Controversy Ended
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that of Christ could have made them conquerors. In all that shining
throng there are none to ascribe salvation to themselves, as if they had
prevailed by their own power and goodness. Nothing is said of what
they have done or suffered; but the burden of every song, the keynote
of every anthem, is: Salvation to our God and unto the Lamb.
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In the presence of the assembled inhabitants of earth and heaven the
final coronation of the Son of God takes place. And now, invested with
supreme majesty and power, the King of kings pronounces sentence
upon the rebels against His government and executes justice upon
those who have transgressed His law and oppressed His people. Says
the prophet of God: “I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on
it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was
found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand
before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened,
which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things
which were written in the books, according to their works.”
Revelation
20:11, 12
.
As soon as the books of record are opened, and the eye of Jesus
looks upon the wicked, they are conscious of every sin which they have
ever committed. They see just where their feet diverged from the path
of purity and holiness, just how far pride and rebellion have carried
them in the violation of the law of God. The seductive temptations
which they encouraged by indulgence in sin, the blessings perverted,
the messengers of God despised, the warnings rejected, the waves of
mercy beaten back by the stubborn, unrepentant heart—all appear as
if written in letters of fire.
Above the throne is revealed the cross; and like a panoramic view
appear the scenes of Adam’s temptation and fall, and the successive
steps in the great plan of redemption. The Saviour’s lowly birth; His
early life of simplicity and obedience; His baptism in Jordan; the fast
and temptation in the wilderness; His public ministry, unfolding to
men heaven’s most precious blessings; the days crowded with deeds
of love and mercy, the nights of prayer and watching in the solitude
of the mountains; the plottings of envy, hate, and malice which repaid
His benefits; the awful, mysterious agony in Gethsemane beneath the
crushing weight of the sins of the whole world; His betrayal into the
hands of the murderous mob; the fearful events of that night of horror—
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the unresisting prisoner, forsaken by His best-loved disciples, rudely