Escaping the Peril of the Time of Trouble and the Fire Upon the Wicked
In a previous article The Sabbath in the Time of Trouble we noticed the connection between Ellen White’s statement in Early Writings page 33 and 34 and Exodus 5. We noticed a connection related to sword famine and pestilence that falls upon those who reject the responsibilities of the covenant.
Exo 5:3 And they said, The God of the Hebrews hath met with us: let us go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto the LORD our God; lest he fall upon us with pestilence, or with the sword.
And at the commencement of the time of trouble, we were filled with the Holy Ghost as we went forth and proclaimed the Sabbath more fully. This enraged the churches and nominal Adventists, as they could not refute the Sabbath truth. And at this time God's chosen all saw clearly that we had the truth, and they came out and endured the persecution with us. I saw [34] the sword, famine, pestilence, and great confusion in the land. EW 33,34
Lev 26:25 And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant: and when ye are gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you; and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.
In the situation of the time of Egypt, Moses and Aaron had attempted a Sabbath reform but then Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh in order to keep the Sabbath more fully and keep a feast to the Lord. A failure to do this would result in a breach of the hedge of protection and sword and pestilence would fall upon then from the destroyer.
The Law of God including Sabbath is a hedge of protection for God’s people.
In the parable the householder represented God, the vineyard the Jewish nation, and the hedge the divine law which was their protection. The tower was a symbol of the temple. The lord of the vineyard had done everything needful for its prosperity. "What could have been done more to my vineyard," he says, "that I have not done in it." Isaiah 5:4. DA 596
Isa 58:12-13 And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in. (13) If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:
When Moses connected the coming of sword and pestilence to the refusal to of the keeping of the feast, he revealed that these is a connection between the protection of God and his statutes in the feasts. The Spirit of God flowing out to God’s people through the Sabbath is magnified and expanded into the feasts of the Lord which also contain the spirit of Sabbath rest.
Lev 23:24 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation.
Lev 23:27-28,32 Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD. (28) And ye shall do no work in that same day: for it is a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you before the LORD your God. ... It shall be unto you a sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your sabbath.
Lev 23:39 Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the LORD seven days: on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath.
The Sabbath brings to God’s people extra blessings in the Spirit as indicated in the booklet Sabbath Fountain. The amount of these blessings are indicated in Numbers 28 and 29 as outlined in the booklet Living Bread from Heaven. At the commencement of the time of trouble, God’s people are filled with the Holy Spirit that comes to them through the Sabbath and magnified in the feasts. This is the reason why they are filled with the Holy Spirit AS they proclaim the Sabbath more fully. At the time of trouble the people of God will have learned to number by sevens in order to receive the times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. Acts 3:19.
There is a further connection between the events of Exodus 5 and the commencement of the time of trouble. The passage in Early Writings is taken from a letter written by Ellen White to Joseph Bates and was published in the booklet A Word to the Little Flock. In this document there are extra references included.
And at the commencement of the time of trouble, we were filled with the Holy Ghost as we went forth [Hosea 6:2, 3.] and proclaimed the Sabbath more fully. This enraged the church, and nominal Adventists, as they could not refute the Sabbath truth. And at this time, God's chosen, all saw clearly that we had the truth, and they came out and endured the persecution with us. And I saw the sword, famine, pestilence, and great confusion in the land. [Ezekiel 7:10-19. 2 ESDRAS 15:5-27] The wicked thought that we had brought the judgments down on them. They rose up and took counsel to rid the earth of us, thinking that then the evil would be stayed. [2 ESDRAS 16:68-74.] {WLF 18.4}
Here is part of the reference from 2nd Esdras 5 which gives specific details on events that will take place at the end of the world.
2 Esdras 15:5-12 Behold, saith the Lord, I will bring plagues upon the world; the sword, famine, death, and destruction. (6) For wickedness hath exceedingly polluted the whole earth, and their hurtful works are fulfilled. (7) Therefore saith the Lord, (8) I will hold my tongue no more as touching their wickedness, which they profanely commit, neither will I suffer them in those things, in which they wickedly exercise themselves: behold, the innocent and righteous blood crieth unto me, and the souls of the just complain continually. (9) And therefore, saith the Lord, I will surely avenge them, and receive unto me all the innocent blood from among them. (10) Behold, my people is led as a flock to the slaughter: I will not suffer them now to dwell in the land of Egypt: (11) But I will bring them with a mighty hand and a stretched out arm, and smite Egypt with plagues, as before, and will destroy all the land thereof. (12) Egypt shall mourn, and the foundation of it shall be smitten with the plague and punishment that God shall bring upon it.
