This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
This know also is certain knowledge that the last days bring perilous, grievous and dangerous times. Those last days are now present and surrounding daily life, not still future, with the closing scenes fast approaching. The peril lies in ungodly character, lovers of self, money and pleasure more than God, with selfishness in every stage putting human ways where God's law should be. It refutes the hope of a converted world and a thousand years of peace before Christ returns, for evil will grow worse until the advent as in the days of Noah and Lot. From such people believers must turn away and separate, watching and praying in personal conversion and holiness while warning the world and preparing a people to stand.
Meaning and Present Timing
This know also is certain knowledge that the last days will bring perilous, grievous and dangerous times marked by people whose conduct and attitudes oppose godliness. They are not merely heathen, for they profess godliness while denying its power, resist the truth, and are corrupt in mind and faith, having departed from the faith while evil men and deceivers grow worse in deceiving and being deceived. Their character is selfish, greedy, proud, irreverent, disobedient, ungrateful, unholy, hostile, without natural affection and devoted to pleasure rather than God, keeping an outward form of godliness while denying its power. That list is lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. It is a religious decline before the Lord's coming like the decline in the first centuries, bringing the same results as in the early church, and this class will arise among God's people as well as in the world, including young people who prize independence, disrespect parental authority and draw other youth into spiritual danger, so there is great need to use every jot of power to magnify God and His truth.
The last days foretold are now present and surrounding daily life, not still future, with the closing scenes fast approaching. The perilous times have already come and consist in fleshly lusts, appetites and passions that require the sword of the Lord to cut to the very soul and marrow. Every word of the chapter is applicable at this time to all churches throughout the world and to the churches and their ministers at this time, calling them to recognize the danger and prepare a people to stand in the day of the Lord. Ministers and brethren are to wake out of lethargic slumber, trim their lamps with the grace of God and let them shine in clear, bright rays to a world in darkness, doing the great work of fitting up a people to stand and of coming up to the help of the Lord against the mighty. In view of signs of Christ's coming too plain to be doubted, God's people must take warning and discern the signs of the times, and awake, preachers and people, with every one who professes the truth a living preacher. Lack of activity and earnestness is dreadful and is a death-stupor from Satan, who controls the minds of unconsecrated Sabbath-keepers to make them jealous, fault-finding and censorious, and whose special work is to divide hearts so the influence, strength and labor of God's servants are kept among themselves settling little differences instead of being spent proclaiming the truth to unbelievers.
Grave dangers are already at work but greater perils lie ahead, and the present era is the perilous last days whose closing scenes are fast approaching. Worse times are still ahead, with stormy times and successive judgments and uncertainty in which calamities warn that the end is near. In that time building a large, costly church could falsely suggest believers feel secure in this world, while their actions and buildings should instead show that they believe God's judgments have come and that the end is at hand. Those who know the truth must wake up and place their whole lives under God's discipline, stay alert against the enemy, put on God's armor, and obey the truth for this time, heeding God's word and the warnings that clarify present duty and the position to take, which will guard against strong delusions. Present perils include Satan's use of miracles to confirm false belief and to deceive, if possible, even the elect, so God's people must stand on the truth of the third angel's message and hold fast to the evidence that has established the truth, proclaiming it until the close of earth's history.
Paul saw in prophetic vision the condition that would exist at the end, and that picture is to be discerned and sensed now unless hearts are calloused by sin, near the close of time and marked by lukewarmness and apostasy. The same corrupt state of the world at the time of Christ's second coming was shown to Enoch in prophetic vision as a boastful, presumptuous, self-willed generation arrayed in rebellion against the law of God. They deny the only Lord God and the Lord Jesus Christ, trample upon His blood shed as man's sacrifice, and despise His atonement. At that same time Christ will come in the clouds of heaven attended by the angelic host to give life to the righteous dead and ransom them from their graves, crown the righteous with glory and honor, and separate the wicked from the presence of the Lord to be consumed with fire. Enoch's life shows that people can remain pure and faithful to God even amid such widespread sin and corruption, and he represents the faithful living in the last days who will be translated from the corrupt world to heaven. Its terrible word-picture is fulfilled in the present state of the world in increasing sin and violence as the end approaches at the rapid close of this dispensation, making the responsibility resting on men greater than ever before and the position of Christ's followers most solemn, while God's messengers bear a testimony that condemns those who refuse it, as the conditions of the world in Miller's time already corresponded to the prophetic description showing that the period of the earth in its present state was nearing its close. Teaching that we are now living in the last days is the correct meaning of Scripture and the truth of God, which triumphs and brings sinners from darkness to light.
Ungodly Character Described
The peril is defined by the long list in the following verses, which describes a religious decline before the coming of the Lord like the decline in the first centuries, when people will be lovers of self, money and pleasure more than God, greedy, boastful, proud, irreverent, disobedient, ungrateful, unholy, loveless, untrustworthy, slanderous, uncontrolled, harsh, opposed to good, treacherous, reckless and conceited. It is a time of grievous moral and spiritual corruption in which men love themselves and money and reject what is good, including selfishness in every stage and feature, blasphemy, disobedience to parents, ingratitude, unholiness, lack of natural affection, promise-breaking, false accusation, fierceness, hatred of good, treachery, headiness and conceit. This class will be developed among God's own people as well as in the world, so there is great need to stand where every jot of power may be used to magnify God and His truth. When this state of ungodliness is reached it will bring the same results as in the early church, with apostasy preparing the way for religious powers to unite and use civil authority to enforce their beliefs and bring penalties against dissenters. The warning calls for turning away from such people and working entirely contrary to their ways.
