Ever since the fall of man, Satan has been acting in this world to dishonor God and to deceive man. He is very versatile, and his tactics are many-sided. With his vast experience, he is able to appeal to every kind of natural man. Another has put it very aptly:
“To the psychologist he says, ‘I will give you new knowledge and understanding.’ To the occultist he says, ‘I will give you the keys to the last secrets of creation.’ He confronts the religionist and the moralist with a mask of integrity and promises them the very help of heaven. And, finally, to the rationalist and the liberalist he says, ‘I am not there; I do not even exist.’ ”
While Satan was, no doubt, very active before the flood in the time of Noah, he has been even more diligent since then. He could not deny the power of God as displayed in the flood, but afterward he sought to attract man to himself by mimicking God’s power. Various forms of idolatry and false religion sprang up, but all with a common basis: The power of Satan was behind them. When man saw power, Satan saw to it that it was attributed to him, and not to God. Man thus gave up the knowledge of God and embraced what was false. He indulged in such things as superstition, mythology, strange sacrifices, the casting of spells, the consulting of oracles, and many others. An additional result was that he sunk down into a level of sin that probably exceeded what had been present before the flood. (Sodom and Gomorrah are an example of this awful debauchery.) All this was supported by a display of Satanic power, combined with a constant thread of tragedy and death, that kept man in fear and, at the same time, in awe. Such was the condition of things for much of the world’s history since the flood.
The Light of Christianity
Those of us who have grown up in so-called Christian lands have, at least in the past, been largely protected from such influences, because the light of Christianity had driven out these heathen influences, or at least pushed them underground. This quotation describes it very well:
“Now the light of Christianity has banished all these specters of evil in their obvious and direct power. But it was not so when the Scriptures were written. The public mind was full of them, though philosophers began to speculate and to scorn, and many became weary of them. Still, habits were all formed on them. When Paul healed an impotent man, they were going to offer him sacrifice. ... If he were stung by a viper, vengeance would not suffer him to live, and when he received no harm, they changed their minds and said that he was a god. This system was connected with power, and when they saw this power, they still attributed it to what were devils, and not God.”
When Christ was first preached, John could say, “The darkness is passing, and the true light already shines” (1 John 2:8 JND). However, there was decline very quickly, even before the apostles had passed away, and thus we find in the later epistles various allusions to the evils of darkness that had been pushed aside by the preaching of Christ. We thank God that He gave revivals from time to time, to counteract the decay. A most significant revival came when, less than two hundred years ago, God raised up men to restore the truth of the church. Not only was a full gospel preached, but at that time many precious truths were recovered — truths that had not been known and enjoyed (except perhaps by a very few) for centuries. All of Christendom benefited from this recovery, but especially Western Europe and North America, as the atmosphere of Christianity pervaded these lands. Laws were based on scriptural principles, and the Word of God was publicly read and honored. Surely Satan continued his evil work in spite of all this, but public manifestations of demonic power were relatively few, and those who were involved in it did so largely in secret. Most people were churchgoers, and likewise the Lord’s Day was respected by the vast majority.
The Changes of Today
In the last forty years, however, we have seen a tremendous change. In most so-called Christian countries (if we can even use the term!), it is only a minority that attend a religious service on Lord’s Day. The Word of God has been banned from schools and from public life, and its principles are openly challenged and flouted. Coupled with this, the manifestations of Satanic power are becoming more frequent and visible. There is a renewed interest in such entities as séances, Satan worship, witchcraft, clairvoyance, occult healing, yoga, attempts to contact the unseen world, and much more. Those who are involved in such things are quite open about it; there is no shame connected with these practices anymore. The popular music of today is rife with Satanic overtones, while various clubs and orders devoted to the occult are flourishing.
As always, violence and immorality go hand in hand with all of this. Someone has remarked that left to himself, man has only public opinion and his lusts to govern him. As the power of Satan becomes more and more evident, public opinion declines, leaving only man’s lust, which results in ever-increasing degradation. Even children and teenagers now talk about things that were unknown to them only a few years ago and are involved in crimes formerly committed only by hardened adults. As we write this article, an eighteen-year-old girl in the U.S.A. is being sentenced to life imprisonment for the unprovoked and premeditated murder of a nine-year-old girl — a neighbor of hers. In her diary, she described the experience as “pretty enjoyable.” After committing the murder, she apparently then proceeded to go to a youth dance at her church.
How Has All This Come About?
We have already commented on what is obvious, namely, that God and His Word have been given up, and Satan has quickly responded to fill the vacuum. When the truth of God is known and then given up, it is invariably true that “the last state of that man is worse than the first” (Matt. 12:45). “If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matt. 6:23). We know too that God has prophesied all this in His Word, telling us that “in the last days perilous times shall come” (2 Tim. 3:1) and then detailing for us the awful moral character of that time. However, there is another reason for the decline — one that we Christians must face. Once again, let the words of another speak to us:
“The church’s energy and power are in grace, in God. If it is only a delivered body, it is a weak one. It must be a delivering body to be a preserved one, because that is the power of God’s presence in Christ and in Christianity. ... Whether it is a gathering of saints or an individual, if there is not energy of positive testimony which acts on others, there is decline. ... False teachers, corruption, apostasy, antichrists, etc. begin to appear in the waning light of the church. This decline of the church is the capital source of the evil, although not the only form it takes. If the delivering power is once enfeebled, the old suppressed evils rise again, modified perhaps to suit the case, but the same.”
The Christian’s Responsibility
As Christians, it is fitting for us to mourn over the condition of Christendom in these last days, when we consider the light to which such nations have been exposed and the depths to which they have sunk. It is sadly true that man has turned his back on the light and deliberately given up what God so graciously restored to him. The end of Christendom will be an awful judgment, for “that servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes” (Luke 12:47). However, let us not be complacent in all this, taking satisfaction in knowing that we are not part of such moral collapse. If Satanic influences are now in the ascendancy, we must take some responsibility ourselves. It is not enough for us merely to lead good, morally upright lives and then to go to heaven at the end. No, we are left here to be living witnesses to the love and grace that saved us and brought us into the most wonderful blessing. Are we using our time, energy and material resources merely for ourselves, or are we using them for Christ’s interests down here? Are we “conformed to this world,” or are we like those of whom it could be said, “These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also” (Acts 17:6)? The “salt of the earth” is not meant to be kept in the shaker. As believers, we may well take heed to ourselves and ask whether we are merely delivered or we are deliverers.
W. J. Prost