in their ways: and the way of peace have they
not known: there is no fear of God before their eyes." So, fallen
humanity, federated under Satan, will appear and act when the
restraining hand of God is removed. Though the unsaved are moral,
educated, refined, or religious, they are not _righteous_ in God's
sight; for the charge here brought against them is that "there is none
righteous, no, not one;" and "_all_ have sinned and come short of the
glory of God." The following Scriptures which directly refer to the
character of the Satanic system are, therefore, the estimate of God upon
those conditions which the world holds to be ideal: "Whereby are given
unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be
partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in
the world (Satanic system)" (II Pet. I:4). "For if after they have
escaped the pollution of the world (_Satanic system_) through the
knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled
therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the
beginning" (II Pet. 2:20). "Pure religion and undefiled before God and
the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their
affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world (_Satanic
system_)" (Jas. 1:27). "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that
the friendship of the world (Satanic system) is enmity with God?
Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world (_Satanic system_) is
the enemy of God" (Jas. 4:4). "For whosoever is born of God overcometh
the world (_Satanic system_)" (I Jno. 5:4). "Hereafter I will not talk
much with you: for the prince of this world (_Satanic system_) cometh,
and hath nothing in me" (Jno. 14:30). "And every spirit that confesseth
not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is
that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come;
and even now already is it in the world (_Satanic system_)" (I Jno.
4:3). In like manner the believer is said to have been "delivered from
the present evil age" (Gal. 114) and "delivered from the power of
darkness" (Col. 1:13) and is not to be conformed to this age (Rom.
12:2).

These judgments are made from the view-point of the purity and holiness
of God. In His sight the highest moral, educational, and religious
ideals that the unregenerate world can comprehend are but a part of the
confusion and darkness of this age when coupled with a re