GLIMPSES OF THE GREAT CONTROVERSY.
By F. R. Richards
Satan and His Devices Overthrown.
Many are the devices Satan has invented to take the place of the Gospel; but miserable subterfuges are they all, calculated to allure man away from his only succor, until he becomes so hopelessly entangled in the mazes of sin and error that no avenue of escape is discernible, and a deplorable fate is certain. What proportion of mankind have lost or are losing their bearings, eternity alone will reveal; but lest we waste precious time and energy building wide but false and perishing hopes, we are thus admonished and warned: “Enter ye in at the strait gate; for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat; because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” Matt. 7:13, 14. From this text it appears evident that a vast proportion of the race, having been deceived, and led into the ranks of the enemy of all truth and righteousness, march under the delusive banners of error, superstition, and spiritual darkness to sure defeat; for overwhelming subjection is the merited punishment laid up in store “against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” 2 Peter 3:7. But as to the possibilities in the great controversy; a glance forward with the prophet John to the final scenes of the conflict, leaves us in no doubt as to the issue. The Lord, having by the power and consuming “brightness of His coming” (2 Thess. 2:8) destroyed the wicked at His second advent, when the righteous are caught up to meet Him in the air (1 Thess. 4:16, 17), and the earth is cleansed, now sets a seal upon “the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan;”4for the removal of the righteous, the death of the wicked, and the chaotic desolation of the earth, bind the arch-deceiver in a chain of circumstances which effectually stops his work of deception, “that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled.” See Rev. 20:1-10. This is the first resurrection, at the beginning of the thousand years. During this time those translated, with the righteous saints then raised, shall reign as judges over the wicked dead, weighing their recorded deeds; and at the second resurrection, marking the termination of the millennium, the wicked shall arise, to be confronted by the waiting verdict which their lawful judges have thus rendered. Here, according to the portrayal of John’s heavenly vision, truth and harmony emerge from the deceptive clouds of mystery and conjecture; here the arch-deceiver’s disguise is forever thrown off, and all the hideous deformities of Satanic intrigue and deceit are presented before the universe as the graduating object-lesson of sin and its results. And now, after Satan’s thousand years of enforced idleness, the chain of circumstances by which he was bound is removed, and he is “loosed” for “a little season.” Resuming his old occupation, he loses no time, but hastens to deceive the now living wicked. Gathering the false prophets, he inspires them with his own jealous, rebellious, and covetous spirit, and they are thus led to hope to conquer and possess the city of God; for we learn that “the holy city, New Jerusalem,” had been seen “coming down from God out of heaven.” On the jasper walls of the loved city will be seen the glorified forms of the happy redeemed who have come “out of great tribulation.” As they fill the air with harmonious strains of blended voice and harp, in songs of joy and praise to Him who bought them with His precious blood, they might well excite the envy of liars, murderers, thieves, and robbers. Gathering the hosts of the wicked, Gog and Magog, from the four quarters of the earth, Satan leads them to encompass the camp of the saints about, perhaps expecting an easy victory because of their great numbers, for they are “as the sands of the sea.” But alas for the once covering cherub! his devastating career is finished; his reaping-time has come; he must now reap the harvest of the wicked seeds he has sown. Here envy, selfishness, jealousy, malice, and lying intrigue must be hurled back upon him who is their author, to be, with him and his, forever annihilated from the universe of God in the consuming flames of perdition. Here, then, is the lake of fire and brimstone pictured by John, “which is the second death.” The destruction here wrought out is so effectual as to render the wicked as “tho they had not been.” As a dream of a night vision, so shall “all the nations be that fight against Mount Zion.” They shall “be visited of the Lord of hosts with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire.” “Suddenly” as small dust and chaff shall they pass away. “For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch;” even according to the example and fate of Sodom and Gomorrah shall every element of rebellion against God suffer “the vengeance of eternal fire.” See Rev. 21:8; Isa. 29:5-9; Mal. 4:1; Jude 7. The events here described, rightly understood, reflect no hint of arbitrary power or retaliation on the part of the Creator. They are simply closing acts, whose inevitable results terminate the blood-stained career of him who by usurpation sought to exalt his “throne above the stars of God” “in the sides of the North,” and above God, the legitimate Ruler of the universe. F. R. RICHARDS.