Someone has said, “Man is incurably religious.” Another beautifully wrote, “God created man a deep and everlasting void. The soul in its highest sense is a vast capacity for God but emptiness without God.” It is most assuredly true that man was made for God, and his heart can never be fully satisfied until it is satisfied in Him. It is equally true that God created man not only in His likeness but also with the capacity for fellowship with Him, yes, even for sonship. Therefore, God’s heart can never be fully satisfied except as this relationship with man is realized and enjoyed.

Romans 8:7

“Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.”

The natural man can neither satisfy nor please God. Therefore, God could never enjoy his presence even were it possible for him to stay in the presence of a holy God. God must do something to make man acceptable to Him.

From the day sin entered into the human race, God has been working to win men and women, one by one, back to Himself. He has sent His messengers, prophets, and apostles to open the eyes of sinners and “to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God.” At the same time, the devil has been equally busy blinding the minds of men “lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Corinthians 4:4).

Satan’s path is not altogether smooth. Two forces are working against him. One is the religious instinct in man. He cries out for something he knows he needs. He senses his insufficiency in seasons of trial, suffering, and sorrow; often, his heart reaches out for the help and comfort of one stronger than himself. He cannot let loved ones pass out of sight and touch without an insistent longing to know where they have gone and if all is well. That unsatisfied something in man’s soul that cries out to an unknown God is very much against Satan.

The second hindrance to the devil is the Holy Spirit. It is His business to convict of sin, reveal God’s love in Christ, and draw the sinner’s heart out in faith and love to God.

Just here, the devil reveals himself at his worst. He will lay siege to that unquenchable thing in man’s nature that craves an object of worship and hold it for himself. He will delude men into thinking they can be saved by systems of religion which he inspires them to make.

Contrary to the salvation of which Jesus Christ is the source, Satan’s system is not the same for all men, regardless of family, race, education, privilege, or environment. These man-made, Satan-inspired religions have various names and manifold methods, each suited to the type and temperament of the man who believes them. There is one kind for the ignorant and illiterate; another for the educated and erudite; one for the simple and superstitious; another for the wise and cultured; one for the poor; another for the prosperous.

There is a system of religion for the idolater. Satan is an arch-deceiver, and his practice of deception is seen in its most cruel and malicious form in idol worship. Even in this twentieth century, Satan still holds in his power millions upon millions of men who are worshippers of gods of their own making. They have been led to believe a lie and so have been plunged into dense darkness.

There is a system of religion for the ritualist. In carrying out His eternal purpose in Christ, God called forth a people from among the nations through whom the seed of the woman would come. The Jews were set apart as the people of God by the rite of circumcision. To this, God added the covenants and the law so that the worship and service of the Jew were based on God-appointed, God-honoring ritualism. God made the Jew familiar with the idea of redemption through the various ordinances and sacrifices of Jewish ritualism. Then God raised up prophets who foretold the coming of a Messiah who would be their Redeemer. In the fulness of time, the Savior was born. The need of sacrifices was past for the one Sacrifice had offered Himself.

But the expounders of the law, the most ardent religionists of Jesus’ day, instead of receiving Him, rejected Him. And why? Because they permitted religious ordinances to take a more prominent place in their lives than God’s redemptive order. They exalted ritualism above righteousness and substituted prayer for penitence, tithing for trust, and fasting for faith.

There are other great religious systems in the world today in which the real Christ of the Bible, the Redeemer of the Gospels, is veiled through ordinances and ceremonies in which there is no saving power, yet through which countless thousands are deceived into thinking they are made acceptable to God.

There is a system of religion for the rationalist. The pronouncement of the curse upon Satan and the promise of salvation through Christ following the fall precipitated a conflict, as we have seen. The conflict has never ceased; it is being waged more fiercely today than ever.

To prevent the execution of the curse and the fulfillment of the promise, Satan tried to destroy the seed of the woman in every conceivable way. At the Cross of Calvary, he thought himself triumphant. But the very place of his supposed victory was the place of his judgment and the forerunner of his final doom. Christ arose, and the Victim became the Victor. Christ Jesus returned to the glory from whence He came. He went beyond the devil’s reach. There is no way in which Satan again can touch or tempt the person of the adorable Lord. How, then, would he continue the conflict? Now that he could not focus the venom of his hate upon the incarnate Word, what would he focus it on?

Source: “Life on the Highest Plane” by Ruth Paxson

Gracious Lord, please shine Your light in the darkness of someone’s soul today!