Satan is working in the atmosphere; he is poisoning the atmosphere, and here we are dependent upon God for our lives--our present and eternal lives. And being in the position that we are, we need to be wide awake, wholly devoted, wholly converted, wholly consecrated to God. But we seem to sit as though we were paralyzed. God of heaven, wake us up!--2SM 52 (1890). {LDE 26.4}
God has not restrained the powers of darkness from carrying forward their deadly work of vitiating the air, one of the sources of life and nutrition, with a deadly miasma. Not only is vegetable life affected but man suffers from pestilence. . . . These things are the result of drops from the vials of God's wrath [GOD TAKES RESPONSIBILITY FOR THAT WHICH HE ALLOWS OR DOES NOT PREVENT. SEE EXODUS 7:3; 8:32; 1 CHRONICLES 10:4, 13, 14.] being sprinkled on the earth, and are but faint representations of what will be in the near future.--3SM 391 (1891). {LDE 27.1}
Famines will increase. Pestilences will sweep away thousands. Dangers are all around us from the powers without and satanic workings within, but the restraining power of God is now being exercised.--19MR 382 (1897). {LDE 27.2}
I have been shown that the Spirit of the Lord is being withdrawn from the earth. God's keeping power will soon be refused to all who continue to disregard His commandments. The reports of fraudulent transactions, murders, and crimes of every kind are coming to us daily. Iniquity is becoming so common a thing that it no longer shocks the senses as it once did.--Letter 258, 1907. {LDE 27.3}