The root peril is selfishness taking control of men and of the church, where self-love becomes self-worship and man sacrifices to himself as God. He worships the reflection of his own image and puts his own practices and natural tendencies and peculiarities where God's law should be. He spends the Lord's goods on selfish indulgence instead of relieving widows and orphans and sufferers. Living to please and gratify self dishonors God and prevents Him from working through people, because selfish conduct misrepresents Him to those who do not know the truth. Believers are therefore to guard against wasteful spending and self-pleasing expense and pride, to practice economy, and to direct means toward proclaiming the warning message to a world in wickedness, since hearing the truth saves only when gladly accepted and seen in a life growing in grace and knowledge of God.
The danger is also seen in men exalting themselves and their own capabilities, whose works are regarded as foolishness because they lack the sweet fragrance of the Holy Spirit. The greatest danger comes from those who have lifted up their souls unto vanity and have not heeded reproof and warning, choosing their own way and mind while the tempter clothed in angel robes joins his power and influence to theirs to open deceptive and alluring things that lead many into wrong lines. Safety requires obtaining an experimental knowledge of Christ, coming to Him and sitting at His feet to learn His meekness and lowliness, placing oneself on His side, constantly guarding mind and soul and words and spirit to reveal children of God and show His yoke easy and burden light, heeding warnings, working in His lines, and listening to the last message of mercy to a fallen world.
Its mark is an outward form of godliness that denies its power, with profession like leaves concealing barrenness and deformity, with no inward victory or crucifixion over sin, no Christlike character and no fruit. That description is the state of a large share of those who have the form of godliness in these last days, marked by pride, selfishness, irritability, fretfulness, frivolity, discontent, unkindness, uncharitableness, censoriousness, evil thinking and evil speaking, even among those claiming great light in advance of every other people. They are the living counterpart of the withered fig tree, and for them while their souls remain under control of evil there is less hope than for the open sinner. The picture should cause trembling and anguish of soul and raises the question who shall be able to stand when Christ comes, which only those washed and made white who offer righteousness can answer.
The peril is present even in the churches entrusted with the treasures of grace, whose lamps of knowledge of the truth go out through failure to share the precious light, bear fruit to the glory of God, and improve privileges. They do not arise and shine though the glory of the Lord is risen upon them, but keep only the outward form of religion and stop there, remaining fruitless and under condemnation. This describes the foolish virgins, who may value and promote truth yet remain unchanged because they have not yielded to the Holy Spirit, so that their religion is superficial and their service becomes a form. The close of time will be marked by these perilous conditions of widespread lukewarmness and apostasy, calling for repentance before it is too late.
Loving pleasure more than God is itself a sign of the last days, shown in yielding to worldly influence and refusing self-denial. Gambling, horse-racing and amusement illustrate how pleasure can absorb people and turn them from eternal concerns, with time and ability wasted pursuing worldly honors instead of the crown of immortality. Seeking worldly pleasures and joining in frivolous amusements and gatherings separates professed followers from God and makes them people of the world in harmony with the world rather than Christ, while true followers live in self-denial, sobriety, humility and holiness. The perils are already upon the young, who face trials bringing distressing perplexity that prove whether faith is genuine, in a refining time when those who profess faith will either be converted and sanctified through obedience to the truth or remain with the world and share its reward. This pleasure-loving condition calls for honest dealing with the soul and careful searching to see if one is among those described, with very few able after faithful examination to say they are not, while the opposite true state is to be dead to the world, living by faith of the Son of God with life hid with Christ in God so as to appear with Him in glory when He appears.
Luxurious living and extravagant dressing are signs of the times, with pride and vanity accompanying them. Making dress an object of devotion destroys humility, meekness and loveliness of character and takes time from meditation, self-examination, prayer and study of God's word. Disobedience to parents, disrespect for parental and rightful authority, ingratitude and unholiness among children and youth are foretold signs that the end is near and that the last days have come. The description applies to young people who prize independence, disrespect parental authority, fail to honor parents and respect the aged, and follow their own wishes while some parents fear displeasing them and yield control instead of requiring them to do what is right. Their influence can draw other youth into spiritual danger, revealing Satan's strong and almost complete control over young minds. The warning is reflected in the clear commands to respect and care for parents, whose teachings are often disregarded.
Prophecy Against False Hope
The verse rules out any converted world and any thousand years of righteousness and peace before Christ returns, for the last days are perilous and evil will grow worse with the kingdom of darkness continuing until the advent. Wickedness and corruption increase as the end draws near, even among those who keep an outward form of godliness while denying its power, so the condition of the world matches the prophetic description and warns against being deceived by claims of peace and safety or by those who dismiss prophecy and calls to repentance. As this fulfillment is seen, faith in the final triumph of Christ's kingdom should grow and give courage in the appointed work.
