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The Great Controversy
“The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before
the great and terrible day of the Lord come.”
Joel 2:31
.
Christ had bidden His people watch for the signs of His advent and
rejoice as they should behold the tokens of their coming King. “When
these things begin to come to pass,” He said, “then look up, and lift
up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.” He pointed His
followers to the budding trees of spring, and said: “When they now
shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now
nigh at hand. So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass,
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know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.”
Luke 21:28, 30, 31
.
But as the spirit of humility and devotion in the church had given
place to pride and formalism, love for Christ and faith in His coming
had grown cold. Absorbed in worldliness and pleasure seeking, the
professed people of God were blinded to the Saviour’s instructions
concerning the signs of His appearing. The doctrine of the second ad-
vent had been neglected; the scriptures relating to it were obscured by
misinterpretation, until it was, to a great extent, ignored and forgotten.
Especially was this the case in the churches of America. The freedom
and comfort enjoyed by all classes of society, the ambitious desire for
wealth and luxury, begetting an absorbing devotion to money-making,
the eager rush for popularity and power, which seemed to be within the
reach of all, led men to center their interests and hopes on the things of
this life, and to put far in the future that solemn day when the present
order of things should pass away.
When the Saviour pointed out to His followers the signs of His
return, He foretold the state of backsliding that would exist just prior
to His second advent. There would be, as in the days of Noah, the
activity and stir of worldly business and pleasure seeking—buying,
selling, planting, building, marrying, and giving in marriage—with
forgetfulness of God and the future life. For those living at this time,
Christ’s admonition is: “Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time
your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares
of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.” “Watch ye
therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape
all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of
man.”
Luke 21:34, 36
.
The condition of the church at this time is pointed out in the
Saviour’s words in the Revelation: “Thou hast a name that thou livest,
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