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."