The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 326

the earth is the sanctuary, and he therefore understood that the cleansing
of the sanctuary foretold in Daniel 8:14 represented the purification of
the earth by fire at the second coming of Christ. If, then, the correct
starting point could be found for the 2300 days, he concluded that the
time of the second advent could be readily ascertained. Thus would be
revealed the time of that great consummation, the time when the present
state, with “all its pride and power, pomp and vanity, wickedness and
oppression, would come to an end;” when the curse would be “removed
from off the earth, death be destroyed, reward be given to the servants of
God, the prophets and saints, and them who fear His name, and those be
destroyed that destroy the earth.”—Bliss, page 76.
With a new and deeper earnestness, Miller continued the
examination of the prophecies, whole nights as well as days being
devoted to the study of what now appeared of such stupendous
importance and all-absorbing interest. In the eighth chapter of Daniel
he could find no clue to the starting point of the 2300 days; the angel
Gabriel, though commanded to make Daniel understand the vision, gave
him only a partial explanation. As the terrible persecution to befall the
church was unfolded to the prophet’s vision, physical strength gave way.
He could endure no more, and the angel left him for a time. Daniel
“fainted, and was sick certain days.” “And I was astonished at the
vision,” he says, “but none understood it.”
Yet God had bidden His messenger: “Make this man to understand
the vision.” That commission must be fulfilled. In obedience to it, the
angel, some time afterward, returned to Daniel, saying: “I am now come
forth to give thee skill and understanding;” “therefore understand the
matter, and consider the vision.” Daniel 8:27, 16; 9:22, 23, 25-27. There
was one important point in the vision of chapter 8 which had been left
unexplained, namely, that relating to time—the period of the 2300 days;
therefore the angel, in resuming his explanation, dwells chiefly upon the
subject of time:

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