2 Esdras 5:11 indicates that God will bring His people out of this world as He did before when He brought Israel out of the land of Egypt. This confirms the parallel between Exodus 5 and the commencement of the time of trouble.
When God’s people proclaim the fullness of the Sabbath in all God’s appointments the churches and nominal Adventists will be enraged. This is because the Sabbath brings light, health and strength to those who have faith in what the Lord has promised.
All heaven was represented to me as beholding and watching upon the Sabbath those who acknowledge the claims of the fourth commandment and are observing the Sabbath. Angels were marking their interest in, and high regard for, [705] this divine institution. Those who sanctified the Lord God in their hearts by a strictly devotional frame of mind, and who sought to improve the sacred hours in keeping the Sabbath to the best of their ability, and to honor God by calling the Sabbath a delight--these the angels were specially blessing with light and health, and special strength was given them. But, on the other hand, the angels were turning from those who failed to appreciate the sacredness of God's sanctified day, and were removing from them their light and their strength. I saw them overshadowed with a cloud, desponding, and frequently sad. They felt a lack of the Spirit of God. 2T 704,705
As Christ is the brightness of the Father’s glory so the feasts magnify the Spirit found in the Sabbath. Again this is clearly revealed in the flour and oil connected to the Sabbath, New Moon and Feasts in Numbers 28 and 29. More and more light comes to God’s people through the glorious Sabbath and the Sabbath brightness in the feasts. This is why Moses and Aaron were seeking permission to keep a feast. In Egypt they had attempted a Sabbath reform to bring more light to Israel.
In their bondage the Israelites had to some extent lost the knowledge of God's law, and they had departed from its precepts. The Sabbath had been generally disregarded, and the exactions of their taskmasters made its observance apparently impossible. But Moses had shown his people that obedience to God was the first condition of deliverance; and the efforts made to restore the observance of the Sabbath had come to the notice of their oppressors. PP 258
Pharaoh charged Moses and Aaron of trying to cause the people to Sabbath or rest from their labours. Exodus 5:5. It is significant that the request of Moses to keep a feast to the Lord can be included in Pharaoh’s charge of trying to bring in the Sabbath.
Moses and Aaron request:
Exodus 5:1 And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness.
Pharaoh responds:
Exodus 5:5 And Pharaoh said, Behold, the people of the land now are many, and ye make them rest from their burdens.
The issue of the feasts and the Sabbath follows the same pattern as the controversy over the relation of the Son to the Father. Satan was willing to acknowledge the position of the Father for he said “I will be like the Most High.” Yet he sought to obscure the position of the Son of God and deny his special relationship to the Father. The inheritance of the Son means that all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ. In the same way Satan seeks to deny the special relationship that the feasts have to the Sabbath. The name Sabbath is in the feasts as we indicated earlier in Leviticus 23. Yet Satan seeks to deny this relationship and deny that the feasts as recorded in Scripture hold any significance. As the Spirit of the Fathers dwells fully in His Son in a magnified way so the Spirit of Christ in the Sabbath rests upon the feasts in a magnified way. The people of God who approach these feasts in faith will receive greater light, health and strength and this will enrage the church and the nominal Adventists even as Pharaoh was enraged when Israel dared to raise the question of the feasts to him. As Pharaoh determined to keep the people in slavery so many church leaders seek to keep the people enslaved to the delusion that the feasts are nailed to the cross.
