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Satan and His Kingdom
osophy, of Christian ( ?) Science, and all other teachings now being poured into the world by spirits of evil, who do not hesitate to appropriate for their purposes the very language describing the effects, and blessings of the Gospel. I t cannot always be said that there is no mention of the Cross (and in his later workings, even of the Blood of Christ), in Satan’s religious teaching, but it is the Cross as only an outward symbol without the inward power, for he knows that it is only the real acceptance of the death of Christ—or Cross of Christ—which saves from sin and deliv ers the soul from the power of Satan. IV. SATAN’S SUBJECTS “The whole world lieth in the evil one,” declares the Apostle John, but it is of the supremest importance to the prince of this world that those who dwell in his realm should not know it. To keep men ignorant of their position he blinds their minds! “The god of this world hath blinded the minds [m., thoughts] of the unbelieving, that the light of the Gospel . . • should not dawn upon them” (2 Cor. 4 :4 ) . The adversary dreads the light of God, for light reveals things as they are, both in the natural and in the spiritual world. “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8: 32). The truth about the love of God to men, of men as sinners needing a Saviour, and of God’s gift of a perfect Saviour when really apprehended by the soul, must set free, and so the adversary hides the truth from his cap tives. They are kept “darkened in their understanding” and are thus “alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them” (Eph. 4:18). That the truth must reach the understanding to be effec tual in delivering the soul is evident from the Lord’s words that the good ground which received the seed was in the one “that heareth the Word, and understandeth it” (Matt. 13: 23; see also Col. 1 :9 ; 1 John 5 :20). The adversary therefore
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