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The Impending Conflict, Part 3
Corruption Blamed on Desecration of Sunday
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.
Miracles Used to Deceive
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.
The Great Controversy, pp. 587-589
Next part: The Impending Conflict, Part 4:
Satan’s Use of Natural Disasters & Spiritualism
All Scriptures are quoted from the New King James Version,
including those originally quoted by Ellen White from the King James
Version.—Editors
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