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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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