PROBLEMS OR BLESSINGS?
As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.--Revelation 3:19
"When they had blindfolded him, they struck him on the face, an asked him saying, Prophesy, who is it that smote thee? And many other things blasphemously spake they against him."
Here we see how professedly righteous men can act out the spirit of Satan to carry their purposes through envy and jealousy and religious bigotry. That enmity was spoken of in the first gospel sermon in Eden. "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman; between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." This enmity was revealed as soon as men transgressed God's holy law. His nature was changed. It became evil. He was in harmony with the prince of darkness, and there was a confederacy formed.
There is no warfare between Satan and the sinner, between fallen angels and fallen men. Both possess the same attributes, both are evil through apostasy and sin. Then let all who read these words understand for a surety that wheresoever transgression against God's holy law exists, there will always be a league against good. Fallen angels and fallen men will unite in desperate companionship. Satan inspires the disloyal elements to work in harmony with his spirit....
Christ has pledged Himself to engage in the conflict with the prince and power of darkness and [to] bruise the serpent's head, and all who are the sons of God are His chosen ones, His soldiers, to war against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. It is an unwearied conflict of which there is no end, until Christ shall come the second time without sin unto salvation to destroy him who has destroyed so many souls through his masterly deceiving power. (Manuscript 104, September 1897)
REFLECTION: When tribulation comes upon us, how many of us are like Jacob? We think it the hand of an enemy; and in the darkness we wrestle blindly until our strength is spent, and we find no comfort or deliverance....[Like Jacob] we also need to learn that trials mean benefit, and not to despise the chastening of the Lord nor faint when we are rebuked of Him. (Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing, 11)
As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.--Revelation 3:19
"When they had blindfolded him, they struck him on the face, an asked him saying, Prophesy, who is it that smote thee? And many other things blasphemously spake they against him."
Here we see how professedly righteous men can act out the spirit of Satan to carry their purposes through envy and jealousy and religious bigotry. That enmity was spoken of in the first gospel sermon in Eden. "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman; between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." This enmity was revealed as soon as men transgressed God's holy law. His nature was changed. It became evil. He was in harmony with the prince of darkness, and there was a confederacy formed.
There is no warfare between Satan and the sinner, between fallen angels and fallen men. Both possess the same attributes, both are evil through apostasy and sin. Then let all who read these words understand for a surety that wheresoever transgression against God's holy law exists, there will always be a league against good. Fallen angels and fallen men will unite in desperate companionship. Satan inspires the disloyal elements to work in harmony with his spirit....
Christ has pledged Himself to engage in the conflict with the prince and power of darkness and [to] bruise the serpent's head, and all who are the sons of God are His chosen ones, His soldiers, to war against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. It is an unwearied conflict of which there is no end, until Christ shall come the second time without sin unto salvation to destroy him who has destroyed so many souls through his masterly deceiving power. (Manuscript 104, September 1897)
REFLECTION: When tribulation comes upon us, how many of us are like Jacob? We think it the hand of an enemy; and in the darkness we wrestle blindly until our strength is spent, and we find no comfort or deliverance....[Like Jacob] we also need to learn that trials mean benefit, and not to despise the chastening of the Lord nor faint when we are rebuked of Him. (Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing, 11)
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