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Satan’s Delusions
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knew that if this error should be received, God would be hated by
many, instead of being loved and adored; and that many would be led
to believe that the threatenings of God’s Word would not be literally
fulfilled, for it would be against His character of benevolence and
love to plunge into eternal torments the beings whom He had created.
Another extreme which Satan has led the people to adopt is
entirely to overlook the justice of God and the threatenings of His
Word, and to represent Him as being all mercy, so that not one will
perish, but that all, both saint and sinner, will at last be saved in His
kingdom.
In consequence of the popular errors of the immortality of the
soul and endless misery, Satan takes advantage of another class and
leads them to regard the Bible as an uninspired book. They think it
teaches many good things, but they cannot rely upon it and love it,
because they have been taught that it declares the doctrine of eternal
misery.
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Another class Satan leads on still further, even to deny the exis-
tence of God. They can see no consistency in the character of the
God of the Bible, if He will inflict horrible tortures upon a portion
of the human family to all eternity. Therefore they deny the Bible
and its Author, and regard death as an eternal sleep.
There is still another class who are fearful and timid. These
Satan tempts to commit sin, and after they have sinned, he holds up
before them that the wages of sin is not death but life in horrible
torments, to be endured throughout the endless ages of eternity. By
thus magnifying before their feeble minds the horrors of an endless
hell, he takes possession of their minds, and they lose their reason.
Then Satan and his angels exult, and the infidel and atheist join in
casting reproach upon Christianity. They claim that these evils are
the natural results of believing in the Bible and its Author, whereas
they are the results of the reception of popular heresy.
The Scriptures a Safeguard
I saw that the heavenly host were filled with indignation at this
bold work of Satan. I inquired why all these delusions should be
suffered to take effect upon the minds of men when the angels of
God were powerful, and if commissioned, could easily break the