The Victory of God and the Continued Conflict  

It is not a mark of superior scholarship and intelligence to reject the fact of prophecy, relating to that promised seed of the woman, and its age-long expansion and development. Prophecy involves the supernatural. Such a minute forecast of a coming person, described in the Old Testament Scriptures, briefly covered in the preceding chapter, postulates a divine omniscience. If this is accepted, the modernistic-rationalistic materialism collapses. We do not enter into the invented theories and attempts to disprove the miracle of prophecy. In the end all confirm the statement of Scripture: "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. ii:14). Some of the explanations are next to incredible. They speak of coincidence, that one should have appeared in whose life these predicted events came to pass, or, that clever men wrote in the Gospels certain things to make them fit to the statements of the prophets, and that the original records were later on embellished by myths and legends to put the halo of Deity around the Person of Jesus Christ. Documentary evidences, research of greater scholars than our materialistic professors, and sound logic prove all these schemes untenable. Prophecy remains one of the miracles of the Book of books. When the great event took place, and the age long promises, for which generations had patiently waited, were fulfilled, all heaven must have been in wondering commotion. This snail earth, one of the smallest bodies in the great universe, as far as we know the only scene of God's redemptive activity, was from the beginning the object of the angel's contemplation. The things of God's redemption the angels desired to look into (1 Peter i:12). They knew that He who had created them, whom they worshipped, would take the creature's form and place, come down from the highest glory, visit the earth, display His glory and carry out God's eternal purpose. So when He was cradled in Bethlehem, He was heralded by an angel and the heavenly hosts broke out in a marvelous praise in which the goal of the redemption God provides is anticipated. On the other hand the serpent also anticipated His coming. All his murderous and lying attempts to keep God back from sending Him came to naught. Step by step the enemy had been defeated. Nor had he the power from keeping Him back in His descent and from overshadowing the Virgin. The seed of the woman and the serpent and his seed are now to be face to face. There is to be a terrific conflict. All the power and cunning of the serpent comes into play in desperate efforts to overcome Him, who is to bruise his head.  

Upon the throne in Jerusalem sits, ruling in cruelty, the serpent's seed, Herod. The news reaches him that the "king of the Jews" is born and Gentiles come to seek Him. He knows what that will mean for his own kingdom. He trembles with fear and when the magi do not return, his master, the devil, suggested to him an attempt to reach that child in Bethlehem and to put Him out of existence. The decree is signed and the male children of two years and under were murdered. He whom the enemy sought, who was under the shadowing wing of the Almighty (Psa. xci:l), had escaped.  

The Gospel records reveal the fact that at the time of Christ's appearing on earth a large multitude of people were strangely afflicted. They were possessed by demons. Mysterious beings, and often more than one, legions, had taken possession of human beings and ruined them physically and mentally. Such were demon-possessed. Nor is demon possession a myth. It is much in evidence in our own times; our insane asylums are filled from coast to coast with sufferers whose afflictions must be charged to outside evil powers. Missionaries at work in China tell us of the same evil powers; demon possessions are widespread in heathen lands. We can surmise why that little land of Palestine had such multitudes of afflicted ones. The serpent wanted to use these demons to hinder the Lord Jesus Christ from carrying out His work. But Christ manifested His power over the demons, and the serpent's efforts were futile.  

When the Lord Jesus appeared to begin His public ministry, there was at Jordan a supernatural manifestation. The divine person of the Spirit came upon Him, a voice was heard from heaven, declaring His Sonship. The serpent, the devil, witnessed it all. Immediately upon that, the Spirit of God led Christ into the wilderness. There He met the author of sin and death face to face. The serpent approached the second Man, not in a garden where everything is beautiful, but in a wilderness among the wild beasts; not in a condition of plenty, with the natural needs of the creature supplied, but in hunger, after the fast of forty days and nights. The serpent comes to make a test. He comes with the things of lawlessness—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life—but he finds nothing in Him. Here is not an innocent being, as Adam was, but here is the Holy One, Who has no fallen nature. Most interesting and instructive is the last test, when the devil offered to the Lord the kingdoms of this world on the condition that He acknowledge his authority. Two things are notable. The first, the devil claims that the kingdoms of this world are his; such is the case, even to the present time. The second, the serpent anticipated that Christ would ultimately obtain the kingdoms of this world, that He would rid them of lawlessness and the curse through His death on the cross—and therefore He made the suggestion of enthroning Him as the King of kings without the cross and the work the Christ would accomplish there. Most significant! Ever since in the history of the conflict of the present age, Satan tries to build a Christian civilization without the cross, without that which alone saves and brings back to God.  

And was it not a short time after, that the devil used Peter to suggest to the Lord not to go to Jerusalem to be crucified? The same word our Lord used in rebuking Satan, He also used with Peter—"Get thee behind me, Satan!"  

The different attempts made on His life by the Jews, when they tried to stone Him, or cast Him down a precipice, were inspired by Satan, the serpent. Yet he had no claim on Him, nor could His sinless body be touched by death. All the plans laid to destroy Him, the murderous schemes of the Pharisees and Sadducees, emanated from this sinister being. And how many more times Satan must have tried to ensnare or overcome Him, for it is written after the temptations in the wilderness "he departed from Him for a season" (Luke iv:13).  

But we must look deeper into the life and the great mission of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Why did He come into the world? Why did He take on the form of a servant? To manifest the unseen God? Yes, He did this. To teach and speak words such as were never spoken before? Yes— even His enemies acknowledged this fact. To live the life of righteousness and holiness, which glorifies God, the life the first man might have lived had he not transgressed? Yes—He was perfect in all His ways; no wrong word ever left His gracious lips, nor was there even a sinful thought in His holy mind.  