At His coming the world will be as in the days of Noah and Lot, with the same sins that brought the Flood upon the antediluvian world and fire from heaven upon the cities of the plain. Eating and drinking and marrying are carried on without God in the thoughts, to gratify loose passions and depraved lusts, with the young filled with thoughts of getting married, becoming disobedient to parents and wanton and marrying without counsel of parents or church and without inquiring whether it is according to His will. Wickedness now prevails in high places and in low with evidence on every hand, beautiful cities fast becoming as corrupt as Sodom through sexual immorality and loss of self-control, because the law of God has been made void, its claims lightly regarded by religious teachers, the Sabbath set aside, and the power and love of God lost sight of. The world is almost ripe for destruction as it was then, the majority rejecting the warning to repent and return to obedience before the Lawgiver comes to punish the disobedient, and only God can preserve people from these pollutions and the unmingled fury to come upon the world.
The conditions of the world in Miller's time corresponded to this prophetic description, showing that the period of the earth in its present state was nearing its close. The same description is fulfilled where widespread selfishness, greed, pride, irreverence, disobedience, cruelty and pleasure-seeking appear alongside a form of godliness that denies its power, as exposed in 1906 by public reports of corruption among San Francisco and Oakland officials charged with suppressing evil. Dishonest and fraudulent practices appearing in cities show the predicted conditions and make it an opportune time to warn people with the arguments of God's Word.
Fire, flood, earthquake and other calamities are warnings of the Lord's soon approach, marking a period of successive judgments and uncertainty when the end is near. God in mercy is holding back judgment while the warning message is given to all, so people may hear the last call of mercy. Believers are to show by actions and works that they believe God's judgments have come and that worldly security is uncertain, rather than behaving as though secure in this world. Building a large, costly church would falsely suggest confidence in this world's security, so in such times as after the San Francisco earthquake, with further earthquakes and calamities possibly to follow, a simple, inexpensive place of worship better reflects belief that the end of all things is at hand.
Signs in World and Society
The last days will be marked by perilous, troubling conditions, and frequent robberies, thefts, strikes, murders, violence, lawlessness, corruption, selfishness, bloodshed, revolt and crime with weakened moral obligation testify that Christ's coming is near. The present age is already perilous with suffering and crime at work in the world. Murders, thefts, crimes and lawlessness showing the end near mean God's work must be carried forward under the influence of the Holy Spirit.
Growing unrest, riots, anger, social conflict, political instability and preparation for war in Europe are signs that these last days are arriving, and such dangers are not confined to Europe but are spreading to America. These dangers make people dependent on God's protection, while believers watch and wait for the Lord's return amid opposing forces preparing for a great final event. The nearness of the final crisis in world history makes it important to understand the work required in these last days.
Perilous times still ahead will bring worldwide perplexity and distress, when the whole world will be involved and disease of every kind will be upon the human family. Ignorance of the laws of health will cause great suffering and the loss of lives that could have been saved. Physical, mental and moral decline is rapidly increasing in the latter days. That coming crisis calls for competent physicians to do tenfold more good as missionaries for God than as preachers of the word alone, and for young men and women to train to treat disease on hygienic principles and minister to sin-sick souls.
Luxurious living and extravagant dress and fashion are signs of the last days, whose dangers are already upon God's professed people. Pride and vanity accompany them, and making dress an object of devotion consumes time, money and health, encourages deception, destroys humility, meekness, modesty, generosity and loveliness of character, and takes time from meditation, self-examination, prayer and study of God's word. Sabbath-keepers who have adopted the world's pride, vanity and pleasure-seeking will be tested and their faith proved, for such indulgences separate them from God and make them children of the world, while true followers deny self and live soberly, humbly and holily, resisting conformity to fashion and using their means to serve others and advance God's work.
The last days are corrupt and perilous like the days before the Flood, with the same sins that brought the Flood now existing even among some who profess the truth, and the world almost ripe for destruction to bring the unmingled fury of God as the Flood destroyed sinners who would not keep God in their thoughts. Eating and drinking and marrying are carried on without God in the thoughts to gratify loose passions and depraved lusts, with the young filled with thoughts of getting married, becoming disobedient to parents and wanton and marrying without counsel of parents or the church and without inquiring whether it is according to His will. One sign of those days is disordered affections in marriage and family, a married person's misplaced romantic affection for someone outside the marriage, as when a man shows affection to the wife of another man and allows his own wife to hold second place, with impurity abiding in mind and heart in thought, word and deed. To do this is the wicked's part, dishonoring himself and God and fulfilling what the wicked are to act in the last days, while those who love and honor God will not fulfill this sign but will let Christ take charge of their affections and center them on proper objects, respecting, cherishing and loving a wife as wife and as mother of his children, honoring marriage vows and resisting impurity, with repentance and conversion where affection has gone astray. It is a time of uncertainty and peril as a setting in which raising children and entering marriage may make people unable to labor in God's cause.
A special peril of the now-present last days is the danger to children and youth who still need parental care and instruction when they leave the guarding and protecting influence of home life where they were kept from worldly evil. The danger comes when they go to places for schooling, employment, servants' work or city life where they will mix with and be employed by pleasure-loving, irreligious worldlings who fear not God, including public-school influences that draw them away from truth. There association with all classes of unbelievers brings seductive influences that are almost irresistible, causing sheltered young men and young women to be influenced by what they see and hear and to become like those with whom they associate, losing the simplicity and modesty guarded by Christian parents. Satanic agencies work through those who speak Satan's words and disobey God's commandments to destroy purity of mind and soul and to hold youth in the enemy's snare, with an approaching scourge and the world's iniquity being reviewed before God, and youth who have not learned obedience are especially vulnerable to temptation and may be harmed spiritually. Decisive warning must therefore be given against permitting children to enter that association, and families are to leave the cities, keep children at home and away from corrupting influences, and establish church schools where God's Word is the foundation of education to protect them from evil and cultivate love for the truth.
