During the dark days of the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln faced a case that revealed both his lawyer’s precision and his deep sense of mercy.
A young Union soldier had deserted his post, an act punishable by death under military law. In wartime, desertion was no small matter. But Lincoln looked beyond the bare facts and considered the backstory.
The boy had been influenced, persuaded by voices in the North who opposed the war. These men worked the crowd in public meetings, stirred emotions, planted doubts, and convinced family members to write home telling soldiers they were fighting for a bad cause under a wicked administration.
Lincoln wrote: “Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert? This is nonetheless injurious when effected by getting a father or brother or friend into a public meeting. … I think that in such a case, to silence the agitator, and save the boy, is not only constitutional, but withal, a great mercy.”
Lincoln struck at the source of the problem. Why punish only the one swept away with deceit and ignore the one who sowed the divisive deception in the first place?
This decision wasn’t a mere political matter. It reflected a balance of judgment and mercy, two of the “weightier matters of the law” Jesus Christ spoke of (Matthew 23:23).
Lincoln’s question, in principle, is a major theme of the Day of Atonement, one of God’s annual fall festivals. On this day, God will not merely punish the deceived but deal with the deceiver. He will silence the greatest agitator of all.
From Civil War to Cosmic War
The Bible names this agitator plainly: “the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan” (Revelation 20:2). He is prince of the power of the air, a roaring lion, the father of lies, the accuser of the brethren, Abaddon and Apollyon—Destruction and Destroyer (Ephesians 2:2; 1 Peter 5:8; John 8:44; Revelation 12:10; 9:11). Every title is a clue to how focused he is on damaging at-one-ment between God and man.
It wasn’t always this way. Job 38 takes us back to a time before rebellion, before division—a time when the angels sang together, when “all the [created] sons of God shouted for joy” to witness God create the Earth (Job 38:4-7). Here God recalls a sweet and inspiring memory—a time when everything physical and spiritual was in complete unity and at-one-ment. That memory is also painful and bitter considering the eventual divisive reality.
By the time God spoke to Job, Lucifer and one third of those angels had already turned against their Maker. And God had already created a holy day within His master plan of salvation picturing the moment when the fallen Lucifer and his angels would be put in chains and cast into a bottomless pit (Revelation 20:1-3).
Atonement Ceremony
In ancient Israel, the Day of Atonement was marked by a unique ceremony, described in Leviticus 16. Two goats were selected, lots were drawn—one “for the Lord,” the other “for Azazel” (verse 8; Revised Standard Version). The Hebrew word Azazel means “to remove, to separate,” and ancient sources identify it as the name of an evil spirit (Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon).
One goat was sacrificed, picturing the atoning death of the Word who became Jesus Christ. The other, representing Satan, had the sins of the people confessed over it and was sent away into the wilderness.
This was not a “scapegoat” in the modern sense of an innocent party taking the blame. This goat represented the instigator of human sin—the one who bears ultimate responsibility for deceiving mankind. He is the agitator of all agitators! Similar to how Lincoln put the weight of guilt on the wily agitator rather than merely on the simple soldier, God will place the responsibility for mankind’s sins on Satan himself.
Revelation 20 shows the fulfillment: “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him …” (verses 1-3).
This is quite a scene—and one we will witness since we will have been changed to spirit at Christ’s return! Perhaps Michael will be this angel empowered to bind Satan and “shut him up”—silence him for a thousand liberating years. Consider what might be said between Michael and Satan. They once sang and shouted for joy together; at this point, one binds the other and locks him up.
We can only imagine what it must have felt like for God and the Word: to create beings that eventually turned and fought against them! God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 33:11)—so it certainly brings Him no pleasure to execute this order against Satan and one third of His created sons. But God does what needs to be done to make atonement possible.
There are times we need to take similar action to maintain unity in the Family of God (e.g. 2 Thessalonians 3:6, 14-15). We take no pleasure in it, but seeing God’s example should strengthen us in doing what we must.
The world’s atonement is coming—but ours has already begun. We are called to live in a state of at-one-ment with God now, in the middle of the greatest spiritual agitation in human history. That means actively silencing Satan’s influence in our lives.
Here are three ways Scripture shows us how to do that.
1) Be at one with God
When Jesus died, something happened that changed everything: “And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom …” (Matthew 27:51). That veil was no small symbol. It represented the barrier of sin between God and man. Christ’s perfect sacrifice tore it down, opening direct access to God the Father.
