Dependence on the System - Glenn Conjurske

Dependence on the System

Abstract of a Sermon Preached on October 22, 2000 by Glenn Conjurske

Introduction: The Mystery of Iniquity
The mystery of iniquity has been at work for many centuries, slowly and surely, but modern travel and discovery, modern invention and technology, have given to it a momentum which it never possessed in all the preceding millennia. We need only take an occasional glance about us to see that the devil has brought his program, in our day, very near its ultimate success. That success will consist of one world religion and one world government, under the direct and acknowledged control of the devil himself.

The Ultimate Goal of the Devil’s Plan
We read in Revelation 13:1-4, “And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. … And all the world wondered after the beast, and they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?” And in the seventh verse, “And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.” This is the end toward which the devil works, and the means by which he will bring it to its ultimate success is found in verses 16-17. “And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads, and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”

The Devil’s Strategy for Success
Now it is perfectly plain to us, who live in the present age, how easily such a tactic will gain its end. Men cannot live without buying and selling. But then it is equally plain that never before in the history of the world has this been true. Men could live without buying and selling a century ago, two centuries ago, a millennium ago, and in every other era since the beginning of the world. The present state of things, in which men must buy and sell to live, has been brought about gradually over the centuries, by the working of “the mystery of iniquity,” under the direction of Satan. The devil’s end is that all the world should openly worship him. The means by which he sets the stage for this is “the mystery of iniquity,” working gradually behind the scenes, always with the same end in view, and always, of course, professing to be something other than what it is. More on that anon.

The Dependency on the System
Understand, for the devil to be able to successfully gain the avowed allegiance of the whole world, by forbidding them to buy or sell except on that condition, he must first bring about a state of society in which it is necessary for men to buy and sell—a state of society in which they cannot live without buying and selling. The success of his final stroke is absolutely dependent on this, and to bring this about he has been at work, behind the scenes, for many centuries. We have remarked often before that the devil had almost attained his ends at the tower of Babel, when all the world was of one speech, and all united together in a common “humanitarian” and anti-God enterprise. But God stepped in and confounded their tongues, and scattered them to the ends of the earth, and the devil’s program was set back five thousand years. It was not possible for the thirteenth chapter of Revelation to be fulfilled when the Europeans did not know that the Australians or the inhabitants of the Americas existed. The devil must bring the world together, by means of discovery and invention and travel and communication. All this proceeded slowly for centuries, but gained increasing momentum with each new advance in technology, till in the twentieth century, by means of rapid travel and electronic communications, the devil had reduced the world back down to size, and made it manageable for his purposes.

The Progress of Technology and Its Effect
But something more than this was wanted. He must also see the whole world dependent upon commerce in order to live. If the antichrist had come upon the scene a century and a half ago, and demanded that men worship him or forfeit their right to buy and sell, the world could have snubbed him. Men did not need to buy or sell. The mystery of iniquity was making slow but sure progress even in that day. The steamships plied the seas, the iron horses thundered over the rails, the telegraph wires were humming, and international commerce and global consciousness were fast increasing. The world was shrinking in size, and at the same time becoming more and more of a controlling power in the lives of the people.

Yet they could live without it. Read the autobiography of Peter Cartwright. He says, “We killed our meat out of the woods, wild; and beat our meal and hominy with a pestle and mortar. We stretched a deer-skin over a hoop, burned holes in it with the prongs of a fork, sifted our meal, baked our bread, eat it, and it was first-rate eating too. We raised, or gathered out of the woods, our own tea. We had sage, bohea, cross-vine, spice, and sassafras teas, in abundance. As for coffee, I am not sure that I ever smelled it for ten years. We made our sugar out of the water of the maple-tree, and our molasses too. These were great luxuries in those days.

The Shift to Dependence
“We raised our own cotton and flax. We water-rotted our flax, broke it by hand, scutched it; picked the seed out of the cotton with our fingers; our mothers and sisters carded, spun, and wove it into cloth, and they cut and made our garments and bed-clothes, etc. …
“Let it be remembered, these were days when we had no stores of dry goods or groceries.”

