Part 5
One of the Devil's tactics is to make much ado about nothing. It is astonishing how sane people can be deluded over childish non-essentials. Think of the doctrine of Abstinence; at certain seasons be holy with a vengeance. It is a mortal sin to let down during certain days and moons; no meats, no riotous gormandizing, no wine, no dancing, no theatre going, when the season is holy. But are we not so commanded concerning the Sabbath day? The Sabbath day must be kept holy, but if our moral standard and relationship fall below during the week what we are supposed to make them on Sabbath, our piety is a farce.
An incident will illustrate. It was a steamboat excursion; drinking and dancing were freely indulged in by the hilarious passengers. A _parson_ was among them; he danced not, neither did he look upon the wine that was red. He looked sad--_it was Lent_. One week later we beheld this same _parson_ in full evening dress gracefully waltzing with one of the lambs of his flock. Amazing spectacle! Robes of holiness to-day, with fastings and prayers; to-morrow, broadcloth, perfume, patent leathers, and arms encircling a maiden in the dizzy whirl of the dance. Paul saw such times coming and warned against them.
There are many more, but we shall mention only one more: the gigantic system of saints' worship. What does this mean? Anything that diverts and absorbs the attention away from things fundamental is surely of evil origin. His fall began when he conceived hatred and jealousy of Jesus; now if he can get people to pay a part or all of their homage to Mary, or any one of the many "saints," just so the Son of God is robbed of His glory and neglected, his devilish malice is somewhat gratified. There is a long list of dead worthies who are reverenced and supplicated unto daily; but high over all is the "Virgin Mother of God." After the birth of the Saviour Mary was the wife of Joseph, and bore children as a natural mother--she was not a virgin. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me;" "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images--thou shalt not bow down to them." "Doctrines of Devils."
Spiritual minded students of the Bible and human conduct are forced to the conclusion that the Devil is not only a wise theologian, but he is a great _preacher_; and, as we have learned, he has a mighty gospel which he preaches with effectiveness and power. He has clearly defined doctrines which he promulgates at such times and places as will best meet the desired end. But with cunning craftiness he preaches his dogmas and tenets everywhere: housetops, society parlours, centres of business, legislatures, court rooms, barrooms, and bawdy houses, as well as in pulpits. This sounds like a strange mixture: "the sacred desk" associated with such an array of evil--_ad absurdum_. If the pulpit is immune, why Paul's exhortation? Doctrines presuppose a preacher, and also an effort to gain an audience whenever and wherever possible.
Yes, the Devil preaches, and if doors are barred he forces an entrance: home and foreign missions, slums, emigrants, aristocrats and sports. He has access to scores of avenues where the Gospel of Christ never enters; but under the cover of human interests he takes the field with our Lord Jesus and His ministers, offering a more beautiful, excellent, easier and successful way. As God's method of saving the world is by the foolishness of preaching, what better agency of opposition could be launched than _preaching_? Nothing. Far stronger is the expulsive than the opposing power. The most dangerous poison in the world is the kind that hides its death in a cup of sweetness; a child eats a sugar-coated pill and never recovers. Hell is peopled by the multitudes who have drunk at the Devil's fountain of soothing, satisfying poison. He keeps his deluded patrons from the fountain of cleansing by an easier way to delectable fountains, the waters of which paralyze with the chill of death.
We note another very remarkable fact concerning the Devil's doctrines and his style of preaching. Christ's ministers often fail because of a lack of adaptability; "he overshot his crowd" is the comment often heard. The genius of this subject does not make this mistake; he is a past-master at adaptability; to those who have a feeble, fluttering conscience for spiritual things he has the sincere milk of the word that soothes and sustains; but for his robust followers, whom he has bound in chains stronger than those which bound Prometheus, he gives the meat of diabolism, prepared and seasoned by a skill of six thousand years' practice.
Place your ear at the keyhole where his children are conducting a "revival meeting"--high carnival of sin--and hear the ideas of God, salvation, preachers, the Church, and the hereafter. This is the strong gospel referred to; the gospel that fires the masses with hate and prejudice against the only means of human redemption. Yes, he preaches, preaches, preaches, and from every nook and corner; ten messengers to one preaching the Christ; his preachers support themselves, and touch the highways and byways; his lines are gone out into all the earth, circumscribing sea and land. The Devil gets an intelligent hearing. He has a long catalogue of doctrines, but he does not believe a single one of them. We should be wise enough to eliminate them from our creed also.