All this is true. But the one great purpose of the coming of the Son of God into the world is something greater than teaching eternal truths, speaking words of eternal life, and living a life which glorifies God. He came that through Him God's eternal purpose in redemption might be accomplished. John states His great work in a most comprehensive way— "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil" (1 John iii:8). It takes us back to Genesis iii:15—the bruising of the serpent's head. To make an end of sin, of lawlessness, and the complete defeat of the author of sin—that is His work. But how is He to accomplish it?  

We hear in our days much of civilization and the progress of civilization. A special phrase is "our Christian civilization." The thought which has taken hold on multitudes in Christendom is, that through Christ a great civilization is to be built up, which brings world improvement, a better world, and which will civilize heathen nations, who accept it. They think Christ in His teachings laid the foundation of a kingdom, a Christian era of continual progress, that through His principles the world is to become better and better, and gradually evil after evil is eliminated, the devil's power is curtailed, and finally this Christian civilization will end Satan's reign and will enthrone righteousness. And so they speak of "building the kingdom" which to the mind of millions of professing Christians is equivalent to a progressive civilization. As a result Christians, who according to the Word of God are not of this world, attempt in different ways to bring about certain results by legislation, by political measures and by new organizations. They finally conclude, as we hear it so much in our times, that the present world system is all wrong, capitalism must be dealt with, socialism, if not communism, are needed for this progressive civilization. Some speak of social Christianity. Then we see the attempts which are made to outlaw war, pacifism is advocated, in spite of the words of Christ who predicts the sword as well as wars and rumours of wars to the very end of this age.  

Did Christ teach such a civilization, making the world better and better, gradually introducing righteousness and gradually conquering lawlessness? Where does He teach it? Only twisting and misapplying His words can uphold such a theory. Christ did not come to civilize; He came to save. We let another speak.  

"If Christ's object had been to civilize the world, how easy it would have been for Him to have appeared on earth as the son of a Roman emperor (that need not have prevented His death on the cross)! As sovereign of the world He could have introduced a new era of Christian civilization and intellectual progress, with a perfect form of government, truly humane laws and abolition of slavery; an enlightened patronage of art and science; the promotion of trade, commerce, and industry. A few words would have revealed the knowledge of steam, electricity, and perhaps other forces yet unknown. He could have solved all social problems; He could have put an end to all bodily suffering by some rational remedy, seconded by miraculous agencies and also given a constant supply of good products. All this lay in His power, "for whom are all things and by whom are all things" (Heb. ii:10). But how different from reality! Christ ignores completely the arts and sciences, the politics and legislation, and refuses to interfere even in a matter of right, with the words—"Man who made me a judge over you?" And when He stands before the representative of the most powerful empire of the world, instead of pointing out to him the enormous advantages of a civilizing Christianity, He answers briefly "My kingdom is not of this world."1

How true these words are! As stated before, all civilization aims at world improvement, at the gradual elimination of the curse; it is a process of evolution. It is like a man who is suffering from a terrible disease which has covered his whole body with boils and sores. The physician who comes to help him gives him a salve to apply. He treats the skin symptoms, but the source of the disease he never considers and never touches. Such is a boasted and progressive civilization. It is a delusion.  

And has our civilization as it progressed during this age really brought true progress? Has it through the attempted obedience of the "golden rule" or the "principles of the sermon on the mount" produced more righteousness? Are the works of the devil through civilization, with its discoveries and inventions, getting less and less?  

To any thoughtful mind it must surely appear that our age cannot boast of much progress. With and in spite of railroads, telegraph, telephone, the radio, moving pictures, television, rapid firing machine guns, torpedo boats, submarines, aerial navigation and a thousand other inventions and discoveries, wealth, contentment, peace and happiness have not come to mankind, nor have these things made man more righteous and more law abiding. And the prospects of the future do not look better, but far worse.  

In spite of boasted advance in government, in politics, in theology and jurisprudence, the tide of socialism and anarchy, as well as communism, is rising higher and higher, threatening to wipe out this boasted Christian civilization. Thrones and religions, all kinds of beliefs and laws, are being shaken, unemployment and crime increase, gangsters, kidnapers and all the rest of the underworld mock God and defy Him as well as man and his laws. Medical and educational sciences are continually recording new achievements, yet on all sides there is an increase of nerve and brain disorder; we hear of new diseases springing up which baffle medical science and in spite of higher education there is the growing insubordination and license of youth, and the frightful increase, in countries which boast of the highest type of civilization, of juvenile crime. Then for the last fifty years deadly instruments of warfare have been invented with poisonous gases and certain chemicals which inside of a few hours can destroy the earthly existence of tens of thousands of people. In one word, with all the inventions, the discoveries, the enlightenment, which are the leading characteristics of this age, lawlessness, crimes, discontent, unhappiness, national, international and individual, hatred, insanity and suicides are assuming alarming proportions. A "Christian Civilization?"  

No Civilization is not the solution; it does not destroy the works of the devil, though some of this civilization may rest as a foundation on certain sayings of Christ.  

The spot where God's triumph is achieved, God's Victory over sin, over lawlessness, is the Cross of Calvary, the Cross on which the Son of God died. In that Cross and through the Cross the works of the devil were destroyed, and the One who conquered him, is yet to bruise the serpent's head in the final triumph, as recorded in prophecy.  