Condition in the Church
The perilous times foretold are marked by a character opposed to godliness that will appear not only among heathen but among professed believers in the last days. This class will arise among God's people as well as in the world, including Sabbath-keepers and even Seventh-day Adventists who claim great light. They are selfish, greedy, boastful, proud, irreverent, disobedient, ungrateful, unholy, loveless, untrustworthy, slanderous, uncontrolled, harsh, opposed to good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, and lovers of self, money and pleasure more than God. They keep an outward form of godliness while denying its power, resist the truth, and are corrupt in mind and faith, bringing the same religious decline and results as in the first centuries. The root is selfishness in every stage, where self-love becomes self-worship, man sacrifices to himself as God and worships the reflection of his own image, putting his own practices and natural tendencies where God's law should be and spending the Lord's goods on indulgence instead of relieving widows, orphans and sufferers.
The peril is present even in the churches entrusted with the treasures of grace, knowledge of truth, great light and precious opportunities. They have lamps yet few share the precious light given them and few bear fruit to the glory of God, failing to improve light and privileges and to arise and shine though glory is risen upon them. They keep only the outward form of religion and stop there, remaining fruitless under condemnation, seized by fatal delusion and darkness when they do not walk in the light nor make Christ their strength, falling easy prey to the deceiver. Mere assent to truth will not save from death, for safety requires being sanctified through the truth and overcoming every defect of character, lest any defect left unconquered overcome the soul and become a controlling power for evil. What is needed is not more evidence but pure sanctified hearts that receive and hold fast the light already given, with the Lord's sword penetrating to cut away fleshly lusts, appetites, passions, pride, false security and self-righteousness, opening blind eyes to need, uprooting hidden evil, hiding self in God and purifying the soul by obeying the truth, since prosperity itself can be a time of special danger and many do not recognize the dangers threatening the world despite religious advantages.
Many depart from the faith in these days now living, with evil people and deceivers growing worse while deceiving and being deceived. These times include heeding seducing spirits and teachings of devils, accepting error including one mind exercising complete control over another which God forbids, turning from truth to fables prepared on every hand to capture appetite, and sudden turnings away requiring far more of the Spirit of God to escape. Superficial faith produces only superficial experience and a repentance that itself needs to be repented of, joined with great lack of knowledge of the rise and progress of the third angel's message, false prophets arising to deceive many, and everything that can be shaken being shaken. Satan wars against the remnant who endeavor to keep the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus, using evil angels and men as agents to exert influence, hide and cover light, cause distrust and disbelief, and hinder God's chosen people from showing forth His praises and from being purified unto perfection and redeemed from all iniquity. While those already covered with deception and walled in by fables and error are sure, his malice is directed against those seeking truth to obey it in love, whom he can never weaken while they keep close to Jesus, stay closely united with God and firmly grounded in eternal truth to counteract evil and uplift and save others.
Abounding iniquity cools the love of many, where many means the professed followers of Christ who become affected by prevailing iniquity and backslide from God. Perilous times mean marked depravity when many disregard the precepts of the law of God, the commandment treated with indifference and even open contempt, and those professing to love God tempted to be carried away with prevailing wickedness to disregard Jehovah's law and render less reverence to the holy commandment. This cooling is not necessary, and when love for God and zeal and fervor wane because iniquity abounds it proves some partaking in that iniquity, since otherwise love would be unaffected, calling for standing clear from iniquity and letting zeal and love rise in proportion as the law is set aside, loving God's commandments above gold and reaching for higher holiness as contempt increases. Far-spreading manifest ungodliness prevails to a terrible degree under a cloak of Christianity and sanctification, continuing until Christ comes to be glorified in all them that believe, with scenes enacted in the very courts of the temple that few realize, and with prevailing iniquity and rejection of grace threatening to overcome His people and draw them into hostility against His remnant. In these perils God's people will be proved and tested so discernment is made between him that serves God and him that serves Him not, and before Christ's coming this apostasy prepares the way for religious powers to unite and use civil authority to enforce belief with penalties against dissenters, amid testing in which legislators abandon Protestant principles and support Romanism while God specially protects those entrusted with His law and intervenes for His honor and His people's salvation.
Within this danger destruction and violence are increasing in the world while in the church human authority is gaining control and the ascendency. People in positions of trust claim a right to rule, assert authority and seek to rule fellow workers, with self-sufficient leaders molding the work after themselves and stirring controversy. Those evil times have already begun and God's people must be prepared to stand amid their dangers, yet oppressive leadership and failure to learn humility and respect for God's workers leave a person unfit to help prepare them. The signs are visible even within the church where self-sufficient people reject the Lord's counsel, follow human judgment, work against God's plain commands and oppose His light and plans, bringing spiritual blindness and judgment through satanic agencies working through hearts not governed by God's Word. Seeing these predictions fulfilled should lead to earnest Bible study and to believing and teaching God's Word.
