The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 311
that thou livest, and art dead.” And to those who refuse to arouse from
their careless security, the solemn warning is addressed: “If therefore
thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not
know what hour I will come upon thee.” Revelation 3:1, 3.
It was needful that men should be awakened to their danger; that
they should be roused to prepare for the solemn events connected with
the close of probation. The prophet of God declares: “The day of the
Lord is great and very terrible; and who can abide it?” Who shall stand
when He appeareth who is “of purer eyes than to behold evil,” and cannot
“look on iniquity”? Joel 2:11; Habakkuk 1:13. To them that cry, “My
God, we know Thee,” yet have transgressed His covenant, and hastened
after another god, hiding iniquity in their hearts, and loving the paths
of unrighteousness—to these the day of the Lord is “darkness, and not
light, even very dark, and no brightness in it.” Hosea 8:2, 1; Psalm 16:4;
Amos 5:20. “It shall come to pass at that time,” saith the Lord, “that I
will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled
on their lees: that say in their heart, The Lord will not do good, neither
will He do evil.” Zephaniah 1:12. “I will punish the world for their
evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy
of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.”
Isaiah 13:11. “Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver
them;” “their goods shall become a booty, and their houses a desolation.”
Zephaniah 1:18, 13.
The prophet Jeremi ah, looking forward to this fearful time,
exclaimed: “I am pained at my very heart.... I cannot hold my peace,
because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm
of war. Destruction upon destruction is cried.” Jeremiah 4:19, 20.
“That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of
wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of
clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm.” Zephaniah
1:15, 16. “Behold, the day
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