It is a serious reflection for the evangelist, that wherever God’s Spirit is at work, there Satan is sure to be busy. We must remember and ever be prepared for this. The enemy of Christ and the enemy of souls is always on the watch, always hovering about to see what he can do, cither to hinder or corrupt the work of the gospel. This need not terrify or even discourage the workman; but it is well to bear it in mind and he watchful. Satan will leave no stone unturned to mar or hinder the blessed work of God’s Spirit. He has proved himself the ceaseless, vigilant enemy of that work from the clays of Eden down to the present moment.
Now, in tracing the history of Satan, we find him acting in two characters, namely, as a serpent or as a lion—using craft or violence. He will try to deceive; and, if he cannot succeed, then he will use violence. Thus it is in this sixteenth chapter of the Acts. The apostle’s heart had been cheered and refreshed by what we moderns should pronounce, “a beautiful case of conversion.” Lydia’s was a very real and decided case, in every respect. It was direct, positive, and unmistakable. She received Christ into her heart, and, forthwith, took christian ground by submitting to the deeply significant ordinance of baptism. Nor was this all. She immediately opened her house to the Lord’s messengers. Hers was no mere lip profession. It was not merely saying she believed. She proved her faith in Christ, not only by going down under the water of baptism, but also by identifying herself and her household with the name and cause of that blessed One whom she had received into her heart by faith.
All this was clear and satisfactory. But we must now look at something quite different. The serpent appears upon the scene in the person of
The False Professor.
“It came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying. The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which show unto us the way of salvation. And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour.” Verses 10-18.
Here, then, was a case eminently calculated to test the spirituality and integrity of the evangelist. Most men Would have hailed such words from the lips of this damsel as an encouraging testimony to the work. Why then was Paul grieved? Why did he not allow her to continue to bear witness to the object of his mission? Was she not saying the truth? Were they not the servants of the most high God? And were they not showing the way of salvation? Why be grieved with—why silence such a witness? Because it was of Satan; and, most assuredly, the apostle was not going to receive testimony from him. He could not allow Satan to help him in hiss work. True, he might have walked about the streets of Philippi owned and honored as a servant of God, if only he had consented to let the devil aid him in the work. But Paul could never consent to this. He could never suffer the enemy to mix himself up with the work of the Lord. Had he done so, it would have given the deathblow to the testimony at Philippi. To have permitted Satan to put his hand to the work, would have involved the total shipwreck of the mission to Macedonia.
It is deeply important for the Lord’s workman to weigh this matter. We may rest assured that this narrative of the damsel has been written for our instruction. It is not only a statement of what has occurred, hut a sample of what may occur, and indeed what does occur every day. Christendom is full of false profession. There are millions of false professors at this moment, throughout the wide domain of baptized profession. It is very sad to be obliged to say it; but so it is; and we must press the fact upon, the attention of the reader. We are surrounded, on all sides, by those who give a merely nominal assent to the truths of the christian religion. They go on, from week to week, and from year to year, professing to believe certain things which they do not in reality believe at all. There are thousands who. every Lord’s day, profess to believe in the forgiveness of sins, and yet, were such persons to be examined, it would be found that they either do not think about the matter at all, or, if they do think, they deem it the very height of presumption for anyone to be sure that his sins are forgiven.
This is very serious. Only think of a person standing up in the presence of God and saying, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins,” and, all the while he does not believe any such thing! Can anything be more hardening to the heart, or more deadening to the conscience than this? It is our firm persuasion that the forms and the formularies of professing Christianity are doing more to ruin precious souls than all the forms of moral pravity put together. It is perfectly appalling to contemplate the countless multitudes that are, at this moment, rushing along the well-trodden highway of religious profession, down to the eternal flames of hell. We feel bound to raise a warning note. We want the reader most solemnly to take heed as to this matter.
We have only instanced one special formulary, because it refers to a subject of very general interest and importance. How few, comparatively, are clear and settled as to the question of forgiveness of sins! How few are able, calmly, decidedly, and intelligently, to say, “I know that my sins are forgiven!” How few are in the real enjoyment of full forgiveness of sins, through faith in that precious blood that cleanseth from all sin! How solemn, therefore, to hear people giving utterance to such words as these, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins,” when, in point of fact, they do not believe their own very utterance! Is the reader in the habit of using such a form of words? Does he believe it? Say, dear friend, are thy sins forgiven? Art thou washed in the precious, atoning blood of Christ? If not, why not? The way is open. There is no hindrance. Thou art perfectly welcome, this moment, to the free benefits of the atoning work of Christ. Though thy sins be as scarlet, though they be black as midnight, black as hell, though they rise like a dreadful mountain before the vision of thy troubled soul, and threaten to sink thee into eternal perdition; yet do these words shine with divine and heavenly luster, on the page of inspiration, “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” 1 John 1:77But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. (1 John 1:7).
