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Prophets and Kings
her seed” (
Genesis 3:15
), Satan has known that he can never hold
absolute sway over the inhabitants of this world. When Adam and
his sons began to offer the ceremonial sacrifices ordained by God as
a type of the coming Redeemer, Satan discerned in these a symbol
of communion between earth and heaven. During the long centuries
that have followed, it has been his constant effort to intercept this
communion. Untiringly has he sought to misrepresent God and to
misinterpret the rites pointing to the Saviour, and with a great majority
of the members of the human family he has been successful.
While God has desired to teach men that from His own love comes
the Gift which reconciles them to Himself, the archenemy of mankind
has endeavored to represent God as one who delights in their destruc-
tion. Thus the sacrifices and the ordinances designed of Heaven to
reveal divine love have been perverted to serve as means whereby
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sinners have vainly hoped to propitiate, with gifts and good works,
the wrath of an offended God. At the same time, Satan has sought to
arouse and strengthen the evil passions of men in order that through
repeated transgression multitudes might be led on and on, far from
God, and hopelessly bound with the fetters of sin.
When God’s written word was given through the Hebrew prophets,
Satan studied with diligence the messages concerning the Messiah.
Carefully he traced the words that outlined with unmistakable clearness
Christ’s work among men as a suffering sacrifice and as a conquering
king. In the parchment rolls of the Old Testament Scriptures he read
that the One who was to appear was to be “brought as a lamb to the
slaughter,” “His visage ... so marred more than any man, and His
form more than the sons of men.”
Isaiah 53:7
;
52:14
. The promised
Saviour of humanity was to be “despised and rejected of men; a man of
sorrows, and acquainted with grief; ... smitten of God, and afflicted;”
yet He was also to exercise His mighty power in order to “judge the
poor of the people.” He was to “save the children of the needy,” and
“break in pieces the oppressor.”
Isaiah 53:3, 4
;
Psalm 72:4
. These
prophecies caused Satan to fear and tremble; yet he relinquished not
his purpose to thwart, if possible, the merciful provisions of Jehovah
for the redemption of the lost race. He determined to blind the eyes of
the people, so far as might be possible, to the real significance of the
Messianic prophecies, in order to prepare the way for the rejection of
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Christ at His coming.