The perils of the last days are now present and must be taken to heart, calling for close searching of heart and self-examination before God. A chief danger is self-deception, where people professing truth are blind to their own wrongs, mistake the approval of friends and fellow believers for the gospel standard, and remain satisfied while falling short, so that when wrongs go unreproved the church's moral standard is lowered and those in error are encouraged. Satan powerfully stirs his agents to make the path difficult for believers, requiring seeking God's strength, support and grace, living truth rather than merely professing it, keeping faith active through love and soul-purifying, and guarding by humble dependence and watchful prayer against deceptive devices, sin and cherished habits that lead away from Jesus without the Holy Spirit. Those professing to live in these days with light on present truth may be marked by avarice, bringing scorn so even honest worldly people despise them, and by selfish, self-caring, stingy, covetous character that must be kept apart where it will least harm the cause, with faithful tested men, fathers and mothers in Israel who watch for souls placed at the head of the work and all called to awake to duty. God's children are called to learn meekness, humility and obedience and do a higher work than disparaging one another, since disparaging others brings judgment because it neglects what makes for peace.
Call to Watchful Faithfulness
The last days bring grievous times of widespread moral and spiritual corruption, and the command given with that warning is to turn away from such people. Selfishness in every stage marks the peril, with men loving self, money and pleasure more than God, greedy, boastful, proud, irreverent, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, loveless, untrustworthy, slanderous, uncontrolled, harsh, opposed to good, treacherous, reckless and conceited, keeping only an outward form of godliness while denying its power. That self-love becomes self-worship, putting human practices and natural tendencies where God's law should be and spending the Lord's goods on indulgence instead of relieving sufferers. The picture belongs to the world and also to the condition found in the church, including false teachers seeking entrance, and those who discern it must separate from corrupting influences and work entirely contrary to their ways. Outward profession without inward cleansing and true conversion is fruitless and worthless, and believers must remain spiritually alert and diligent rather than sleeping at the post while Satan and his angels are not idle.
Enoch proves that purity is still possible amid such wicked, debasing pollution and shows what can be done now in harmony with all God's requirements. He walked with God in separation from the world, receiving strength from the same source through devotion in prayer and communion, remaining pure, uncorrupted and free from lust even while surrounded by evil. He represents the saints who live amid the perils and corruptions of the last days, the faithful living who will be fitted for translation. For faithful obedience he was translated, and so the faithful who are alive and remain will likewise be removed from a sinful and corrupt world to the pure joys of heaven.
Safety in these dangers requires searching the Scriptures to understand the reasons of hope and faith, learning the sins to avoid, the plan of salvation, the way to heaven, and the revealed rules for holy living by which the dangers besetting every church member can be known and escaped. Filling the mind beforehand with the precious seeds of Bible truth prevents the growth of evil and occupies the mind with growing in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. God's word rightly understood and applied safeguards against terrible delusions, while rejecting light and truth leaves captives to Satan with ever greater darkness and deception. Because the perils are present, Revelation must be read in connection with Daniel and taught, discourses made short, spiritual and elevated, and every man entering the pulpit full of the Word of the Lord and mindful that angels from heaven are in his audience. When heavenly messengers empty the golden oil of truth into the teacher's heart the application becomes solemn and serious and expels sin unless the door is padlocked and Christ refused, giving life with no stagnation, constant growth to the full stature of Christ, deep experience in heavenly things, walking with the Lord as Enoch did and learning to abide in Christ. Superficial faith produces only superficial experience and a repentance needing to be repented of, amid great lack of knowledge of the rise and progress of the third angel's message, departure to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, false prophets deceiving many, and the shaking of all that can be shaken, so each person must gain individually an intelligent knowledge of truth and its reasons, learn thoroughly Daniel and Revelation, open the Scriptures text by text, find the strong evidences sustaining fundamental doctrines upon the platform of eternal truth, and hold fast the evidence that established truth until the close.
Perilous times are upon us and lie ahead, with the enemy on the track of God's people and Satan's increasing power to tempt making the age dangerous, so everyone knowing the truth should awake, watch in prayer, trust wholly in God and glorify Him rather than relying too much on human plans. Body, soul and spirit are to be placed under God's discipline, the whole armor put on, directions given through the Spirit of prophecy followed, and the truth for this time loved and obeyed as the guard against strong delusions. Warnings given line upon line and precept upon precept through word, testimonies and books making plain present duty and the position to occupy now must be heeded, leaving no excuse for disregard. Believers must continually learn from Christ the great Teacher in order to walk securely and righteously amid widespread evil, stand firmly for truth against self-sufficiency and false plans and theories that unsettle minds, cultivate every mental and physical power, and stay alert and resistant.
The chapter applies at this time to all churches throughout the world, calling churches and ministers to recognize the danger, wake out of lethargic slumber, trim lamps with grace and let them shine in clear bright rays to a dark world, and take up the great work of fitting up a people to stand in the day of the Lord and coming to the help of the Lord against the mighty. That preparation requires a special work of the Spirit more urgent than ever before, with personal conversion, humility, self-denial and holiness, using all means and abilities to warn the world. God's servants will have to confront false teachers and seducers who falsely accuse and despise the faithful. Parental authority is reversed as a sign of the days, with children following their own wishes while fearful parents yield control instead of requiring what is right, making it necessary to guard children still needing care and instruction from leaving home for schooling, employment or city life among pleasure-loving, irreligious worldlings where seductive influences are almost irresistible. Leaders must bear burdens prayerfully while all prepare a people for Christ's second advent.
