Chapter 11—Satan’s Last Day Deceptions
Under the Garb of Christianity
We are approaching the end of this earth’s history, and Satan is
working as never before. He is striving to act as director of the Chris-
tian world. With an intensity that is marvelous he is working with his
lying wonders. Satan is represented as walking about as a roaring lion,
seeking whom he may devour. He desires to embrace the whole world
in his confederacy. Hiding his deformity under the garb of Christian-
ity, he assumes the attributes of a Christian, and claims to be Christ
Himself.—
Manuscript Releases 8:346
(1901).
The Word of God declares that when it suits the enemy’s purpose,
he will through his agencies manifest so great a power under a pretense
of Christianity that, “if it were possible, they shall deceive the very
elect” [
Matthew 24:24
].—Ms 125, 1901.
As the spirits will profess faith in the Bible and manifest respect
for the institutions of the church, their work will be accepted as a
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manifestation of divine power.—
The Great Controversy, 588
(1911).
The strongest bulwark of vice in our world is not the iniquitous life
of the abandoned sinner or the degraded outcast; it is that life which
otherwise appears virtuous, honorable, and noble, but in which one
sin is fostered, one vice indulged.... Genius, talent, sympathy, even
generous and kindly deeds, may thus become decoys of Satan to entice
souls over the precipice of ruin.—
Education, 150
(1903).
Even in the Adventist Church
We have far more to fear from within than from without. The hin-
drances to strength and success are far greater from the church itself
than from the world. Unbelievers have a right to expect that those who
profess to be keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus,
will do more than any other class to promote and honor, by their consis-
tent lives, by their godly example and their active influence, the cause
which they represent. But how often have the professed advocates of
the truth proved the greatest obstacle to its advancement! The unbelief
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