The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 310

come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.” Luke
21:28, 30, 31.
But as the spirit of humility and devotion in the church had given
place to pride and formalism, love for Christ and faith in His coming
had grown cold. Absorbed in worldliness and pleasure seeking, the
professed people of God were blinded to the Saviour’s instructions
concerning the signs of His appearing. The doctrine of the second
advent had been neglected; the scriptures relating to it were obscured by
misinterpretation, until it was, to a great extent, ignored and forgotten.
Especially was this the case in the churches of America. The freedom
and comfort enjoyed by all classes of society, the ambitious desire for
wealth and luxury, begetting an absorbing devotion to money-making,
the eager rush for popularity and power, which seemed to be within the
reach of all, led men to center their interests and hopes on the things of
this life, and to put far in the future that solemn day when the present
order of things should pass away.
When the Saviour pointed out to His followers the signs of His
return, He foretold the state of backsliding that would exist just prior to
His second advent. There would be, as in the days of Noah, the activity
and stir of worldly business and pleasure seeking—buying, selling,
planting, building, marrying, and giving in marriage—with forgetfulness
of God and the future life. For those living at this time, Christ’s
admonition is: “Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts
be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life,
and so that day come upon you unawares.” “Watch ye therefore, and
pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things
that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.” Luke 21:34,
36.
The condition of the church at this time is pointed out in the Saviour’s
words in the Revelation: “Thou hast a name

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