“The Fullness of the Time”
23
Redeemer. Satan had been working to make the gulf deep and impass-
able between earth and heaven. By his falsehoods he had emboldened
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men in sin. It was his purpose to wear out the forbearance of God, and
to extinguish His love for man, so that He would abandon the world to
satanic jurisdiction.
Satan was seeking to shut out from men a knowledge of God, to
turn their attention from the temple of God, and to establish his own
kingdom. His strife for supremacy had seemed to be almost wholly
successful. It is true that in every generation God had His agencies.
Even among the heathen there were men through whom Christ was
working to uplift the people from their sin and degradation. But these
men were despised and hated. Many of them suffered a violent death.
The dark shadow that Satan had cast over the world grew deeper and
deeper.
Through heathenism, Satan had for ages turned men away from
God; but he won his great triumph in perverting the faith of Israel.
By contemplating and worshiping their own conceptions, the heathen
had lost a knowledge of God, and had become more and more corrupt.
So it was with Israel. The principle that man can save himself by his
own works lay at the foundation of every heathen religion; it had now
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become the principle of the Jewish religion. Satan had implanted this
principle. Wherever it is held, men have no barrier against sin.
The message of salvation is communicated to men through human
agencies. But the Jews had sought to make a monopoly of the truth
which is eternal life. They had hoarded the living manna, and it had
turned to corruption. The religion which they tried to shut up to
themselves became an offense. They robbed God of His glory, and
defrauded the world by a counterfeit of the gospel. They had refused
to surrender themselves to God for the salvation of the world, and they
became agents of Satan for its destruction.
The people whom God had called to be the pillar and ground of
the truth had become representatives of Satan. They were doing the
work that he desired them to do, taking a course to misrepresent the
character of God, and cause the world to look upon Him as a tyrant.
The very priests who ministered in the temple had lost sight of the
significance of the service they performed. They had ceased to look
beyond the symbol to the thing signified. In presenting the sacrificial
offerings they were as actors in a play. The ordinances which God