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The Impending Conflict, Part 2
When God’s Law Is Set Aside
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.
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.
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 is turned back, and righteousness stands afar off; for truth is
fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.” Isaiah 59:14.
Satan Changes Tactics
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.
The Great
Controversy, pp. 584-587
Next part: The Impending
Conflict, Part 3: Corruption Blamed on Desecration of Sunday
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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