teachings of Jesus and in the New Testament in gen eral. While the Old Testament does not give Satan a great deal of free publicity, he is presented, nevertheless, in his capacity as deceiver, murderer, adversary, and roaring lion, always as the enemy of God and mankind. But so much has man fallen under his dominion that the New Testament writers can say that the whole world lieth in the lap of the Evil One. In Genesis 3, Satan appears in the Garden of Eden as a serpent and a deceiver. In Ezekiel 28, he is spoken of as “ the anointed cherub, perfect in thy ways from the day thou wast created till iniquity was found in thee.” He appears in Isaiah 14 as having fallen from heaven through pride and the desire to be like the Most High, but ultimately to be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit so that “ they that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee say ing, Is this the man who made the world as a wilder ness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?” Zechariah gives a most enlightening passage: “ And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. And the Lord said unto Satan, the Lord rebuke thee, 0 Satan; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee . . .” It seems that Satan is a regular attendant at church. Most Christians are entirely familiar with the New Testament passages tes tifying to this personality who is wholly dedicated to evil and whose final doom is pronounced in Revela tion 20. It is not our purpose to give'the complete Biblical account of the personality of the Devil, but to call atten tion to two great fallacies that have gripped the mod ern mind. The first we have already mentioned; namely, that many men do not acknowledge and do not believe that there is a personality, a great integrating and co-ordinating personality, back of all the evil that is in the world today. The second fallacy is even more deadly; namely, that we live in a universe with either no God at all or in one in which there is a helpless and an indifferent God. It is said that when Emerson once visited Carlyle, that Carlyle broke out with the cry, “ If there is a God, why doesn’t He do something?” I would assume that he meant by this, why does not God abolish the evil that men willingly perpetrate; why does He not destroy cause and effect in the moral realm—and why must evil go on? There is a story that has come out of Russia in the days of the Revolution. A group of children, who had been taught to believe in God, were kept without food for a considerable length of time. They were asked if they believe in God, and when they said they did, they were told to pray to God for food. According to the story, no food came. Then they were told to pray to Stalin, and upon doing so, they were immediately fur nished with food. The moral of this was supposed to be that God was impotent, but Stalin could give all good things. As long as men are unwilling to acknowledge the existence of an enemy who would destroy them and infer that he has the power to destroy the power of a God who would redeem them, how can we be other than helpless in the hands of the enemy? Let us read God’s Word as to the permanent fate of this enemy, Satan: “And the devil that deceiveth them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where are also the beast and the false prophet; and they shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever” (Revela
S T A L E S A I N T S by Edwin Raymond Anderson N ow IT came TO pass that on a certain day, the fin gers of hunger did grip themselves about my stom ach, and since dinner time was alas! several hours in the unknown future, I hastened for the nearby bread- box. With trembling fingers, I lifted the cover. The sight which greeted my eyes was indeed pleas ant. Nestling atop a loaf of bread was a lone sugar bun, tempting to the sight. Lifting it from its bready con fines, I drew it near, baring my teeth with the antici pation of molars softly sinking into most delicious dough. But instead, they did grate against hard texture! That bun may have been pleasant to the eyes, but the “ fruit thereof” was stale indeed. Time had played its wearying way with the dough, and I was forced to lay the bitten bun aside in frustration. “ A dire thing of staleness indeed” as Shakespeare no doubt would have termed it. “While I mused the fire burned,” and that poor dry bun somehow reminded me of some Christians I know. They stand betrayed as stale saints; there is an un mistakable odor of spiritual staleness about them. Their present experience o f communion and fellowship with the living Lord Jesus is nil, and is of very stale sub stance. They speak and minister of such things as a part of the memory of happier yesterdays; the Lord is not sensed as a living dynamic; they are only going through the motions. This unfortunately is far too true of many who occupy the place of ministry. There is the bare rustle of old wind through the sermonic forest; they minister on the fuel of yesterday’s fires. One can hardly imagine the apostle Paul standing in the midst of one of his churches, saying, “ My dear friends, I had a most realistic experience with the Lord on my way to Damascus. How real He did become to me at that moment! But of course, that was several years ago— .” The man who exclaimed, “ For to me, to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21) certainly was not heating himself o’er the coals of yesterday’s fire! This is not a matter of accepted orthodoxy, as such. One may be all right, and yet all wrong, and it is im perative to realize that the measure is with the Lord. The head can perhaps too easily, and readily, give cold assent to the truths of the Word of God; that “ t’s” may be very properly crossed. Rather this is that deeper matter of the heart of being continually warmed by the radiance of daily, close fellowship with Himself. The standard should be, “ That I may know HIM” (Phil. 3:10). We may know and minister everything “ about” Him, and yet He Himself in the radiance of His Person, be completely missed. There is nothing static to the Christian life. We are never quite the same each day. There is either a draw ing near or away. Every day should minister fresh revelations of His great grace, marvelous mercy, and love beyond limit, and then, in logical turn, these can be ministered to the hungry sheep who look up to be fed. Don’t give them stale buns! 17
tion 20:10). OCTOBER, 1964
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