The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 526

The teaching so widely echoed from popular pulpits, that the second
advent of Christ is His coming to each individual at death, is a device
to divert the minds of men from His personal coming in the clouds of
heaven. For years Satan has thus been saying, “Behold, He is in the
secret chambers” (Matthew 24:23-26); and many souls have been lost
by accepting this deception.
Again, worldly wisdom teaches that prayer is not essential. Men of
science claim that there can be no real answer to prayer; that this would
be a violation of law, a miracle, and that miracles have no existence.
The universe, say they, is governed by fixed laws, and God Himself does
nothing contrary to these laws. Thus they represent God as bound by
His own laws—as if the operation of divine laws could exclude divine
freedom. Such teaching is opposed to the testimony of the Scriptures.
Were not miracles wrought by Christ and His apostles? The same
compassionate Saviour lives today, and He is as willing to listen to the
prayer of faith as when He walked visibly among men. The natural
cooperates with the supernatural. It is a part of God’s plan to grant us,
in answer to the prayer of faith, that which He would not bestow did we
not thus ask.
Innumerable are the erroneous doctrines and fanciful ideas that are
obtaining among the churches of Christendom. It is impossible to
estimate the evil results of removing one of the landmarks fixed by the
word of God. Few who venture to do this stop with the rejection of a
single truth. The majority continue to set aside one after another of the
principles of truth, until they become actual infidels.
The errors of popular theology have driven many a soul to skepticism
who might otherwise have been a believer in the Scriptures. It is
impossible for him to accept doctrines which outrage his sense of justice,
mercy, and benevolence; and since these are represented as the teaching
of the Bible, he refuses to receive it as the word of God.

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