By John Thiel, mp3

It is our focus to become acquainted with our enemy’s devices to know what we are actually fighting and what is going on in the literal battle with the evil one. Our scripture reading reveals our danger.

1 Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: 9 Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.

What is our danger? The devil is behaving like a lion who walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: We are living in a enchanted area on this planet. Satan has the majority of people serving him and he has very much control over the affairs of humanity who serve him. As they are in the majority, we are surrounded by this evil one who wants us as well. We want to spend time considering that we must not be ignorant of this.

2 Corinthians 2:11 Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.

The apostle says we are not ignorant of his devices. It is imperative that we are not ignorant of his devices. We must ensure that we are not by becoming very much informed. It is one of the subjects that Satan does not want us to become familiar with.

There is nothing that the great deceiver fears so much as that we shall become acquainted with his devices. {GC 516.3}

Satan fears that we should become aware of his devices. The very subject I want to share with you is very annoying to him. As a result he has been trying to prevent me from being able to share this with all clear mindedness and he has had a go at me this morning. I rejoice that Satan is not able to get the better of that.

The better to disguise his real character and purposes, he has caused himself to be so represented as to excite no stronger emotion than ridicule or contempt. Ibid

What is Satan trying to do? He wants to only create in you ridicule or contempt, nothing more. He’s happy with that. Do you ridicule, do you condemn him? He is happy with that.

There is something that we need to know that we are frequently ignorant of. It is Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, that wants us to understand.

Fully acquainted with the temptations and devices of the enemy, He presents before His children what they may expect, {ST August 1 1900.8}

What does Jesus do? Jesus, our Lord and Saviour is fully acquainted with the temptations and devices of the enemy because He was here on earth and He met it and He presents before His children what they may expect. Is this subject important? It’s Jesus speaking to us. He presents before us what we may expect.

…assuring them at the same time that He will help them bear whatever may come. He knows our difficulties, He understands our distresses. Not a sigh is heard, nor a throb of anguish felt, but the pang vibrates in the heart of Christ. Ibid

We are tuning into His presentation of what we may expect of Satan with his devious devices but please do not become absorbed with Satan. I’m putting this caveat beside it. We can be informed by Jesus in reference to what we are to expect of Satan, but we are not to become pre absorbed with Satan and all his devices instead of looking upon Jesus. It is Jesus that reveals to us and we are to focus on Jesus and not on the devil who has been revealed. This is very important. We are to concentrate on Him who gives the victory over the things that He reveals of Satan.

During our last conference ‘The Final Generation’, we have been deeply exercised in regards to the time in which we are living being the very last generation. We are living on the last concluding activities of the sealing of God’s people. As we are to be affected by the messages of God sealing His people, the great sealing message and the message of the three angels, what is Satan’s deliberation? What is Satan doing as we are to concentrate on the work of the three angels?

Satan is now using every device in this sealing time to keep the minds of God’s people from the present truth and to cause them to waver.{EW 43.2}

Have you become a little rusty on the sealing activities, a little side-tracked? It is the work of Satan. He is at work so that on some item of this sealing message, we begin to become slack and waver.

I saw a covering that God was drawing over His people to protect them in the time of trouble; and every soul that was decided on the truth and was pure in heart was to be covered with the covering of the Almighty. {EW 43.2}

This is the sealing message, the truth that we are studying. Satan is there trying to prevent that from happening.

Oh, that all could get a view of it as God revealed it to me, that they might know more of the wiles of Satan and be on their guard! I saw that Satan was at work in these ways to distract, deceive, and draw away God’s people, just now in this sealing time. I saw some who were not standing stiffly for present truth. Their knees were trembling, and their feet sliding, because they were not firmly planted on the truth, and the covering of Almighty God could not be drawn over them while they were thus trembling. {EW 44.1}

Satan was trying his every art to hold them where they were…..God has begun to draw this covering over His people, and it will soon be drawn over all who are to have a shelter in the day of slaughter. God will work in power for His people; and Satan will be permitted to work also. {EW 44.2}

Where do you find yourself? Are you full on ahead with the message for truth for these last days? If we are trembling, if there are a few little weaknesses in our life, Satan wants us to stay there so we will not be completely covered by this covering, by the sealing. He is trying his every art, using every device. Can we see how important it is that we recognise what those devices are, so we can indeed shun them?

