off our spiritual appetite and pave the way for worse things ahead. The devil is clever: he knows he can never storm some citadel through adultery, profanity, worldliness. He knows that if he came in filthy garb, he would be thrown out. So he comes in something that may even be good if it keeps us from the best. He will occupy us with something good if it will keep us from something better. It may seem God’s will so that we do not merely excuse it, we defend it. It may be a game, a hobby, that might be all right in its place but in our case gets out of its place. It may be some form of Chris tian work but not the thing to which God has called us. Satan may even make us busy cham pioning a doctrine which may be true but we be come lopsided and fail to witness to a full Gospel. Sometimes the Mock Angel gets in through impressions that seem so good we conclude they must be of the Lord. Failing to try the spirits, we ascribe the work o f the devil to God. There is a false humility that keeps many a Christian from holy boldness in the Lord. Many a minister, before giving his message, has felt the presence o f the Accuser saying, “Who are you to be condemning sin and exhorting these people?” Now a proper self-abasement we had better know but beware the Mock Angel taking advantage o f that fact to send us out limp and uncertain when we need to speak with authority. He besets us with over-conscientiousness so that we become so afraid that we may be out of God’s will that we are! In the very fact that we are afraid, we are out of His will for “God hath not given us the spirit of fear.” The Adversary can bedevil a sensitive nature until one is occupied with sticking pins in himself, taking his pulse and temperature. I f you have a tender conscience, learn to distinguish between the voice o f the Spirit and the whisperings of the Mock Angel. Square your impressions with the Word and look out for that trickery that would occupy your times and thoughts with yourself. The Lord would have us check up on ourselves but He would not have us make it our occupation. The Enemy approaches through the advice of friends who sometimes speak out of love but with out understanding. Now indeed “ in a multitude of counselors there is safety” but there have been times when if a man had taken the counsel of those dearest and nearest, he would have gone far wrong. Advice, like all other means of guidance must be squared with the Word and steeped in prayer. The majority rule is often a poor rule as when, on the voyage to Rome, “ the more part” advised to set sail and get going in the face of Paul’s warn ing. So evermore we must keep a lookout for the Mock Angel lest we mistake the voice of many for the voice of the Master. Satan would defeat us by making us stilted
and unnatural. Many a David has fared forth to defeat in the armor o f Saul when sling and stones would have thrown the giant. Preachers must be ware o f well-meaning souls who would load them down with the panoply of another, the standard paraphernalia instead of his own peculiar endow ments. Of course, his own style can get him into a world o f trouble but if owned and operated by the Spirit, let him use it with liberty. “Better a thousand times effective peculiarity than ineffec tive ordinariness.” Concerning Billy Sunday, a great seminary president said: “ I like polished sermons but I like polished souls better . . . I am willing for the preacher to break grammar if he will in doing so break hearts. At the judgment day I don’t believe God will ask Billy Sunday to pass an examination on literary style or rhetori cal correctness in use of metaphors but on his fidel ity to the souls of men. I believe the great good God is far more interested in the man who con verts men from sin in rough language than in the man who leaves sinners self-complacent with pol ished sermons.” In one way or another, the Mock Angel gets his work done. Our weakness is that we think o f his activities only in terms o f vicious and filthy sins, drunkenness and immorality, the indecent and vile. But his worst work is not always done in brothels and gambling places. Some o f it is carried on in places and performances that seem so good it may appear outrageous to suggest that they are of the devil. Some o f his worst work is done in churches. I f men may prophesy and cast out devils and yet hear the Lord say, “ Depart, I never knew you” , then it is evident that a lot of Satan’s work goes on in church. The Mock Angel may sing in the choir, teach in Sunday School, preach from the pulpit! Sardis had a name to be alive but was dead: evidently there was a lot of activity but not o f the Lord. Look out for Satan as an angel o f light. Put on the whole armor, watch and pray, be not de ceived. The devil is a liar from the beginning and we so often see his bait but not his hook. Above all, get better acquainted with Christ. The best way to spot counterfeit money is to know the genuine so well that you can readily identify the false. We waste time trying to find out what is wrong with this and that ism, movement, sugges tion. We had better walk so close to the Lord that we know His voice and then we instantly can de tect the voice of the stranger. Satan often uses our friends to advise us wrongly!
DECEMBER, 1966
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