p. 301 | J. H. WAGGONER by John Harvey Kellogg

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Oct 10, 1878

J. H. WAGGONER

By John Harvey Kellogg

est reasons and facts. And such, too, is the power and tendency of rebellion. This alone appears to account for their conduct. A person bewitched feels perfectly secure in his position, and is scarcely moved by evidence of his error. So, too, with a person with rebellious tendencies. It is always selfish and unreasonable. Seldom, very seldom, does a person recover himself from the strong influence of witchcraft. And so hard is it for a person of a rebellious spirit to entirely escape from this terrible snare of the enemy. Not realizing the awful danger of his position, he can hardly be persuaded to make the strong effort necessary to break away from it. The victim is like a charmed person, who thinks he is enjoying the greatest freedom and the richest pleasures, while the coils of the destroyer are closing around him.

The New Testament prophecies of the last days inform us that Satan will work “with all power, and signs, and lying wonders.” All these are plain to be seen, easy to be identified. But who shall describe, and sufficiently warn against, that spoken of in the same text, “all deceivableness of unrighteousness?”

God has a great and important work to be accomplished in and for “this generation.” His commandments must be restored, and thereby a people fitted for translation. Doubtless, the deceptions of the enemy are aimed against this work; but thousands fall into the snare who know not for what purpose the enemy has entrapped them.

But God has always carried on every great reform through certain instrumentalities. A work necessarily requires workers; and the last are as much a part of God’s plan as is the first. Some, strangely enough, seem blinded to this fact, and think they are friends to the work, while they are opposing the workers. If they are not beyond the reach of reason, they must see that their position is most unreasonable. And if their senses are so stupefied that they cannot see it, it is the duty of others to take warning, and avoid the danger into which they have so heedlessly run. Through all the inspired records, we find that God has looked upon his instruments as an essential part of his plan; and rejection of them, has always been counted as rejection of him. “The tree and its fruit” are always classed together; and they who love the fruit, will show it by their regard for the tree.