As we are shown this, we should be listening to this with great diligence as our scripture reading read. Take this as the voice of God speaking to us just now. Satan will be permitted to work while God is working. We need to identify this work that Satan is working, so that we can cooperate correctly with God’s working. Let us identify together, these two activities over our head.

1. God working
2. Satan working

We do not understand as we should the great conflict going on between invisible agencies, the controversy between loyal and disloyal angels. Over every man, good and evil angels strive. {HP 253.1}

Are you aware that this is happening right now? What’s happening in your mind? What whisperings are going on as God is speaking and as the angels of the evil one are working?

This is no make believe conflict. It is not mimic battles in which we are engaged. We have to meet most powerful adversaries, and it rests with us to determine which shall win. {HP 253.2}

These are extremely important messages.

Could human beings know the number of the evil angels, could they know their devices and their activity, there would be far less pride and frivolity. Satan is the prince of demons. The evil angels over whom he rules do his bidding. Through them he multiplies his agencies. . . . He instigates all the evil that exists in our world. {HP 253.3}

If Satan sees that he is in danger of losing one soul, he will exert himself to the utmost to keep that one. And when the individual is aroused to his danger, and, with distress and fervor, looks to Jesus for strength, Satan fears that he will lose a captive, and he calls a reinforcement of his angels to hedge in the poor soul, and form a wall of darkness around him, that heaven’s light may not reach him. {HP 253.4}

Have you felt a wall of darkness many times? Have you felt the danger of him preventing you from gaining the full empowerment of the Holy Spirit, of Jesus and the beautiful messages? Keeping you away from them? People have sometimes said to me, yes I’ve got to come, I’ve got to be there. It just happened last night and this morning. I get a phone call saying that I can’t come because I’m too tired or it’s too hot or it’s this or it’s that. We are under Satan’s sophistries to keep us away from the pure powerful messages that are necessary to seal us today.

But if the one in danger perseveres, and in his helplessness casts himself upon the merits of the blood of Christ, our Saviour listens to the earnest prayer of faith, and sends a reinforcement of those angels that excel in strength to deliver him.

It is left with us as to who will win. Satan is not wanting to let us go, he wants to destroy us because if we are safe, he has to suffer the consequences of all our sins and he doesn’t want that. The moment that you are falling under his power, he doesn’t want to let go. He will keep on and as you’re trembling this darkness covers you, you need to understand the great conflict that you are in. You and I must reach out for God’s help otherwise God’s help doesn’t come.

Two Things Satan Doesn’t Want

1. He doesn’t want you to see his devices
2. He doesn’t want you to appeal to his rival

Satan cannot endure to have his powerful rival appealed to, for he fears and trembles before His strength and majesty. At the sound of fervent prayer, Satan’s whole host trembles. . . . And when angels, all-powerful, clothed with the armory of heaven, come to the help of the fainting, pursued soul, Satan and his host fall back. . . . The great Commander in heaven and earth has limited Satan’s power. {HP 253.5}

Around every tempted soul there are angels of God, ready to lift up the standard of righteousness, if the tempted one will only show a spirit of resistance to evil. Each may be an overcomer. Christ has in our behalf withstood the fiercest temptations of the enemy. {HP 253.6}

He is already overcome and all that God and the angels are waiting for as they are around God’s people, is for the cry of help by earnest prayer. Not just “I need a bit of help here, Lord.” Earnest appreciation of the battle that hangs over us, “Help me, O God.”

As it rests with us which shall win, what are these devices and arts that we are exposed to? We need to intelligently meet these together with the holy angels ready to help us.

Attacks upon the Truth

In reference to this sealing message that God’s people are in these last days are to be sealed with which Satan doesn’t want and is fighting over them, what is the most obvious thing that Satan will do with this message?

Satan knew this, and he was at work in mighty power to keep the minds of as many people as he possibly could wavering and unsettled on the truth. {HP 253.6}

If the truth is the thing that is going to seal us, what will Satan do? He will cause us to waver and become unsettled on the truth. Has he not succeeded with the majority of Adventists today? The sealing message has become a doctrinal argument instead of a saving grace. It is taught, the 144,000 are not made up from 1844, there is a great multitude that will be saved besides the 144,000 at Christ’s coming. All these kind of wavering understandings and confusions. That is what Satan has been doing.

