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From the very
beginning of the great controversy in heaven it has been Satan's
purpose to overthrow the law of God. It was to accomplish this that
he entered upon his rebellion against the Creator, and though he was
cast out of heaven he has continued the same warfare upon the earth.
To deceive men, and thus lead them to transgress God's law, is the
object which he has steadfastly pursued. Whether this be
accomplished by casting aside the law altogether, or by rejecting
one of its precepts, the result will be ultimately the same. He that
offends "in one point," manifests contempt for the whole law; his
influence and example are on the side of transgression; he becomes
"guilty of all." James 2:10.
In seeking to cast contempt upon the
divine statutes, Satan has perverted the doctrines of the Bible, and
errors have thus become incorporated into the faith of thousands who
profess to believe the Scriptures. The last great conflict between truth
and error is but the final struggle of the long-standing controversy
concerning the law of God. Upon this battle we are now entering--a
battle between the laws of men and the precepts of Jehovah, between the
religion of the Bible and the religion of fable and tradition.
The agencies which will unite against
truth and righteousness in this contest are now actively at work. God's
holy word, which has been handed down to us at such a cost of
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suffering and blood, is but little
valued. The Bible is within the reach of all, but there are few who
really accept it as the guide of life. Infidelity prevails to an
alarming extent, not in the world merely, but in the church. Many have
come to deny doctrines which are the very pillars of the Christian
faith. The great facts of creation as presented by the inspired writers,
the fall of man, the atonement, and the perpetuity of the law of God,
are practically rejected, either wholly or in part, by a large share of
the professedly Christian world. Thousands who pride themselves upon
their wisdom and independence regard it as an evidence of weakness to
place implicit confidence in the Bible; they think it a proof of
superior talent and learning to cavil at the Scriptures and to
spiritualize and explain away their most important truths. Many
ministers are teaching their people, and many professors and teachers
are instructing their students, that the law of God has been changed or
abrogated; and those who regard its requirements as still valid, to be
literally obeyed, are thought to be deserving only of ridicule or
contempt.
In rejecting the truth, men reject its
Author. In trampling upon the law of God, they deny the authority of the
Law-giver. It is as easy to make an idol of false doctrines and theories
as to fashion an idol of wood or stone. By misrepresenting the
attributes of God, Satan leads men to conceive of Him in a false
character. With many, a philosophical idol is enthroned in the place of
Jehovah; while the living God, as He is revealed in His word, in Christ,
and in the works of creation, is worshiped by but few. Thousands deify
nature while they deny the God of nature. Though in a different form,
idolatry exists in the Christian world today as verily as it existed
among ancient Israel in the days of Elijah. The god of many professedly
wise men, of philosophers, poets, politicians, journalists--the god of
polished fashionable circles, of many colleges and universities, even of
some theological institutions--is little better than Baal, the sun-god
of Phoenicia.
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No error accepted by the Christian
world strikes more boldly against the authority of Heaven, none is more
directly opposed to the dictates of reason, none is more pernicious in
its results, than the modern doctrine, so rapidly gaining ground, that
God's law is no longer binding upon men. Every nation has its laws,
which command respect and obedience; no government could exist without
them; and can it be conceived that the Creator of the heavens and the
earth has no law to govern the beings He has made? Suppose that
prominent ministers were publicly to teach that the statutes which
govern their land and protect the rights of its citizens were not
obligatory--that they restricted the liberties of the people, and
therefore ought not to be obeyed; how long would such men be tolerated
in the pulpit? But is it a graver offense to disregard the laws of
states and nations than to trample upon those divine precepts which are
the foundation of all government?
It would be far more consistent for
nations to abolish their statutes, and permit the people to do as they
please, than for the Ruler of the universe to annul His law, and leave
the world without a standard to condemn the guilty or justify the
obedient. Would we know the result of making void the law of God? The
experiment has been tried. Terrible were the scenes enacted in France
when atheism became the controlling power. It was then demonstrated to
the world that to throw off the restraints which God has imposed is to
accept the rule of the cruelest of tyrants. When the standard of
righteousness is set aside, the way is open for the prince of evil to
establish his power in the earth.
