The European Union in Prophecy The EU in Prophecy I | Page 468

The European Union in Prophecy
The whole system of religious principles and doctrines, which should form the
foundation and framework of social life, seems to be a tottering mass, ready to fall to
ruin. The vilest of criminals, when thrown into prison for their offenses, are often
made the recipients of gifts and attentions as if they had attained an enviable
distinction. Great publicity is given to their character and crimes. The press publishes
the revolting details of vice, thus initiating others into the practice of fraud, robbery,
and murder; and Satan exults in the success of his hellish schemes. The infatuation
of vice, the wanton taking of life, the terrible increase of intemperance and iniquity of
every order and degree, should arouse all who fear God, to inquire what can be done
to stay the tide of evil.
Courts of justice are corrupt. Rulers are actuated by desire for gain and love of
sensual pleasure. Intemperance has beclouded the faculties of many so that Satan has
almost complete control of them. Jurists are perverted, bribed, deluded. Drunkenness
and revelry, passion, envy, dishonesty of every sort, are represented among those who
administer the laws. "Justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and
equity cannot enter." Isaiah 59:14.
The iniquity and spiritual darkness that prevailed under the supremacy of Rome
were the inevitable result of her suppression of the Scriptures; but where is to be
found the cause of the widespread infidelity, the rejection of the law of God, and the
consequent corruption, under the full blaze of gospel light in an age of religious
freedom? Now that Satan can no longer keep the world under his control by
withholding the Scriptures, he resorts to other means to accomplish the same object.
To destroy faith in the Bible serves his purpose as well as to destroy the Bible itself.
By introducing the belief that God's law is not binding, he as effectually leads men to
transgress as if they were wholly ignorant of its precepts. And now, as in former ages,
he has worked through the church to further his designs. The religious organizations
of the day have refused to listen to unpopular truths plainly brought to view in the
Scriptures, and in combating them they have adopted interpretations and taken
positions which have sown broadcast the seeds of skepticism.
Clinging to the papal error of natural immortality and man's consciousness in
death, they have rejected the only defense against the delusions of spiritualism. The
doctrine of eternal torment has led many to disbelieve the Bible. And as the claims of
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