I saw that the mysterious knocking in New York and other places was the power of Satan, and that such things would be more and more common, clothed in a religious garb so as to lull the deceived to greater security and to draw the minds of God’s people, if possible, to those things and cause them to doubt the teachings and power of the Holy Ghost.{EW 43.3}

A religious garb is placed upon Satan’s activity. This is what we are surrounded thickly with today so that people are confused in regards to the sharp truths of original Adventist understanding that God has given them.

I saw that Satan was working through agents in a number of ways. He was at work through ministers who have rejected the truth and are given over to strong delusions to believe a lie that they might be damned. ibid

Ministers have been doing this and Satan has been working through them. You hear different preachers in Adventist and independents circles who all claim they are coming away from the corruption, they themselves have been under the delusions that have taken them away from the original pristine truth on the sealing work.

While they were preaching or praying, some would fall prostrate and helpless, ibid

That’s what happened in the Pentecostal circles, and it’s even coming into the ranks of Adventism as well.

…not by the power of the Holy Ghost, but by the power of Satan breathed upon these agents, and through them to the people. While preaching, praying, or conversing, some professed Adventists who had rejected present truth used mesmerism to gain adherents, ibid

What is the term of that today? NLP, neuro-linguistic programming. That’s what mesmerism is, to get adherents. Where did they get that neuro-linguistic programming from? From the Pentecostals. The leaders of the Adventist church took them in and they learned to make adherents. This is Satan’s work and as a consequence, the beautiful truth has been smudged.

…and the people would rejoice in this influence, for they thought it was the Holy Ghost. Some even that used it were so far in the darkness and deception of the devil that they thought it was the power of God, given them to exercise. They had made God altogether such a one as themselves and had valued His power as a thing of nought. {EW 43.4}

This is what Satan is doing in regards to this beautiful message of the sealing, he wants the people to be unready and keep them outside, so that when the covering is pulled over they are on the outside.

We say that we can see all that, we are safe aren’t we? We are secure here, we have called ourselves Historic Advent Sabbath Society, because we are standing on the historic truths of the sealing message, so we aren’t going to be effected by his devices are we? Or are we?!

Questioning the Power of the Truth

Here is how Satan looks at people like us.

“But before proceeding to these extreme measures, we must exert all our wisdom and subtlety to deceive and ensnare those who honor the true Sabbath. We can separate many from Christ by worldliness, lust, and pride. They may think themselves safe because they believe the truth, but indulgence of appetite or the lower passions, which will confuse judgment and destroy discrimination, will cause their fall. {TM 473.2}

He must try to destroy discrimination. Have you heard all the antagonism against discrimination of today? People hate you discriminating. Satan hates discrimination. Satan is trying to destroy our capabilities to avoid decadence, to avoid failure, to let the truth continue to achieve its clear power in our life.

After you have heard a powerful message and you were really moved to think, “Right, I’m going to stand by the truth, I’m never going to fail any more, I’m going to watch closely.” Then you forgot the impact of that message. Have you experienced that? Afterwards you think, “Why am I so particular here?” What has Satan just done? He has actually done something in your daily life to take away that deep sensitivity so it’s not so important any more. That is his work. Conviction that was once stirred, he has worked to diminish.

What are these different things that Satan does to distract us so that we become absorbed with something else and what I was convinced of becomes rusty?

Don’t think I’m going too far here, because I can’t go far enough brethren. I can see what Satan is doing to us.

Some of these agents of Satan were affecting the bodies of some of the saints–those whom they could not deceive and draw away from the truth by a Satanic influence. {EW 44.1}

They couldn’t deceive us away from the truth so they touched our bodies. Can you identify the touch of the devil on your body? Are you sensitive to your body, how you feel? “I feel bloated, I think I’m doing something wrong.” He is touching your body, you are imagining things. Just because I feel a bit full does not mean there is something wrong with that. It’s good to feel satisfied. There is something that Satan touches your body with and over-accentuates that and makes you pay attention to yourself.

Because you are looking at my body, he comes and puts his glasses on you and says, ”You’re very fat, aren’t you?” He does what he does to the bulimics and to the others in the world to make them think they have to go on diets. That is Satan. He turns our attention to our food instead of our Saviour. That’s Satan, that’s his device.

