The MOCK Angel by Dr. V a n c e H a v n e r
and fair speeches deceive the hearts o f the simple (Rom. 16:17, 18). Much of the Corinthian letters, Galatians and Colossians are taken up with warn ing against Satan in angelic garb. Timothy and Titus are put on their guard. John cries against false teachers and Jude makes it even stronger. Today it is thought unethical to point out these wolves in sheep’s clothing who come with eloquence and elegance, creeping into houses, leading silly women astray, whose words are smoother than butter but who have war in their hearts. I am not half as afraid of wild extremists, tearing their hair in lurid sensationalism as I am o f these mock angels. Yet if we point out these disguised devils, we are told to preach Christ. Very well. Paul puts this well: “ Christ in you, the hope of glory, WHOM WE PREACH, WARNING EVERY MAN . . .” (Col. 1:27, 28). Nowhere did he warn them more positively than in this very epistle. It is a thank less task, crying out against these mock angels, for often it seems that we are speaking against better men than we are, so suave and refined do they appear. The cry o f the day is for smooth things. Especially do those who suffer from that glorified itch of which Paul wrote to Timothy (2 Tim. 4:3) resent any undershepherd who spots a wolf among the flock. But our Lord set the example in warning against false teachers and we are in noble succession when we warn men against Sa tan as an angel of light. But Satan is not limited to false teachers. He has sneaked into many a promising life through a friendship that bore every mark of genuineness, only to wreak havoc when the mask came off. Many a girl meant for the mission field has ended up a castaway by marrying a mock angel. There have been preachers who compromised their mes sage and ministry through unholy alliance out of God’s will with society, money and looks. Satan knows the weak side and if he cannot crash upon us as a roaring lion and lead us to gross sin, he will subtly creep upon us with what appears fine and correct but is doubly dangerous because of its garments of light. Think of the lives into which the adversary has sneaked through books! Not vicious books just now, not vile books, but books that take the edge
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W of light” (2 Cor. 11:14). The popular conception o f the devil with hoofs, horns and pitchfork is, as any Bible student knows, utterly foreign to the Word of God and part of the devil’s own game to deceive us about himself. The ideas we get from pictures and nightmares are not Scriptural just as most popular ideas about hell are Miltonic but not Biblical. The devil wants us to think of him as a hideous being so that when he comes as an angel of light we shall be deceived. Paul writes, “we are not ignorant o f his devices” but we are ignorant today. Satan wears so many masks and costumes that we mistake him for an angel. We walk along with this angel expecting the devil to leap out at us with his hoofs and horns —and discover eventually that the angel is the devil. We need a new vision of the devil. Wherever you find a Christian man of power, he is under no delusions about the prince of darkness. He deals with a person, not an influence. Martin Luther had no lavender-and-rose-water ideas about evil when he threw his ink-well at the devil. Billy Sun day on the edge of his platform talking to Satan may have shocked some thin-skinned listeners but there was reality there and Sunday gave the devil a lot of trouble. Satan was a lovely being before his fall and he is a past master of subtlety and deception, at tractive and angelic. That he does go about as a roaring lion is very true; but we are to guard against his “wiles” for perhaps he is most dan gerous, not in bold, open attack, but when, insidious and sneaking, he comes clad in garments of light. What Paul had in mind here was false teachers. “ For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is trans formed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.” What a fearful thing to be the minister o f the devil! Paul warned again and again of these false preachers. He spoke of those who cause divisions and offences, who serve not Christ but their own belly, who by good words
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