Page 46 - The Divine Unfolding of God's Plan of Redemption

the ages he has resorted to violent means to silence this testimony by compassing the
death of the bearers. If circumstances were unfavorable to kill the people of the
testimony, then he set about vitiating their testimony by deceitful means, and

involving them, at least in some measure, with his order of things so as to destroy the
distinction between the two seeds.
Murder and mixture are the two methods employed by the serpent to remove or
dilute the witness of the seed of Christ in the earth. The latter method has always

proved far the most effective. Violence and murder against God‟s people have tended
to stimulate rather than weaken God‟s testimony in the world. Tertullian, one of the
church fathers, rightly declared that “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the
church,” but for the possessors of the divine life to be lured into compromise or

entangling alliances with the seed of the serpent, or for them to adopt, even in part, the
thoughts, ambitions, practices, and pleasures of the children of disobedience, is to sap
their own vitality and quench the power of the Holy Spirit in them and to grieve the
Captain of their salvation. It must be ever borne in mind that God‟s purpose is to

clarify and sharpen the line of demarcation between His people and the mass of those
who belong to the present cosmic order, and Satan‟s purpose is to obscure or obliterate
that line so that one will shade into the other. In his attacks through his puppets on the
people of the testimony he uses allurements, chicanery, flattery, and deceit much more

than bloody violence.

There is one other important principle that we must remember when we are
considering the history of the preservation of the divine witness in this Satan-ridden

world. The adversary was fully aware that God had prophesied that the coming One
would defeat and destroy him, and he also knew from what human line it was
designed that He should come. His efforts throughout the ages were concentrated on
the line of the special seed and his consuming desire was to cut that line, thinking thus

to prevent the incarnation of the eternal Son.

With these dominant principles in mind we can examine the record of Old
Testament history with more intelligence and discernment. The French people have a

saying that if one wants to discover the cause lying back of any tangle in human
affairs, “Cherchez la femme”—look for the woman! We say that if we want to
understand the reasons underlying nearly every event in human history it is a good

plan to “Cherchez le diable”—look for the devil!

The first skirmish in the war between the seeds is found only one generation from
our first parents, in the persons of their two sons, Cain and Abel. Abel of the seed of
Christ bore the testimony of the shed blood as the only ground for the remission of

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