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The Desire of Ages
So it will be in the great final conflict of the controversy between
righteousness and sin. While new life and light and power are descend-
ing from on high upon the disciples of Christ, a new life is springing
up from beneath, and energizing the agencies of Satan. Intensity is
taking possession of every earthly element. With a subtlety gained
through centuries of conflict, the prince of evil works under a disguise.
He appears clothed as an angel of light, and multitudes are “giving
heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.”
1 Timothy 4:1
.
In the days of Christ the leaders and teachers of Israel were power-
less to resist the work of Satan. They were neglecting the only means
by which they could have withstood evil spirits. It was by the word of
God that Christ overcame the wicked one. The leaders of Israel pro-
fessed to be the expositors of God’s word, but they had studied it only
to sustain their traditions, and enforce their man-made observances.
By their interpretation they made it express sentiments that God had
never given. Their mystical construction made indistinct that which
He had made plain. They disputed over insignificant technicalities,
and practically denied the most essential truths. Thus infidelity was
sown broadcast. God’s word was robbed of its power, and evil spirits
worked their will.
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History is repeating. With the open Bible before them, and profess-
ing to reverence its teachings, many of the religious leaders of our time
are destroying faith in it as the word of God. They busy themselves
with dissecting the word, and set their own opinions above its plainest
statements. In their hands God’s word loses its regenerating power.
This is why infidelity runs riot, and iniquity is rife.
When Satan has undermined faith in the Bible, he directs men
to other sources for light and power. Thus he insinuates himself.
Those who turn from the plain teaching of Scripture and the convict-
ing power of God’s Holy Spirit are inviting the control of demons.
Criticism and speculation concerning the Scriptures have opened the
way for spiritism and theosophy—those modernized forms of ancient
heathenism—to gain a foothold even in the professed churches of our
Lord Jesus Christ.
Side by side with the preaching of the gospel, agencies are at work
which are but the medium of lying spirits. Many a man tampers with
these merely from curiosity, but seeing evidence of the working of a
more than human power, he is lured on and on, until he is controlled