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The Great Controversy
of the world, and the test of delay and disappointment, would they
renounce the faith? Because they did not immediately understand the
dealings of God with them, would they cast aside truths sustained by
the clearest testimony of His word?
This test would reveal the strength of those who with real faith
had obeyed what they believed to be the teaching of the word and
the Spirit of God. It would teach them, as only such an experience
could, the danger of accepting the theories and interpretations of men,
instead of making the Bible its own interpreter. To the children of faith
the perplexity and sorrow resulting from their error would work the
needed correction. They would be led to a closer study of the prophetic
word. They would be taught to examine more carefully the foundation
of their faith, and to reject everything, however widely accepted by the
Christian world, that was not founded upon the Scriptures of truth.
With these believers, as with the first disciples, that which in the
hour of trial seemed dark to their understanding would afterward be
made plain. When they should see the “end of the Lord” they would
know that, notwithstanding the trial resulting from their errors, His
purposes of love toward them had been steadily fulfilling. They would
learn by a blessed experience that He is “very pitiful, and of tender
mercy;” that all His paths “are mercy and truth unto such as keep His
covenant and His testimonies.”
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