The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 12

church approaches her final deliverance, Satan is to work with greater
power. He comes down “having great wrath, because he knoweth that he
hath but a short time.” Revelation 12:12. He will work “with all power
and signs and lying wonders.” 2 Thessalonians 2:9. For six thousand
years that mastermind that once was highest among the angels of God
has been wholly bent to the work of deception and ruin. And all the
depths of satanic skill and subtlety acquired, all the cruelty developed,
during these struggles of the ages, will be brought to bear against God’s
people in the final conflict. And in this time of peril the followers of
Christ are to bear to the world the warning of the Lord’s second advent;
and a people are to be prepared to stand before Him at His coming,
“without spot, and blameless.” 2 Peter 3:14. At this time the special
endowment of divine grace and power is not less needful to the church
than in apostolic days.
Through the i llumination of the Holy Spirit, the scenes of the
long-continued conflict between good and evil have been opened to the
writer of these pages. From time to time I have been permitted to behold
the working, in different ages, of the great controversy between Christ,
the Prince of life, the Author of our salvation, and Satan, the prince of
evil, the author of sin, the first transgressor of God’s holy law. Satan’s
enmity against Christ has been manifested against His followers. The
same hatred of the principles of God’s law, the same policy of deception,
by which error is made to appear as truth, by which human laws are
substituted for the law of God, and men are led to worship the creature
rather than the Creator, may be traced in all the history of the past.
Satan’s efforts to misrepresent the character of God, to cause men to
cherish a false conception of the Creator, and thus to regard Him with
fear and hate rather than with love; his endeavors to set aside the divine
law, leading the people to think themselves free from its requirements;
and his persecution of those who dare to resist his deceptions, have been
steadfastly pursued in all ages. They may be traced