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Perilous Times

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 18, 1863

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 22, No. 12.

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Perilous Times.

THE present time is productive of strange and surprising events. It is prolific of revolutions. Our country is resounding with war and alarm, and a million of Northern and Southern men are engaged in a deadly conflict. Meanwhile all Europe is threatened with one tremendous revolution, growing out of our own, which will shake thrones to their foundations. In Russia, China, Italy, and other kingdoms of the East, the hand of revolution is also busy.
The whole world is more or less filled with apprehension and commotion. There is an unsettled state of things among the nations of earth. Revolutions spring up in a day; and there is a great waking up among many, that the great day of God, and the great battle of the Last Day are at hand. Among a certain class there is a great looking for those things which are coming on the earth. "Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him." There are no signs of a good time coming this side of the everlasting kingdom of God. But there are signs of the distress of nations with perplexity, a general time of trouble, such as was not since the world began. For all the tribes of the earth shall mourn when the sign of the Son of man appears in heaven, and they shall see him "coming with power and great glory." Then the rich men, kings, and mighty men, who have been wanton, who have nourished their hearts as in the day of slaughter, will cry for rocks and mountains to fall upon them, to hide them from the "face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb."
We are rapidly approaching an awful and grand crisis in human affairs. We can look with safety for the more full development of the signs—the distress of nations, the gluttony of the present generation, their gratification of pleasures, their hoarding up of the treasures of this world, the oppressing of the poor;—when they have done every evil thing that the Devil puts into their hearts, and have fulfilled the word of God, then will appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven. Then all the tribes of the earth will see him coming in the clouds. The dead will be raised, the righteous living will be changed to immortality, and the whole Church of God with their divine Lord be forever safe.
In the midst of these last days of revolution, and distress of nations, and perils on every hand, let us, brethren, look to a higher source than man for help and grace to be kept from the spirit of the world, the flesh and the Devil; that we may be preserved blameless unto the day of the Lord Jesus. To drink into the spirit of this age, and to go with the world now, is like approaching the cataract; though the waters glide smoothly and noiselessly above the fall, yet just ahead, a little in the distance, is an awful gulf, down, down into the deep and fathomless abyss beneath, from whence there is no return. The whirlpool of this world is drawing thousands and millions down to perdition. Therefore let us mind the injunction of the Saviour—"What I say unto you, I say unto you all, WATCH!"—Crisis, California.