” but “against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against WICKED SPIRITS in high places.” Eph. 6: 12, A.R.V. Accordingly we are admonished by the Holy Spirit, through James, to “resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” Most certainly, therefore, we are the objects of satanic wrath. Through craft, cunning, and deceit, Satan, with his cohort of wicked angels, is sleeplessly prosecuting his hellish business of seducing human souls in order to involve them in everlasting ruin. Do we not see, too, that the language of Inspiration uniformly represents Satan as a distinct, concrete PERSONALITY, and not as a mere innocuous abstraction, as so many “wise men” would have it? How grotesquely absurd would be our Lord’s assertion that He “beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven,” if the latter were only a personified name of the abstract notion of evil! How dare one doubt the testimony of the divine Spirit to the effect that the devil and his angels are “wicked spirits in high places”!”
Overmastering Satanic Deceptions in the Last Days
Both the Old and New Testaments afford numerous prophetic declarations to the effect that in the latter times — in the years immediately preceding the second advent of the Son of God — the enemy of all righteousness would so multiply his delusive snares, in both number and effectiveness, as to render them well-nigh overmastering. In referring to the omens that should indicate the approach of His advent in power and glory, Jesus testified that in those very days, “there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.” Matt. 24: 24, A.R.V. In 2 Cor. 11: 14, we are assured that “even Satan fashioneth himself [personates] into an angel of light.”
The thought is that in these latter days in which we now live, Satan would appear in the guise of an angel of light, and personate even the blessed Christ, with such consummate art as to deceive, if possible, the very elect of God’s people. Great signs and wonders will be wrought in order to clinch his lies and make effective his final deceptions. In the most explicit terms the divine Spirit foretold the dire fact that the wrath and aggressive malignity of Satan would be redoubled near the close of time. Note the divine predictive assurance: “Wo to the inhabitors of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.” Rev. 12: 12.
Again, in 1 Tim. 4: 1, it is divinely affirmed: “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.” How clearly we are here shown that even many professors of the Christian faith would be seduced by demon spirits and, in consequence, embrace the teachings of devils. Observe that it is in the “latter times” that these titanic deceptions are wrought. Even stronger language, if that is possible, of the same import is found in 2 Thess. 2: 9-12. Thus: “Even Him whose [Christ’s] coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved,” etc. It is with ALL power and signs and lying wonders that Satan plies his masterly machinations in the days just preceding the coming of the Lord.
We must now briefly note a similar forecast given in Rev. 13: 13, 14. Speaking of a certain power under the symbol of a “beast,” through which Satan should prosecute his delusive arts, the divine Witness declares: “And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, 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.” Further, in verse 14 of chapter 16, we are taught that just before Christ would come as a thief (to unbelievers), the “spirits of devils” would work “miracles,” and go forth to the kings of the whole world, “to gather them to the battle of the great day of God Almighty.”
Is not the inspired evidence overwhelmingly conclusive that in these closing years of time Satan and his host of diabolic angels would ply their hypnotic arts with preternatural malignity and power? And are they not exploiting these very “signs” and “wonders” in this our day, in the awe-struck eyes of all the world? In previous articles of this series some of the marvels and even miracles of present-day Spiritualism were set forth. It is practically certain that these “signs and lying wonders” of the father of lies are being and will be wrought primarily through the agency (the “mediums”) of Spiritualism. In one of Isaiah’s latter-day prophecies (chapter 8), we are given a divine warning against the destructive seductions of Spiritualism, in language unmistakably clear: “And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto the wizards, that chirp and that mutter; should not a people seek unto their God? on behalf of the living should they seek unto the dead?” Verse 19, A.R.V. Now, does not every spiritualistic medium avow that he does have his familiar “control,” in short, his “familiar spirit”? Every one knows that the last question in the foregoing Scripture citation is God’s strikingly impressive mode of declaring that, on behalf of the living, we should NOT seek unto the dead. The reason is obvious; for the Lord tells us that “the dead know not anything.”
Divination, witchcraft, necromancy, and consulting with familiar spirits, are all abominations in the sight of God. He has unsparingly condemned all these occult practises. Why? Because they are from beneath, of the devil, and are utterly defiling, and ultimately fatal to the soul. He expressly commands His people to “regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards to be defiled by them.” Lev. 19: 31. Again, “The soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, . . . I will even set My face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people.” Lev. 20: 6. “A man or woman that hath a FAMILIAR SPIRIT, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death.” Verse 27. In 1 Chron. 10: 13, it is divinely attested that one of the reasons why King Saul perished at the hand of his enemies, was because he asked counsel of one who had a familiar spirit. One of the class of sinners against whom God declares He will be a swift witness in the judgment, are the “sorcerers.” Mal. 3: 5.
It seems incredible that any candid soul can doubt that Spiritualism is accursed of God, and is wholly satanic.
[Note.—In the next and final article of the series, concrete evidence that even the great and wise are being deceived by the delusions of Spiritualism, will be adduced.—G. W. R.]
