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Testimonies for the Church Volume 9
Those who hold the reins of government are not able to solve the
problem of moral corruption, poverty, pauperism, and increasing
crime. They are struggling in vain to place business operations on a
more secure basis. If men would give more heed to the teaching of
God’s word, they would find a solution of the problems that perplex
them.
The Scriptures describe the condition of the world just before
Christ’s second coming. Of the men who by robbery and extortion
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are amassing great riches, it is written: “Ye have heaped treasure
together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who have
reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth:
and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears
of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and
been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.
Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.”
James 5:3-6
.
But who reads the warnings given by the fast-fulfilling signs of
the times? What impression is made upon worldlings? What change
is seen in their attitude? No more than was seen in the attitude of the
inhabitants of the Noachian world. Absorbed in worldly business
and pleasure, the antediluvians “knew not until the Flood came,
and took them all away.”
Matthew 24:39
. They had heaven-sent
warnings, but they refused to listen. And today the world, utterly
regardless of the warning voice of God, is hurrying on to eternal
ruin.
The world is stirred with the spirit of war. The prophecy of the
eleventh chapter of Daniel has nearly reached its complete fulfill-
ment. Soon the scenes of trouble spoken of in the prophecies will
take place.
“Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste,
and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants
thereof.... Because they have transgressed the laws, changed the
ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse
devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate.... The
mirth of tabrets ceaseth, the noise of them that rejoice endeth, the
joy of the harp ceaseth.”
Isaiah 24:1-8
.
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“Alas for the day! for the day of the Lord is at hand, and as a
destruction from the Almighty shall it come.... The seed is rotten