Final Warning
505
people. It still controls, to some extent, the laws of the land. Were it not
for these laws, the condition of the world would be much worse than it
now is. While many of our rulers are active agents of Satan, God also
has his agents among the leading men of the nation. The enemy moves
upon his servants to propose measures that would greatly impede the
work of God; but statesmen who fear the Lord are influenced by holy
angels to oppose such propositions with unanswerable arguments.
Thus a few men will hold in check a powerful current of evil. The
opposition of the enemies of truth will be restrained that the third
angel’s message may do its work. When the final warning shall be
given, it will arrest the attention of these leading men through whom
the Lord is now working, and some of them will accept it, and will
stand with the people of God through the time of trouble.
The angel who unites in the proclamation of the third angel’s
[611]
message is to lighten the whole earth with his glory. A work of
world-wide extent and unwonted power is here foretold. The Advent
movement of 1840-44 was a glorious manifestation of the power of
God; the first angel’s message was carried to every missionary station
in the world, and in some countries there was the greatest religious
interest which has been witnessed in any land since the Reformation
of the sixteenth century; but these are to be far exceeded by the mighty
movement under the last warning of the third angel.
The work will be similar to that of the day of Pentecost. As the
“former rain” was given, in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the
opening of the gospel, to cause the upspringing of the precious seed,
so the “latter rain” will be given at its close, for the ripening of the
harvest. “Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord; his
going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us
as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth.” [
Hosea 6:3
.]
“Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God;
for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause
to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain.”
[
Joel 2:23
.] “In the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit
upon all flesh.” “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call
on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” [
Acts 2:17, 21
.] The great
work of the gospel is not to close with less manifestation of the power
of God than marked its opening. The prophecies which were fulfilled
in the outpouring of the former rain at the opening of the gospel, are