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The Impending Conflict |
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The Great Controversey # 36 |
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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.
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.
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. |
"What The Bible Says About" Bible Studies/5