Wherever the divine precepts are
rejected, sin ceases to appear sinful or righteousness desirable. Those
who refuse to submit to the government of God are wholly unfitted to
govern themselves. Through their pernicious teachings the spirit of
insubordination is implanted in the hearts of children and youth, who
are naturally impatient of control; and a lawless, licentious state of
society results. While scoffing at the credulity of those who obey the
requirements of God,
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the multitudes eagerly accept the
delusions of Satan. They give the rein to lust and practice the sins
which have called down judgments upon the heathen.
Those who teach the people to regard
lightly the commandments of God sow disobedience to reap disobedience.
Let the restraint imposed by the divine law be wholly cast aside, and
human laws would soon be disregarded. Because God forbids dishonest
practices, coveting, lying, and defrauding, men are ready to trample
upon His statutes as a hindrance to their worldly prosperity; but the
results of banishing these precepts would be such as they do not
anticipate. If the law were not binding, why should any fear to
transgress? Property would no longer be safe. Men would obtain their
neighbor's possessions by violence, and the strongest would become
richest. Life itself would not be respected. The marriage vow would no
longer stand as a sacred bulwark to protect the family. He who had the
power, would, if he desired, take his neighbor's wife by violence. The
fifth commandment would be set aside with the fourth. Children would not
shrink from taking the life of their parents if by so doing they could
obtain the desire of their corrupt hearts. The civilized world would
become a horde of robbers and assassins; and peace, rest, and happiness
would be banished from the earth.
Already the doctrine that men are
released from obedience to God's requirements has weakened the force of
moral obligation and opened the floodgates of iniquity upon the world.
Lawlessness, dissipation, and corruption are sweeping in upon us like an
overwhelming tide. In the family, Satan is at work. His banner waves,
even in professedly Christian households. There is envy, evil surmising,
hypocrisy, estrangement, emulation, strife, betrayal of sacred trusts,
indulgence of lust. The whole system of religious principles and
doctrines, which should form the foundation and framework of social
life, seems to be a tottering mass, ready to fall to ruin. The vilest of
criminals, when thrown into prison for their offenses, are often made
the recipients of gifts and
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attentions as if they had attained an
enviable distinction. Great publicity is given to their character and
crimes. The press publishes the revolting details of vice, thus
initiating others into the practice of fraud, robbery, and murder; and
Satan exults in the success of his hellish schemes. The infatuation of
vice, the wanton taking of life, the terrible increase of intemperance
and iniquity of every order and degree, should arouse all who fear God,
to inquire what can be done to stay the tide of evil.
Courts of justice are corrupt. Rulers
are actuated by desire for gain and love of sensual pleasure.
Intemperance has beclouded the faculties of many so that Satan has
almost complete control of them. Jurists are perverted, bribed, deluded.
Drunkenness and revelry, passion, envy, dishonesty of every sort, are
represented among those who administer the laws. "Justice standeth afar
off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter." Isaiah
59:14.
The iniquity and spiritual darkness
that prevailed under the supremacy of Rome were the inevitable result of
her suppression of the Scriptures; but where is to be found the cause of
the widespread infidelity, the rejection of the law of God, and the
consequent corruption, under the full blaze of gospel light in an age of
religious freedom? Now that Satan can no longer keep the world under his
control by withholding the Scriptures, he resorts to other means to
accomplish the same object. To destroy faith in the Bible serves his
purpose as well as to destroy the Bible itself. By introducing the
belief that God's law is not binding, he as effectually leads men to
transgress as if they were wholly ignorant of its precepts. And now, as
in former ages, he has worked through the church to further his designs.
The religious organizations of the day have refused to listen to
unpopular truths plainly brought to view in the Scriptures, and in
combating them they have adopted interpretations and taken positions
which have sown broadcast the seeds of skepticism. Clinging to the papal
error of natural immortality and man's
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consciousness in death, they have
rejected the only defense against the delusions of spiritualism. The
doctrine of eternal torment has led many to disbelieve the Bible. And as
the claims of the fourth commandment are urged upon the people, it is
found that the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath is enjoined; and as
the only way to free themselves from a duty which they are unwilling to
perform, many popular teachers declare that the law of God is no longer
binding. Thus they cast away the law and the Sabbath together. As the
work of Sabbath reform extends, this rejection of the divine law to
avoid the claims of the fourth commandment will become well-nigh
universal. The teachings of religious leaders have opened the door to
infidelity, to spiritualism, and to contempt for God's holy law; and
upon these leaders rests a fearful responsibility for the iniquity that
exists in the Christian world.
