THE MOST WONDERFUL AND MOST AWFUL THINGS.
By William Penniman
A GREAT preacher remarked that the two most wonderful things in the universe were, first, that God has offered salvation free to all who will accept of it and comply with the conditions, and the second is that all will not accept of it and comply with the conditions. It is, in many respects, wonderful that the Jews rejected Christ, and would not believe him when they saw the wonderful miracles which he performed. They even carried their stubborn unbelief so far that they wished to put Lazarus to death, whom Christ had raised from the dead. It is remarkably wonderful in regard to the willful unbelief of that age as respects both Jews and Gentiles. This was what caused Christ to say at one time that he could not do many mighty works, because of their unbelief. It is wonderful that "many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him." John 6:66. In this enlightened age it is wonderful that so many will reject the Third Angel's Message,—the last message of mercy now going to the world,—and it is yet more wonderful that some who profess to believe it are hiding their talents, not only physically, mentally, and morally, but also financially, instead of devoting them all to the advancement of the truths of this message. It seems that the masses have become so perfectly hardened that the most solemn and awful things will not move them. The terrible and appalling calamities and accidents which are happening all around us have but little effect upon the people to cause them to repent, but fall upon their eyes and ears like an idle tale. In "Great Controversy," page 561, we read:— "Marvelous beyond expression is the blindness of the people of this generation. Thousands reject the word of God as unworthy of belief, and with eager confidence receive the deceptions of Satan. . . . They manifest as much assurance as if, indeed, they had made a covenant with death and an agreement with hell,—as if they had erected an impassable, impenetrable barrier between themselves and the vengeance of God. Nothing can arouse their fears. These careless ones, who are so negligent in heeding the warning which God is giving them now, will blaspheme on the journey out of the seventh plague, when the great hailstones of a talent's weight fall upon them from heaven. Rev. 16:21." We now come more particularly to the most awful thing: "A celebrated preacher of the seventeenth century, in a sermon to a crowded audience, described the terrors of the last judgment with such eloquence, pathos, and force of action that some of his audience not only burst into tears, but sent forth piercing cries, as if the Judge himself had been present and was about to pass upon them their final sentence. In the height of this excitement the preacher called upon them to dry their tears and cease their cries, as he was about to add something still more awful and astonishing than anything he had yet brought before them. Silence being obtained, he, with an agitated countenance and solemn voice, addressed them thus:— " 'In one-quarter of an hour from this time the emotions which you have just now exhibited will be stifled; the remembrance of the fearful truths which excited them will vanish; you will return to your carnal occupations and sinful pleasures with your usual avidity, and you will treat all you have heard as a tale that is told.' "