But mark, friend, do not go on, week after week, mocking God, hardening thine own heart, and carrying out the schemes of the great enemy of Christ, by a false profession. This is precisely what we see in the damsel possessed by a spirit of divination. This is the point in her history which links itself with the present awful condition of Christendom. What was the burden of her song, during those “many-days” in the which the apostle narrowly considered her case? “These men are the servants of the most high God which show unto us the way of salvation.” But she was not saved—she was not delivered—she was, all the while, under Satan’s power. And not only so, but Satan was seeking to use her for the purpose of marring and hindering the work of the gospel.
Thus it is with Christendom—thus it is with each false professor throughout the length and breadth of the professing church. Everyone who professes to believe in the forgiveness of sins, and yet does not believe in it, does not know that his sins are forgiven, does not think that anyone can know it until the day of judgment—every such person is, in principle, on the ground of the damsel possessed with the spirit of divination. What she said was true enough; but she was not true in saying it. This was the grievous point in the case. It is one thing to say or assent to what is true, and another thing to be true in saying it. Of what possible use was it to go on, from day to day, giving utterance to the formulary, “They show unto us the way of salvation,” while she remained in the same unsaved, unblessed condition? None whatever; and we know of nothing, even in the deepest depths of moral evil, or in the darkest shades of heathenism, more truly awful than the state of careless, hardened, self-satisfied, fallow-ground professors, who, on each successive Lord’s day, give utterance, either in their prayers or their singing, to words winch, so far as they are concerned, are wholly false.
The thought of this is, at times, almost overwhelming. We cannot dwell upon it. It is realty too sorrowful. We shall therefore pass on, having once more solemnly warned the reader against every shade and degree of false profession. Let him not say or sing aught that he does not heartily believe. The devil is at the bottom of all false profession, and by means thereof he seeks to bring discredit on the work of the Lord.
But how truly refreshing to contemplate the actings of the faithful apostle in the case of the damsel. Had he been seeking Ids own ends, or had he been merely a minister of religion, he might have welcomed her words as a tributary stream to swell the tide of his popularity, or promote the interest of his cause. But Paul was not a mere minister of religion; he was a minister of Christ—a totally different thing. And we may notice that the damsel does not say a word about Christ. She breathes not the precious, peerless name of Jesus. There is total silence as to Him. This stamps the whole thing as of Satan. “ No man can call Jesus Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.” People may speak of God, and of religion; but Christ has no place in their hearts. The Pharisees, in the ninth of John, could say to the poor man, “Give God the praise;” but in speaking of Jesus, they could say, “This man is a shiner.”
Thus it is ever in the case of corrupt religion, or false profession. Thus it was with the damsel in Acts 16. There was not a syllable about Christ. There was no truth, no life, no reality. It was hollow and false. It was of Satan; and hence Paul would not and could not own it; he was grieved with it and utterly rejected it.
Would that all were like him! Would that there were the singleness of eye to detect, and the integrity of heart to reject the work of Satan in much that is going on around us! We are thoroughly convinced that the Holy Ghost has written the narrative of this damsel for our instruction. It may be said, perhaps, that we have no such cases now. We reply, “For what end did the Holy Ghost pen the record?” Alas! there are thousands of cases, this moment, answering to this type of the damsel. We cannot but view it as a sample case—an illustration of Christendom’s false profession, which exhibits far more of the craft and subtle wiles of the enemy than is to be found in the ten thousand forms in which moral pravity clothes itself. Everybody can judge of drunkenness, theft, and such like; but it demands an eye anointed with heavenly eye-salve to detect the wily workings of the serpent behind the fair profession of a baptized world.
Such an eye Paul, through grace, possessed. He was not to be deceived. He saw that the whole affair was an effort of Satan to mix himself up with the work, that thus he might spoil it altogether. “But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit. I command thee, in the name of Jesus Christ, to come out of her. And he came out the same hour.”
This was true spiritual action. Paul was not in any haste to come into collision with the evil one, or even to pronounce upon the case at all; he waited for many days; but the very moment that the enemy was detected, he is resisted and repulsed with uncompromising decision. A less spiritual workman might have allowed the thing to pass, under the idea that it might turn to account and help forward the work. Paul thought differently; and he was right. He would take no help horn Satan. He was not going to work by such an agency; and hence, in the name of Jesus Christ—that name which the enemy so sedulously excluded—he puts Satan to flight.
But no sooner was Satan repulsed as the serpent, than he assumed the character of the lion. Craft having failed, he tries violence. “And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the market-place unto the rulers, and brought them to the magistrates, saying, These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, and teach customs which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe, being Romans. And the multitude rose up together against them; and the magistrates rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat them. And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely.” Verses 19-23.
Thus the enemy seemed to triumph; but be it remembered that Christ’s warriors gain their most splendid victories by apparent defeat. The devil made a great mistake when he cast the apostle into prison. Indeed it is consolatory to reflect that he has never done anything else but make mistakes, from the moment that he left his first estate down to the present moment. His entire history, from beginning to end, is one tissue of errors. But more of this in our next.
(To be continued, if the Lord will.)