April, 1945
THE MOCK ANGEL By Vance Havner
themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed 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 of the devil! And 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 and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple (Rom. 16:17, 18). Much of the. Corinthian letters, Galatians and Colossians is taken up with warning against Satan in angelic garb. Timothy and Titus are put on their guard. John cries against false teachers and Jude makes it even stronger. But 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 whose hearts are full of rage. I am not half as afraid of wild extremists, tearing their hair in lurid sensationalism, as I am of these mock angels. Yet if we point out these disguised devils, we are told to preach Christ. Very well. Paul puts it this way: “Christ in you, the hope of glory: WHOM WE PREACH, WARNING EVERY MAN . , . ” (Col. 1:27, 28) and nowhere did he warn them more positively than in this very epistle. It is a thankless task, crying out against these mock angels, for often it seems that we are speaking against men—better men than we, so suave and refined do they appear. The cry of 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 warn ing against false teachers, and we are in noble succession when we warn men against Satan as an angel of light. But Satan is not limited to false teachers. He has sneaked into many a promising life through a friend ship 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 message and ministry through unholy alliance out of God’s will with society, money and looks. Satan knows the weak side, and that he cannot overcome us by mere force. He creeps upon us with what appears fine and correct. It is doubly dangerous because it is clad in the garments of light. Think of the lives into which the adversary has sneaked through books! These are not vicious books, but books that take the edge off our spiritual appetite and pave the way for worse things ahead. The devil is clever: he knows he can never storm some citadels 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. 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 Christian work, but not the thing to which God has called us. Satan may even make us busy championing a doctrine which may [ Continued on Page 130]
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S ATAN himself is transformed into an angel of light” (2Cor.jp.: 14). The popular conception of the devil with hoofs, horns and pitchfork is, as any Bible student knows, utterly foreign to the Word of God and is 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 of 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 man of power, he is under no delusions about the prince of darkness. He deals with a person, not an in fluence. Martin Luther had no lavender-and-rose-water ideas about evil when he threw his inkwell at the devil. Billy Sunday 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. He is attractive 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 dangerous, not in bold, open attack, but when, insidious and sneaking, he comes clad in gar ments of light. What Paul had in mind here was false teachers. “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming
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