Crowning Counterfeit

In The Great Controversy Ellen White speaks of “the crowning act in the great drama of deception” at the end of time when Satan will impersonate Christ in an attempted counterfeit of the Second Coming. Her description leaves one in no doubt as to whether or not Mrs. White herself witnessed this in vision:GVEGW 58.11

“In different parts of the earth, Satan will manifest himself as a majestic being of dazzling brightness, resembling the description of the Son of God given by John in the Revelation [1:13-15]. The glory that surrounds him is unsurpassed by anything that mortal eyes have yet beheld.... His voice is soft and subdued, yet full of melody. In gentle, compassionate tones he presents some of the same gracious, heavenly truths which the Saviour uttered; he heals the diseases of the people, and then, in his assumed character of Christ, he claims to have changed the Sabbath to Sunday, and commands all to hallow the day which he has blessed.... This is the strong, almost overmastering delusion.” ^{54The Great Controversy, 624, 625.}GVEGW 59.1

It is to this event that Mrs. White applies the prediction of Jesus that, if it were possible, Satan would deceive the “very elect” (Matthew 24:24). And she points out that Christians will be able to detect the counterfeit only by the objective word of God; if they rely upon subjective human senses, they will surely be lost, so coercive will the evidence become:GVEGW 59.2

1. Satan contradicts what the Bible teaches concerning the sacredness and sanctity of the seventh-day Sabbath, and places a blessing upon that group—possessors of the mark of the beast—that receives the ultimate curse of Scripture!GVEGW 59.3

2. The Bible declares that when Jesus returns we will meet Him in the sky, not on the earth (1 Thessalonians 4:17)—whereas Satan will be walking in different parts of this earth. Satan will not be permitted to counterfeit the physical manner of the Second Coming. ^{55The Great Controversy, 625.}GVEGW 59.4