What should be absorbing your whole mind, your whole attention? How you feel? How you look? That is what Satan wants to absorb your whole attention with. As he gets you to think about yourself in that way, he takes away your focus on the life-endangering activities of evil around us, and take away our focus on what I should be thinking about continually.

I then saw the third angel. Said my accompanying angel, “Fearful is his work. Awful is his mission. He is the angel that is to select the wheat from the tares, and seal, or bind, the wheat for the heavenly garner. These things should engross the whole mind, the whole attention.” {EW 118.1}

This is the sealing work of the third angel. It should engross the whole attention. While I am concentrating on my body which he has touched and affected; he touches my eyes, he touches my senses and gives me sensations that are from him. We think that that is connected with what Sister White wrote there and that’s connected with what Sister White wrote somewhere else and so people are at each other over Sister White’s writings. That is just what Satan wants. That is his device.

Physical Sensations

How distracting are physical sensations? How do they translate to worldliness, to not only make you aware of your physical self, but to take you to the next step about your physical self? This is how he leads us step by step away from the things that should occupy our full attention.

Pride and vanity are manifested everywhere; but those who are inclined to look into the mirror to admire themselves will have little inclination to look into the law of God, the great moral mirror. This idolatry of dress destroys all that is humble, meek, and lovely in character.

The idolatry of dress comes from looking at my body. Who is most affected by this, sisters? You know what the world expects, a slim woman with a nice waistline. So the women feel their body and Satan touches them even more. He does it to men too, all the muscular feeling. This is Satan touching their bodies. Then he leads them to think in reference to themselves. Now I have to dress a certain way. When I hear a sister in the church say, “I really like your dress.” What has Satan just done? He has turned your mind away from what you should be concentrating on to the body and dress of another sister, and to your own.

Are you aware of his devices?

This idolatry of dress destroys that which is humble, meek, and lovely in character.

It consumes the precious hours that should be devoted to meditation, to searching the heart, to the prayerful study of God’s Word. . . . No Christian can conform to the demoralizing fashions of the world without imperiling his soul’s salvation. {CG 433.2}

You can be so stylish in the dress reform that even in the dress reform in your stylish mentality you are absorbed with fashion instead of just concentrating on doing what the Spirit of Prophecy says what we should dress like and forget about it. What we should eat like and then forget about it. Just eat and do what God’s word has said and that’s it; forget about it. Don’t talk about this and that and the other thing, because that is not what Jesus wants us to do, it’s what Satan wants us to do.

-Aided by the grace of Christ, women are capable of doing a great and grand work. For this reason Satan works with his devices to invent fashionable dress, that love of display may so absorb the mind and heart and affection of even professed Christian mothers in this age, that they have no time to give to the education and training of their children {CG 433.3}

They work on tissying up their children as it goes on to say. Satan knows this and he knows how to touch our bodies so that we will respond to the sensations of our bodies and lead us into focus upon self. That is his device.

The reason why there are so many people in this mental condition in the world that he has succeeded with. They are as skinny as twigs and they think that’s beautiful. They are constantly trying to recover themselves from what they imagine is a loss of beauty. Remember beauty is only in the eyes of the beholder. Satan can so affect your eyesight that what is seen as beautiful is in reality ugly. Have you seen the women with all their make-up? They think they are beautiful because they want to remain young. That is Satan’s work. He says, “You’re beautiful.” All the rest of the people say, “That’s beautiful.” It is ugly, yet we think it’s beautiful. What does God say in His word?

1 Peter 3:4But [let it be] the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, [even the ornament] of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.

Now that is beautiful. I have seen people who are not very stylish in the world and I have even seen fat people beautiful because they are so natural and so untouched and so kind and loving. That is beautiful. Satan says that is ugly and he gets us to see something that is ugly to look beautiful and he sees something that is beautiful and makes it feel ugly. This is the device of Satan.

Thoughts And Feelings

Another device is the way he touches the mind of God’s people and making them think a certain thing. Not only the sensations of the body, but also the sensations of thoughts and feelings.

