Joshua and the Angel
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world as his subjects, he has gained control of the apostate churches;
but here is a little company that are resisting his supremacy. If he
could blot them from the earth, his triumph would be complete. As he
influenced the heathen nations to destroy Israel, so in the near future
he will stir up the wicked powers of earth to destroy the people of God.
All will be required to render obedience to human edicts in violation
of the divine law. Those who will be true to God and to duty will be
menaced, denounced, and proscribed. They will “be betrayed both by
parents, and brethren, and kinsfolks, and friends.”
Their only hope is in the mercy of God; their only defense will
be prayer. As Joshua was pleading before the Angel, so the rem-
nant church, with brokenness of heart and earnest faith, will plead
for pardon and deliverance through Jesus their Advocate. They are
fully conscious of the sinfulness of their lives, they see their weakness
and unworthiness, and as they look upon themselves they are ready to
despair. The tempter stands by to accuse them, as he stood by to resist
Joshua. He points to their filthy garments, their defective characters.
He presents their weakness and folly, their sins of ingratitude, their
unlikeness to Christ, which has dishonored their Redeemer. He en-
deavors to affright the soul with the thought that their case is 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, turn
from their allegiance to God, and receive the mark of the beast. Satan
urges before God his accusations against them, declaring that they
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have by their sins forfeited the divine protection, and claiming the
right to destroy them as transgressors. He pronounces them just as
deserving as himself of exclusion from the favor of God. “Are these,”
he says, “the people who are to take my place in heaven and the place
of the angels who united with me? While they profess to obey the law
of God, have they kept its precepts? Have they not been lovers of self
more than of God? Have they not placed their own interests above His
service? Have they not loved the things of the world? Look at the sins
which have marked their lives. Behold their selfishness, their malice,
their hatred toward one another.”
The people of God have been in many respects very faulty. Satan
has an accurate knowledge of the sins which he has tempted them to
commit, and he presents these in the most exaggerated light, declaring:
“Will God banish me and my angels from His presence, and yet reward