The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 355

prayer and humility, seek to discern where they had failed to comprehend
the significance of the prophecy? How many had moved from fear,
or from impulse and excitement? How many were halfhearted and
unbelieving? Multitudes professed to love the appearing of the Lord.
When called to endure the scoffs and reproach of the world, and the test
of delay and disappointment, would they renounce the faith? Because
they did not immediately understand the dealings of God with them,
would they cast aside truths sustained by the clearest testimony of His
word?
This test would reveal the strength of those who with real faith had
obeyed what they believed to be the teaching of the word and the Spirit of
God. It would teach them, as only such an experience could, the danger
of accepting the theories and interpretations of men, instead of making
the Bible its own interpreter. To the children of faith the perplexity
and sorrow resulting from their error would work the needed correction.
They would be led to a closer study of the prophetic word. They would
be taught to examine more carefully the foundation of their faith, and to
reject everything, however widely accepted by the Christian world, that
was not founded upon the Scriptures of truth.
With these believers, as with the first disciples, that which in the hour
of trial seemed dark to their understanding would afterward be made
plain. When they should see the “end of the Lord” they would know
that, notwithstanding the trial resulting from their errors, His purposes
of love toward them had been steadily fulfilling. They would learn by a
blessed experience that He is “very pitiful, and of tender mercy;” that all
His paths “are mercy and truth unto such as keep His covenant and His
testimonies.”

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