536
The Great Controversy
his servants and slew his son. They remember, too, the sentence
which they themselves pronounced: The lord of the vineyard “will
miserably destroy those wicked men.” In the sin and punishment of
those unfaithful men the priests and elders see their own course and
their own just doom. And now there rises a cry of mortal agony. Louder
than the shout, “Crucify Him, crucify Him,” which rang through the
streets of Jerusalem, swells the awful, despairing wail, “He is the Son
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of God! He is the true Messiah!” They seek to flee from the presence
of the King of kings. In the deep caverns of the earth, rent asunder by
the warring of the elements, they vainly attempt to hide.
In the lives of all who reject truth there are moments when con-
science awakens, when memory presents the torturing recollection of
a life of hypocrisy and the soul is harassed with vain regrets. But what
are these compared with the remorse of that day when “fear cometh
as desolation,” when “destruction cometh as a whirlwind”!
Proverbs
1:27
. Those who would have destroyed Christ and His faithful people
now witness the glory which rests upon them. In the midst of their
terror they hear the voices of the saints in joyful strains exclaiming:
“Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us.”
Isaiah 25:9
.
Amid the reeling of the earth, the flash of lightning, and the roar
of thunder, the voice of the Son of God calls forth the sleeping saints.
He looks upon the graves of the righteous, then, raising His hands to
heaven, He cries: “Awake, awake, awake, ye that sleep in the dust,
and arise!” Throughout the length and breadth of the earth the dead
shall hear that voice, and they that hear shall live. And the whole earth
shall ring with the tread of the exceeding great army of every nation,
kindred, tongue, and people. From the prison house of death they
come, clothed with immortal glory, crying: “O death, where is thy
sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”
1 Corinthians 15:55
. And the
living righteous and the risen saints unite their voices in a long, glad
shout of victory.
All come forth from their graves the same in stature as when they
entered the tomb. Adam, who stands among the risen throng, is of
lofty height and majestic form, in stature but little below the Son of
God. He presents a marked contrast to the people of later generations;
in this one respect is shown the great degeneracy of the race. But all
arise with the freshness and vigor of eternal youth. In the beginning,