Chapter 8—The Time of Troubl
How shall Christ’s people stand in days of almost overwhelming
opposition? Can we rely on God’s promises no matter what may
come? Where can we find a safeguard from the storm?
As the Sabbath has become the special point of controversy
throughout Christendom, and religious and secular authorities have
combined to enforce the observance of the Sunday, the persistent re-
fusal of a small minority to yield to the popular demand will make
them objects of universal execration. It will be urged that the few who
stand in opposition to an institution of the church and a law of the
state ought not to be tolerated; that it is better for them to suffer than
for whole nations to be thrown into confusion and lawlessness. The
same argument eighteen hundred years ago was brought against Christ
[41]
by the “rulers of the people.” “It is expedient for us,” said the wily
Caiaphas, “that one man should die for the people, and that the whole
nation perish not.”
John 11:50
. This argument will appear conclusive;
and a decree will finally be issued against those who hallow the Sab-
bath of the fourth commandment, denouncing them as deserving of
the severest punishment and giving the people liberty, after a certain
time, to put them to death. Romanism in the Old World and apostate
Protestantism in the New will pursue a similar course toward those
who honor all the divine precepts.
Affliction and Distress are Foretold
The people of God will then be plunged into those scenes of af-
fliction and distress described by the prophet as the time of Jacob’s
trouble. “Thus saith the Lord: We have heard a voice of trembling, of
fear, and not of peace... All faces are turned into paleness. Alas! for
that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s
trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.”
Jeremiah 30:5-7
....
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The Great Controversy, 615-630.
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