The foolish virgins do have some oil because they have kept the Sabbath but in failing to follow the light of truth upon the narrow path, the light they have is turned to darkness and many will give up the Sabbath under the pressure of the Sunday law. Why is this? Because they have not discerned the power of the Spirit that comes at these special appointments but rather do so from the obligations of the Ten Commandments, they grow weary in watching for the bride groom and they run out of oil. As they lose the light they had they begin to transgress the commandments and break down the hedge of protection and make a breach in the law of the Lord which is a transcript of His character. As a result:
I saw the sword, famine, pestilence, and great confusion in the land. [Ezekiel 7:10-19. 2 ESDRAS 15:5-27] The wicked thought that we had brought the judgments down on them. They rose up and took counsel to rid the earth of us, thinking that then the evil would be stayed. [2 ESDRAS 16:68-74.] {WLF 18.4}
The Spirit of God in the lives of God’s people will cause them to rise up as Cain did against his brother Abel who maintained a strictly devotional frame of mind and was faithful to all the statutes and judgements of God. The next reference mentioned in Word to the Little Flock is 2 Esdras 16:68-74
2Es 16:68-74 For, behold, the burning wrath of a great multitude is kindled over you, and they shall take away certain of you, and feed you, being idle, with things offered unto idols. (69) And they that consent unto them shall be had in derision and in reproach, and trodden under foot. (70) For there shall be in every place, and in the next cities, a great insurrection upon those that fear the Lord. (71) They shall be like mad men, sparing none, but still spoiling and destroying those that fear the Lord. (72) For they shall waste and take away their goods, and cast them out of their houses. (73) Then shall they be known, who are my chosen; and they shall be tried as the gold in the fire. (74) Hear, O ye my beloved, saith the Lord: behold, the days of trouble are at hand, but I will deliver you from the same.
The counsel of Jesus to the Laodiceans is received in the persecution of God’s people for their faithfulness to the commandments, statutes and judgments. The blessed news is that God will deliver us. As Ellen White further indicates:
In the time of trouble, we all fled from the cities and villages, [Ezekiel 7:15, 16. Luke 17:30-36. SEE CAMPBELL'S TRANSLATION.] but were pursued by the wicked, who entered the houses of the saints with the sword. They raised the sword to kill us, but it broke, and fell, as powerless as a straw. Then we all cried day and night for deliverance, and the cry came up before God. WLF 19.
This is the time of Jacob’s trouble. God’s people plead with God for deliverance from the desire of the wicked to kill them.
At this point we must ask the question, why are references to 2nd Esdras included in this letter to the little flock? 2nd Esdras is part of the Apocrypha or hidden books. A few years after writing this letter Ellen White had a vision where she stated:
I then saw the Word of God pure and unadulterated, and that we must answer for the way we received the truth proclaimed from that Word. I saw that it had been a hammer to break the flinty heart in pieces, and a fire to consume the dross and tin, that the heart might be pure and holy. I saw that the Apocrypha was the hidden book, and that the wise of these last days should understand it. I saw that the Bible was the standard book, that will judge us at the last day. 15MR 66. {Ms4-1850 (January 28, 1850) par. 13}
In reference to 2 Esdras, Joseph Bates made the following comment:
The 2nd book of Esdras, contains very important truths for those that keep God's law and commandments; they will probably benefit no others, 12:37,38. I have refrained from quoting here while writing the Sealing Message, not because I did not believe; but because so much prejudice still exists, on account of its not being canonical scripture. There is abundant testimony in the Old and New Testament to satisfy all that honest minds require respecting the sealing message, being the present truth. I wish however, to quote a few passages to show the sealing, the law, and commandments, time of trouble, etc. see 9:10,11, 30-33,36,37. All this may be objected to as under Moses's dispensation. Let 2:38-47, settle it. Carefully note 1st, the sealing; 2nd, the law; and 3rd, final redemption. Compare it with Rev. 14:1. Still further evidence, 13:31-38. Compare 38th verse with Rev. 17:14, and 19:15,16. Also the commandments in 15:24,25. 16:74-76.
Time of trouble, 15:5,6, 11-27,57,58,62. 16:5,8, 14-24,31,37,40, 67-78. Read the comforting promise [67] for the time of trouble, 2:27. All this is now right before us; let us therefore carefully examine this prophecy. Joseph Bates, the Sealing page 66,67
Several of the pioneers quote from 2nd Esdras in supporting their positions which suggest they had confidence in this book as part of the hidden book that the wise will understand. In this book we note with great interest what happens to the wicked when they seek to destroy God’s people and exactly the manner of how the wicked are destroyed.
