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From Eternity Past
When the time came for Israel’s deliverance, it was Satan’s de-
termination that that great people, numbering more than two million,
should be held in ignorance, superstition, obscurity, and bondage that
he might obliterate from their minds the remembrance of God.
When the miracles were wrought before the king, Satan wrought
to counterfeit the work of God and resist His will. The only result was
to prepare the way for greater exhibitions of divine power and glory.
God “brought forth His people with joy, and His chosen with
gladness ... that they might observe His statutes, and keep His laws.”
Psalm 105:43-45
.
During the bondage in Egypt many of the Israelites had, to a great
extent, lost the knowledge of God’s law and had mingled its precepts
with heathen customs and traditions. God brought them to Sinai, and
there with His own voice declared His law.
Even while God was proclaiming His law to His people, Satan
was plotting to tempt them to sin. By leading them into idolatry, he
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would destroy the efficacy of all worship, for how can man be elevated
by adoring what may be symbolized by his own handiwork? If men
could so forget their own divine relationship as to bow down to these
revolting and senseless objects, then the evil passions of the heart
would be unrestrained, and Satan would have full sway.
At the very foot of Sinai, Satan began to plan for overthrowing
the law of God, thus carrying forward the same work he had begun
in heaven. During the forty days Moses was in the mount with God,
Satan was exciting doubt, apostasy, and rebellion. When Moses came
from the presence of divine glory with the law they had pledged to
obey, he found God’s covenant people bowing in adoration before a
golden image.
Satan had planned to cause their ruin. Since they had proved
themselves so utterly degraded, the Lord would, he believed, divorce
them from Himself. Thus would be secured the extinction of the seed
of Abraham that was to preserve the knowledge of the living God, and
through whom the true Seed was to come to conquer Satan. But the
great rebel again was defeated. While those who stubbornly ranged
themselves on the side of Satan were cut off, the people, humbled and
repentant, were mercifully pardoned. The whole universe had been
witness to the scenes at Sinai; all had seen the contrast between the
government of God and that of Satan.