Satan's
Groundwork for the Final Conflict
He
shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of
the Most High; and he shall think to change the times and the law; and they
shall be given into his hand until a time and times and half a time. Dan.
7:25, R.V.
During
the Christian dispensation, the great enemy of man's happiness has made the
Sabbath of the fourth commandment an object of special attack. Satan says,
"I will work at cross purposes with God. I will empower my followers
to set aside God's memorial, the seventh-day Sabbath. Thus I will show the
world that the day sanctified and blessed by God has been changed. That day
shall not live in the minds of the people. I will obliterate the memory of
it. I will place in its stead a day that does not bear the credentials of
God, a day that cannot be a sign between God and His people. I will lead those
who accept this day to place upon it the sanctity that God placed upon the
seventh day.
"Through
my vicegerent, I will exalt myself. The first day will be extolled, and the
Protestant world will receive this spurious sabbath as genuine. Through the
nonobservance of the Sabbath that God instituted, I will bring His law into
contempt. The words, "A sign between me and you throughout your generations,'
I will make to serve on the side of my sabbath.
"Thus
the world will become mine. I will be the ruler of the earth, the prince of
the world. I will so control the minds under my power that God's Sabbath shall
be a special object of contempt. A sign? I will make the observance of the
seventh day a sign of disloyalty to the authorities of earth. Human laws will
be made so stringent that men and women will not dare to observe the seventh-day
Sabbath. For fear of wanting food and clothing, they will join with the world
in transgressing God's law. The earth will be wholly under my dominion."
The Sabbath
will be the great test of loyalty, for it is the point of truth especially
controverter. When the final test shall be brought to bear upon men, then
the line of distinction will be drawn between those who serve God and those
who serve Him not.