XVII
THE DEVIL'S RIGHTEOUSNESS
"Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain."--_Jude 11._
"For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God."--_Romans x. 3._
We are becoming, according to the canons of this world, a righteous nation; the standard of civic and commercial righteousness is elevated as never before. Sleuth-hounds are scenting every indication of misrule and running to earth evil-doers, high and low. Our cities are keeping tab rigidly on sewerage, cesspools, and outhouses; a persistent war is being waged on flies, mosquitoes, and germs of all kinds. Private citizens are everywhere organizing to coöperate with officials for public welfare. Corporation and municipal rings must answer at the bar of an outraged public conscience.
Righteousness is in the air; it resounds from the pulpit, platform and press. Chautauqua specialists who have discovered some deflection in the political and social woof and warp declare, amid salutes of fluttering handkerchiefs, the righteousness of twentieth century standards. Preaching on the cardinal doctrines of the Bible has been displaced by rhetorical messages on altruism: light, ethics, mercy, cleanness, goodness. "The fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man," with a flavour of intellectualism, is the gospel that is now being emphasized with much gusto, and never fails to solicit the indorsement of all denominations. "Be good and do good" is the _multum in parvo_ of present day righteousness.
Who but a chronic faultfinder could object to this upward move, so obvious now in all directions? The world is getting kinder, more sympathetic, more charitable; creed lines are dissolving like snow under an April sun; sectarian prejudice is dying under the withering frown of new ideals. Does this not indicate a gradual leavening of the "whole lump"? The spirit of Christ, they tell us, is being adopted everywhere. He is mounting the throne of universal empire, and the time surely is not far distant when the social, political, commercial and domestic life will be regenerated by His influence. Yes--it would appear so to be; much that is done bears a Christian label; it comes in the name of Christ; but, says a writer, "it is the Christ of Bethlehem and not the Christ of the Cross." It is the human Christ and not the sacrificial--the exponent of a blood Atonement.
The righteousness that has the full swing of modern religionists makes much of Christ's "example," His beautiful character and self-abandonment--"He went about doing good." Much attention is given to studying His leadership, His pedagogy, His art of public address, His humanity. His example and not His sacrifice saves the world; step by step the human Christ has displaced the Christ of Calvary; His atonement was misguided zeal. This propaganda, on the surface, is reasonable and popular; but close scrutiny will reveal a poison as dangerous as it is subtle. It leaves out the Blood; it is a glorification of Man. "Count the number of the beast, for it is the number of man."
This issue is an old one; it became an entering wedge in the religious life when the first services were held after the Fall. Cain and Abel made altars; Cain piled his high with beautiful, luscious fruits of the field. No festal board ever looked more tempting, loaded with sweet smelling fruit, having variegated colours, than the altar which Cain presented to God. They were the results of his own sweat and toil; he offered them as the "first fruits." But God rejected the offering; somehow the very beauty and attractiveness of it all insulted Him.
Abel's altar was smeared with blood; on top lay a limp, bleeding lamb. Nothing attractive about this picture; our esthetic nature recoils at the gore and cruelty of such an offering. Yet God graciously accepted this bloody, unsightly offering; and no doubt rained fire upon it--anyhow, Abel was justified. Why did God reject the one and accept the other? Cain and Abel alike had been taught from their infancy that "without the shedding of blood there shall be no remission of sin." By transgression man stood as an alien before God; he had forfeited divine favour. Notwithstanding, Cain boldly brought before God a bloodless sacrifice, and presumes to force Him to accept it. Through all the millenniums before Christ every approach to God must contain in the sacrifices and offerings an element which reminded God of the coming Atonement. He declared: "For the life of the flesh is the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your soul. For it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul" (Lev. xvii. 11).
Coming directly to the point: all this new notion of things, touching Man's religion, fast becoming prevalent is the "way of Cain," with a twentieth century touch and terminology. What is the essence of this new righteousness? what does it do? Observe, it sets aside God's estimate of man, and ignores the plan of redemption He established at the beginning in types and shadows, then consummated in the atoning death of His Son on the Cross. The righteousness of to-day has much in it to commend; but it utterly disregards the only feature upon which God places emphasis. The Blood and the Cross, as of old, is an offense; they have found a more excellent way, but it is the "way of Cain." It is offering self-righteousness rather than seeking the righteousness of God. The bloody offering of Abel suggested suffering, punishment, death, judgment--but it honoured God. Modern righteousness scoffs at the Abel offerings by hanging a wreath of flowers on the Cross, bearing a perfumed tag, "With sympathy." It is Cain setting up business in town once more. A sacrificial propitiation for sin is unnecessary when we have "inherent goodness." The modern righteousness contends that each man has self-redemptive qualities; all he needs is a chance. Salvation is not internal, but external.
The Cainites are filling the earth; they are preaching the popular sermons, writing the magazine articles, the poetry, the fiction; they occupy the chief synagogue seats of seminaries; they are conspicuous at all chatauquas and baccalaureate occasions.