The highest expression of lawlessness, the greatest act of lawlessness was the rejection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The most lawless cry heard in history from human lips is the cry "Away with Him! Crucify Him—Barabbas, the murderer, the serpent's seed is our choice—Away with Jesus"! That hour of lawlessness was the triumph of the serpent, when he used man to nail the Son of God to the Cross. But that hour, from which the holy Son of God shrank, in view of which His sweat became as great drops of blood, brought the serpent's defeat. The bruised heel is beginning to bruise his head.  

How wonderful that God from His side uses the most lawless act committed in history to reveal through it His wisdom and His power! That Cross stood out in all eternity in God's purpose of redemption. It can never be forgotten in all eternity to come. In that cross, on which His holy Son, the Lord of glory, the Prince of Life died, God has provided the redemption for lost man and the ultimate regeneration of a marred creation. Here are the profoundest depths of wisdom, the greatest revelations of God in His righteousness and love, and here and here alone the way to God and Glory is revealed. And all so deep that we cry out, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!" (Rom. xi:33).  

Under the power of the serpent, instigated by the murderer from the beginning, man had delivered the Lord of glory to death. Was He, who had power over death, whose body knew no sin, helpless in the creature's hands? Could He have prevented the cruel death of the Cross? Is it true what the mob sneered at Him "He saved others, Himself He cannot save"? That was Satan's word. The truth is "Himself He would not save." When Peter arose to His defense with his sword, He said to him, "Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give Me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be"? (Matt. xxvi:53, 54). He was not helpless. He could have escaped their hands and done what He had done so often before. Several times He used the significant phrase, "the hour is come." It was His hour, the hour ordained before the foundation of the world, when He was to carry out the will of God, the redemption of a ruined world. He was the willing victim and gave Himself to suffer and to die.  

Yet all the cruelties and shame heaped upon Him were not sufficient to accomplish the work. He who knew no sin was to be made sin for us; man could not do that, God Himself had to do it. And so on that Cross the holy, spotless Son of God suffered in the place of guilty sinners from the righteous hand of God. God made Him sin for us. What that involved the finite mind can never understand. Depths are here which the creature can never measure; only the Godhead knows what it was when His holy soul was made an offering for sin, when He tasted death for everything.  

The work is finished! God, through Christ and His work on the Cross, is victorious. The gulf which separates the holy Creator from His lost creature is bridged. The way back to God is now revealed and God in sovereign and infinite grace can deliver "whosoever will" Jew or Gentile, from the guilt of sin, from the dominion of sin, from the law of sin and death, and restore forgiven sinners, not to an earthly Eden, but bring them as His beloved children, as the fellow-heirs of His Son, into the eternal fellowship with Himself in the Father's House above. Through His Son, God has won the victory over sin and lawlessness, over death, over the grave and the serpent's power.  

And so God has given the Good News, the Gospel of His Son, in which He offers all the sinner needs. What is it?  

Who can tell it out in its fullness? Man needs forgiveness, for He has sinned and by his works is an enemy of God. God in Christ offers a complete acquittal from all guilt, for Christ paid it all and made peace in the blood of the cross.  

Man has a fallen sinful nature, the nature of flesh; it can do nothing else but sin; it is lawless. God offers a new nature, the gift of life, eternal life. Born again, with the new nature in him, man becomes a new creation in Christ Jesus, the old things (the old things of the old, the first man) are passed away, all things are new. Man is under the power and control of Satan; God has delivered him from the power of darkness and translated him into the kingdom of the Son of His love (Col. i:13). Man has no strength, no power to do God's will and live in spiritual harmony with Him, in His fellowship. God bestows the power, an indwelling power through the gift of the Holy Spirit, which enables man to walk in the Spirit and no longer fulfills the lusts of the flesh. Man is filled with fear and uncertainty as to his destiny; God in the Gospel of His Son delivers from the fear of death and the grave and gives assurance that some day the redeemed shall be in His presence, in unspeakable glory, forever with the Lord. Such then is the glorious message of redemption, which God has for the whole world. It is all His work of infinite Love—for herein is Love; not that we loved God, but that He loves us and gave His Son for a propitiation for our sins.  

All can be obtained by acceptance of faith.  

It is the greatest message God has for man, the message for this present age. A greater message He cannot give. It is a daring word to write, but it is true, in His redemption offer in His Son, God has exhausted His resources of Love and Grace. Through this message He is not civilizing the world, but He is gathering all those who believe, into a body, called the Church, the body and Bride of Christ. This great purpose of this age will be accomplished. In anticipation of what would take place during this age, that the serpent would continue in the conflict, the Lord Jesus Christ left the promise for His Church "The Gates of Hell (Hades) shall not prevail against it."  

The prophecies of His physical resurrection were fulfilled on the third day. He left the grave victorious over death, so that His people can shout with Him "O, death, where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory?" Satan, the serpent, would have rejoiced if that grave had been sealed forever. He tried to keep Him there, that is the reason his seed, the enemies of Christ, requested the Roman seal and the guard. Satan is far ahead of the intelligence of the modernistic scholars. He believes in prophecy; they do not. He knew that if Christ remained in that grave, He would be a defeated Christ and God would have failed. But in due time the victorious Christ ascended up on high and is now seated as the Head over all things at the right hand of God.  

