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Climactic Moment, February 1
Who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he
appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap.
Malachi 3:2
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The people of Israel, because of their sinfulness, were forbidden to
approach the mount when God was about to descend upon it to proclaim
His law, lest they should be consumed by the burning glory of His presence.
If such manifestations of His power marked the place chosen for the procla-
mation of God’s law, how terrible must be His tribunal when He comes for
the execution of these sacred statutes. How will those who have trampled
upon His authority endure His glory in the great day of final retribution? ...
When the divine Presence was manifested upon Sinai, the glory of the
Lord was like devouring fire.... But when Christ shall come in glory with
His holy angels the whole earth shall be ablaze with the terrible light of His
presence....
Never since man was created had there been witnessed such a manifes-
tation of divine power as when the law was proclaimed from Sinai.... Amid
the most terrific convulsions of nature the voice of God, like a trumpet, was
heard from the cloud. The mountain was shaken from base to summit, and
the hosts of Israel, pale and trembling with terror, lay upon their faces upon
the earth. He whose voice then shook the earth has declared, “Yet once
more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.” ...
When Moses came from the divine Presence in the mount, where he had
received the tables of the testimony, guilty Israel could not endure the light
that glorified his countenance. How much less can transgressors look upon
the Son of God when He shall appear in the glory of His Father, surrounded
by all the heavenly host, to execute judgment upon the transgressors of His
law and the rejecters of His atonement....
But amid the tempest of divine judgment the children of God will have
no cause for fear. “The Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength
of the children of Israel.” The day that brings terror and destruction to the
transgressors of God’s law, will bring to the obedient, “joy unspeakable,
and full of glory.”
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