2Es 13:3-11 And I beheld, and, lo, that man waxed strong with the thousands of heaven: and when he turned his countenance to look, all the things trembled that were seen under him. (4) And whensoever the voice went out of his mouth, all they burned that heard his voice, like as the earth faileth when it feeleth the fire. (5) And after this I beheld, and, lo, there was gathered together a multitude of men, out of number, from the four winds of the heaven, to subdue the man that came out of the sea (6) But I beheld, and, lo, he had graved himself a great mountain, and flew up upon it. (7) But I would have seen the region or place whereout the hill was graven, and I could not. (8) And after this I beheld, and, lo, all they which were gathered together to subdue him were sore afraid, and yet durst fight. (9) And, lo, as he saw the violence of the multitude that came, he neither lifted up his hand, nor held sword, nor any instrument of war: (10) But only I saw that he sent out of his mouth as it had been a blast of fire, and out of his lips a flaming breath, and out of his tongue he cast out sparks and tempests. (11) And they were all mixed together; the blast of fire, the flaming breath, and the great tempest; and fell with violence upon the multitude which was prepared to fight, and burned them up every one, so that upon a sudden of an innumerable multitude nothing was to be perceived, but only dust and smell of smoke: when I saw this I was afraid.
A little a later in the chapter further explanation is given:
2Es 13:27-38 And whereas thou sawest, that out of his mouth there came as a blast of wind, and fire, and storm; (28) And that he held neither sword, nor any instrument of war, but that the rushing in of him destroyed the whole multitude that came to subdue him; this is the interpretation: (29) Behold, the days come, when the most High will begin to deliver them that are upon the earth. (30) And he shall come to the astonishment of them that dwell on the earth. (31) And one shall undertake to fight against another, one city against another, one place against another, one people against another, and one realm against another. (32) And the time shall be when these things shall come to pass, and the signs shall happen which I shewed thee before, and then shall my Son be declared, whom thou sawest as a man ascending. (33) And when all the people hear his voice, every man shall in their own land leave the battle they have one against another. (34) And an innumerable multitude shall be gathered together, as thou sawest them, willing to come, and to overcome him by fighting. (35) But he shall stand upon the top of the mount Sion. (36) And Sion shall come, and shall be shewed to all men, being prepared and builded, like as thou sawest the hill graven without hands. (37) And this my Son shall rebuke the wicked inventions of those nations, which for their wicked life are fallen into the tempest; (38) And shall lay before them their evil thoughts, and the torments wherewith they shall begin to be tormented, which are like unto a flame: and he shall destroy them without labour by the law which is like unto me.
In 2nd Esdras is revealed the manner in which the wicked are destroyed by the brightness of the coming of Christ. We continue the parallel in Word to the Little Flock by Ellen White:
And as God spoke the day and hour of Jesus' coming, [Ezekiel 12:25. Mark 13:32.] and delivered the everlasting covenant to His people, [Ezekiel 20:37. Hebrews 12:22-25.] He spoke one sentence, and then paused, while the words were rolling through the earth! [Jeremiah 25:30, 31.] The Israel of God stood with their eyes fixed upwards, listening to the words as they came from the mouth of Jehovah, and rolled through the earth like peals of loudest thunder! It was awfully solemn. At the end of every sentence, the saints shouted, Glory! Hallelujah! Their countenances were lighted up with the glory of God; and they shone with the glory as Moses' face did when he came down from Sinai. The wicked could not look on them, for the glory. [Song of Solomon 5:1-5.] And when the never ending blessing was pronounced on those who had honored God, in keeping His Sabbath holy, there was a mighty shout of victory over the Beast, and over his Image. Then commenced the jubilee, when the land should rest. {WLF 19}
The wicked cannot look upon the righteous. The Spirit of God falls upon the wicked with a deep conviction of their sinful condition. This is torture for the wicked and their guilt fastens upon them and burns into their soul. They weep and gnash with their teeth. Our Lord Jesus does not raise a sword against them. He keeps His Father’s commandments which say “Thou shalt not kill.” Christ simply reveals the beautiful character of His Father in great glory and this causes the wicked to realise their iniquity and ingratitude. Jesus and the Father had tried everything possible to prepare them to see the revelation of Jesus and love His appearing but they refused and now His revelation is agony and sorrow for them. Jesus does not come to destroy them for they have destroyed themselves as did the Jews at the destruction of Jerusalem.
