The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 397

Satan comes also among them. In every revival he is ready to bring in
those who are unsanctified in heart and unbalanced in mind. When these
have accepted some points of truth, and gained a place with believers, he
works through them to introduce theories that will deceive the unwary.
No man is proved to be a true Christian because he is found in company
with the children of God, even in the house of worship and around
the table of the Lord. Satan is frequently there upon the most solemn
occasions in the form of those whom he can use as his agents.
The prince of evil contests every inch of ground over which God’s
people advance in their journey toward the heavenly city. In all the
history of the church no reformation has been carried forward without
encountering serious obstacles. Thus it was in Paul’s day. Wherever the
apostle raised up a church, there were some who professed to receive
the faith, but who brought in heresies, that, if received, would eventually
crowd out the love of the truth. Luther also suffered great perplexity and
distress from the course of fanatical persons who claimed that God had
spoken directly through them, and who therefore set their own ideas and
opinions above the testimony of the Scriptures. Many who were lacking
in faith and experience, but who had considerable self-sufficiency, and
who loved to hear and tell some new thing, were beguiled by the
pretensions of the new teachers, and they joined the agents of Satan in
their work of tearing down what God had moved Luther to build up.
And the Wesleys, and others who blessed the world by their influence
and their faith, encountered at every step the wiles of Satan in pushing
overzealous, unbalanced, and unsanctified ones into fanaticism of every
grade.
William Miller had no sy mpathy with those influences that led to
fanaticism. He declared, with Luther, that every spirit should be tested
by the word of God. “The devil,” said Miller, “has great power over the
minds of some at the

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