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Impending Conflict
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States will be foremost in stretching their hands across the gulf to
grasp the hand of spiritualism; they will reach over the abyss to
clasp hands with the Roman power; and under the influence of this
threefold union, this country will follow in the steps of Rome in
trampling on the rights of conscience.
As spiritualism imitates the Christianity of the day, it has great
power to deceive. Satan himself is “converted.” He will appear as an
angel of light. Through spiritualism, miracles will be wrought, the
sick will be healed, and many undeniable wonders will be performed.
Papists who boast of miracles as a sign of the true church will
be readily deceived by this wonderworking power; and Protestants,
having cast away the shield of truth, will also be deluded. Papists,
Protestants, and worldlings will alike see in this union a grand
movement for the conversion of the world.
Through spiritualism, Satan appears as a benefactor of the race,
healing diseases and presenting a new system of religious faith, but
at the same time he leads multitudes to ruin. Intemperance dethrones
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reason; sensual indulgence, strife, and bloodshed follow. War excites
the worst passions of the soul and sweeps into eternity its victims
steeped in vice and blood. It is Satan’s object to incite the nations to
war, for he can thus divert the people from preparation to stand in
the day of God.
Satan has studied the secrets of nature, and he uses all his power
to control the elements as far as God allows. It is God that shields
His creatures from the destroyer. But the Christian world has shown
contempt for His law, and the Lord will do what He declared that He
would—remove His protecting care from those who rebel against
His law and force others to do the same. Satan has control of all
whom God does not especially guard. He will favor and prosper
some, in order to further his own designs; and he will bring trouble
upon others, and lead men to believe that it is God who is afflicting
them.
While appearing as a great physician who can heal all their mal-
adies, Satan will bring disease and disaster until populous cities are
reduced to ruin. In accidents by sea and land, in great conflagrations,
in fierce tornadoes and hailstorms, in tempests, floods, cyclones,
tidal waves, and earthquakes, in a thousand forms, Satan is exercis-
ing his power. He sweeps away the ripening harvest, and famine and