The Jews had forged their own fetters; they had filled for themselves the cup of vengeance. In the utter destruction that befell them as a nation, and in all the woes that followed them in their dispersion, they were but reaping the harvest which their own hands had sown. Says the prophet: "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself;" "for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity." Hosea 13:9; 14:1. Their sufferings are often represented as a punishment visited upon them by the direct decree of God. It is thus that the great deceiver seeks to conceal his own work. By stubborn rejection of divine love and mercy, the Jews had caused the protection of God to be withdrawn from them, and Satan was permitted to rule them according to his will. The horrible cruelties enacted in the [36] destruction of Jerusalem are a demonstration of Satan's vindictive power over those who yield to his control.
We cannot know how much we owe to Christ for the peace and protection which we enjoy. It is the restraining power of God that prevents mankind from passing fully under the control of Satan. The disobedient and unthankful have great reason for gratitude for God's mercy and long-suffering in holding in check the cruel, malignant power of the evil one. But when men pass the limits of divine forbearance, that restraint is removed. God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the sentence against transgression; but He leaves the rejectors of His mercy to themselves, to reap that which they have sown. Every ray of light rejected, every warning despised or unheeded, every passion indulged, every transgression of the law of God, is a seed sown which yields its unfailing harvest. The Spirit of God, persistently resisted, is at last withdrawn from the sinner, and then there is left no power to control the evil passions of the soul, and no protection from the malice and enmity of Satan. The destruction of Jerusalem is a fearful and solemn warning to all who are trifling with the offers of divine grace and resisting the pleadings of divine mercy. Never was there given a more decisive testimony to God's hatred of sin and to the certain punishment that will fall upon the guilty.
The Saviour's prophecy concerning the visitation of judgments upon Jerusalem is to have another fulfillment, of which that terrible desolation was but a faint shadow. In the fate of the chosen city we may behold the doom of a world that has rejected God's mercy and trampled upon His law. Dark are the records of human misery that earth has witnessed during its long centuries of crime. The heart sickens, and the mind grows faint in contemplation. Terrible have been the results of rejecting the authority of Heaven. But a scene yet darker is presented in the revelations of the future. The records of the past,--the long procession of tumults, [37] conflicts, and revolutions, the "battle of the warrior . . . with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood" (Isaiah 9:5),--what are these, in contrast with the terrors of that day when the restraining Spirit of God shall be wholly withdrawn from the wicked, no longer to hold in check the outburst of human passion and satanic wrath! The world will then behold, as never before, the results of Satan's rule. {GC 35, 36}
In the book of 2nd Esdras is clearly revealed the truth that God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner. God does not burn up the living wicked with a physical flame. His Spirit goes forth in the fiery law. The Word of God is a fire in the soul and burns with such intensity that it causes the soul immense agony. Jer 5:14. This is not because God desires to inflict this upon them but because they refuse to come to the light. When a person has been in darkness for many years and then is exposed to bright light it is agony for the eyes. Thus it is when Christ reveals His character to the world in all His brightness. For those who love Him it will be joy beyond description but for those who hated Him it will be agony beyond description. We now follow the experience of the wicked when Christ is revealed at His coming:
Before His presence "all faces are turned into paleness;" upon the rejecters of God's mercy falls the terror of eternal despair. "The heart melteth, and the knees smite together, . . . and the faces of them all gather blackness." Jeremiah 30:6; Nahum 2:10. The righteous cry with trembling: "Who shall be able to stand?" The angels' song is hushed, and there is a period of awful silence. Then the voice of Jesus is heard, saying: "My grace is sufficient for you." The faces of the righteous are lighted up, and joy fills every heart. And the angels strike a note higher and sing again as they draw still nearer to the earth.
The King of kings descends upon the cloud, wrapped in flaming fire. The heavens are rolled together as a scroll, the earth trembles before Him, and every mountain and island [642] is moved out of its place. "Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about Him. He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that He may judge His people." Psalm 50:3,4.