This know also is certain knowledge that the last days bring perilous, grievous and dangerous times. Those last days are now present and surrounding daily life, not still future, with the closing scenes fast approaching. The peril lies in ungodly character, lovers of self, money and pleasure more than God, with selfishness in every stage putting human ways where God's law should be. It refutes the hope of a converted world and a thousand years of peace before Christ returns, for evil will grow worse until the advent as in the days of Noah and Lot. From such people believers must turn away and separate, watching and praying in personal conversion and holiness while warning the world and preparing a people to stand.
Meaning and Present Timing
This know also is certain knowledge that the last days will bring perilous, grievous and dangerous times marked by people whose conduct and attitudes oppose godliness. They are not merely heathen, for they profess godliness while denying its power, resist the truth, and are corrupt in mind and faith, having departed from the faith while evil men and deceivers grow worse in deceiving and being deceived. Their character is selfish, greedy, proud, irreverent, disobedient, ungrateful, unholy, hostile, without natural affection and devoted to pleasure rather than God, keeping an outward form of godliness while denying its power. That list is lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. It is a religious decline before the Lord's coming like the decline in the first centuries, bringing the same results as in the early church, and this class will arise among God's people as well as in the world, including young people who prize independence, disrespect parental authority and draw other youth into spiritual danger, so there is great need to use every jot of power to magnify God and His truth.
The last days foretold are now present and surrounding daily life, not still future, with the closing scenes fast approaching. The perilous times have already come and consist in fleshly lusts, appetites and passions that require the sword of the Lord to cut to the very soul and marrow. Every word of the chapter is applicable at this time to all churches throughout the world and to the churches and their ministers at this time, calling them to recognize the danger and prepare a people to stand in the day of the Lord. Ministers and brethren are to wake out of lethargic slumber, trim their lamps with the grace of God and let them shine in clear, bright rays to a world in darkness, doing the great work of fitting up a people to stand and of coming up to the help of the Lord against the mighty. In view of signs of Christ's coming too plain to be doubted, God's people must take warning and discern the signs of the times, and awake, preachers and people, with every one who professes the truth a living preacher. Lack of activity and earnestness is dreadful and is a death-stupor from Satan, who controls the minds of unconsecrated Sabbath-keepers to make them jealous, fault-finding and censorious, and whose special work is to divide hearts so the influence, strength and labor of God's servants are kept among themselves settling little differences instead of being spent proclaiming the truth to unbelievers.
Grave dangers are already at work but greater perils lie ahead, and the present era is the perilous last days whose closing scenes are fast approaching. Worse times are still ahead, with stormy times and successive judgments and uncertainty in which calamities warn that the end is near. In that time building a large, costly church could falsely suggest believers feel secure in this world, while their actions and buildings should instead show that they believe God's judgments have come and that the end is at hand. Those who know the truth must wake up and place their whole lives under God's discipline, stay alert against the enemy, put on God's armor, and obey the truth for this time, heeding God's word and the warnings that clarify present duty and the position to take, which will guard against strong delusions. Present perils include Satan's use of miracles to confirm false belief and to deceive, if possible, even the elect, so God's people must stand on the truth of the third angel's message and hold fast to the evidence that has established the truth, proclaiming it until the close of earth's history.
Paul saw in prophetic vision the condition that would exist at the end, and that picture is to be discerned and sensed now unless hearts are calloused by sin, near the close of time and marked by lukewarmness and apostasy. The same corrupt state of the world at the time of Christ's second coming was shown to Enoch in prophetic vision as a boastful, presumptuous, self-willed generation arrayed in rebellion against the law of God. They deny the only Lord God and the Lord Jesus Christ, trample upon His blood shed as man's sacrifice, and despise His atonement. At that same time Christ will come in the clouds of heaven attended by the angelic host to give life to the righteous dead and ransom them from their graves, crown the righteous with glory and honor, and separate the wicked from the presence of the Lord to be consumed with fire. Enoch's life shows that people can remain pure and faithful to God even amid such widespread sin and corruption, and he represents the faithful living in the last days who will be translated from the corrupt world to heaven. Its terrible word-picture is fulfilled in the present state of the world in increasing sin and violence as the end approaches at the rapid close of this dispensation, making the responsibility resting on men greater than ever before and the position of Christ's followers most solemn, while God's messengers bear a testimony that condemns those who refuse it, as the conditions of the world in Miller's time already corresponded to the prophetic description showing that the period of the earth in its present state was nearing its close. Teaching that we are now living in the last days is the correct meaning of Scripture and the truth of God, which triumphs and brings sinners from darkness to light.
