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Chapter 42—Eternal Peace: The Controversy
Ended
At the close of the 1000 years, Christ returns to the earth accom-
panied by the redeemed and a retinue of angels. He bids the wicked
dead arise to receive their doom. They come forth, numberless as
the sands of the sea, bearing the traces of disease and death. What a
contrast to those raised in the first resurrection!
Every eye 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!”
Matthew 23:39
. It is not love that inspires
this utterance. The force of truth urges the words from unwilling
lips. As the wicked went in to the 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 their past lives.
Says the prophet: “His feet shall stand in that day upon the
Mount of Olives, ... and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the
midst thereof.”
Zechariah 14:4
. As the New Jerusalem comes down
out of heaven, it rests upon the place made ready, and Christ, with
His people and the angels, enters the holy city.
While cut off from his work of deception, the prince of evil was
miserable and dejected, but as the wicked dead are raised and he sees
the vast multitudes upon his side, his hopes revive. He determines
not to yield the great controversy. He will marshal the lost under
his banner. In rejecting Christ they have accepted the rule of the
rebel leader, ready to do his bidding. Yet, true to his early cunning,
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he does not acknowledge himself to be Satan. He claims to be the
rightful owner of the world whose inheritance has been unlawfully
wrested from him. He represents himself as a redeemer, assuring
his deluded subjects that his power has brought them from their
graves. Satan makes the weak strong, and inspires all with his own
energy to lead them to take possession of the city of God. He points
to the unnumbered millions who have been raised from the dead,
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