It is very possible and natural to introduce much of religious form into the world system of self-help; for there is a great field for religious exercise for the one who is attempting to make himself Godlike, and there is endless material for supplication and prayer that all available assistance may be secured to aid one in that humanly impossible task.  A devout spirit is, therefore, a natural part of the Satanic doctrine, and the predicted “forms of godliness” will naturally appear.

There is a vast difference between an individual supplicating God to save him:  and one supplicating God to help him save himself.  The latter is a natural part of the Satanic plan and has no promise of Divine favor upon it.  All such religious exercise, though full of outward forms and deep sincerity, leaves its moral aspirants doomed, alike with the most degraded, to as everlasting separation and banishment from the presence of God:  “which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and severity to the body; but are not of any value against the indulgence of the flesh” (Col. 2:23 R.V.).  Such prayer and religious practice do not really place the saving work in the hands of God, but mockingly ask Him to give His sanction and assistance to that which wholly dishonors and really disregards Him, and which is also both unreasonable and impossible.

Though the process by which unfallen man would have reached a higher development has not been revealed, it is certain that he would have been then, as now, wholly dependent upon the Creator.  Man’s present independence toward God is the blindest delusion of the fallen nature; for complete independence cannot even be assumed in the least of all temporal things:  how much less is it possible in that which is spiritual!

Again, the self-saving principle is utter folly, since God must demand a quality which no human can present.  God’s requirement is not unreasonable, however, for He also proposes to bestow, in grace, all He ever demands.  The absolute holiness of God demands no less than holiness in all who are acceptable to Him; yet He has never mocked man by asking him to make himself acceptable, or even to attempt to do it by Divine help.  True salvation is wholly a work of God.  It is said to be both a finished work and a gift, and, therefore, it lays no obligation upon the saved one to complete it himself, or to make after payments of service for it; though the saved one is called upon to serve from another and more glorious motive.

The Divine terms of obtainment into Godlikeness are clearly stated in the Scriptures; but the hopeless estimate God has placed upon human nature at its best, and the logical necessity that man shall receive, as a gift, all that he has, and be forever a debtor to the Divine giver,—­these things have always been rejected by self-sufficient and Satan-inspired humanity.  These terms are the only possible or reasonable relations that could rightfully exist between fallen humanity and its Creator.  Here Satan has blinded the minds of the lost lest they should believe, and he has made that which is reasonable and natural seem to be unreasonable and unnatural.  They are unable to abandon their Satan-inspired sense of self-sufficiency and independence of God and receive from Him, as a gift, every possession commendable in His sight.