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From the very beginning
to 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 continued the same
warfare upon the earth. To deceive men, and thus
lead them to transgress God’s law, is the
object that he has steadfastly pursued. Whether
this is 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 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 that
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 Lawgiver.
It is 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 a 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 a little better than Baal,
the sun-god of Phoenicia.
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 man.
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; 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 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.
Whenever 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, the
multitudes eagerly accept the delusions of Satan.
They give the rein to lust and practice the sins
that 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 the
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 heart. The civilized
world would become a horde of robbers and
assassins; and peace, rest, and happiness would
be banished from the earth.
Already the doctrines
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, and 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 criminals, when thrown into prison for
their offenses, are often made the recipients of
gifts and attentions as if they had attained an
enviable distinction. Great publicity is given to
their character and crimes. The press publishes
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 of gain
and love of sensual pleasure. In temperance has
beclouded the faculties of many so deluded.
Drunkenness and revelry, passion, envy,
dishonesty of every sort, are represented among
those who administer the laws. “Justice
standeth afar off: for the 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 has effectually leads men to
transgress as if they were wholly ignorant of its
precepts. 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
conscientiousness 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. As the doctrine
of the fourth commandment are urged upon the
people, it is found that the observance of the
seven-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 doors 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 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 is 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 and those who refuse to
unite with them are denounced as the enemies of
temperance and reform. However, the fact that a
movement to establish error is connected with a
work that is in itself good is not an argument in
favor of we did 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 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. Moreover, 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
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 the
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 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 of 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 from the power of
the destroyer. However, the Christian world has
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 protective 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 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
becoming increasingly 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.
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 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 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. Moreover, the very work
that he was thus endeavoring to accomplish he
charged upon the loyal angels. The same policy of
deception has marked the history of the Roman
Catholic Church. The pope 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. Therefore,
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.
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
Christians world is doing, and acknowledge the
claim of the papal sabbath.
The
dignitaries of church and state will unite to
bribe, persuade, or corrupt all classes to honor
Sunday. The lack of the divine authority will be
supplied by oppressive enactments. Political
corruption is destroying love of justice and
regard for the 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 off 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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