The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 643
is moved out of its place. “Our God shall come, and shall not keep
silence: a fire shall devour before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous
round about Him. He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the
earth, that He may judge His people.” Psalm 50:3, 4.
“And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and
the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every
freeman, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;
and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the
face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:
for the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?”
Revelation 6:15-17.
The derisive jests have ceased. Lying lips are hushed into silence.
The clash of arms, the tumult of battle, “with confused noise, and
garments rolled in blood” (Isaiah 9:5), is stilled. Nought now is heard
but the voice of prayer and the sound of weeping and lamentation. The
cry bursts forth from lips so lately scoffing: “The great day of His wrath
is come; and who shall be able to stand?” The wicked pray to be buried
beneath the rocks of the mountains rather than meet the face of Him
whom they have despised and rejected.
That voice which penetrates the ear of the dead, they know. How
often have its plaintive, tender tones called them to repentance. How
often has it been heard in the touching entreaties of a friend, a brother,
a Redeemer. To the rejecters of His grace no other could be so full
of condemnation, so burdened with denunciation, as that voice which
has so long pleaded: “Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why
will ye die?” Ezekiel 33:11. Oh, that it were to them the voice of a
stranger! Says Jesus: “I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched
out My hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all My
counsel, and would none of My reproof.” Proverbs 1:24, 25. That voice
awakens memories which they would fain blot out—warnings despised,
invitations refused, privileges slighted.
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