Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers

Special Influence of Satan's Work

To us the warning is given, “All these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.” Mark the influence of their extremes and fanaticism in the service of the great master worker, Satan. As soon as the wicked one had the people under his control, there were exhibitions of a satanic character. The people ate and drank without a thought of God and His mercy, without a thought of the necessity of resisting the devil, who was leading them on to the most shameful deeds. The same spirit was manifested as at the sacrilegious feast of Belshazzar. There was glee and dancing, hilarity and singing, carried to an infatuation that beguiled the senses; then the indulgence in inordinate, lustful affections—all this mingled in that disgraceful scene. God had been dishonored; His people had become a shame in the sight of the heathen. Judgments were about to fall on that infatuated, besotted multitude. Yet God in His mercy gave them opportunity to forsake their sins. TM 101.2

“Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on the Lord's side?” The trumpeters caught up the words, and sounded them through the trumpet, “Who is on the Lord's side? let him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him.” All who were repentant had the privilege of taking their stand beside Moses. “And he said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor. And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.” There was no partiality, no hypocrisy, no confederating to shield the guilty. For the terror of the Lord was upon the people. TM 102.1

Those who had shown so little sense of the presence and the greatness of God, and who, after the exhibition of His majesty, were ready to depart from the Lord, would be a continual snare to Israel. They were slain, as a rebuke to sin, and to put a fear upon the people to dishonor God. TM 103.1