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| Event 3 - Probation Closes |
| Impending Conflict |
Key Text
"How art thou fallen from heaven, O
Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground,
which didst weaken the nations!" Isaiah 14:12 |
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 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.
Key Text
"And the great dragon was cast out, that old
serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world:
he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." Revelation 12:9 |
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.
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, 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.
Key Text
"And 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 |
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 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.
Key Text
"For they are the spirits of devils, working
miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole
world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty." Revelation
16:14 |
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 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
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 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.
Key Text
"Wherein in time past ye walked according to
the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air,
the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:" Ephesians
2:2 |
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 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 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.
Key Statement
"...through the centuries,
she has made laws concerning Sunday rest, the Church... needed greater
regulation to... enable everyone to keep the Lord's Day holy.
In this matter, my predecessor Pope Leo XIII in his Encyclical Rerum
Novarum spoke of Sunday rest as a worker's right which the State
must guarantee.
...Therefore, also in the particular circumstances of our own time, Christians
will naturally strive to ensure that civil legislation respects their duty
to keep Sunday holy." Dies
Domini #66, 1998 |
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.
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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