OUR GREAT ENEMY by John C. Kastner

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Apr 11, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 15.

OUR GREAT ENEMY.

By John C. Kastner

IT is just as easy to ask for the salvation of every created soul, as for our own. The “We” and “Us” are in great evidence in the Lord’s Prayer, while the “I” is nowhere. It couldn’t be in it and feel at home.

But the “I” manages to get in most everywhere else, and, as a rule, gets in to stay, to make things warm for everybody all around, and finally attain unto supreme rule, or go under.

That “I” is antichristian, ungovernable, unendurable. To it we trace all our tribulation and failures to get where it can not enter. It is too big to get in.

Notwithstanding all this, most folks worship little else. Others try to identify it with His name, and some crucify Christ daily to glorify this same “I.” Christ came not in His own name. “I” ever does. Christ suffered for our sin. “I” makes everybody suffer for his.

Jesus fed the poor. “I” wants the earth, tho everybody else starve.

The strangest part is that the great, great majority of professed Christians worship “I.” This is because “I” expounds their true inwardness, their desires, their aspirations.

“If another shall come in his own name, him ye will believe.” And “I,” of course, is in evidence. Now, it matters little who is the most exalted “I,” the most successful “I,” the most infallible “I.” All the other “I’s” will do homage to the great “I,” will idolize, and deify. “I” loves a lie, and all his followers kiss it. “I” is wise—in his generation. Has he not twisted every Gospel text into support of his divine call? Has he not proved his infallibility by giving the constant lie to the spirit and example of our Saviour? Has “I” not succeeded in doing the very opposite of what Christ did, and obtained every blessing (?) Jesus declined when tempted of Satan in the wilderness? Why wonder that “I” is so popular? “I” governs every kingdom of this world, and is called a benefactor, a priest, a prophet, and a king; aye, a god! Yea, many contribute millions to educate the ignorant in the ways of “I.”

Who can war against “I,” or escape his mask? Cain couldn’t. Judas couldn’t. No “I” ever could. Every follower of our Lord can. The most exalted “I” will get left.

“I” has no soul worth saving. It (we drop the “he” for the best of reasons) is made up of pocket interests, vanity, conceits, and self-glorifications, that can not possibly inherit the kingdom of God. It has more

rights, titles, privileges, and prerogatives than there be words in the unabridged dictionary, and also a most miserable existence—even in this life. It never can love—but “I,” and always has a lie in its right hand. “He feedeth on ashes.” JOHN C. KASTNER.