They needed no stores. They were self-sufficient. And this vast land was filled with families as independent as Peter Cartwright’s. They could have scorned the devil’s advances. They had no need to buy or sell.

The Dependence of Modern Man
The same has been true with many in more recent times also. When I was preaching in Colorado in 1968, I had a salary of zero dollars per year, faithfully paid by the church, yet I could not live on zero dollars a year, for I had need to buy, if not to sell. I went out to a ranch, therefore, and spent a couple of days throwing bales of hay, in order to make a twenty-dollar bill. I learned that the original owners of that ranch, who had “homesteaded” there, went to Grand Junction, a trip of about seventy-five miles, once a year, and in that yearly trip they did all their buying and selling for the year. They doubtless could have lived well enough without buying or selling at all. Whatever was strictly necessary they could raise themselves, or make themselves. This was less than a century ago.

But the twentieth century has changed all that. Those days are gone forever. The civilized world can no longer live without buying and selling. The devil has secured this, by making all of us, saints and sinners alike, dependent upon the system. This he has brought about by technology and invention, and all the world has viewed it with great favor, for the devil is wise enough to lead the doomed ox to the slaughter by means of a little corn or hay. The sweat of our brows is unpopular. We must have tractors and machines and power tools and appliances, and for these the whole world has surrendered its independence, and surrendered it in fact to the powers of darkness. Every step in the clandestine working of the mystery of iniquity is called by the name of progress, and the world delights in all of it. It gives us ease, and luxury, and leisure—it gives us freedom, and pleasure, and wings—while it makes us ever more and more dependent upon the system, and brings us nearer and nearer to the final triumph of the devil’s program.

Electricity and Oil: Keys to Dependency
And mark it well, the system upon which we are dependent is the devil’s system. It is the world. The world is a system, a vast and all-embracing organization. The Greek word for “world” means “system,” or “organization,” and it is of course the devil’s system. He is the god of it. He is the ruler of it. His is the mind that conceived it, his are the purposes for its existence, and his is the working which has developed it. All its “progress” is progress away from God. It is the progress of the prodigal, in his route to the far country. It is the progress of the mystery of iniquity. And it is perfectly plain to me that any man who has a grain or two of discernment must abhor what the world calls “progress.” If you love “progress,” you love the world.

The Pervasive Influence of Modern Dependency
Those who know anything of the present state of society, and of the purpose and program of the devil, as it is delineated in the Bible, must plainly see that his purpose now goes forward at break-neck speed, and that precious little is wanting for its ultimate triumph. It is modern technology which has given the present momentum to the devil’s program, in numerous and various ways, but in nothing more conspicuously than in reducing the whole civilized world to dependence upon the system.

Conclusion: The Devil’s Final Triumph
But I must descend to particulars. The most pervasive element in the dependence of modern man upon the system is the use of electricity. Electricity plays a part in almost everything which is done today. I am entirely dependent upon electricity to produce this magazine. Most of the buying and selling in the world is done by electronic means. Scales and cash registers are all run by electricity. The large department stores can’t even open and close the doors without electricity, or light their windowless buildings. All our lighting is electric. Our refrigerators and freezers are all electric. Most people cannot heat their homes or cook their food without electricity. They may heat with gas or oil, but the stove will not run without electricity. Most of the world wouldn’t know how to make a slice of toast without electricity. Those who do know how do not choose to do so. It is not so easy or convenient as an electric toaster.

The water supply of everybody, in city and country, is dependent upon electric pumps. If our electricity were suddenly and permanently cut off, we would all be without water. Those who have their own wells could remove their electric pumps and put a hand pump in the yard, but they will not do so while the electricity flows, and could not do so if it ceased, for there are not enough hand pumps in existence to supply one percent of the population. We are all dependent upon electricity for the necessities of life. And all this electricity must be bought. We do not produce our own. You can go to your local library and find books on wind generators, or water power, but for the most part nobody uses it. It is too much work, too much trouble. We are all accustomed to ease, we all love ease, and for that ease we have sacrificed our independence. Though it is theoretically possible to maintain a large degree of independence while we depend upon electrical power, hardly one in a million of us will do so. It is a plain matter of fact that the dependence of modern man upon electricity makes him almost entirely dependent on the system.