Before He left the earth He gave His commission to His own. What was it? Was it a commission to civilize the nations of the world, to abolish drunkenness by legislation, to outlaw war, to introduce socialism and communism, to bring in a new social order? Did He promise world conquest and a kingdom in which liberty, equality and fraternity are to rule? He left no such commission nor did He give such a promise. Before He departed He commanded, "That repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His Name among all nations, beginning in Jerusalem" (Luke xxiv:47). And again "Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth" (Acts i:8). That power came on the day of Pentecost with the gift of the Holy Spirit. What was the great witness given on that historic day? It was the witness to Christ and not a message to build a kingdom by which the nations become civilized and world improvement takes place. The great message of salvation was preached on that day, though not yet in all its blessed fulness. The result was the salvation of those who accepted it.  

Before we follow the conflict, which continues throughout the present age, we mention in passing the record given in Acts i:41-47. Here we read that the Jews who had accepted Christ constituted a community. They sold their possessions and goods and had all things in common. Is not this a Christian Socialism?  

Efforts have been made many times in the past to produce a Christian communism, but it always resulted in failure. The men who see here a program of world betterment through the socialistic idea do not go deep enough. They do not reckon with the fact that it was in Jerusalem this was done. It was an outward witness to the Jews that a great work had been done. In fact it was a witness to the Jews in Jerusalem that the crucified One is their Messiah, for such a blessed state of things is predicted to come when Messiah reigns. Some day it will come when Christ returns and His true kingdom will be established on earth. (See the question concerning that kingdom and Christ's answer in Acts i:6-7.) This socialism did not last long; it passed away as soon as Jerusalem had rejected the offer of the Gospel.  

The first historic document of the new age, ushered in by the coming of the Holy Spirit, is the "Book of the Acts of the Apostles." In it we find the record of the activities of three supernatural persons—the risen Christ is spiritually with His own, as He had promised; then the Holy Spirit is here and acting in power. The third supernatural person is Satan, the old serpent. His oppositions are written large in this book. The one thing which displeased him the most and which stirs up his wrathful opposition is the preaching of Christ, His death and His resurrection. When Peter preached the second time and came to the statement "Unto you first God, having raised up His Son Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning every one of you away from your sins" (Acts iii:26) the enemy arose and Peter was arrested. The seed of the serpent, the unbelieving Jews, attempted to crush this testimony to Christ and when one arose, filled with the Holy Spirit, testifying to the fact that Jesus is standing at the right hand of God, the murderer from the beginning uses the mob to kill Stephen (Acts vii). It was the signal for a great persecution. Satan thought his hour had come to end the testimony. The communistic society was forced to disband and was never reorganized. But as always "the wrath of the enemy must praise Him." The scattered company went everywhere preaching the great Godgiven message.  

There was a greater victory than that. The leader of the persecution was one Saul of Tarsus. He was the instru ment of Satan to persecute the Church and to waste it. Satan goaded him on to go as his agent beyond Israel's land to continue his work of destruction. Then on the road to Damascus the glory and power of the risen Christ laid hold on him, as a brand snatched out of the fire. The grace of God made him the mighty witness for Christ. The chosen vessel with his testimony for Christ and the Gospel of salvation became at once the object of the serpent's attack. The Jews took council to kill him. The gates of Damascus were watched; he was smuggled out of the city (Acts ix:23-25). Wherever he now carried the fullness of that Gospel of a free, a full and a glorious salvation, he met the adversary. The serpent strikes at him. He is scourged, beaten by the Jews, stoned and maligned. Jews and Gentiles oppose him. He is arrested, in danger of losing his life; new plots are concocted to kill him; he suffers shipwreck and finally a deadly viper fastens itself on his hand to attempt what the shipwreck had not been able to do. The serpent is behind it all. Satan knew he is heading for Rome to preach the Gospel there also "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." He would prevent it; but he was defeated.  

Let us suppose that the Apostle Paul instead of preaching the message of the Cross, would have gone forth into the heathen world with the idea of acknowledging the good which is in the different pagan systems. Let us suppose that he admired the classical literature of the Romans and Greeks and their philosophies, appreciated their arts. Let us suppose that he said— "we must acknowledge the good traits in all these things" and instead of preaching Christ and Him crucified, had used words of wisdom, excellency of speech, which proved him an educated man, a liberal man, thus gaining the respect of the heathen world. And let us suppose when arriving in Rome he had suggested different schemes by which certain moral evils in Rome, drunkenness, prostitution, gambling, slavery and luxurious living might be lessened or abolished. Would Satan have opposed him? Would he have obstructed his path and attempted his life? Certainly not! On the contrary he would have assisted in every possible way to help such a course, as long as the message of the Cross was ignored.  

Let us not forget that the being who continues the conflict, attacking now the doctrine of Christ, the truth of Christ, the true Church of Christ, had also his agencies, those who belong to his seed. Besides the unbelieving Jews and Gentiles there was a Simon Magus, a child of the devil, doing his work (Acts viii); also Elymas the sorcerer, who had taken the name "Bar-Jesus" (Son Jesus); in Philippi a demon possessed damsel appeared to hinder the Gospel message (Acts xvi). He used the unseen evil spirits, which are at his command, in the mighty conflict.  

And what happened in the beginning of the age continues throughout this age to the very end of it. Satan does not antagonize material progress; he is not alarmed at inventions and discoveries; he looks on with satisfaction when things become better outwardly in the world, when life becomes more liveable, by which the fact that curse rests upon all is almost forgotten; he can see idol temples crumble into dust to give way to another "religion," which may even have the prefix "Christian." He tolerates all this as long as the one great truth, the Cross, the salvation of God and its power, through the risen and living Christ, is pushed aside and not preached. He is willing to have great cathedrals put up, great institutions of learning for intellectual self-improvement founded, all kinds of societies and organizations formed, as long as the fact is not acknowledged or taught, that Christ, the seed of the woman, is the victorious Christ, who died for the sin of the world, the ever living One, through whom sin, lawlessness, the curse are to be destroyed.  

