p. 747 | OUTGENERALED BY SATAN by Ellen G. White

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 1, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 47.

OUTGENERALED BY SATAN.

By Ellen G. White

MEN of property are dying spiritually because of their neglect to use the means God has placed in their hands to aid in saving their fellow-men. Some become aroused at times, and resolve that they will make to themselves friends with the unrighteous mammon, that they may finally be received into everlasting habitations. But their efforts in this direction are not thorough. They commence, but, not being heartily and thoroughly in earnest in the work, they make a failure. They are not rich in good works. While lingeringly retaining their love and grasp of their earthly treasures, Satan outgenerals them.

A flattering prospect may be presented to invest in patent rights, or some other supposed brilliant enterprise, around which Satan throws a bewitching enchantment. The prospect of getting more money, fast and easily, allures them. They reason that, although they had resolved to put this money into the treasury of God, they will use it in this instance, and will greatly increase it, and will then give a larger sum to the cause. They can see no possibility of a failure. Away goes the means out of their hands, and they soon learn, to their regret, that they have made a mistake. The brilliant prospects have faded. Their expectations are not realized. They were deceived. Satan outgeneraled them. He was more shrewd than they, and he managed to get their means into his ranks, and thus deprive the cause of God of that which should have been used to sustain it in extending the truth, and saving souls for whom Christ died. They lost all they had invested, and robbed God of that which they should have rendered to him.

Some who have been intrusted with only one talent, excuse themselves because they have not as large a number of talents as those to whom are intrusted many talents. Like the unfaithful steward, they hide the one talent in the earth. They are afraid to render to God that which he has intrusted to them. They engage in worldly enterprises, but invest little, if anything, in the cause of God. They expect that those who have large talents will bear the burden of the work, while they feel that they are not responsible for its advancement and success.—Testimony for the Church No. 20.