of the demons, Scripture lays pre-eminent and con tinual stress upon the central fact: man requires deliverance and protection from these malignant and destructive creatures. No phase of the subject accentuates this urgent and inescapable need more than that dealing with the essential wicked and unclean nature of demons, and especially the irre trievable and abandoned character of their cor ruption. Demonism and the Doctrine of Confirmed Depravity If, perchance, there were some faint prospect held out that Satan and the demons might some day repent of their wickedness, or some feeble hope entertained that eventually they might real ize their folly and turn from their lawlessness, then need for protection and release from their disas trous machinations might not appear to be so urgent or imperative and the finished work of Christ might not seem to be so completely indis pensable. But the Bible offers no such vain prospect or empty hope. Not only are Satan and his demon helpers portrayed as utterly incorrigible, confirmed in depravity, and destined for the eternal flames of Gehenna (Matt. 25:41), but those from the hu man family, who follow in their lawless train and refuse God’s provided way of deliverance through Christ, must suffer the same inevitable fate. The doctrine of confirmed depravity loses any aspect of singularity or unusualness when con templated in the light of common everyday events noticed in the natural history of transgression. It is a matter of frequent observation that a sinful tendency, long indulged, becomes a fixed habit, and a fixed habit, in the course of time, becomes an unalterable destiny. When Satan and the de mons yielded to temptation in their primeval de fection, and became sinners, a tendency to sin, which had not previously existed, resulted. This corrupt disposition would remain forever, unless provision were made to overcome it. But it is ap parent that such provisions could not be made, nor remedial agencies prove availing, so long as re bellion and a state of unrepentance continued in the hearts of the sinners. Moreover, in the case of angelic offenders, re pentance and reformation were all the more un likely, even in the initial stages of their lawless ness, because of their deliberate, willful, and in telligent transgression in the face of the full glow of light, and the unobscured recognition of the divine goodness and perfection. This greater privi lege, as wise and powerful direct creations of God,
and the consequent greater responsibility involved in their fall, are doubtless prime factors in their incorrigibility and irretrievable moral and spirit ual obliquity. The added fact that Satan and de mons are sinners of long standing contributes fur ther reason for the overwhelming probabilities that there will be no reformation. The advanced stages in the career of the drunkard, the gambler, and the libertine, for example, offer a similar parallel; long continuance in evil-doing seems to seal the sinner’s doom. But the comparison is im perfect, for the rich grace of God (Rom. 5:20) abounds in Christ, who died to repair the damage done by Satan and his demons in the human fam ily; and often, by virtue of the finished work of Christ, even such abandoned characters are res cued and saved as special tokens of divine love. On the other hand, the case seems quite otherwise among angelic offenders, wherein the sin and the doom of Satan and demons fall under a code of universal laws, upon the maintenance and execu tion of which depend the safety and permanency of the moral universe. Then, too, the special heinous and destructive character of Satan and the demons is evident, not only in the facts of their wicked and lawless na ture, but also in their aggressive activity in de ceiving and harming others and in winning over as many deluded adherents as possible to their God-hating and God-opposing program. In this is evidenced their deadly nature. They are not pas sively wicked, as if they were in a state of sullen and peevish inaction, morosely sulking under the restraints of detested divine omnipotence. But, on the contrary, they are militantly malevolent, seem ingly completely obsessed with insane optimism and the blind delusion that eventually their cause must triumph and God’s program be overturned. Demons and the Fact of Human Peril It is startling enough to realize that there are such wicked and destructive beings as Satan and demons abroad in the world, who are not only ir retrievably confirmed in wickedness themselves, but assiduously bent on confirming others in the same condition. But when it is apprehended that these emissaries of evil, these malicious agents of darkness, are concentrating their target, the fact is truly appalling. Man’s peril is grave. He must go down in disgraceful defeat, and be completely despoiled and ruined forever, unless he takes ad vantage of the salvation so graciously provided in Christ.
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THE KING'S BUSINESS
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