Already in the apostolic age a tendency manifested itself to depart from the great redemption truths. Some denied the resurrection and an agnostic system denying the great pillars of the Gospel made itself felt. The Spirit of God warned that Satan transforms himself into an angel of light (2 Cor. xi :14), and to beware of the wiles of the devil. There is for true believers a warfare with the wicked spirits in the heavenly places (Eph. vi:11-14) and there are statements that doctrines of demons and teachings of seducing spirits are ready to corrupt (1 Tim. iv:1).  

After the middle of the first century, a series of persecutions of Christians threatened the life of the church of Jesus Christ. They took place under different Roman emperors who were all of the serpent's seed. Through them Satan challenged the promise of Christ "that the gates of hell should not prevail against His Church." Thousands upon thousands, whom no historian has ever been able to compute, were cruelly tortured, crucified, burned alive and cast before wild beasts to be torn asunder and devoured. But instead of diminishing the Church, these persecutions increased the number of true believers. The blood of the martyrs became the seed of the Church and after several centuries, during which the enemy had done all he could to exterminate the church, Satan had to withdraw defeated.  

This did not end the conflict for it continued in another form. As Satan corrupted the worship of Israel so he begins now to corrupt the doctrine of Christ and to introduce his deceptions and lies to defeat the purpose of God. The Cross and the blessed message of the Cross, the salvation of God, through faith in Him, who died as the Lamb of God, is what he continues to hate. He knows that through that message, if it is believed and accepted, God saves those who are the slaves of sin, and that these saved ones constitute the new man in Christ. He also knows well when finally God's purpose in this age is finished and that mystical body of Christ is completed, his dominion is over and his final defeat results.  

The Lord Jesus had warned His disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees and in connection with this He mentions their doctrine (Matt. xvi:ll, 12). Note the order: Phariseeism first and Sadduceeism last. Phariseeism is ritualism, which teaches the traditions of men. Sadduceeism is rationalism, the denial of the supernatural, even as the Jewish Sadducees did not believe in angels or in the resurrection. Both, while our Lord was here, were His enemies and though they hated each other, finally Pharisees and Sadducees combined in the rejection of Christ. In the conflict of the present age this leaven is at work attempting the corruption of Christianity and the doctrine of Christ.  

Ritualism displaces Christ as the only Saviour, denies His allsufficiency, the efficacy of His blood, the sovereign grace of God, and sets aside His priesthood. Ritualism makes salvation dependent on works, on ecclesiastical membership, on the so-called "sacraments" and the ministrations of men.  

Its rise dates back to the first century. There was already the tendency manifested in the assemblies in Galatia to listen to "another Gospel, which was not another," a counterfeit Gospel upon which not Paul, but the Holy Spirit, pronounced the curse (Gal. i:l-6). In that spurious teaching grace was set aside and the works of the law were declared needful for salvation and for righteousness. How solemnly true it is what the Holy Spirit dictated into the pen of Paul—"If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain" (Gal. ii:21). In the days of aged John we find one Diotrephes, who did not give to Christ the preeminence, but loved to have the preeminence himself (3 John). He became a religious dictator, a forerunner of a domineering priesthood. And Peter, whom ritualism has put upon a pedestal of preeminence, which the fisherman of Galilee in true humility never claimed, warns teachers not to act as "lords over God's heritage."2  

It was in the fourth century that the corruption of Christianity through ritualism and priestly assumption became prominent. The instrument was Constantine, misnamed, the Great. Many church historians have exalted him as one of the greatest benefactors of Christianity, when in reality he was a curse. We do not know if he saw the vision, which he claimed to have seen, a cross in the sky with the surrounding words "in this sign thou shalt conquer." The battle which was to decide his emperorship was won, and he carried out his vow that the Christian religion should become the religion of his empire. The Church and the world were then united and Christianity became a state-religion. It is true the cruel persecutions ended, but something worse took place. All the ritualistic inventions and superstitions have their beginning at this time. The peoples of the empire are now "made" Christians. They are forced by law and threat of punishment to drop their pagan customs. These are changed into "Christian" customs. Heathen days become Saints days; days nowhere commanded in the New Testament, like "Christmas" are introduced. Children are made Christians by "christening" them, that is by putting a little water on their heads. But the worst corruption came through the men who claimed to be priests and their audacious presumption.  

Watch a snake in the grass! How it glides along nearer and nearer to its prey, till it makes the final dart to capture its victim. Thus the old serpent glided along in history, nearer and nearer the goal, to destroy the Gospel of Grace. Little by little error after error, perversion after perversion, corruption after corruption, are introduced. We have often been asked. When did the great ritualistic system known as the Romish Church originate? It is the product of growth, covering centuries. Look at some of the perversions! The worship of Mary and her adoration; the worship of saints, made by Rome and not by God; the worship of angels; pictures and statues become prominent and the knee is bowed before them; the inventions of a purgatory, and worse than all, the mass; holy water and the adoration of relics, the bones of saints and other objects: the invention of a sinful man becoming infallible as the vice-regent of Christ on earth, and a multitude of other things.  