It is a well-known psychological fact that evil cannot exist apart from Personality--whether it be bad laws, bad books, bad town, or a bad house. Whence comes all this audacious, undermining insult to the whole sweep of God's plan for saving the world? Whence comes all this preaching about righteousness which places the crown on man, and robs the Cross of its glory? The righteousness being sounded in double diapason and angelus keys is _the righteousness of the Devil_. Bear in mind it is _Righteousness_, and a high type of it, he demands; he wants the offering of Cain to cover up all the needs of the soul--cheat the blood of its merit--insult God, and lead the race through a bowery of flowers, fruits, and music on to its ruin. Anything to cheat the depositum of the Gospel--that which gives a title to heaven--the precious Blood. The righteousness that leaves out the Blood is the "way of Cain"--"the righteousness of the Devil."
XVIII
THE WORLD'S TEMPTER
"Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and sayeth unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me."--_Matthew iv. 8-9._
Temptation is a seduction: meaning to allure or entice one to evil. It is submitting a proposition which carries with it inducements of pleasure or gain. The mind that accedes readily and willingly to an act is not tempted. A temptation is a clash of wills, one being superior to the other if the contest results in a yielding. The word embodies the idea of an elastic--"stretched to the snapping point." If there is no response, no struggle against desire--it is not a temptation. The Master was very man as well as very God; yet strange as it may seem--_He was really tempted_, and just as we are.
Our purpose in this discussion is not to analyze the different phases of our Lord's temptation--the tests to which He was subjected,--but we wish to emphasize one thing: He was _tempted_. The appeals came from His old time enemy; His rival for supremacy. He was not taken unawares; the facts were clearly before Him, just who and what it all meant--yet He was tempted. The diabolical assault did not cease until His threefold nature was "stretched to the snapping point." It came from an inferior being, and for sake of illustration, had the scheme succeeded, the Sun of righteousness would have gone down forever. Not only would the great plan of human redemption have proved abortive, but Satan would have snatched the sceptre from the hand of the Anointed One and shouted his victory in the face of God. We are amazed to think of the only Begotten being near the yielding point in the presence of the fallen Lucifer, but the Book says He was tempted.
Some may contend that He could not have yielded; all the while He was conscious of divine security. This conclusion forces another untenable proposition: If He could not have yielded, His humanity was not real, but veiled in His divinity; the temptation was only a shadow. We insist that as a man Jesus was tempted; He could have called to His aid supernatural intervention, but He did not. The issue was met as every man must meet it; it was manhood that conquered. Had He yielded, both manhood and divinity would have become subservient to the enemy. "Fall down and worship me" was the proposition.
Now we wish to make a few deductions from our Lord's temptation. Whatever includes the greater includes the lesser--_a fortiori_. Natural man reached his highest expression in Jesus of Nazareth; He was God's exponent of human perfection. There were no weaknesses, no lack of pose or symmetry; His penetration and judgment of others were absolutely accurate. From the beginning He had known the Evil One who faced Him. Now, with all those perfect endowments, the record says _He was tempted_. The ingenuity of Satan was sufficient to bring out all the resources of the Son of God. Here was the greatest, wisest, purest and strongest man that ever walked upon the earth--susceptible, influenced, strained to the "snapping point," when attacked by the Tempter. What will be the inevitable fate of you and me, dear reader, whenever he selects us as his victims?
The unmistakable teachings of the Word are that every temptation to which man is or ever has been subjected came fresh from the seething caldron of the pit. The student of human conduct has observed universal adaptability of all temptation. A great sagacious intelligence seems to be managing personally, through his cohorts, this campaign of promising propositions. There are some who can be incited to commit horrible crimes, such as murder, incendiary, born perhaps with vicious tendencies, but this class is comparatively small; others are susceptible to deeds of milder character. It would matter little to an army approaching a fortification where or how the attack should be made if the walls at every point were weak and crumbling. No time is spent in reconnoitre and playing for position; but if the battlements be strong, a faulty place must be located if there be one. Satan rarely ever blunders in laying his temptations; he is a most skillful strategist. As the world's tempter he reveals an ingenuity that is truly astounding; it should cause the bravest heart to shudder once the eyes are opened to the source. Knowledge of his approaches, marches, countermarches, advancings, and retreats--all with a specific object--ought to be a great breakwater.
A writer gives us a striking word picture of Satan's methods: "As the enemy who lays siege to a city finds out the weakest portion of the wall, or the best spot to batter it, or the lowest and safest place to scale it, or where the intervening obstacle may be easiest overcome, or where an advantage may be taken, or where an entrance may be effected, or when is the best time, or what is the best means to secure the desired end, so the arch-deceiver and destroyer of souls goes about, watchful, intent upon ruin, scanning all the powers of the mind, inspecting all the avenues to the heart and assailing every unguarded spot. Sometimes he attacks our understanding by injecting erroneous doctrine; sometimes our affections by excessive devotion to things we love; sometimes our wills by strengthening them in wrong directions; sometimes our imaginations by vain, foolish, trifling thoughts; and sometimes our feelings by too high or too low excitation."
