Chapter 42—The Controversy Ended
At the close of the thousand years, Christ again returns to the earth.
He is accompanied by the host of the redeemed and attended by a
retinue of angels. As He descends in terrific majesty He bids the
wicked dead arise to receive their doom. They come forth, a mighty
host, numberless as the sands of the sea. What a contrast to those who
were raised at the first resurrection! The righteous were clothed with
immortal youth and beauty. The wicked bear the traces of disease and
death.
Every eye in that vast multitude is turned to behold the glory of the
Son of God. With one voice the wicked hosts exclaim: “Blessed is He
that cometh in the name of the Lord!” It is not love to Jesus that inspires
this utterance. The force of truth urges the words from unwilling lips.
As the wicked went into their graves, so they come forth with the same
enmity to Christ and the same spirit of rebellion. They are to have
no new probation in which to remedy the defects of their past lives.
Nothing would be gained by this. A lifetime of transgression has not
softened their hearts. A second probation, were it given them, would
be occupied as was the first in evading the requirements of God and
exciting rebellion against Him.
Christ descends upon the Mount of Olives, whence, after His
resurrection, He ascended, and where angels repeated the promise of
His return. Says the prophet: “The Lord my God shall come, and all
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the saints with Thee.” “And His feet shall stand in that day upon the
Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount
of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof, ... and there shall be a very
great valley.” “And the Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that
day shall there be one Lord, and His name one.”
Zechariah 14:5, 4, 9
.
As the New Jerusalem, in its dazzling splendor, comes down out of
heaven, it rests upon the place purified and made ready to receive it,
and Christ, with His people and the angels, enters the Holy City.
Now Satan prepares for a last mighty struggle for the supremacy.
While deprived of his power and cut off from his work of deception,
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