For 4,000 years, mankind had no direct access to the one who would become the Father. But now, as Hebrews 10 says, there is a wonderful new spiritual reality: “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; And having an high priest over the house of God; Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith …” (verses 19-22).
To be at one with God is to live daily in the reality of that access—not taking it for granted, not letting sin rebuild the barrier. It means humbling ourselves through fasting, crying out for His help, and declaring the Father as Christ did (John 17:6).
When we value that access, we won’t let the agitator whisper us away from it. We will resist him by drawing near to God (James 4:7-8). And every time we do, we are personally fulfilling the spiritual reality that the Day of Atonement pictures.
To be at one with God means to take full advantage of that access. We fast to humble ourselves. We pray daily to be kept from the evil one (John 17:15). We go boldly to the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16)—because we have a High Priest who makes intercession for us (Hebrews 7:25-26) and a merciful Father who knows who the real agitator is.
Just as Lincoln extended mercy to that soldier boy and held the agitator most accountable, God desires to extend mercy to us when we repent of our sins, because He too knows that Satan is the primary culprit!
God loves us, and He showed His love by offering His Son to remove the barrier of sin between us. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).
2) Be at one with each other
That puts a responsibility on us: “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another” (1 John 4:11). When brethren are hard to love, consider all the mercy and love God has shown us. As we practice that love, we enjoy tremendous unity as a direct result. The love of God silences the agitator because it leaves no room for division to take root.
“No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us” (verse 12). The wording here implies we can see God in each other with this love! God’s agape love is the greatest of all the fruits of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 13:13). Luke 11:42 adds love to judgment, mercy and faith, as a “weightier matter of the law” (Matthew 23:23).
During the Civil War, Lincoln always tried to create unity within the national leadership and among the nation. Early in the war, he pardoned a boy sentenced to die for falling asleep on guard duty. “I could not think of going into eternity with the blood of that poor young man on my skirts,” he said.
Lincoln’s act of mercy and love moved this boy to continue fighting and risk his life for the cause. The boy later died in battle, and he was found with a photograph of Lincoln inscribed, “God bless President Abraham Lincoln!”
God’s acts of mercy toward us motivate us to keep fighting and give our life to the God Family cause.
“Abraham Lincoln knew deeply why the bloodiest conflict in America’s history had to continue. He was fighting for freedom!” Gerald Flurry wrote. “Today, we must understand our quest to bring true freedom to this world! We have a vital message to proclaim and a work to do. And it is all about ‘a new birth of freedom’! We will usher in ‘a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.’ How real is that future to you?” (Royal Vision, September-October 2022).
This type of leadership builds at-one-ment among the troops. It is this type of leadership God will expect from us when Satan is bound and we replace his minions on Earth. This world has lacked judgment, mercy, faith and love; we are learning now how to live and eventually give this to mankind. We silence the agitator with this love.
3) Bring the world at one with God
The whole world is still blinded by the agitator today (2 Corinthians 3:14). The veil of sin remains a barrier blocking their access to God. The Day of Atonement anticipates the day when the veil will be removed in the lives of all men! (verse 16).
The Prophet Isaiah foresaw the day when God will “destroy … the vail that is spread over all nations” (Isaiah 25:7). That will be a day of liberty and justice for all, when Satan is bound and the knowledge of God covers the Earth. When Satan is restrained, we will see millions of sons begotten by our Father, and we will love them all! (1 John 5:1).
Our calling is to prepare for that day. We are being trained now to think like John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” We must learn to love the world as God does, so that when the agitator is finally silenced, we can help bring all mankind into at-one-ment with the Father and the Son.
“Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Corinthians 3:17). Soon the whole world will experience that Spirit-driven liberty!
Shout for Joy!
“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:18). “God is bringing us into a relationship where we can, spiritually, behold the ‘glory of the Lord’! He wants us to see Him. … There is coming a time when we won’t just see through a glass darkly. Once we are changed to spirit, we will behold the full glory of the Son and the Father! That relationship will be taken to the pinnacle level” (Royal Vision, March-April 2006).
That is the marvelous future of at-one-ment that awaits us all. And it will arrive only after the agitator has been silenced.
Lincoln’s wisdom still speaks: Silence the agitator, save the boy. God’s plan takes that principle to its ultimate fulfillment. On the Day of Atonement, we celebrate the certainty that the greatest agitator of all will be bound and silenced.
Until then, we silence him in our own life—by being at one with God, at one with each other, and preparing to bring the world at one with Him. The unity of Job 38 will be restored. And all the sons of God—this time, real, Spirit-born sons—will once again sing together and shout for joy!