We come now to the question of the Work of the Devil, or How the Devil
Manifests Himself, and What He Does.
1. In the first place we are taught that _the Devil tempts men to sin_.
We have a most striking illustration of this in his temptation of our
Lord. We have in the Bible three accounts of this temptation. We will
look at Matthew's account. Matt. 4:1-9: +"Then was Jesus led up of
the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. (2) And when
he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he afterward hungered. (3)
And the tempter came and said unto him, If thou art the son of God,
command that these stones become bread. (4) But he answered and said,
It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word
that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. (5) Then the devil taketh him
into the Holy City; and he set him on the pinnacle of the temple. (6)
And saith unto Him, If thou art the Son of God, cast thyself down:
for it is written, he shall give his angels charge concerning thee:
and, on their hands they shall bear thee up, lest haply thou dash thy
foot against a stone. (7) Jesus said unto him, Again it is written,
thou shalt not make trial of the Lord thy God. (8) Again, the devil
taketh him unto an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the
kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; (9) And He said unto him,
All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship
me."+ Of course we have not time this morning to go into the whole
question of our Lord's temptation, but this much is certainly plain,
that the Devil is represented as the tempter, tempting our Lord. _If
there is no personal Devil, as so many would have us believe_, or
_if he is not the tempter, there would be absolutely no reason for
bringing him into this account_. As the Devil tempted our Lord, so he
tempts us to-day. And it is to be noticed that he does not tempt us
merely to gross animal lusts and vile sins, but with subtle spiritual
temptations, and above all he tempts us to doubt God's Word. It was
with this form of temptation that he first assaulted our Lord. God had
just said to the Lord Jesus at His baptism, +"Thou art my beloved
Son; in thee I am well pleased"+ (Luke 3:22), and Satan came
insinuating doubt of God's Word by beginning his temptation with these
words: +"If thou art the Son of God,"+ and again further down in
the temptation, he repeats the doubt, saying to the Lord Jesus again:
+"If thou art the Son of God."+ In just the same way Satan began
his assault upon Eve in the Garden of Eden, by insinuating a doubt of
God's Word and of God's goodness. He began by saying: +"Yea, hath
God said. . . .?"+ (Gen. 3:2), and further on when Eve stated exactly
what God had said, the Devil flatly contradicted and said: +"Ye shall
not surely die"+ (literally, Dying, _thou shalt not_ die) when God
had said: +"Thou shalt surely die"+ (_Dying, thou shalt_ die).
This is Satan's favourite method of attack to-day. He gets us to doubt
God's Word. Satan's most effective mode of work is by leading men
into doubt and into error on fundamental points. The saloons and the
gambling hells and the brothels are not the chief spheres of Satan's
activities, but the schools and colleges and theological seminaries
where he is inducing men and women, and callow youths and maidens, to
doubt the truth of God's Word, and to reject the fundamental truths of
God's word and accept Satan's errors in their place. Satan knows well;
that, if he can get men to doubting God's Word, it is easy to lead them
into the vilest sins. False doctrine has been a more prolific source of
the vilest sins than even the saloons.
2. But Satan not merely tempts men to sin by insinuating doubts of
God's Word, he also _has his_ +synagogues and ministers among men to
do his work.+ Turn to Rev. 3:9: +"Behold, I give of the synagogue
of Satan, of them that say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie;
behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to
know that I have loved thee."+ What I wish you to notice here are
the words, "The synagogue of Satan." In this case it was a Jewish
synagogue, but now-a-days, it is often a so-called Christian church. In
II Cor. 11:14, 15 we have an even more remarkable passage: +"For even
Satan fashioneth himself into an angel of light. (15) It is no great
thing therefore if his ministers also fashion themselves as ministers
of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works."+
Here we are told that Satan has his ministers. They do not advertise
themselves as ministers of Satan, oftentimes they are not even
conscious that they are; but they put themselves forward as "ministers
of righteousness." They advocate "_ethical culture_," a system of
salvation without atoning blood. They are frequently men of very
attractive personality and great intellectual brilliance and ability,
but they are doing the Devil's work. Satan is never so dangerous as
when he "Fashioneth himself into an angel of light," and no other
ministers of his are so dangerous as the men and women of attractive
personality and brilliant intellectual gifts who are undermining the
faith of God's children, or who are teaching various forms of seductive
and alluring error, "Christian Science," "New Thought," "Theosophy,"
"Occultism" (Spiritualism), and all that species of cults.
3. We have not time to speak here of Satan's work as the author of
sickness (Acts 10:38; Luke 13:16), and as the one who has the power of
death (Heb. 2:14).
4. But we must also speak of another work of the Devil. It is set forth
in II Cor. 4:3, 4, R. V.: +"And even if our gospel is veiled, it is
veiled in them that perish: (4) In whom the god of this world hath
blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel
of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God should not dawn upon
them."+ We read here that it is the work of Satan to blind the
minds of unbelievers in order +"That the light of the gospel of
the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon
them."+ It is evident then that _the Devil is the author of false
views, especially false views of the person of Christ_. He is the
author of Unitarianism, and the denial of the Deity of our Lord in all
its forms. He so blinds the minds of men who submit to his blinding
that the Divine "Glory of Christ," "who is the very image of God," is
hidden from them. This explains why it is that Unitarianism in all its
various forms persists even after its folly has been so often exposed.
Satan's work along this line is to culminate at the appearing of the
Anti-Christ, +"Even he, whose coming is according to the working of
Satan with all power, and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceit
of unrighteousness for them that perish; because they received not the
love of the truth, that they might be saved."+ (II Thess. 2:9, 10,
R. V.)