By VANCE HAVNER
C< a t an , the Adversary, goes about as a roaring lion ^ to destroy; as an angel of light to deceive; as an accuser to discourage. He does his worst work as The Mock Angel. He is the Arch-deceiver. In our Lord’s parable of the wheat and tares, the devil does not uproot the wheat nor bum the field, he sows an imi tation so much like the genuine that only a few can tell the difference. We read that false christs and false prophets shall arise to deceive, if possible, the very elect. When Antichrist comes, people will believe a lie. We are being conditioned for such an hour in the most subtle climate of deception ever to descend upon the race. No wonder the N ew T e s t a m e n t warns us throughout, “Do not deceive yourself; do not let men deceive you; do not let Satan deceive you.” The powers of darkness have set up a system of deception so clever and have developed an atmosphere of unreality so cunning, that good Christians are put in awkward positions and are made to appear to fight against God. Dr. Phillips says that the New Testament writers condemned false doctrine in a way that seems almost unChristian to us today. That, of course, is not because they were wrong but because we have changed. If Mr. Spurgeon should take a position today similar to the one he chose in the Downgrade Contro versy, he would be called reactionary and uncoopera tive. In another connection Dr. A. J. Gordon asked, “ Is it Pharasaism or pessimism to sound the note of alarm and to predict that at the present fearful rate of progress, the close of this decade may see Protestant churches as completely assimilated by nineteenth century paganism?” His prophecy has been fulfilled, but if he cried out today he would be counted intoler ant. W e are caught in the end of the age when men are being regimented and collectivised and steamrollered into one faceless monolithic mass as the world state and world church shape up for Antichrist. Unification, unanimity, and uniformity are the pattern. Ahab and Jehoshaphat go up to Ramoth-gilead, the four hundred
false prophets are unanimous and Micaiah who dares to be a lone dissenter and to speak for God had better get ready for his diet of bread and water. Even the secular world knows the pattern but they know not what to do about it. The only way to success today is by being a team-minded conformist: an individualist has about as much chance as an ant before a forty-ton tank. The America that was built around the Protest ant ethic of non-conformity is now one vast machine of mediocrity where, as General MacArthur put it, “ seductive murmurs are arising that we are provincial and immature, or reactionary and stupid, when we idealize our own country, that there is a higher destiny for us under another more general flag.” It is a world pattern and even the church is being squeezed into the mold of the age. Here the strategy of the Enemy is most deceiving. Religion is very popular nowadays and the Devil rides the bandwagon. He would not be so dull as to encoun ter the church in a head-on collision. When Micaiah was being brought to speak before Ahab and Jehosha phat, his informant did not tell him that the kings had decided to go against Ramoth-gilead or that the people at large had voted to make the venture. He said, “ Rehold now, the words of the prophets declare good unto the king with one mouth: let thy word, I pray thee, be like the word of one of them, and
Dr. Havner’s helpful articles appear from time to time in the pages of “The King’s Business” . Regular readers will be glad to learn that other stimulating messages are scheduled for release in future issues.
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THE KING'S BUSINESS
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