The revelation of this conflict is unfolded in a Book. The incarnate Word has gone home to His Father, but the written Word is still on earth. In it, the defeat of the devil and the victory of the Christ is recorded in large type. The way of salvation through the atoning death and the triumphant resurrection of the Lord of glory is written in red letters from Genesis to Revelation. This is the Gospel. This Gospel, the devil, hates with all the hatred the father of hate is capable of. So, against it, he will now direct his attack. Henceforth, the conflict will center around the Gospel of Christ.

The Gospel is in the Bible, and the Bible is in the world. It has been printed in hundreds of languages and has gone to the earth’s far corners. More copies of it are sold annually than any other book. Men everywhere are reading the Bible and believing the Gospel. Being saved through it, they are taken from Satan’s dominion and removed from his kingdom.

What can he do to stop its progress and its power? Destroy it? He has tried that and failed. The Bible is not printed on paper only, but it has been inscribed on human hearts by the Spirit of God so that if every copy of the printed Bible in the world today were destroyed, a new copy could be made from its truth stored in human hearts.

Perhaps Satan could ridicule the Bible and hinder its progress and power through scoffing. He has tried that also and failed. He has used some of the world’s most brilliant men as his preachers of infidelity and atheism. Today they are in their graves, and their words are forgotten while the Bible lives on more powerful than ever.

But is there not a more effective way of denying the Gospel and keeping sinners from the benefit and blessing of the salvation it offers? There is, and Satan is using it these days in ever-increasing measure. God tells us that the devil’s most subtle maneuver in the conflict is to turn preacher, and with the Bible as his textbook, concoct a gospel of his own. When Satan found that attacking the written Word from without failed then, he began attacking it from within. As Christ uses men to preach His Gospel, Satan would find men who would consent to become “his ministers.”

2 Corinthians 11:13-15

¹³ “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, fashioning themselves into apostles of Christ. ¹⁴ And no marvel; for even Satan fashioneth himself into an angel of light. ¹⁵ It is no great thing therefore if his ministers also fashion themselves as ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.”

What would Satan’s gospel be, and where would it begin? God’s Gospel is a Gospel of grace and begins with Genesis, chapters 1-3. But how could Satan accept these three chapters as they stand fresh from the heart and hand of God, containing as they do the revelation of God’s perfect work in the creation of the universe and man; the invasion of an enemy, he being that enemy; the injection of sin into God’s perfect work; the awful consequence in the fall of Adam and Eve; the terrible curse of God upon himself, upon man and the earth; the precious promise of a Savior and the glorious prophecy of his own defeat through the death upon the Cross? Of course, he could not accept these chapters, for in them is the germ of the whole Gospel of man’s salvation.

He would defeat his own purpose if he did so bold and blatant a thing as deliberately cutting these chapters out of the Bible. But the arch-deceiver is quite equal to the emergency. He will preach a gospel that reserves the right of interpretation of the Word of God according to the dictates of reason. He will insist upon a faith that is rational.

It is always difficult for reason to accept anything beyond its own range. God thinks and works on the plane of uncreated, divine, unlimited, supernatural life. Man thinks and works on the plane of created, human, limited, natural life. The rationalist refuses to recognize any such dividing line between himself and his Creator. Consequently, he refuses to accept anything that goes beyond his reason, even from God. So, whatever the rationalist believes, his religion must be on his own plane of life — the natural.

So, a system of religion is framed to suit him. A gospel is manufactured “which is another gospel” (Galatians. 1:6), a clever, malicious counterfeit. Satan knows that he must inspire man to make a religion that does away with God’s revelation of the creation and the fall of man.  Otherwise, how can he dispose of the promise of a Savior and the prophecy of his own ultimate defeat through Christ’s glorious victory on Calvary and His triumphant return as King?

Consequently, the basic tenet of the rationalist’s system of religion is evolution. Man did not come directly from God’s hands — a perfect work which God Himself pronounced “very good.” God’s first man was not created in the image of One infinitely higher than himself but evolved from something infinitely lower than himself. This something had evolved through various stages by natural processes until man was produced. So that God’s part in the production of man was not so much that of a Creator as of a semi-divine supervisor or foreman ” of resident natural forces.” In other words, the supernatural in man’s creation was eliminated through evolution. So much for man’s creation in this man-made, Satan-inspired gospel.

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

Loving God, thank You that we did come directly from Your hands!