546
The Great Controversy
all just and righteous law. The setting aside of the divine precepts gave
rise to thousands of springs of evil, discord, hatred, iniquity, until the
earth became one vast field of strife, one sink of corruption. This is the
view that now appears to those who rejected truth and chose to cherish
error. No language can express the longing which the disobedient and
disloyal feel for that which they have lost forever—eternal life. Men
whom the world has worshiped for their talents and eloquence now see
these things in their true light. They realize what they have forfeited
by transgression, and they fall at the feet of those whose fidelity they
have despised and derided, and confess that God has loved them.
The people see that they have been deluded. They accuse one
another of having led them to destruction; but all unite in heaping
their bitterest condemnation upon the ministers. Unfaithful pastors
have prophesied smooth things; they have led their hearers to make
void the law of God and to persecute those who would keep it holy.
[656]
Now, in their despair, these teachers confess before the world their
work of deception. The multitudes are filled with fury. “We are lost!”
they cry, “and you are the cause of our ruin;” and they turn upon the
false shepherds. The very ones that once admired them most will
pronounce the most dreadful curses upon them. The very hands that
once crowned them with laurels will be raised for their destruction.
The swords which were to slay God’s people are now employed to
destroy their enemies. Everywhere there is strife and bloodshed.
“A noise shall come even to the ends of the earth; for the Lord
hath a controversy with the nations, He will plead with all flesh; He
will give them that are wicked to the sword.”
Jeremiah 25:31
. For six
thousand years the great controversy has been in progress; the Son
of God and His heavenly messengers have been in conflict with the
power of the evil one, to warn, enlighten, and save the children of
men. Now all have made their decisions; the wicked have fully united
with Satan in his warfare against God. The time has come for God to
vindicate the authority of His downtrodden law. Now the controversy
is not alone with Satan, but with men. “The Lord hath a controversy
with the nations;” “He will give them that are wicked to the sword.”
The mark of deliverance has been set upon those “that sigh and
that cry for all the abominations that be done.” Now the angel of
death goes forth, represented in Ezekiel’s vision by the men with the
slaughtering weapons, to whom the command is given: “Slay utterly