Ungodly Character Described
The peril is defined by the long list in the following verses, which describes a religious decline before the coming of the Lord like the decline in the first centuries, when people will be lovers of self, money and pleasure more than God, greedy, boastful, proud, irreverent, disobedient, ungrateful, unholy, loveless, untrustworthy, slanderous, uncontrolled, harsh, opposed to good, treacherous, reckless and conceited. It is a time of grievous moral and spiritual corruption in which men love themselves and money and reject what is good, including selfishness in every stage and feature, blasphemy, disobedience to parents, ingratitude, unholiness, lack of natural affection, promise-breaking, false accusation, fierceness, hatred of good, treachery, headiness and conceit. This class will be developed among God's own people as well as in the world, so there is great need to stand where every jot of power may be used to magnify God and His truth. When this state of ungodliness is reached it will bring the same results as in the early church, with apostasy preparing the way for religious powers to unite and use civil authority to enforce their beliefs and bring penalties against dissenters. The warning calls for turning away from such people and working entirely contrary to their ways.
The root peril is selfishness taking control of men and of the church, where self-love becomes self-worship and man sacrifices to himself as God. He worships the reflection of his own image and puts his own practices and natural tendencies and peculiarities where God's law should be. He spends the Lord's goods on selfish indulgence instead of relieving widows and orphans and sufferers. Living to please and gratify self dishonors God and prevents Him from working through people, because selfish conduct misrepresents Him to those who do not know the truth. Believers are therefore to guard against wasteful spending and self-pleasing expense and pride, to practice economy, and to direct means toward proclaiming the warning message to a world in wickedness, since hearing the truth saves only when gladly accepted and seen in a life growing in grace and knowledge of God.
The danger is also seen in men exalting themselves and their own capabilities, whose works are regarded as foolishness because they lack the sweet fragrance of the Holy Spirit. The greatest danger comes from those who have lifted up their souls unto vanity and have not heeded reproof and warning, choosing their own way and mind while the tempter clothed in angel robes joins his power and influence to theirs to open deceptive and alluring things that lead many into wrong lines. Safety requires obtaining an experimental knowledge of Christ, coming to Him and sitting at His feet to learn His meekness and lowliness, placing oneself on His side, constantly guarding mind and soul and words and spirit to reveal children of God and show His yoke easy and burden light, heeding warnings, working in His lines, and listening to the last message of mercy to a fallen world.
Its mark is an outward form of godliness that denies its power, with profession like leaves concealing barrenness and deformity, with no inward victory or crucifixion over sin, no Christlike character and no fruit. That description is the state of a large share of those who have the form of godliness in these last days, marked by pride, selfishness, irritability, fretfulness, frivolity, discontent, unkindness, uncharitableness, censoriousness, evil thinking and evil speaking, even among those claiming great light in advance of every other people. They are the living counterpart of the withered fig tree, and for them while their souls remain under control of evil there is less hope than for the open sinner. The picture should cause trembling and anguish of soul and raises the question who shall be able to stand when Christ comes, which only those washed and made white who offer righteousness can answer.
The peril is present even in the churches entrusted with the treasures of grace, whose lamps of knowledge of the truth go out through failure to share the precious light, bear fruit to the glory of God, and improve privileges. They do not arise and shine though the glory of the Lord is risen upon them, but keep only the outward form of religion and stop there, remaining fruitless and under condemnation. This describes the foolish virgins, who may value and promote truth yet remain unchanged because they have not yielded to the Holy Spirit, so that their religion is superficial and their service becomes a form. The close of time will be marked by these perilous conditions of widespread lukewarmness and apostasy, calling for repentance before it is too late.
Loving pleasure more than God is itself a sign of the last days, shown in yielding to worldly influence and refusing self-denial. Gambling, horse-racing and amusement illustrate how pleasure can absorb people and turn them from eternal concerns, with time and ability wasted pursuing worldly honors instead of the crown of immortality. Seeking worldly pleasures and joining in frivolous amusements and gatherings separates professed followers from God and makes them people of the world in harmony with the world rather than Christ, while true followers live in self-denial, sobriety, humility and holiness. The perils are already upon the young, who face trials bringing distressing perplexity that prove whether faith is genuine, in a refining time when those who profess faith will either be converted and sanctified through obedience to the truth or remain with the world and share its reward. This pleasure-loving condition calls for honest dealing with the soul and careful searching to see if one is among those described, with very few able after faithful examination to say they are not, while the opposite true state is to be dead to the world, living by faith of the Son of God with life hid with Christ in God so as to appear with Him in glory when He appears.
Luxurious living and extravagant dressing are signs of the times, with pride and vanity accompanying them. Making dress an object of devotion destroys humility, meekness and loveliness of character and takes time from meditation, self-examination, prayer and study of God's word. Disobedience to parents, disrespect for parental and rightful authority, ingratitude and unholiness among children and youth are foretold signs that the end is near and that the last days have come. The description applies to young people who prize independence, disrespect parental authority, fail to honor parents and respect the aged, and follow their own wishes while some parents fear displeasing them and yield control instead of requiring them to do what is right. Their influence can draw other youth into spiritual danger, revealing Satan's strong and almost complete control over young minds. The warning is reflected in the clear commands to respect and care for parents, whose teachings are often disregarded.
Prophecy Against False Hope
The verse rules out any converted world and any thousand years of righteousness and peace before Christ returns, for the last days are perilous and evil will grow worse with the kingdom of darkness continuing until the advent. Wickedness and corruption increase as the end draws near, even among those who keep an outward form of godliness while denying its power, so the condition of the world matches the prophetic description and warns against being deceived by claims of peace and safety or by those who dismiss prophecy and calls to repentance. As this fulfillment is seen, faith in the final triumph of Christ's kingdom should grow and give courage in the appointed work.