But where is Christ? Where is the message of God's Love and Grace? Where is the display of the power of God unto salvation and the realization of His eternal purpose? It seemed as if Satan had defeated Christ after all. On account of the rejection of the true Gospel and the introduction of the lies of Satan, there came, as it always does with the denial of God's true redemption, a corresponding moral declension. The dark ages followed. A good part of the clergy became more and more corrupt, thieving, murdering and living in lust, committing crimes of every description. Some of the "vice-regents" developed into monsters. The crimes of the papacy are some of the worst in human history.  

Yet in spite of all God's purpose is undefeated. Even during these dark ages He continues in His work through His Spirit. Not many, but some continue to preach the true doctrine of Christ and through their testimony new members are added to the body of Christ. And how many humble instruments the Lord must have had during the centuries of darkness whose names are not recorded in church history, but who are known in heaven?  

During the fifteenth century the morning stars of the reformation begin to rise. The Spirit of God leads forward in restoring the forgotten truths of the work of Christ, by which the works of the devil will be destroyed. A Savonarola is heard with his fiery denunciations, for which he had to pay with his life. John Huss and others lift up their voices against the lies and wiles of the devil and the old serpent strikes at them and they fall as victims. Johannes Tauler and his friends with their godly teachings and efforts are harbingers of the coming change.  

Finally, when the devil has over-reached himself in the vicious practices of the indulgences, selling forgiveness of sins beforehand, encouraging all crimes through the serpent's seed enthroned in Rome, the Spirit of God comes upon an obscure German monk. Martin Luther nails his ninety-five theses to the church door of Wittemberg.  

He is used, having experienced himself salvation by grace, to herald once more the foundation truth of the Gospel, "the just shall live by faith." Other great men of God are raised up in other lands and endowed by the energy of the Holy Spirit thunder forth the forgotten truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Like an angry poisonous serpent, knowing it is fighting for its life, the old serpent then began to hiss. The torture chambers of the satanic inquisition echo with the shrieks of countless thousands of men and women. The cruel murderer from the beginning almost exhausts his ingenuity in producing untold sufferings. The so-called "Christian" lands, Germany, France, England, Scotland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Bohemia, Italy, etc., are lit up by the horrible fires of the stakes and thousands perish. Whose work is it? The work of the murderer from the beginning! Once more he tries to defeat God by his acts of violence. Satan is defeated! The reformation sweeps on. In spite of tortures, dungeons and fires, God is victorious. What sufferings the old serpent produced! Let the history of the Waldensians, Spain, the Netherlands, the Huguenots and St. Bartholmew's Night give the answer. But all his ravenings could not defeat God. God continues in the execution of His purpose. The true Church is preserved.  

Protestantism comes into existence next. It is far from bringing the full restoration of the truth and doctrine of Christ. It is true the great men used in this work were mighty men called by the Spirit of God. They were used in leading multitudes out of the old Roman sepulchre, where the Christ of God and the Gospel of Grace proclaimed through His finished work, had been buried so long. But some of the grave clothes remained. The teaching of sacramental powers, regeneration of infants through the application of water prevails. The simple memorial feast instituted in the night our Lord was betrayed, the breaking of bread and partaking of the cup, is still held by a good part of the Protestants as a ceremony of mystery and meritoriousness. Other erroneous doctrines are maintained. Yet certain vital truths are not preached, because unknown to the reformation. Soon conflicts arise. The reformation becomes involved in politics, becomes linked to the secular governments; the church becomes a state60 church, a state institution, under the domination of princes, dukes, kings and emperors. Who does not recognize in these conflicts, upheavals and marring declensions, the work of Satan, the serpent!  

The Lord Himself has given to us an estimate of Protestantism as it develops out of the reformation. In His message to Sardis, which prophetically refers to Protestantism,3 He says: "I know thy works that thou hast a name, that thou livest, and art dead. ... I have not found thy works perfect before God" (Rev. iii:1-2).  

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries division arises also. Satan is in evidence everywhere as the perverter of the doctrine of Christ and the persecutor of those who preach the Gospel of His grace and who give a heroic testimony for Christ and sound doctrine.  

With the eighteenth century there comes the rise of Sadduceeism. Rationalism now begins its leavening process, leavening, as it does in the twentieth century the whole lump.  

To follow the history of rationalism would be impossible in a work like this. It is Satan's triumphant card through which he thinks he can win his game. Rationalism is the way-preparer for the real end of the age, the infidelity which ultimately brings about the revolt against God and against His Christ, leads to Atheism and the manifestation of the full mystery of lawlessness in the complete apostasy and its heading up in the man of sin, the final antichrist.  

Rationalism starts with the rejection of the supernatural, and because the supernatural revelation is found in the Bible, the Word of God, it aims its destructive shafts first of all at the Book of books. Then follow denial upon denial. Christ is nothing but a religious leader, a teacher. His Saviourhood is denied altogether. Some even doubted His existence and spoke of Him as a myth.  

Soon the fruits of rationalism appear. Every form of moral corruption follows. It was especially marked in England during the eighteenth century. But when it seemed as if all would be swept away and Satan through rationalism would destroy the Truth of God, God met the enemy in the great and marvelous revivals, which swept over Great Britain. The Wesleys and others, like White-field, were the leaders. Much of the existent rationalism was swept away like spiders' webs through the mighty energy of the Spirit of God. Thousands gathered everywhere to hear the great Gospel messages. Persecutions arose again, but Satan was unable to stem the rising tide which swept countless thousands into the kingdom. All classes of society were affected, the lowest and the highest wept penitential tears and found their refuge in the Cross of Christ. The revivals spread to the American colonies and elsewhere. As we show in a later chapter, this mighty work of the Spirit of God saved England from the terrible fate of France, one of the birthplaces of rationalism.  

