(Substance of an Address by H. A. ironside.)
The Word of God makes it abundantly clear that, as the dispensation draws to a close, ministers of Satan will become increasingly prominent in the professing church. All down through the dispensation these unhallowed traffickers in holy things have been the bane of Christendom; but, as the coming of the Lord draws near, and the Holy Spirit is about to leave the scene with the Church at its Rapture, it is but to be expected that these false teachers will increase both in numbers and pretensions.
Those who are of Laodicean tendency, " neither cold nor hot," will perhaps object to any man being called a minister of Satan, but such should remember that this is their scriptural designation:2 Cor. ii :13-15 so speaks of them. Therefore it is not lack of charity that leads one to apply this opprobrious term. In the passage referred to they are clearly identified for us.
There we learn that Satan's ministers are not necessarily men whose outward lives are manifestly evil. They may be, to all outward appearance, paragons of virtue, while inwardly opposed to everything that is really of God. The Word says, " Such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works." Outwardly they maybe without a flaw ; standing for national and civic righteousness; greatly concerned about matters of moral betterment; insistent on reforms of various kinds, which are seemingly conducive to human comfort. But to use a modern term, all this proves, upon careful examination, to be but a kind of humanitarian camouflage to hide their real purpose, which is the destruction of the authority of the Word of God over the consciences of their dupes, and the denial of the right of the Lord Jesus to the obedience of men. Their social gospels are but covers for their Satanic perversions of the truth of God. It is concerning such that the apostle Paul wrote:"Though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." Ponder carefully Galatians i :6-9.
In one Epistle after another of the New Testament we are warned against these ministers of Satan. Such are they who, according to Philippians 3:18, are "enemies of the cross of Christ, minding earthly things." It is not that they deny that Jesus died; in fact, they speak of His death as that of a martyr, but they deny its atoning value, and so they hate the cross in which the apostle Paul gloried (Gal. 6 :14). When he writes that "their God is their belly," we need not suppose he means us to understand that they are always characterized by gross sins and vile immorality, though their system leads to that eventually, inasmuch as it takes away the fear of God, and all restraint therefore from the conscience. But the point is, they know no other God save the god whom they find, or imagine they find, within themselves :in other words, their god is self, for whom they live, and to whom they minister. In the epistle to the Colossians we find these ministers of Satan putting human philosophy in place of the gospel-setting forth their rationalizing systems instead of the message of grace which God has committed to His servants, beseeching men to be reconciled to Himself.
These false teachers, self-satisfied, self-assertive, self-taught, self-centered and conceited, deny everything outside of the range of their own narrow vision or sensations, and therefore have no place in their philosophy for a divine revelation-an incarnate God, a vicarious atonement, a risen and glorified Christ, or a coming Judge. Preaching fables in place of the word of God (2 Tim. 4:4), confessing not Jesus Christ having come in flesh (i John 4 ; 2), nor coming in body (2 John 7, literal rendering), they deny the Lord that bought them (2 Pet. 2:1); and the preaching business is with them but a lucrative profession. Covetousness is the evil principle that controls them; thus for filthy lucre they gamble with the souls of their hearers!
The end for them and their followers is plainly told out in Jude's solemn epistle. Having crept in among the people of God (and of old all creeping things were unclean, and to be avoided), they are at last seen in open and unabashed denial of everything that the Christian heart holds dear-"Turning the grace of God into lasciviousness;" rushing like fools "upon the thick bosses of the Almighty;" glorying in their three-fold apostasy, these followers of Cain, Balaam and Core, ridicule the blood of atonement, offering instead the fruits of their own labor for the sin of their souls; they act as though o-ain were godliness, and the successful preacher is the man. who accumulates most of this world's wealth, and receives the applause of his fellows. They set aside the Lordship of Christ for a religious democracy that owns subjection to no power, either human or divine, outside of themselves; and so shall share the apostate's doom-perish without remedy. What an end, and what an awakening for men, whom admiring thousands have held as the prophets of a new dispensation! In reality they are but the John-Baptists of the Antichrist, and will share his fate.
How solemn the responsibility resting upon each Spirit-taught and Bible-instructed Christian, to heed the word, " From such turn away."
Surely there never was a time when believers, who value the great deposit of truth found in the word of God, should stand more firmly and unitedly for it than in these closing days of the age of grace. Fullest charity there may well be for the faults and failures of any who love the truth and yet exhibit inability to grasp much that is involved in it; but there can be no quarter whatever for the enemies of the Cross, who destroy everything that is of God, and leave their foolish followers without hope in view of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. "If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?" (Ps. 11:3).
Satan's ministers are known by their fruits. Our Lord has warned us against " false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing " (Matt. 7 :15). They make a great pretense of charity and toleration, but their ire is at once aroused when the Word of God is faithfully proclaimed. From all such the call is to separation. The lines need to be more clearly drawn than ever as each side lines up for the last great conflict.
Solemn indeed would it be for us if God had to say as to Israel of old, "The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means, and my people love to have it so-and what will you do in the end thereof ? "