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The Impending Conflict, Part 4
Satan’s Use of Natural Disasters & Spiritualism
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 mourns and fades away,” “the
haughty people . . . languish. The earth is also defiled under its
inhabitants, 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: “Then it happened, when Ahab saw Elijah, that
Ahab said to him, ‘Is that you, O troubler of Israel?’ And he answered, ‘I have
not troubled Israel, but you and your father’s house have, in that you have
forsaken the commandments of the Lord and have followed the Baals.’ ” 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.
Sabbath-keepers Denounced as Enemies of Law and Order
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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 enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her
offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus
Christ.” Revelation 12:17.
The Great Controversy, pp. 589-592
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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