The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 520

presented to the people. Then he employs all his cunning and shrewdness
so to control circumstances that the message may not reach those whom
he is deceiving on that very point. The one who most needs the warning
will be urged into some business transaction which requires his presence,
or will by some other means be prevented from hearing the words that
might prove to him a savor of life unto life.
Again, Satan sees the Lord’s servants burdened because of the
spiritual darkness that enshrouds the people. He hears their earnest
prayers for divine grace and power to break the spell of indifference,
carelessness, and indolence. Then with renewed zeal he plies his arts.
He tempts men to the indulgence of appetite or to some other form of
self-gratification, and thus benumbs their sensibilities so that they fail to
hear the very things which they most need to learn.
Satan well knows that all whom he can lead to neglect prayer and the
searching of the Scriptures, will be overcome by his attacks. Therefore
he invents every possible device to engross the mind. There has ever
been a class professing godliness, who, instead of following on to know
the truth, make it their religion to seek some fault of character or error of
faith in those with whom they do not agree. Such are Satan’s right-hand
helpers. Accusers of the brethren are not few, and they are always active
when God is at work and His servants are rendering Him true homage.
They will put a false coloring upon the words and acts of those who
love and obey the truth. They will represent the most earnest, zealous,
self-denying servants of Christ as deceived or deceivers. It is their work
to misrepresent the motives of every true and noble deed, to circulate
insinuations, and arouse suspicion in the minds of the inexperienced. In
every conceivable manner they will seek to cause that which is pure and
righteous to be regarded as foul and deceptive.
But none need be deceived concerning them. It may be readily seen
whose children they are, whose example they follow, and whose work
they do. “Ye shall know them by

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