Gods Sabbath

T HE R EAPPEARANCE OF THE P ROBLEM

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perform, they see their responsibilities as giving them the man date to direct others. Such position thinking inevitably results in oppression and force. That was the position into which those leading men had per mitted themselves to drift under Satan’s subtle guidance. While the congregation generally shared with them the belief that they were models of righteousness, they were in reality serving the enemy and endangering the church. Insofar as the people shared in the leaders’ position thinking, they too were guilty of its consequences. Through the leaders’ course of action, God was being replaced as the Head over His own body. In this way they were repeating the recurring sin of their forefathers in working to put them selves in the place of Christ in His church. In so doing, they were literally laying the foundations upon which the man of sin would rise to power (see 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4). So deceived were they, that they could not see how the course which in their eyes would deliver the church from such apparently dangerous men as Paul, would instead be the guarantee of its total conversion to Satan’s service. From the mild and loving servant of God, the Christian church would be transformed into the cruelest oppressor history has known—the papacy. The following diagram will help show the principle at work in these issues. While this evil spirit was developing in the leaders, the Mas ter Teacher was working through Paul to counteract these influ ences. To the inspired apostle were given marvelous revelations concerning the mystery of God which, if faithfully followed, would assure the speedy completion of the church’s mission. It would break the power of the leading men and deliver the believ ers from their influence. Thus two mighty forces were contending for supremacy in the early church. On one side stood Christ, who was working through His delegated messengers—Paul and his faithful fellow laborers—to establish the all-powerful mystery of God. The Two Mysteries at War