At the close of the eighteenth century Satan arose in his might and began his astounding activities in the conflict of the ages in which he aims at the destruction of governments, divine and human laws, the family and above all, the destruction of the Truth of God and the Church. The author believes that the demon-possessed Weishaupt with his Illuminati secret order, from which sprang the French revolution marks the beginning of the end of this age. The next chapters will follow more closely the workings of this mystery of lawlessness, which now in our own times is threatening to plunge the whole world into chaos and disaster.  

It is written in Scripture: "When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him" (Isa. lix:19). While the enemy made his preparations for the beginning of the final conflict, the Holy Spirit also made His preparations. In the beginning of the nineteenth century long forgotten and obscured truths were recovered through the Spirit of God. Prophetic truths, so prominent in the beginning of the Church, were then brought to light and especially the midnight cry: "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh" was heralded. God's plan and purposes with Israel, their unfulfilled national promises, were also brought to light. Other truths like the character of the true Church as the Body and the Bride of Christ, the character of the present age and its end and related truths, are once more understood and preached.4  

While Satan works towards the end of the age, the Spirit of God is also at work. As never before the true Gospel is preached everywhere. The recovery of the truth of the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to accomplish the crushing of the serpent's head, the promised consummation in the literal kingdom of Christ, led to the marvelous foreign missionary activities of the nineteenth century. The true Church realized as never before the commission of the soon coming Lord to preach the Gospel in the regions beyond and while Satan attempts over and over again the destruction of the Truth of God and the Church of God, the Gospel has its marvelous achievements in many lands and in the isles of the sea. Erstwhile cannibals become worshippers of God and countless thousands are added to the true Church called out from all nations. Explorers unlock the mysteries of interior Africa to be followed by the missionaries of the Cross. There was a constantly increasing triumph of the Gospel. In home lands revivals manifested the power of God unto salvation afresh, while the true children of God were drawn closer together and thus new expressions of the true unity of believers were brought about.  

But as these mighty workings of the Spirit of God continued, the seed of the serpent under the direction of Satan, also developed an astonishing activity. The rise of socialism and anarchy is one of the leading features of the nineteenth century. The outcry against God and His Truth increased. As a result the revolutionary activities to end our civilization and to crush the Church became prominent. All this is described in our next chapter. Politically the groupings of nations in alliances, pacts and other combinations, one, the concert of Europe, took place. War follows war and everything becomes unsettled. Attempts to stop wars are made, but fail. Behind it all is the god of this age, who is ruling in sinister power. Nearer and nearer comes the goal of the political end of the times of the Gentiles as revealed in Daniel's prophecies.  

Great things were expected with the dawn of the much lauded twentieth century. One third of it and more has passed into history. What has it brought forth? It would take an extra volume to give even a brief sketch of the rapid growth and development of the mystery of lawlessness. With the beginning of our century we see nations outdoing each other in building greater battleships, creating and supporting greater armies, calling millions of men into service, inventing new means for the wholesale destruction of human life. Torpedo boats, submarines, liquid fire, poisonous gases and scores of other inventions all are produced for the service of the murderer from the beginning. At the same time the unscriptural optimistic dreams of a misguided Christendom lead to all kinds of schemes to bring about universal peace. Instead of consulting the oracles of God and the revealed purpose of God in this age, the predictions as to its end, Christendom enters into politics. Preachers instead of preaching the one message God has ordained, turn pacifists and attempt various forms of reformation and world-betterment. The world must be made a decent place to live in. The evolution-delusion demands progress. Preaching the Gospel as commissioned by the head of the Church is too slow a process. Society has to be saved and war has to be outlawed. Then comes the crash. Over night in 1914 the leading nations of Europe rush to arms and that at a time when religious leaders through political agitations thought that universal peace had been assured. The world war, the greatest tragedy in the history of our age, follows. A defeated Germany is the result and the map of Europe undergoes a change bringing out once more in the reconstruction the boundary lines of the Roman Empire. The political revival of that empire is next suggested and attempts are made to produce a united Europe in the United States of Europe. Jerusalem and Palestine are delivered and the dream of Zionism nears its realization. The wheat and the tares begin to ripen, and both are facing the predicted harvest in the end of the age. All corresponds to the infallible predictions of the Word of God. World preparations increase in leaps and bounds for the final conflict.  

Satan, through rationalism, develops now greater opposition to God, His Son, and the doctrine of Christ. Destructive criticism is rampant. It invades all the different evangelical denominations and "Protestantism" is stripped of its power and former meaning. Universities, colleges, seminaries and similar institutions become permeated with the most dangerous infidelity true Christianity had ever known before. It goes by the name of "modernism." It denies all the facts of the supernatural Christ and His work of redemption. The Blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, which in God's sight is of an inestimable value, is rejected. Man no longer needs a Saviour, he is his own Saviour. The road leads further and further away from the revealed Truth of God, and a new paganism is fostered in the midst of Christendom. The road leads into the night of atheism.  

Then appears the harvest of this rationalistic modernism. The Gospel of Christ, the power of God unto salvation, no longer believed is no longer preached. Modernistic leaders, who still cling to the evolution-delusion that the world must get better and better, turn to legislation and other political measures to bring improvement and curb crime. They find fault with existing government itself. They advocate a "new social order" and join hands with the ungodly elements and labor with them for a revolution, the annihilation of capitalism. What happens morally? The nation which boasts of being the leading nation of the world becomes the most lawless. Legislation put into the place of God's message, and that message rejected, brings an awful harvest. There follows an almost unbelievable increase of all crimes; a new trade appears in the form of "bootlegging"; the bootlegger is followed by the gangster, the gangster by the kidnaper. Thousands are murdered, yearly suicides increase at a frightful rate; every form of lawlessness increases. The corruption which is in the world through lust keeps also step with the acts of violence and lawlessness. A licentious literature is produced for the feeding of the flesh; amusements, the stage and the moving pictures become more vulgar, bordering on the obscene. Women dress in a shameless way. The females are emancipated and they show their liberty by blowing cigarette smoke into the faces of decent people.  

