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From Here to Forever
a great extent, ignored and forgotten, especially in America. An
absorbing devotion to money-making, the rush for popularity and
power, led men to put far in the future that solemn day when the
present order of things should pass away.
The Saviour foretold the state of backsliding that would exist
just prior to His second advent. For those living at this time, Christ’s
admonition is: “Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts
be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this
life, and so that day come upon you unawares.” “Watch ye therefore,
and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all
these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of
man.”
Luke 21:34, 36
.
It was needful that men be roused to prepare for the solemn
events connected with the close of probation. “The day of the Lord
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is great and very terrible; and who can abide it?” Who shall stand
when He appeareth who is “of purer eyes than to behold evil,” and
cannot “look on iniquity”? “I will punish the world for their evil,
and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of
the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.”
“Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them;”
“their goods shall become a booty, and their houses a desolation.”
Joel 2:11
;
Habakkuk 1:13
;
Isaiah 13:11
;
Zephaniah 1:18, 13
.
The Call to Arouse
In view of that great day the Word of God calls upon His people
to seek His face with repentance:
“The day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand.” “Sanctify a
fast, call a solemn assembly: gather the people, sanctify the congre-
gation, assemble the elders, gather the children: ... Let the priests,
the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar.”
“Turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with
weeping, and with mourning: And rend your heart, and not your
garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and
merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness.”
Joel 2:1, 15-17, 12,
13
.
To prepare a people to stand in the day of God, a great work of
reform was to be accomplished. In His mercy He was about to send