January 1927
16
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
The Modern W iles of the Devil BY DR. A. T. SCHOFIELD Taken from New Edition of his Valuable Book'. “Christian Sanity.”
The emotional and “higher-life” Christian is, however, the One for whom most snares are set, and it is utterly futile for him to dream of being “able to stand against the wiles of the devil,” unless he.closely obeys’the Apostle’s detailed direction for the conflict as given in Eph. 6 :10-18. The whole armor of God, every piece of it, is needed; and above all the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and the attitude of prayer. I think the most careless one who reads this passage must be struck by the tremendous nature of a conflict that requires such elaborate armor. The Christian’s danger, of course, begins with his progress, and his attempts to make good his footing on high and holy truths, and in short to fit himself entirely for the service of God. I have already indicated some of the subtle dangers that beset'his path. D anger I n P ublic G atherings No one must imaging for a moment that I do not fully appreciate the value of religious meeting, because I point out certain dangers which may lie in them for some, if watchfulness and care be not exercised. In the first place, we must remember that in all great crowds assembled with a special object, particularly if it be a religious one, there is a strong hypnotic power absolutely inseparable from them, and not dependent on the speakers. It is just as common as the exhaustion of the air. Quiet, monotonous singing greatly intensifies this hypnotic influence, and especially with the head bowed and the eyes shut—so does prolonged prayer and so do impassioned speakers—and yet none of them nor all of them together are in themselves bad in any way; and as I have said, God can use the power of crowds to His glory just as He can the quietness of the closet. It is only that one has to be on one’s guard against mere ephemeral emotion. I may give an illustra tion of this. I remember well in one of Moody’s great meetings in the East of London, I was sitting behind a remarkable looking man in the after-meeting, and I entered into conversation with him—while the choir on the platform was crooning in low plaintive tones the words “Come to Jesus, come to Jesus.” After a while he said, “I would rather you did not say more to me now, for I shall come to no decision at the present moment. I feel I am carried away just now, and not master of myself, and should not like to decide on such an important matter in my present condition.” Two days afterwards he called to see me at the London Hospital, and told me his whole life had been changed and that he was now an earnest Christian. But, he added, “it was no words of your that did it. It was the endless repetition of that choir; I could resist the call a dozen times, but I could not stand it for a hundred!” I found he was the head of an eminent firm of city lawyers, and a very clever man. Now this shows two things—his recognition of his emotional state and his desire not to build on that; and at the same time God’s use of the undoubted hypnotic power of the low mono tonous repetition of the choir. E ffort to U pset M ental B alance All manifestations of supernatural power are of course very upsetting to the mental balance, and here we must once more
Dr. A. T. Schofield, eminent physician of England, has just brought forth a new edition of his book “Christian Sanity.” In these days, when we are met on every hand with theories of spiritual life, and with actual or alleged phe nomena of spiritual or psychical experience, a book such as Dr. Schofield gives us should be found of great value in helping to clear the minds of believers. The article given herewith is a chapter from the book referred to, which can be procurred of Biola Book Room. S TUDENTS of Scripture are well aware that Satan is termed the God of this world. They know that he will yet become the anti-Christ, indwelling in some human being. It only remains for him to usurp the place of the third person of the Trinity—the Holy Ghost. This appears to-be his special role at the present day, and in Irvingism and similiar delusions." The Person and work of the Holy Spirit have been specially prominent in Chris tian doctrine of late years, and this is undoubtedly Satan’s point of attack, in simulating the energy and work of the Holy Ghost. In Spiritism, which is not all charlatanism, there is reason to believe that evil spirits have posed as those of departed friends but now we get them speaking with voice and authority of the Spirit of God. T he T est N o S pirit C an S tand ' Not only so, but in any mystic cult, in every thought-healing centre, in Christian Science and in all the new theology teach ing, even in the cult of Isis in London, and other strange faiths, the Bible is everywhere freely quoted and referred to and ap parently honored. The one thing that is not done is to make confession of “JESUS CHRIST COME IN THE FLESH,” which St. John points out is the test no evil spirit can stand; in short the revelation of our Divine Saviour in human form in His birth, death and resurrection. The operations of evil spirits are various, and well adapted to different minds and faiths; but they have one point of union—denial of the Person and work of the Son of God in some form or other. There seems reason to believe that q u i t e apart from a human liability to sin, and proneness to err, we get in religion, special temptations amongst Christians to sin, which are one and all utterly alien to the spirit of Christianity. It is quite re markable under the name of religion what enmity, strife, jealousy, wrath, factions;; ¡¿divisions, h e r e s i e s, envyings, lying, malice, hypocrisy and hatred abound (Gal. 5:19). One cannot but think that the promotion of these evils is the work of the enemy; as the sowing of the tares among the wheat. There seem to be specially devised snares set for Chris tians at every stage of their life. D ifferent K inds of C hristians The dead-level, easy-going Christian is already overcome by sloth and inertia, and needs no further attention. He will never give much trouble to the enemy. The Christian of “open and inquiring mind” is agog for new vagaries and ideas' of every sort, and greedily swallows the latest new thing in theology, which is carefully prepared for his consumption. The “doctrinal” Christian is the prey of various heresies, mostly consisting in truths distorted in different ways, and used as centres for dispute and division.
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