The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 501

had not been reproved, they would never have rebelled. Thus
stubborn and defiant in their disloyalty, seeking vainly to overthrow
the government of God, yet blasphemously claiming to be themselves
the innocent victims of oppressive power, the archrebel and all his
sympathizers were at last banished from heaven.
The same spirit that prompted rebellion in heaven still inspires
rebellion on earth. Satan has continued with men the same policy which
he pursued with the angels. His spirit now reigns in the children of
disobedience. Like him they seek to break down the restraints of the law
of God and promise men liberty through transgression of its precepts.
Reproof of sin still arouses the spirit of hatred and resistance. When
God’s messages of warning are brought home to the conscience, Satan
leads men to justify themselves and to seek the sympathy of others
in their course of sin. Instead of correcting their errors, they excite
indignation against the reprover, as if he were the sole cause of difficulty.
From the days of righteous Abel to our own time such is the spirit which
has been displayed toward those who dare to condemn sin.
By the same misrepresentation of the character of God as he had
practiced in heaven, causing Him to be regarded as severe and tyrannical,
Satan induced man to sin. And having succeeded thus far, he declared
that God’s unjust restrictions had led to man’s fall, as they had led to his
own rebellion.
But the Eternal One Himself proclaims His character: “The
Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in
goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and
transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty.” Exodus
34:6, 7.
In the banishment of Satan from heaven, God declared His justice
and maintained the honor of His t hrone. But when man had sinned
through yielding to the deceptions of this apostate spirit, God gave an
evidence of His love by yielding up His only-begotten Son to die for the
fallen race.

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