Yet this very class put forth the
claim that the fast-spreading corruption is largely attributable to the
desecration of the so-called "Christian sabbath," and that the
enforcement of Sunday observance would greatly improve the morals of
society. This claim is especially urged in America, where the doctrine
of the true Sabbath has been most widely preached. Here the temperance
work, one of the most prominent and important of moral reforms, is often
combined with the Sunday movement, and the advocates of the latter
represent themselves as laboring to promote the highest interest of
society; and those who refuse to unite with them are denounced as the
enemies of temperance and reform. But the fact that a movement to
establish error is connected with a work which is in itself good, is not
an argument in favor of the error. We may disguise poison by mingling it
with wholesome food, but we do not change its nature. On the contrary,
it is rendered more dangerous, as it is more likely to be taken
unawares. It is one of Satan's devices to combine with falsehood just
enough truth to give it plausibility. The leaders of the Sunday movement
may advocate reforms
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which the people need, principles which
are in harmony with the Bible; yet while there is with these a
requirement which is contrary to God's law, His servants cannot unite
with them. Nothing can justify them in setting aside the commandments of
God for the precepts of men.
Through the two great errors, the
immortality of the soul and Sunday sacredness, Satan will bring the
people under his deceptions. While the former lays the foundation of
spiritualism, the latter creates a bond of sympathy with Rome. The
Protestants of the United States will be foremost in stretching their
hands across the gulf to grasp the hand of spiritualism; they will reach
over the abyss to clasp hands with the Roman power; and under the
influence of this threefold union, this country will follow in the steps
of Rome in trampling on the rights of conscience.
As spiritualism more closely imitates
the nominal Christianity of the day, it has greater power to deceive and
ensnare. Satan himself is converted, after the modern order of things.
He will appear in the character of an angel of light. Through the agency
of spiritualism, miracles will be wrought,the sick will be healed, and
many undeniable wonders will be performed. And as the spirits will
profess faith in the Bible, and manifest respect for the institutions of
the church, their work will be accepted as a manifestation of divine
power.
The line of distinction between
professed Christians and the ungodly is now hardly distinguishable.
Church members love what the world loves and are ready to join with
them, and Satan determines to unite them in one body and thus strengthen
his cause by sweeping all into the ranks of spiritualism. Papists, who
boast of miracles as a certain sign of the true church, will be readily
deceived by this wonder-working power; and Protestants, having cast away
the shield of truth, will also be deluded. Papists, Protestants, and
worldlings will alike accept the form of godliness without the power,
and they will see in this union a grand movement
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for the conversion of the world and the
ushering in of the long-expected millennium.
Through spiritualism, Satan appears as
a benefactor of the race, healing the diseases of the people, and
professing to present a new and more exalted system of religious faith;
but at the same time he works as a destroyer. His temptations are
leading multitudes to ruin. Intemperance dethrones reason; sensual
indulgence, strife, and bloodshed follow. Satan delights in war, for it
excites the worst passions of the soul and then sweeps into eternity its
victims steeped in vice and blood. It is his object to incite the
nations to war against one another, for he can thus divert the minds of
the people from the work of preparation to stand in the day of God.
Satan works through the elements also
to garner his harvest of unprepared souls. He has studied the secrets of
the laboratories of nature, and he uses all his power to control the
elements as far as God allows. When he was suffered to afflict Job, how
quickly flocks and herds, servants, houses, children, were swept away,
one trouble succeeding another as in a moment. It is God that shields
His creatures and hedges them in from the power of the destroyer. But
the Christian world have shown contempt for the law of Jehovah; and the
Lord will do just what He has declared that He would--He will withdraw
His blessings from the earth and remove His protecting care from those
who are rebelling against His law and teaching and forcing others to do
the same. Satan has control of all whom God does not especially guard.
He will favor and prosper some in order to further his own designs, and
he will bring trouble upon others and lead men to believe that it is God
who is afflicting them.
While appearing to the children of men
as a great physician who can heal all their maladies, he will bring
disease and disaster, until populous cities are reduced to ruin and
desolation. Even now he is at work. In accidents and calamities by sea
and by land, in great conflagrations, in fierce
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tornadoes and terrific hailstorms, in
tempests, floods, cyclones, tidal waves, and earthquakes, in every place
and in a thousand forms, Satan is exercising his power. He sweeps away
the ripening harvest, and famine and distress follow. He imparts to the
air a deadly taint, and thousands perish by the pestilence. These
visitations are to become more and more frequent and disastrous.