The "Christ-less reformers" who have no use for the Bible become the advocates of birth-control, companionate marriage, which is nothing less than legalized prostitution. Such is the harvest of rationalism, Satan's most powerful weapon against the Gospel of Jesus Christ.5  

We do not forget the other side in this conflict. While Satan is marching on in his destructive work, God also is marching on. The modernistic denials have produced and are producing a new band of loyal witnesses. The Spirit of God stirs them by His power to contend earnestly for the faith. As a result a separation takes place. The true believers are drawn closer together; unscriptural denominational lines are abandoned. In the different denominations the conflict rages. As far as the conservatives are concerned, who hold fast His Word and do not deny His Name, it is a losing battle. They are defeated in assemblies and great church gatherings. Modernism is forging ahead, in its blind unbelief rushing onward to its appointed end. Yet in spite of it all the Spirit of God continues His mighty work. Satan cannot silence the preaching of the Gospel; its blessed sound is heard everywhere and thousands are still added to the body of Christ. God's purpose is rapidly being accomplished. In Russia, where the powers of darkness are trying to crush out the Church and the truth of God through the society of the godless, hundreds are saved everywhere and added to the Church, the body of Christ. It is a repetition of former persecutions. The, true Church prospers. Like the burning bush, which Moses saw, the fires burn, but the bush is not consumed.  

In concluding this chapter we point to one of the most startling facts relating to these modern conditions in Christendom and the apparent success of the powers of darkness. Rationalistic modernism makes audacious claims, boasting that the destruction of the dogma, that is supernatural Christianity, is in sight. In this respect the liberals are on the same footing with free-thinkers and atheists. They also in their blindness see the overthrow of true Christianity. The great mass of Christians who labor under the unscriptural conception that this age must be getting better, that the world must be gradually converted to God and that "His kingdom" is to be built up, in the midst of the increasing denials and the resultant corruption and moral bankruptcy, are greatly bewildered.  

But here is the startling fact: all we see now in the political, the religious, the social and commercial world is prewritten in the Word of God. The age will end and must end. We see the end is here. The age does not set in a glorious evening sky, but the sky is red and lowering; foul weather is approaching—that is the prophetic testimony of the New Testament. The political end of this age is fully revealed in the prophecies of Daniel, which we do not follow here.6  

Our Lord did not hold out the false hope of world improvement or world conversion in His great prophetic Olivet discourse (Matt. xxiv-xxv). He announced beforehand the events which should take place, and every one has come to pass. He tells us that the age will be capped by a "great tribulation" a time of world trouble.  

The testimony of the Holy Spirit through the writers of the New Testament—Paul, Peter, John, James and Jude gives a still greater line of predictions as to the age-ending. The rationalism, the leaven of the Sadducees, and its work in corruption during this age, and especially at its close, is minutely revealed. Let us listen to some.  

"Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times (the end of the age) some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and the doctrines of demons" (1 Tim. iv:l).  

"This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, coveteous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away" (2 Tim. iii:l-5).  

"The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned to fables" (2 Tim. iv:3, 4).  

"But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of" (2 Peter ii:l-2). "There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, 'Where is the promise of His coming?'" (2 Peter iii:8, 4).  

"Little children, it is the last time, and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come even now there are many antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time * * * he is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son" (Just what modernism is doing) (1 John ii:18, 22).  

"Certain men * * * denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ" (Jude iv). "Go to now, rich men, weep, howl for your miseries that shall come upon you * * * ye have heaped treasures together for the last days * * * behold the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud crieth; and the cries of them which reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord Sabaoth" (James v:1-7).  

The final end of the age in apostasy, under the reign of the lawless one, the man of sin, the final antichrist, is more fully revealed in the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians. Our last chapter will deal with the future consummation of the mystery of lawlessness, the final conflict and the defeat of the serpent, in the light of this passage (2 Thess. ii).

1 Prof. Better, "Science and Christianity," page 210.

2 The word heritage is in the Greek "Kleros" from which is derived our English "Clergy." The unscriptural distinction between Laity and Clergy is here hinted at.

3 We strongly advise our readers to study carefully and minutely the seven church epistles sent by the glorified Christ to the seven churches. Revelation II and III contain a divine forecast of the history of the Church on earth. Ephesus is the apostolic church going into declension; Smyrna is the Church persecuted; Pergamoa, the Church being corrupted under Constantine; Thyatira is the Roman Catholic apostasy; Sardis presents the reformation period. Philadelphia and Laodicea describe the two leading currents of Protestantism.

4 We have special reference to the mighty men of God, real scholars and at the same time humble men who were used in the recovery of these truths over a hundred years ago in the beginning of the movement known later by the name of "Plymouth Brethren." The most outstanding was John Nelson Darby.

5 Another work of Satan is delusionism in systems like Christian Science, Unity, New Thought, Theosophy, Spiritism, Occultism, Mental and Faith Healing cults, etc.

6 The author's exposition of Daniel has helped thousands in understanding these prophecies.