Some one has called Satan and his subordinates not omnipresent, but "shifting imps." They swarm the air, invisible, because they are spirit, watching for opportunities to edge their way into the hearts of mankind. They are shifting position, always to a point of least resistance. Like a current of electricity, always flowing from a point of higher potential pressure to one of lower, if points are connected by a conductor. The metallic substances from which the current starts and towards which it flows are called "electrodes," and are always of different potentiality. The current passes from the one of higher to the lower. Man in his own strength is the lower, and unprotected by the Spirit of God cannot resist the evil currents flowing from Satan continually.
XIX
THE CONFIDENCE MAN
"In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them."--_2 Corinthians iv. 4._
History is one long, tragic recital of human sorrow and suffering; but there is far more unwritten history than has ever been recorded on the printed page. Along the march of civilization all that has come down to us are the lives and doings of great men; we know little of the heart agonies of the race--such as cannot be recorded--language is inadequate. Most of history is a record of man's inhumanity to man, but historians deal with these dark pages only on the higher levels. The greatest suffering, the bitterest cries of anguish, the deepest wails of despair are in the lowlands of human life: down where its pathos can never be known. The darkest tragedies of war are lost by the gallant heroism of some officer; the blood and carnage are overshadowed and forgotten by the heralds of victory. The real pathos of war remains unnoticed by the chroniclers and correspondents; it is found in the heart suffering of the dying in the trenches; the black pall that settles over the homes made desolate by the news from the front.
The saddest stories of life will never be told; they are the voiceless agonies and smothered sobs from victims of human treachery and deceit. Millions are shambling on their weary way, waiting for the end, whose hearts are dead and buried in graves of misplaced confidence. More domestic lights have been extinguished, more love dreams turned from a sweet phantasy to an horrid nightmare, more bodies fished from the river, more shocking tragedies have resulted directly from this cause--misplaced and wrecked confidence--than from all other causes of human wretchedness.
An illustration from actual life will serve to bring the caption of this chapter--the Confidence Man--out in bold relief. An honest old farmer, whose horizon had not extended beyond the obscure Indiana neighbourhood, sold his little home and started for Kansas, hoping to enlarge his possessions and give his sons and daughters a larger sphere of opportunity. That they might see the wonders of a great city, arrangements were secured for a three days' stop-over at St. Louis. The Confidence Man saw them pass through the iron gate into the lobby. He first noted the train on which they had come to the city. With great enthusiasm he greeted the old gentleman, introduced himself, extending a business card of his "firm." With cunning palaver, and the guilelessness of the farmer--item after item of information as to name and where they came from were obtained. The man who said he thought he recognized the old gentleman soon became satisfied of it--having an uncle living in the same county--and "I have often heard him speak of you, etc., etc."
It required only a short time to not only gain the confidence of the whole family, but also to get all the facts concerning their business affairs: how much the little farm brought, and how much they had left to begin life in the west, and actual cash on hand. There was not a hitch in the scheme; the new friend (?) loaded them with kindnesses and courtesies, paid all the bills at lunch and theatre--took the young people into the mysteries of the great wonderland--all so new and strange.
It was the last afternoon; father and Mr. Confidence Man were returning from a tour of sightseeing. They met a man walking in great haste; looking up he saw the two men, and suddenly laid violent hands on the "farmer's friend," demanding the payment of a note three days overdue. They quarrelled; all manner of apologies were made, that he was "entertaining an old friend, etc.," all of which caused the Shylock to grow more enraged and unreasonable; they almost came to blows.
Finally the old man's benefactor asked to see him for a moment alone. Then meekly humble, and with many regrets, asked for a loan of enough to pay the note. "We will go right down to my office, and I will reimburse you with big interest for the kindness." The honest old man was only too glad for an opportunity of returning, by such a little act, the kindness that had been shown him. The note was almost one thousand dollars; when the bills were counted out, less than ten dollars remained in his purse--the savings of a lifetime.
Proceeding on their way until they reached the first saloon, "It is my treat, uncle," said the man. After the drinks were served, he asked to be excused for a moment, and stepped into a back room from the bar--he was seen no more. After a long time, the barkeeper informed the old man that his _friend_ was one of the worst crooks in St. Louis. With less than ten dollars he staggered out of the saloon, wandered over the city dazed and half insane. On the following day he was found down on the wharf crying like a child. What had happened? He had been in the hands of a Confidence Man.