The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 591
tornadoes and terrific hailstorms, in tempests, floods, cyclones, tidal
waves, and earthquakes, in every place and in a thousand forms, Satan is
exercising his power. He sweeps away the ripening harvest, and famine
and distress follow. He imparts to the air a deadly taint, and thousands
perish by the pestilence. These visitations are to become more and
more frequent and disastrous. Destruction will be upon both man and
beast. “The earth mourneth and fadeth away,” “the haughty people ...
do languish. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof;
because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken
the everlasting covenant.” Isaiah 24:4, 5.
And then the great deceiver will persuade men that those who serve
God are causing these evils. The class that have provoked the displeasure
of Heaven will charge all their troubles upon those whose obedience to
God’s commandments is a perpetual reproof to transgressors. It will
be declared that men are offending God by the violation of the Sunday
sabbath; that this sin has brought calamities which will not cease until
Sunday observance shall be strictly enforced; and that those who present
the claims of the fourth commandment, thus destroying reverence for
Sunday, are troublers of the people, preventing their restoration to divine
favor and temporal prosperity. Thus the accusation urged of old against
the servant of God will be repeated and upon grounds equally well
established: “And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab
said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? And he answered, I
have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father’s house, in that ye
have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed
Baalim.” 1 Kings 18:17, 18. As the wrath of the people shall be excited
by false charges, they will pursue a course toward God’s ambassadors
very similar to that which apostate Israel pursued toward Elijah.
The miracle-working power manifested through spiritualism
590