- Overcomer Literature Trust
- Swindon
- Wiltshire
SATAN INTERPRETS THE WORD.
By F.J.Huegel.
Let no one imagine that the Christian is immune to the onslaughts of the enemy. Not even the Lord Jesus Himself was exempt, but no one was ever assailed as was He.
In the temptation of Jesus we discover the Wicked One coming upon the Master with the Bible, so to speak, in hand. He came when the Son of Man was weak from fasting.
“It is written”, this was the glittering weapon, the master-stroke of the Tempter. Doubts were suggested, “If you are the Son of God”. It was hinted that the Saviour might employ his powers to supply personal physical needs, “Tell this stone to become bread”. The kingdoms of the earth were offered to Jesus if He would worship Satan. An easy way to popularity was pointed out and it was suggested that Jesus cast Himself from the pinnacle of the Temple. No harm would come to Him for God had promised to send His angels to care for Him, and the multitude, amazed, would follow Him.
But what gave immeasurable force to Satan’s suggestions was his appeal to the authority of God’s Word. He made it appear that the things he offered had the glow of Divine approval. He enforced his ideas with the sacred sanction of the Scriptures. It was with the Bible in hand that he approached the Son of Man. “It is written . . .”. How any reference to the sacred Scriptures throws us off our guard. “It is written . . .” If the Word of God supports it, if the Bible sanctions it, why it must be good. How the Devil loves to come to us with the Bible in his hand.
But here is where we discover the awful depths of the Devil’s deceitfulness. He is no stranger to the Scriptures and he will quote the Word when such a procedure will serve his purpose. When he deals with a Christian he must meet such a one upon the high plane on which he lives.
Now here is the startling fact which we glean from this interview with the Master, Satan twists the Word. He loves half-truths. The Word he quoted to Jesus, “He will command his angels concerning you” was taken from Psalm 91, and it was faithfully quoted as far as it went. But it was a half-truth. You cannot expect God to send his angels to bear you up if you wilfully and for selfish ends pursue a dangerous course. The entire revelation of the Bible is against such an idea. But it was just such an idea which Satan’s quoting of Scripture would have led Jesus to entertain. The enemy uses truth to serve the purpose of a lie. He is false even when he quotes the Bible.
Truth, we must remember, in God’s Word, always stands in intimate relation to other truths. Cut off from other truths, which state the conditions under which it operates, it becomes virtually a lie. Satan knows this, and what havoc he has caused in the Church of the living God by making himself an interpreter of Holy Scripture.
There isn’t a vice you cannot justify, there isn’t a doctrine however corrupt you cannot prove, there isn’t a social injustice you cannot support, there isn’t a wicked practice you cannot glorify, by appealing to the Scriptures. All have an, “it is written” to fall back on. The biggest lie can be made to appear true. All Satan needs to do is to twist the Word. Oh, the havoc that the devil has wrought by juggling texts. A text is snatched out of its proper setting, is divorced from the body of revelation, and is made the basis of a whole system of theology. Satan needs nothing more to lead souls astray. “Ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction” (2 Pet. 3 v16).
Passivity on our part is the basis of all Satan’s activities. It opens every door to evil spirits. It is the basic principle, not of Christianity, but of spiritism. There are texts which seem to favour passivity, such as Romans 12 v1, “offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God”, and Philippians 2 v13, “For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose”, but we know from a rounded interpretation of the Scriptures as a whole, that it simply means that we are to co-operate with God, in the fullest control and the voluntary use of all our mental powers.
If Satan cannot hold you back, he will push you too fast. There is nothing more Biblical than the doctrine of Sanctification, nothing more dynamic or more blessed than the experience, but now Satan enters upon the scene to tell you that Sanctification really means eradication, but the whole body of New Testament doctrine is against such a view. There may be uprisings of the sinful nature in the sanctified Christian, but according to Romans 6 v11, he reckons himself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ, and consequently, in the power of the Holy Spirit, overcomes. This is what Sanctification means. “He who overcomes” is what Jesus said to the Seven Churches of Asia. Now the Devil comes along and says, ‘No, it means that you will never sin again’. But complete victory over the flesh and the world and the devil comes as a result of union with Christ. The Holy Spirit applies the power of His death and of His resurrection to our inner life and we are liberated.
This victorious life has its laws, and should we fail to fulfil these conditions, the old self-life would quickly appear again. The truth of the matter is that Christians who have long been walking in holiness do at times get out of focus with Christ, allowing self to creep in. Sanctified folk have been known to get impatient, to become irritated, and to show a lack of love and at times are un-Christlike. But if they accept a false interpretation of holiness, they dare not call sin, sin. Satan has told them that there is no longer any such thing in them. He has told them that it has been taken out by the roots, never to grow again. He proves it by juggling texts. In connection with this read 1 John 1 v8, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us”. Note that the aged apostle included himself. And so with the false interpretation, pride creeps in. With pride comes a hard, critical attitude towards others and finally such an attitude will breed fanaticism, and Satan scores a victory.
From: ‘That old Serpent the Devil’.