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Satan’s Hatred of God’s Law
211
commandment. In many heathen nations parents were abandoned or
put to death as soon as they were too old to provide for themselves.
The mother was treated with little respect, and when her husband
died, she was required to submit to the authority of her eldest son.
Moses commanded that sons and daughters obey their parents, but
as the Israelites strayed from the Lord, the fifth commandment, with
others, came to be ignored.
Satan was “a murderer from the beginning” (
John 8:44
), and as
soon as he got power over the human race, he not only prompted
them to hate and kill one another, but made killing, a violation of
the sixth commandment, a part of their religion.
Heathen nations were led to believe that human sacrifices were
necessary in order to earn the favor of their gods, and the most
horrible cruelties have been committed under various forms of idol-
atry. Among these was the practice of causing their children to
pass through the fire before their idols. When one came through
unharmed, the people believed their offerings were accepted. They
regarded the child who survived as specially favored by the gods.
They heaped benefits on that child and held it in high esteem from
then on. However terrible the favored one’s crimes, no punishment
ever followed. But if a child were burned in passing through the fire,
his fate was sealed; the anger of the gods could only be satisfied by
taking the life of the victim. In times of great apostasy these horrible
practices existed to some extent among the Israelites.
The violation of the seventh commandment was also practiced
early in history in the name of religion. Terrible sexual rites became
a part of the heathen worship. The gods themselves were impure, and
their worshipers unleashed their baser passions. Religious festivals
were characterized by universal, open impurity.
Polygamy was one of the sins that brought the wrath of God upon
the pre-Flood world, yet after the Flood it again became widespread.
It was Satan’s studied effort to pervert marriage, to weaken its obli-
gations and lessen its sacredness. This was the most certain way he
could deface the image of God in humanity and open the door to
misery and evil.