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Time of Trouble
293
who keep the commandments of God are resisting his supremacy. If
he could blot them from the earth, his triumph would be complete.
He sees that holy angels are guarding them, and he infers that their
sins have been pardoned; but he does not know that their cases have
been decided in the sanctuary above. He has an accurate knowledge
of the sins which he has tempted them to commit, and he presents
these before God in the most exaggerated light, representing this
people to be just as deserving as himself of exclusion from the favor
of God. He declares that the Lord cannot in justice forgive their sins,
and yet destroy him and his angels. He claims them as his prey, and
demands that they be given into his hands to destroy.
[436]
As Satan accuses the people of God on account of their sins, the
Lord permits him to try them to the uttermost. Their confidence in
God, their faith and firmness, will be severely tested. As they review
the past, their hopes sink; for in their whole lives they can see little
good. They are fully conscious of their weakness and unworthiness.
Satan endeavors to terrify them with the thought that their cases
are hopeless, that the stain of their defilement will never be washed
away. He hopes to so destroy their faith that they will yield to his
temptations, and turn from their allegiance to God.
Though God’s people will be surrounded by enemies who are
bent upon their destruction, yet the anguish which they suffer is not a
dread of persecution for the truth’s sake; they fear that every sin has
not been repented of, and that through some fault in themselves they
shall fail to realize the fulfillment of the Saviour’s promise, “I will
keep thee from the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the
world.” If they could have the assurance of pardon, they would not
shrink from torture or death; but should they prove unworthy, and
lose their lives because of their own defects of character, then God’s
holy name would be reproached.
On every hand they hear the plottings of treason, and see the
active working of rebellion; and there is aroused within them an
intense desire, an earnest yearning of soul, that this great apostasy
may be terminated, and the wickedness of the wicked may come to
an end. But while they plead with God to stay the work of rebellion,
there is a throb of self-reproach that they themselves have no more
power to resist and urge back the mighty tide of evil. They feel that
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had they always employed all their ability in the service of Christ,