Putting the World Under Bondage by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 4, 1913

Putting the World Under Bondage

By C. M. S.

SATAN promised man exaltation from the sphere of the human to the sphere of the divine if only man would reject God's word, disobey God, and obey him.

The sequel showed that, instead of becoming a god through disobedience, man became a bond-servant of the disobedient and fallen angel. Instead of glory, he had purchased bondage; instead of freedom, slavery; instead of joy perpetual, sorrow leading to obliteration in death.

But God said: "I will put enmity . . . between thy seed and her seed." Therein is the germ of a mighty hope. God has never in any age left man hopeless; and the arms of humanity, from the days of Eden until now, have been stretching out through the bars of this house of bondage, reaching toward freedom. That freedom can come only through the promised Seed, who voluntarily took the form of the human bond-servant that he might lift man, through obedience, out of darkness and despair and bondage and death into light and hope and liberty and eternal life. It is a wonderful thing that He who was free should become a servant that he might liberate mankind from servitude to sin and Satan.

It was a wonderful battle that began with the offer of Jesus Christ. The Battle of the Pyramids lasted for hours, the Battle of Gettysburg lasted for days, the civil war for a few years; but here is a battle that has been raging for six thousand years, and its culmination is yet to be. When that battle is finished, it will be found that the seed of those who fell have triumphed over him who caused them to fall.

Between the fall of man and the completion of his redemption there is to be no time when he will be free from this warfare with the world, the flesh, and the devil. The bitterness of the conflict is not sweetened with age. We read in 2 Tim. 3: 12, 13, that "all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution," and that "evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived." Our Saviour also warns us of the continuation of this conflict in these words: "They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you shall think that he offereth service unto God." John 16: 2.

The purpose of this oppression is to keep mankind in spiritual bondage. When Satan came into this world, it was with the purpose of making man his slave, and whatever method would contribute to that end he has employed.

The human race has suffered much. The blood of the martyrs of Jesus has been shed in every land. They were tired of bondage; they sought liberty, and they bought it with their lives. No matter how dark the night of this world has been, it has never been left without some representatives of the kingdom of light. God has always had his Waldenses, his Albigenses, and his Anabaptists witnessing for him in the world, and signing the covenant of loyalty in their own blood. When the soil of Europe was wet with the blood of the Anabaptists, they coined the declaration that every man "has the right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience."

While this world has suffered much in this warfare between the king of ruin and the Prince of Peace, it has not been the only sufferer. The inhabitants of this world have been afflicted; but we must not forget that Heaven has been afflicted also. Was it not an affliction to see the work of Lucifer going on unchecked among the angels of God, until he had succeeded in causing one third of the angelic host to turn their backs upon their Maker and upon their former associates? How true it is that whether we look to heaven or earth, we find that "the trail of the serpent is over all."

When Satan had done his work, when the last angelic being had accepted his leadership that could be induced to do so, "there was war in heaven," and Satan and all who had chosen to be his were cast out to return no more. Heaven was free from his iniquitous operations; but earth must suffer on until the purpose of God's patience with sin should be fully worked out here. Nevertheless, the casting of Satan and his hosts out of heaven is a harbinger, or forerunner, of a similar consummation in this earth of ours, when Satan and all that are his, whether wicked angels or wicked men, will be swept out of existence in the fires of purification that will wrap the world in their embrace. "And the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith Jehovah of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch." Mal. 4: 1.

When that has been accomplished, the victory will be complete, for that consummation does not come until the question of sin's certain discontinuance has been settled with the utmost surety. They who have decided to stand loyal to God will have made that decision in the face of all that Satan could do to make them turn away from God. They will have turned their backs upon all the allurements of this world, upon all the blandishments of the great deceiver, upon all the desires of the flesh. They will have proved true to God in spite of threats of pain and of death. They will have chosen God in preference to all things, even life itself, and in spite of all things, even death itself. They who have made such a decision under such conditions will not carry into the purified kingdom of righteousness any of the deadly germs of sin. That is what God means when he tells us through the prophet Nahum: "He [Jehovah] will make a full end; affliction shall not rise up the second time." Chapter 1: 9. That does not refer to the affliction of human beings alone, but to the whole universe of God.

That puts an end to bondage, and brings in everlasting liberty. It puts an end to sin, and brings in everlasting righteousness. It puts an end to death, and brings in everlasting life for all the children of our God. That blessed consummation is soon to be, and in it every child of this earth may share if he will.

C. M. S.