The circle handout accompanying this talk is not directly related to the topic being presented here. However it is indirectly related to it. It truely has some meat in it, and needs to be studied closely and carefully. The Circle is based on the text written in the arrow.

Proverbs 23:26
"My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes observe my ways. "

It is built on the basis that God begins on the inside and works outward, and Satan always works from the outside in. Exactly oposite. On this basis, the top arrow is depicting God's methods of working. He by-passes the circles and goes directly to the heart. Each of the circles represents a resistance barrier that Satan sets up. When an individual hears the call of God, contrary to what we normally think, the devil whispers in the ear of the person who is serious about giving his heart to the Lord, "Yes, that's exactly what you ought to do. You ought to give your heart to the Lord," Then he says, "let me show you how."

Ellen White says that in every evangelistic campaign, while God is bringing true converts into the church, Satan is bringing unconverted souls into the church. We will show you in the next five meetings, Satan has been very successful.

When an individual decides that he wants to give his heart to the Lord, the devil says, "Now the way to do this is to get busy for God."

The outside circle is an "activity" ring. Under the title "God's Method of Imparting the Divine Nature to Man is Righteousness by Faith." God has only one way of imparting His Divine Nature to man - that is through faith. However, the devil has a substitute. If he can keep a person who is interested in or who has given their heart to the Lord, and he can keep them busy in activities, he's happy.

There are many Christian people who are busy doing things for God - and they are so busy that they have not yet learned how to live for God. It is much easier to do for God than to be for God. There is a vast difference. To actually do for God keeps self very much alive. To be for God, crucifies self. The devil doesn't want us to know this, and he doesn't want us to enter into this kind of experience, so he keeps you busy doing things that we consider to be good things.

In each circle there are two verses and one activity, for example, consecration, work, Bible Study, kindness... all of these things. Satan promotes these things just as much as God does. As he worked with Christ, Satan was always quoting Scripture. He has done this down through the ages working with human beings.

At the bottom of the page, Satan's plan is not underlined; God's plan to the right of the activity is underlined. There comes a time in every person's life when activity does not suffice, and so they say there must be something more to religion than this. Satan then takes them in to the next circle, and that is the circle of emotions. Emotionalism. It may surprise you, but probably ninety to ninety-five percent of Christians live their lives in the emotions. The charasmatic movement is a demonstration of the effectiveness of this program, for it has swept through every denomination, including the Seventh-day Adventist church. We have many charasmatics within the Seventh-day Adventist church, whether we care to believe it or not.

I live in an area of the country where in the past five years, the charasmatic movement has grown from about 300 members to about 3000 members, and last Sabbath, a week ago, this church had grown to the point where they held four services on Sunday. They were having so many Seventh-day Adventists attend their services that last week, they held their first Sabbath meetings to accommodate Seventh-day Adventists. Don't fool yourselves. This is making an impact in the Seventh-day Adventist church.

Emotional Religion is based on satisfying self, pleasing self, and feeling good. This is Satan's plan. But if there comes a time in someone's life where they are unsatisfied and say, there must be something more to religion, the devil still has one circle to hold them in. That circle is Senses, or feeling. It is one of the five senses (Taste, Sight, Hearing, Touch, Smell .) It is here that Satan takes the individual and it is there that they become fanatics. Every fanaticism is built on one of the five senses, out of proportion. Anytime that an individual becomes a fanatic in any one of these five areas, it is extremely difficult to touch them.

In the top arrow, God goes directly to the heart and works out from the heart and actually begins with the five senses, and spreads out to the emotions and activity. This is actually the reverse of Satan's. The bottom arrow, Satan's plan, never actually reaches the heart. For Satan works through the senses. That's why Ellen White says, that we need to guard well the avenues to the soul. She then defines the avenues to the soul as the five senses. This is the devil's playground.

Those who would not fall a prey to Satan's devices, must guard well the avenues of the soul; they must avoid reading, seeing, or hearing that which will suggest impure thoughts. The mind must not be left to dwell at random upon every subject that the enemy of souls may suggest. The heart must be faithfully sentineled, or evils without will awaken evils within, and the soul will wander in darkness. Acts of the Apostles, p. 519

Satan makes us feel religious, happy, any way he chooses, and this becomes the substitute for the real thing. Please take this chart, and study it, and you will see some of the ways of Satan's working.