A few hours ago I listened to the complaints of a distressed soul. Satan came to her in an unexpected way. She thought that she had blasphemed the Saviour because the tempter kept putting into her mind the thought that Christ was only a man, no more than a good man. She thought that Satan’s whisperings were the sentiments of her own heart, and this horrified her. She thought that she was denying Christ, and her soul was in an agony of distress. I assured her that these suggestions of the enemy were not her own thoughts, that Christ understood and accepted her; that she must treat these suggestions as wholly from Satan; and that her courage must rise with the strength of the temptation. She must say, I am a child of God. I commit myself, body and soul, to Jesus. I hate these vain thoughts. I told her not to admit for a moment that they originated with her; not to allow Satan to wound Christ by plunging her into unbelief and discouragement. {2MR 343.5}

Satan was putting things into her mind that she thought were her own thoughts. That’s what he did with the heavenly angels, he put suggestions in there and then the heavenly angels said certain things so he could say to the Lord, “See, that is their own conviction.”

This is his device.

He does it with regards to our bodies, with regards to our attitudes about things, to harass us with thoughts that are not truth, to distract us.

Do cease complaining, even though you suppose that there is something to complain of. Satan says, “I will harass him until he shall make shipwreck of faith”; but you need not be overcome by his devices. God will uphold you if you will only let Him. At times you are inclined to make a complete surrender of yourself to God, and then you feel at rest; but you take yourself back again, you do not let Jesus carry your burdens. {UL 314.2}

Satan will give you something to complain of. He is given permission to harass us while God at the same time is working.

You are to know that God has you under His special care; ……..Do not fall into the temptation to harass your own life and make yourself miserable . . . {UL 314.5}

Your own meditations and thoughts about certain things can trouble you, it will harass your life and make you miserable when it is actually Satan who is putting those thoughts there. That’s his device.

There are thoughts and feelings suggested and aroused by Satan that annoy even the best of men; {2 MCP 432.2}

When you have a feeling, don’t you think that is you? “I have this feeling inside of me, that must be me.” No, it’s Satan. He is giving you that, he has touched your body. He has stirred your emotions, your senses.

As you appreciate this as the Lord Jesus is revealing it to us today, you know for the future what to do with that. It is Satan, it’s his device. He wants to distract me. He wants to harass me that I will make ship wreck of my faith.

He has had a hard go at me over the years. I’ve shared this with you before. He harasses me constantly, he knows my weakness and that weakness is that I’m an impatient German. I have to have everything right and if doesn’t go right it’s frustration. He comes to me with that again and again and again. He comes to me with this and gives me these sensations of failure, that I have desperately shut myself from God because I’m getting so frustrated. What I am doing lately is having a good laugh at him. “You know exactly what you are doing don’t you?” I will not give in, I will continue to flee to the Lord and know that my salvation is secure in Him while I continue to look to Him. As I become frustrated and upset and impatient within my sensations, that doesn’t mean I’m lost. They are the sensations that Satan is putting upon me. I will go on rejoicing in the Lord no matter how I feel.

Let’s take all this into our church relationships. Are you frustrated with a brother or a sister? Are you sometimes irritated with what a person has said in the church in the business meeting? What are they doing? It has multiplied in your mind and you have acted upon it here or there. This is Satan. He would love to tear up the last little remnant people that are trying to press together and answer the prayer of Jesus. He wants to tear that apart. He does it through the very same channels of the devices I have mentioned. As he has done it all the way through in this way and that. We see different people in the church and we look at them with Satan’s glasses on.

These men do not see themselves; for they look through Satan’s deceptive glasses. {GW92 439.1}

“We must cause distraction and division. We must destroy their anxiety for their own souls, and lead them to criticize, to judge, and to accuse and condemn one another, and to cherish selfishness and enmity. For these sins, God banished us from His presence; and all who follow our example will meet a similar fate.” {TM 475.2}

When you next feel frustrated about someone in the church, remember that is not you, that’s the devil stirring, causing you to look at a brother or a sister or to hear words that are being said and drawing certain conclusions which are from him. This is his work.

As we are sitting in church, trying to concentrate on the message, there is an infant that is unusually restless. Parents, have you noticed that when it comes to worship time your children get more restless than they are at other times? Sister White says Satan is revealing himself to that child and stirring its little body, just like he is stirring our bodies.

There is a particular statement where she says she was holding little Henry and he was irritated and fretful. She said it was as though he was seeing something that they couldn’t see. They prayed to the Lord that the child would be released from Satan’s interference and the evil was chased away and the child calmed down.

