The Great
Controversy - Chapter XXXIX- “The Time
of Trouble”
Continued…
Their countenances
express their internal struggle. Paleness sits upon every face. Yet they cease
not their earnest intercession. Could men see with heavenly vision, they would
behold companies of angels that excel in strength stationed about those who have
kept the word of Christ’s patience.
With sympathizing
tenderness, angels have witnessed their distress, and have heard their prayers.
They are waiting the word of their Commander to snatch them from their peril.
But they must wait yet a little longer. The people of God must drink of the cup,
and be baptized with the baptism. The very delay, so painful to them, is the
best answer to their petitions.
As they endeavor to
wait trustingly for the Lord to work, they are led to exercise faith, hope, and
patience, which have been too little exercised during their religious
experience. Yet for the elect’s sake, the time of trouble will be shortened.
“Shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him? ... I
tell you that he will avenge them speedily.” [Luke 18:7, 8.]
The end will come
more quickly than men expect.
The wheat will be
gathered and bound in sheaves for the garner of God; the tares will be bound as
fagots for the fires of destruction.
The heavenly
sentinels, faithful to their trust, continue their watch. Though a general
decree has fixed the time when commandment-keepers may be put to death, their
enemies will in some cases anticipate the decree, and, before the time
specified, will endeavor to take their lives. But none can pass the mighty
guardians stationed about every faithful soul. Some are assailed in their flight
from the cities and villages; but the swords raised against them break and fall
as powerless as a straw. Others are defended by angels in the form of men of
war.
In all ages, God has
wrought through holy angels for the succor and deliverance of his people.
Celestial beings have taken an active part in the affairs of men. They have
appeared clothed in garments that shone as the lightning; they have come as
men, in the garb of wayfarers. Angels have appeared in human form to men of
God. They have rested, as if weary, under the oaks at noon. They have accepted
the hospitalities of human homes. They have acted as guides to benighted
travelers. They have, with their own hands, kindled the fires of the altar. They
have opened prison doors, and set free the servants of the Lord. Clothed with
the panoply of Heaven, they came to roll away the stone from the Saviour’s
tomb. In the form of men, angels are often in the assemblies of the righteous,
and they visit the assemblies of the wicked, as they went to Sodom, to make a
record of their deeds, to determine whether they have passed the boundary of
God’s forbearance.
The Lord delights in
mercy; and for the sake of a few who really serve him, he restrains calamities,
and prolongs the tranquility of multitudes. Little do sinners against God
realize that they are indebted for their own lives to the faithful few whom they
delight to ridicule and oppress.
Though the rulers of
this world know it not, yet often in their councils angels have been spokesmen.
Human eyes have looked upon them; human ears have listened to their appeals;
human lips have opposed their suggestions and ridiculed their counsels; human
hands have met them with insult and abuse. In the council hall and the court of
justice, these heavenly messengers have shown an intimate acquaintance with
human history; they have proved themselves better able to plead the cause of
the oppressed than were their ablest and most eloquent defenders. They have
defeated purposes and arrested evils that would have greatly retarded the work
of God, and would have caused great suffering to his people.
In the hour of peril
and distress, “the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him,
and delivereth them.” [Psalm 34:7.]
With earnest
longing, God’s people await the tokens of their coming King. As the watchmen
are accosted, “What of the night?” the answer is given unfalteringly, “‘The
morning cometh, and also the night.’ [Isaiah 21:11, 12.] Light is gleaming upon
the clouds above the mountain tops. Soon there will be a revealing of His
glory. The Sun of Righteousness is about to shine forth. The morning and the
night are both at hand,—the opening of endless day to the righteous, the
settling down of eternal night to the wicked.” As the wrestling ones urge their
petitions before God, the veil separating them from the unseen seems almost
withdrawn. The heavens glow with the dawning of eternal day, and, like the
melody of angel songs, the words fall upon the ear, “Stand fast to your
allegiance. Help is coming.”
Christ, the almighty
victor, holds out to his weary soldiers a crown of immortal glory; and his
voice comes from the gates ajar: “Lo, I am with you. Be not afraid. I am
acquainted with all your sorrows; I have borne your griefs. You are not warring
against untried enemies. I have fought the battle in your behalf, and in my
name you are more than conquerors.”
Isa_53:4
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him
stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
Rom 8:31 What
shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against
us?
Rom 8:32 He
that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not
with him also freely give us all things?
Rom 8:33 Who
shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that
justifieth.
Rom 8:34 Who
is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again,
who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for
us.
Rom 8:35 Who
shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Rom 8:36 As it
is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as
sheep for the slaughter.
Rom 8:37 Nay,
in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved
us.
Rom 8:38 For I
am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor
powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
Rom 8:39 Nor
height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from
the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The precious Saviour
will send help just when we need it.
The way to Heaven is
consecrated by his foot-prints. Every thorn that wounds our feet has wounded
his. Every cross that we are called to bear, he has borne before us. The Lord
permits conflicts, to prepare the soul for peace.
The time of trouble
is a fearful ordeal for God’s people; but it is the time for every true
believer to look up, and by faith he may see the bow of promise encircling him.
“The redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and
everlasting joy shall be upon their head; they shall obtain gladness and joy;
and sorrow and mourning shall flee away. I, even I, am he that comforteth you;
who art thou, that thou shouldst be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the
son of man which shall be made as grass; and forgettest the Lord thy Maker; ...
and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, as
if he were ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the oppressor? The
captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in
the pit, nor that his bread should fail. But I am the Lord thy God, that
divided the sea, whose waves roared. The Lord of hosts is his name. And I have
put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand.”
“Therefore hear now
this, thou afflicted ,and drunken, but not with wine: Thus saith thy Lord
Jehovah, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I have
taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my
fury; thou shalt no more drink it again. But I will put it into the hand of
them that afflict thee; which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go
over; and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them
that went over.” [Isaiah51:11-16,21-23.]
The eye of God, looking down the ages, was
fixed upon the crisis which his people are to meet, when earthly powers shall be
arrayed against them. Like the captive exile, they will be in fear of death by
starvation or by violence. But the Holy One who divided the Red Sea before
Israel, will manifest his mighty power and turn their captivity.
“They shall be mine,
saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare
them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.” [Malachi 3:17.]
If the blood of
Christ’s faithful witnesses were shed at this time, it would not, like the
blood of the martyrs, be as seed sown to yield a harvest for God. Their fidelity
would not be a testimony to convince others of the truth; for the obdurate
heart has beaten back the waves of mercy until they return no more. If the
righteous were now left to fall a prey to their enemies it would be a triumph
for the prince of darkness. Says the psalmist, “In the time of trouble he shall
hide me in his pavilion; in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me.”
[Psalm 27:5.] Christ has spoken: “Come, my people, enter thou into thy
chambers, and shut thy doors about thee; hide thyself as it were for a little
moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the Lord cometh out of
his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity.” [Isaiah
26:20, 21.] Glorious will be the deliverance of those who have patiently waited
for his coming, and whose names are written in the book of life.
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