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On The Edge of Time
The Coming Crisis
Between the laws of men and the laws of God will come the
last great conflict of the controversy between truth and error. Upon this battle
we are now entering,— a battle not between rival churches contending for the
supremacy, but 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.
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 obligatory upon men. Every
nation has its laws which command respect and obedience; and has the Creator of
the heavens and the earth no law to govern the beings He has made? Suppose that
prominent ministers were publicly to teach that the statutes which govern our
nation 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? When the standard of
righteousness is set aside, sin ceases to appear sinful or righteousness
desirable; and the way is open for the prince of evil to establish his rule in
the earth.
Let the restraint imposed by the divine law be wholly
removed, 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. Those who
disregard the commandments of God sow disobedience to reap disobedience. 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. The greatest
publicity is given to their character and crimes. The press publish 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
standeth afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.”
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. As the religious organizations
of the day have refused to listen to unpopular truths plainly brought to view in
the Scriptures, they have sown broadcast the seeds of skepticism. Clinging to
the papal error of natural immortality and man’s consciousness in death, they
reject the only defense against the delusions of spiritualism. Nor is this all.
As the claims of the fourth commandment are urged upon the people, popular
teachers find that the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath is there enjoined;
and as the only way to free themselves from a duty which they are unwilling to
perform, they 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. Upon those religious leaders whose teachings
have opened the door to infidelity, to spiritualism, and to contempt for God’s
holy law, 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. Combining the temperance reform
with the Sunday movement, they represent themselves as laboring to promote the
highest interests 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 thereby 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. Protestantism will yet stretch her hand across the gulf to
grasp the hand of spiritualism; she will reach over the abyss to clasp hands
with the Roman power; and under the influence of this threefold union, our
country will follow in the steps of Rome in trampling on the rights of
conscience.
Spiritualism is now changing its form, veiling some of its
more objectionable and immoral features, and assuming a Christian guise.
Formerly it denounced Christ and the Bible; now it professes to accept both. The
Bible is interpreted in a manner that is attractive to the unrenewed heart,
while its solemn and vital truths are made of no effect. A God of love is
presented; but His justice, His denunciations of sin, the requirements of His
holy law, are all kept out of sight. Pleasing, bewitching fables captivate the
senses of those who do not make God’s word the foundation of their faith. Christ
is as verily rejected as before; but Satan has so blinded the eyes of the people
that the deception is not discerned.
As spiritualism assimilates more closely to 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 express
regard for Sunday, their work will be accepted as a manifestation of divine
power.
The line of distinction between professing 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.
Catholics who boast of miracles as a certain mark 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. Catholics, 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.
It is God that shields His creatures, and hedges them in from
the power of the destroyer. But the Christian world has shown contempt for the
law of Jehovah; and the Lord does just what He has declared that He would do, He
withdraws His blessings from the earth, and removes 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, is Satan 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 the inhabitants of the world. The beasts of the field will groan,
and the earth will languish.
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 the faithful few whom the Lord has
sent to them with messages of warning and reproof. It will be declared that the
nation is 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 nation,
preventing its 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.
Messages will come from the spirits declaring that God has sent them to inform
the rejecters of Sunday that they are in error, and 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.
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 censured and misrepresented. A false coloring will be given to their
words; the worst possible construction will be put upon their motives.
The dignitaries of Church and State will unite to bribe,
persuade, or compel all classes to honor Sunday. The lack of divine authority
will be supplied by oppressive enactments. Political corruption is destroying
love of justice and regard for truth; and in order to secure public favor,
legislators will yield to the popular demand for a law enforcing Sunday
observance. Liberty of conscience, which has cost this nation so great a
sacrifice, will no longer be respected. In the soon coming conflict we shall see
exemplified the prophet’s words: “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.” Rev. 12:17.
Our land is in jeopardy. The time is drawing on when its
legislators shall so abjure the principles of Protestantism as to give
countenance to Romish apostasy. The people for whom God has so marvelously
wrought, strengthening them to throw off the galling yoke of Popery, will by a
national act give vigor to the corrupt faith of Rome, and thus arouse the
tyranny which only waits for a touch to start again into cruelty and despotism.
With rapid steps are we already approaching this period. When Protestant
churches shall seek the support of the secular power, thus following the example
of that apostate church, for opposing which their ancestors endured the fiercest
persecution, then will there be a national apostasy which will end only in
national ruin.
Chapter 7
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