Instead of being irritated as Satan wants us to be as parents, to distract us from being able to concentrate, work through it. Recognise that it is Satan and pray. Don’t become irritated about it. Let the word of God continue to do its work and the child will be released from this. If it doesn’t release straight away, remember Satan is permitted to do certain things to train us. Unusual, unexpected ways are to be expected from the evil one.

Recall what Jesus said, He Himself was experienced in these things.

Fully acquainted with the temptations and devices of the enemy, He presents before His children what they may expect, assuring them at the same time that He will help them bear whatever may come. He knows our difficulties, He understands our distresses. Not a sigh is heard, nor a throb of anguish felt, but the pang vibrates in the heart of Christ. {ST, August 1, 1900 par. 8}

He understands, He Himself has been through it, and He has had to deal with it. Remember the wilderness experience when He was tempted. What was it? How did Satan work with Him? Did Satan touch His body too? Notice what he did.

The adversary seemed to have power to take Christ where he pleased, for he next took Him to an exceeding high mountain, and there presented before Him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. . {CTr 191.5}

What did Satan do? He picked Jesus up in his arms and flew with Him. What a feeling, what a body experience. He came to Him as an angel of light, just like he comes to us, and makes it feel so exhilarating. Just imagine, flying to the top of a high building with the wings of an angel; that’s what Jesus went through.

in order to awe Christ with his superior strength he carried Him to Jerusalem and set Him on a pinnacle of the Temple, {Con 47.2}

Here was Christ as a human being, weak and Satan was powerful, he could carry Him in his strong arms and fly Him up into the pinnacle of the mountain. Jesus has gone through this so He can reveal to us what Satan is doing to us and we can conquer as Jesus did; not to pay any attention to the sensations that make it appear as though the mighty power of God is affecting me.

Satan is preparing his deceptions that in his last campaign against the people of God, they may not understand that it is he. “And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.” . . . Satan will go to the extent of his power to harass, tempt, and mislead God’s people.

He who dared to face, and tempt, and taunt our Lord, and who had power to take Him in his arms and carry Him to a pinnacle of the temple, and up into an exceeding high mountain, will exercise his power to a wonderful degree upon the present generation, who are far inferior in wisdom to their Lord, and who are almost wholly ignorant of his subtlety and strength. {Mar 206.2-3}

What he did to Jesus he will do to us and he is permitted to do it. As we are here in His presence at this moment, let it sink in. He has revealed to us through these beautiful readings regarding the deep sense of what Satan has done to you and me, that we can see unexpected things. Anything to harass, anything to turn your attention away from total focus on what I am supposed to be focusing on; anything.

…In a marvelous manner will he affect the bodies of those who are naturally inclined to do his bidding. He will come personating Jesus Christ, working mighty miracles; and men will fall down and worship him as Jesus Christ. We shall be commanded to worship this being, whom the world will glorify as Christ. What shall we do?–Tell them that Christ has warned us against just such a foe, who is man’s worst enemy, {Mar 206.4-6}

We think we wouldn’t fall for that, but I am liable to fall for other things.

When we read that he will come and impersonate Christ, he will do it to you in a most unexpected manner thinking this is the Spirit of Prophecy, this is the counsel from God because it is so closely allied. Satan studies the Spirit of Prophecy just like you do and he knows how to tweak certain things that are written there to misapply them in your mind. I am seeing this across the board of Seventh-day Adventism.

Can we comprehend and appreciate the importance of the message I have shared with you here? Consider our great need of entire trust in God’s word, as I have been sharing with you over the last two weeks. We must hear Jesus speaking directly without putting a twist to His words, just do what He says. Ignore all the other sensations that Satan puts upon us. Consider this great need and a complete surrender, an abandonment of my own self totally to the Lord.

Trust yourself in the hands of God……… God will uphold you if you will only let Him. At times you are inclined to make a complete surrender of yourself to God, and then you feel at rest; but you take yourself back again, you do not let Jesus carry your burdens. {UL 314.2}

Let us learn to remain under a complete surrender and stay in that perfect rest. As soon as you can feel something disturbing that rest, remember where it comes from, the smallest little thing. When it happens ask yourself “what have I just lost?” Quickly flee back to the Lord. Sister White says go where you last saw the light. Bring it back and fill your mind again because it is Satan with his devices that has managed to trip you up.

God grant us the full sense of our vulnerability without Him and our submission to His word. It’s a life and death message to us.

Amen.