How Satan Almost Succeeded

“The fullness of the time” had come. Humanity, degraded through ages of sin, called for the coming of the Redeemer. Satan had been working to make the gulf between earth and heaven deep and impassable. He had made people bold in sin. He intended to wear out the patience of God so that He would abandon the world to Satan’s control.HH 14.4

Satan’s battle for supremacy seemed almost entirely successful. It is true that in every generation, even among the heathen, there were those through whom Christ was working to uplift the people from sin. But these reformers were hated. Many suffered a violent death. The dark shadow Satan cast over the world grew deeper and deeper.HH 14.5

Satan’s great triumph was in perverting the faith of Israel. The heathen had lost a knowledge of God and had become more and more corrupt. And so had Israel. The principle that we can save ourselves by our own works lay at the foundation of every heathen religion. It had now become the principle of the Jewish religion.HH 14.6

The Jews robbed the world by a counterfeit of the gospel. They had refused to surrender themselves to God for the salvation of the world, and they became agents of Satan for its destruction. The people whom God had called to be the pillar and ground of the truth were doing the work Satan wanted them to do, living in a way that misrepresented God’s character and caused the world to look on Him as a tyrant. Priests in the temple lost the meaning of the service they performed. They were like actors in a play. Laws and ceremonies that God Himself had established were made the means of blinding the mind and hardening the heart. God could do no more for humanity through these channels.HH 14.7