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Testimonies for the Church Volume 5
definite plan, and his agents act in concert. A line of unbelief stretches
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across the continent and is in communication with the church of God.
Its influence has been exerted to undermine confidence in the work
of the Spirit of God. This element is here and is silently working.
Be careful lest you be found aiding the enemy of God and man by
spreading false reports and by criticisms and decided opposition.
Through deceptive means and unseen channels, Satan is working
to strengthen his authority and to place obstacles in the way of God’s
people, that souls may not be freed from his power and gathered under
the banner of Christ. By his deceptions he is seeking to allure souls
from Christ, and those who are not established upon the truth will
surely be taken in his snare. And those whom he cannot lead into sin
he will persecute, as the Jews did Christ.
Satan’s object is to dishonor God, and he works with every element
that is unsanctified to accomplish this design. The men whom he makes
his instruments in doing this work are blinded and do not see what
they are doing until they are so deeply involved in guilt that they think
it would be useless to try to recover themselves, and they risk all and
continue in their course of transgression to the bitter end.
Satan hopes to involve the remnant people of God in the general
ruin that is coming upon the earth. As the coming of Christ draws nigh,
he will be more determined and decisive in his efforts to overthrow
them. Men and women will arise professing to have some new light
or some new revelation whose tendency is to unsettle faith in the old
landmarks. Their doctrines will not bear the test of God’s word, yet
souls will be deceived. False reports will be circulated, and some will
be taken in this snare. They will believe these rumors and in their
turn will repeat them, and thus a link will be formed connecting them
with the archdeceiver. This spirit will not always be manifested in an
open defiance of the messages that God sends, but a settled unbelief is
expressed in many ways. Every false statement that is made feeds and
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strengthens this unbelief, and through this means many souls will be
balanced in the wrong direction.
We cannot be too watchful against every form of error, for Satan
is constantly seeking to draw men from the truth. He fills them with
notions of their own sufficiency, and persuades them, as he has Brother
D, that originality is a gift much to be coveted. Brother D needs
to learn the truth more perfectly. Satan has taken advantage of his