Destruction will be upon both man and beast. "The earth mourneth and
fadeth away," "the haughty people . . . do languish. The earth also is
defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed
the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant."
Isaiah 24:4, 5.
And then the great deceiver will
persuade men that those who serve God are causing these evils. The class
that have provoked the displeasure of Heaven will charge all their
troubles upon those whose obedience to God's commandments is a perpetual
reproof to transgressors. It will be declared that men are offending God
by the violation of the Sunday sabbath; that this sin has brought
calamities which will not cease until Sunday observance shall be
strictly enforced; and that those who present the claims of the fourth
commandment, thus destroying reverence for Sunday, are troublers of the
people, preventing their restoration to divine favor and temporal
prosperity. Thus the accusation urged of old against the servant of God
will be repeated and upon grounds equally well established: "And it came
to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that
troubleth Israel? And he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou,
and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the
Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim." 1 Kings 18:17, 18. As the wrath of
the people shall be excited by false charges, they will pursue a course
toward God's ambassadors very similar to that which apostate Israel
pursued toward Elijah.
The miracle-working power manifested
through spiritualism
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will exert its influence against those
who choose to obey God rather than men. Communications from the spirits
will declare that God has sent them to convince the rejecters of Sunday
of their error, affirming that the laws of the land should be obeyed as
the law of God. They will lament the great wickedness in the world and
second the testimony of religious teachers that the degraded state of
morals is caused by the desecration of Sunday. Great will be the
indignation excited against all who refuse to accept their testimony.
Satan's policy in this final conflict
with God's people is the same that he employed in the opening of the
great controversy in heaven. He professed to be seeking to promote the
stability of the divine government, while secretly bending every effort
to secure its overthrow. And the very work which he was thus endeavoring
to accomplish he charged upon the loyal angels. The same policy of
deception has marked the history of the Roman Church. It has professed
to act as the vicegerent of Heaven, while seeking to exalt itself above
God and to change His law. Under the rule of Rome, those who suffered
death for their fidelity to the gospel were denounced as evildoers; they
were declared to be in league with Satan; and every possible means was
employed to cover them with reproach, to cause them to appear in the
eyes of the people and even to themselves as the vilest of criminals. So
it will be now. While Satan seeks to destroy those who honor God's law,
he will cause them to be accused as lawbreakers, as men who are
dishonoring God and bringing judgments upon the world.
God never forces the will or the
conscience; but Satan's constant resort--to gain control of those whom
he cannot otherwise seduce--is compulsion by cruelty. Through fear or
force he endeavors to rule the conscience and to secure homage to
himself. To accomplish this, he works through both religious and secular
authorities, moving them to the enforcement of human laws in defiance of
the law of God.
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Those who honor the Bible Sabbath will
be denounced as enemies of law and order, as breaking down the moral
restraints of society, causing anarchy and corruption, and calling down
the judgments of God upon the earth. Their conscientious scruples will
be pronounced obstinacy, stubbornness, and contempt of authority. They
will be accused of disaffection toward the government. Ministers who
deny the obligation of the divine law will present from the pulpit the
duty of yielding obedience to the civil authorities as ordained of God.
In legislative halls and courts of justice, commandment keepers will be
misrepresented and condemned. A false coloring will be given to their
words; the worst construction will be put upon their motives.
As the Protestant churches reject the
clear, Scriptural arguments in defense of God's law, they will long to
silence those whose faith they cannot overthrow by the Bible. Though
they blind their own eyes to the fact, they are now adopting a course
which will lead to the persecution of those who conscientiously refuse
to do what the rest of the Christian world are doing, and acknowledge
the claims of the papal sabbath.
The dignitaries of church and state
will unite to bribe, persuade, or compel all classes to honor the
Sunday. The lack of divine authority will be supplied by oppressive
enactments. Political corruption is destroying love of justice and
regard for truth; and even in free America, rulers and legislators, in
order to secure public favor, will yield to the popular demand for a law
enforcing Sunday observance. Liberty of conscience, which has cost so
great a sacrifice, will no longer be respected. In the soon-coming
conflict we shall see exemplified the prophet's words: "The dragon was
wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed,
which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus
Christ." Revelation 12:17
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