MH page 142

When Christ sent forth the disciples with the gospel message, faith in God and His word had well-nigh departed from the world. Among the Jewish people, who professed to have a knowledge of Jehovah, His word had been set aside for tradition and human speculation. Selfish ambition, love of ostentation, greed of gain, absorbed men's thoughts. As reverence for God departed, so also departed compassion toward men. Selfishness was the ruling principle, and Satan worked his will in the misery and degradation of mankind.

At the time of Christ's earthly ministry, spiritual decline, tradition, and selfishness had replaced reverence for God and compassion for humanity. This paragraph provides historical and spiritual context regarding the moral and religious state of the world when Christ sent out the disciples.

Satanic agencies took possession of men. The bodies of human beings, made for the dwelling place of God, became the habitation of demons. The senses, the nerves, the organs of men were worked by supernatural agencies in the indulgence of the vilest lust. The very stamp of demons was impressed upon the countenances of men. Human faces reflected the expression of the legions of evil with which men were possessed.

Human beings can become dominated and corrupted by demonic agencies leading to severe moral degradation. This paragraph describes spiritual warfare and possession in theological terms without presenting empirical medical claims.

What is the condition in the world today? Is not faith in the Bible as effectually destroyed by the higher criticism and speculation of today as it was by tradition and rabbinism in the days of Christ? Have not greed and ambition and love of pleasure as strong a hold on men's hearts now as they had then? In the professedly Christian world, even in the professed churches of Christ, how few are governed by Christian principles. In business, social, domestic, even religious circles, how few make the teachings of Christ the rule of daily living. Is it not true that “justice standeth afar off: ... equity cannot enter.... And he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey”? Isaiah 59:14, 15 .

Contemporary society suffers from a lack of genuine adherence to biblical teachings, marked by greed, ambition, and injustice. This paragraph offers a moral and cultural critique of society based on religious values.

We are living in the midst of an “epidemic of crime,” at which thoughtful, God-fearing men everywhere stand aghast. The corruption that prevails, it is beyond the power of the human pen to describe. Every day brings fresh revelations of political strife, bribery, and fraud. Every day brings its heart-sickening record of violence and lawlessness, of indifference to human suffering, of brutal, fiendish destruction of human life. Every day testifies to the increase of insanity, murder, and suicide. Who can doubt that satanic agencies are at work among men with increasing activity to distract and corrupt the mind, and defile and destroy the body?

Society faces a severe increase in crime, corruption, and psychological distress driven by spiritual corruption. The text asserts a statistical or observable increase in social ills and mental health crises, which can be evaluated empirically regarding societal trends.