"And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every freeman, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?" Revelation 6:15-17.
The derisive jests have ceased. Lying lips are hushed into silence. The clash of arms, the tumult of battle, "with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood" (Isaiah 9:5), is stilled. Nought now is heard but the voice of prayer and the sound of weeping and lamentation. The cry bursts forth from lips so lately scoffing: "The great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?" The wicked pray to be buried beneath the rocks of the mountains rather than meet the face of Him whom they have despised and rejected.
That voice which penetrates the ear of the dead, they know. How often have its plaintive, tender tones called them to repentance. How often has it been heard in the touching entreaties of a friend, a brother, a Redeemer. To the rejecters of His grace no other could be so full of condemnation, so burdened with denunciation, as that voice which has so long pleaded: "Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die?" Ezekiel 33:11. Oh, that it were to them the voice of a stranger! Says Jesus: "I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out My hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all My counsel, and would none of My reproof." Proverbs 1:24, 25. That voice awakens memories which they would fain blot out--warnings despised, invitations refused, privileges slighted. [643]
There are those who mocked Christ in His humiliation. With thrilling power come to their minds the Sufferer's words, when, adjured by the high priest, He solemnly declared: "Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." Matthew 26:64. Now they behold Him in His glory, and they are yet to see Him sitting on the right hand of power.
Those who derided His claim to be the Son of God are speechless now. There is the haughty Herod who jeered at His royal title and bade the mocking soldiers crown Him king. There are the very men who with impious hands placed upon His form the purple robe, upon His sacred brow the thorny crown, and in His unresisting hand the mimic scepter, and bowed before Him in blasphemous mockery. The men who smote and spit upon the Prince of life now turn from His piercing gaze and seek to flee from the overpowering glory of His presence. Those who drove the nails through His hands and feet, the soldier who pierced His side, behold these marks with terror and remorse.
With awful distinctness do priests and rulers recall the events of Calvary. With shuddering horror they remember how, wagging their heads in satanic exultation, they exclaimed: "He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He be the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now, if He will have Him." Matthew 27:42, 43.
Vividly they recall the Saviour's parable of the husbandmen who refused to render to their lord the fruit of the vineyard, who abused his servants and slew his son. They remember, too, the sentence which they themselves pronounced: The lord of the vineyard "will miserably destroy those wicked men." In the sin and punishment of those unfaithful men the priests and elders see their own course and their own just doom. And now there rises a cry of mortal agony. Louder than the shout, "Crucify Him, crucify Him," which rang through the streets of Jerusalem, swells the awful, [644] despairing wail, "He is the Son of God! He is the true Messiah!" They seek to flee from the presence of the King of kings. In the deep caverns of the earth, rent asunder by the warring of the elements, they vainly attempt to hide.
In the lives of all who reject truth there are moments when conscience awakens, when memory presents the torturing recollection of a life of hypocrisy and the soul is harassed with vain regrets. But what are these compared with the remorse of that day when "fear cometh as desolation," when "destruction cometh as a whirlwind"! Proverbs 1:27. Those who would have destroyed Christ and His faithful people now witness the glory which rests upon them. In the midst of their terror they hear the voices of the saints in joyful strains exclaiming: "Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us." Isaiah 25:9. {GC 641-644.}
The call of our Lord Jesus goes out to the people of God. Come into the safety of the Sabbath more fully. Respond to the call to remember the Law of Moses with the statutes and the Judgements. Mal 4:4. Receive the extra oil of the Spirit that comes through the magnification of the Sabbath in the feasts and receive light, health and strength to face the beast and His image and be shielded from sword, famine and pestilence. Repent of the lies that our Father directly and personally kills those who oppose Him and see the truth that the fire of God that slays the wicked is His Word and the Sword of Christ is that which comes forth from His mouth speaking the Word of truth. This call is an urgent appeal to come into the ark of safety of our Father’s statutes and judgements and close up the breach made in the law through the violation of all our Father’s appointments to give us His Spirit. Do not harden your heart against the light but turn and be blessed and know that our Father loves us and gave His only begotten Son for us and does not want any to perish. The Spirit and the Bride say come. Rev 22:17
