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THE KING’S BUSINESS
ruling principles of commercial life, and of political life, and above all of inter national relations, to such a one it will become perfectly evident that the Devil is the one who is master of the present order of things. If we had ever doubted before that there was a Devil, and just such a Devil as the Bible pictures, we can scarcely doubt it now, when we consider the action of the rulers of the earth in this present mad world war. How could beings so intelligent in matters of science and phil osophy and economics as the present rulers of the world are, ever be guilty of plung ing the nations of the earth into this mad war ? There is but one reasonable answer: because there is a Devil who rules the present Kosmos, or world order, and he controls the Kaisers and Kings and Parlia ments of the world, and will till the true prince comes, the prince of peace, the Lord Jesus Christ. III. How the Devil Manifests Himself and Works at the Present Time. We come now to the important practical question as to how the Devil manifests himself and works at the present time. 1. First of all he tempts men to sin. We have a most striking illustration of this in his temptation of our Lord. We have in the Bible three accounts of this temptation. We will look at Matthew’s account: Matt. 4: (1) “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil. (3) And the tempter came and said unto Him, If thou art the Son of God, command that these stones become bread. (5) Then the Devil taketh Him into the holy city; and he set Him on the pinnacle of the temple. (6) and saith unto Him, If thou art the Son of God, cast thyself down. (8) Again, the Devil taketh Him unto an exceeding high mountain, and showeth Him all the kingdoms Of the world, and the glory of them; (9) and he said unto Him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.”
We have not time to go into the whole question of our Lord’s temptation, but this much is certainly plain, that the Devil is represented as the tempter tempting our Lord. If there is no personal Devil, as so many would have us believe, and if he is not the tempter there would be abso lutely n6 reason for bringing him into this account. As the Devil tempted our Lord, so he tempts us today, and it is to, be noticed that he does not tempt us mere ly to gross animal lusts and vile sins, but with subtle spiritual temptations, and above all he tempts us to doubt God’s Word. It was with this form of temptation that he first assaulted our Lord. God had just said to the Lord Jesus at His baptism j “Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased,” (Luke 3:22), and Satan came, insinuating doubt of God’s word: “I f thou art the Son of God,” he says, and again further down in the temptation he repeats the doubt, saying to the Lord Jesus again, " If thou art the Son of God." In just the same way Satan began his assault upon Eve in the Garden of Eden, by insinuating a doubt of God’s Word and of God’s goodness, he began by saying: “Yea, hath , God said . . . . ?” (Gen. 3:2), and further on when Eve stated exactly what God had said, the Devil flatly contradicted and said: “Ye shall not surely die (Dying, thou shalt not die,”) when God had said: “Thou shalt surely die (Dying, thou shalt die.”) That is Satan’s favorite method today, he gets us to doubt God’s Word. Satan’s most effective mode of work is by leading men to doubt, and into error on fundamental points. The saloons and the gambling hells and the brothels are not the chief spheres of Satan’s activities, but the schools and colleges and theological seminaries where he is induc ing men, women and callow yquths and maidens to doubt the truth of God’s Word and to reject the fundamental truths of God’s Word and to accept Satan’s errors in their place. Satan knows well if he can get men to doubting God’s Word it is easy to lead them into the vilest sins. False
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