At His coming the world will be as in the days of Noah and Lot, with the same sins that brought the Flood upon the antediluvian world and fire from heaven upon the cities of the plain. Eating and drinking and marrying are carried on without God in the thoughts, to gratify loose passions and depraved lusts, with the young filled with thoughts of getting married, becoming disobedient to parents and wanton and marrying without counsel of parents or church and without inquiring whether it is according to His will. Wickedness now prevails in high places and in low with evidence on every hand, beautiful cities fast becoming as corrupt as Sodom through sexual immorality and loss of self-control, because the law of God has been made void, its claims lightly regarded by religious teachers, the Sabbath set aside, and the power and love of God lost sight of. The world is almost ripe for destruction as it was then, the majority rejecting the warning to repent and return to obedience before the Lawgiver comes to punish the disobedient, and only God can preserve people from these pollutions and the unmingled fury to come upon the world.
The conditions of the world in Miller's time corresponded to this prophetic description, showing that the period of the earth in its present state was nearing its close. The same description is fulfilled where widespread selfishness, greed, pride, irreverence, disobedience, cruelty and pleasure-seeking appear alongside a form of godliness that denies its power, as exposed in 1906 by public reports of corruption among San Francisco and Oakland officials charged with suppressing evil. Dishonest and fraudulent practices appearing in cities show the predicted conditions and make it an opportune time to warn people with the arguments of God's Word.
Fire, flood, earthquake and other calamities are warnings of the Lord's soon approach, marking a period of successive judgments and uncertainty when the end is near. God in mercy is holding back judgment while the warning message is given to all, so people may hear the last call of mercy. Believers are to show by actions and works that they believe God's judgments have come and that worldly security is uncertain, rather than behaving as though secure in this world. Building a large, costly church would falsely suggest confidence in this world's security, so in such times as after the San Francisco earthquake, with further earthquakes and calamities possibly to follow, a simple, inexpensive place of worship better reflects belief that the end of all things is at hand.
Signs in World and Society
The last days will be marked by perilous, troubling conditions, and frequent robberies, thefts, strikes, murders, violence, lawlessness, corruption, selfishness, bloodshed, revolt and crime with weakened moral obligation testify that Christ's coming is near. The present age is already perilous with suffering and crime at work in the world. Murders, thefts, crimes and lawlessness showing the end near mean God's work must be carried forward under the influence of the Holy Spirit.
Growing unrest, riots, anger, social conflict, political instability and preparation for war in Europe are signs that these last days are arriving, and such dangers are not confined to Europe but are spreading to America. These dangers make people dependent on God's protection, while believers watch and wait for the Lord's return amid opposing forces preparing for a great final event. The nearness of the final crisis in world history makes it important to understand the work required in these last days.
Perilous times still ahead will bring worldwide perplexity and distress, when the whole world will be involved and disease of every kind will be upon the human family. Ignorance of the laws of health will cause great suffering and the loss of lives that could have been saved. Physical, mental and moral decline is rapidly increasing in the latter days. That coming crisis calls for competent physicians to do tenfold more good as missionaries for God than as preachers of the word alone, and for young men and women to train to treat disease on hygienic principles and minister to sin-sick souls.
Luxurious living and extravagant dress and fashion are signs of the last days, whose dangers are already upon God's professed people. Pride and vanity accompany them, and making dress an object of devotion consumes time, money and health, encourages deception, destroys humility, meekness, modesty, generosity and loveliness of character, and takes time from meditation, self-examination, prayer and study of God's word. Sabbath-keepers who have adopted the world's pride, vanity and pleasure-seeking will be tested and their faith proved, for such indulgences separate them from God and make them children of the world, while true followers deny self and live soberly, humbly and holily, resisting conformity to fashion and using their means to serve others and advance God's work.
The last days are corrupt and perilous like the days before the Flood, with the same sins that brought the Flood now existing even among some who profess the truth, and the world almost ripe for destruction to bring the unmingled fury of God as the Flood destroyed sinners who would not keep God in their thoughts. Eating and drinking and marrying are carried on without God in the thoughts to gratify loose passions and depraved lusts, with the young filled with thoughts of getting married, becoming disobedient to parents and wanton and marrying without counsel of parents or the church and without inquiring whether it is according to His will. One sign of those days is disordered affections in marriage and family, a married person's misplaced romantic affection for someone outside the marriage, as when a man shows affection to the wife of another man and allows his own wife to hold second place, with impurity abiding in mind and heart in thought, word and deed. To do this is the wicked's part, dishonoring himself and God and fulfilling what the wicked are to act in the last days, while those who love and honor God will not fulfill this sign but will let Christ take charge of their affections and center them on proper objects, respecting, cherishing and loving a wife as wife and as mother of his children, honoring marriage vows and resisting impurity, with repentance and conversion where affection has gone astray. It is a time of uncertainty and peril as a setting in which raising children and entering marriage may make people unable to labor in God's cause.
A special peril of the now-present last days is the danger to children and youth who still need parental care and instruction when they leave the guarding and protecting influence of home life where they were kept from worldly evil. The danger comes when they go to places for schooling, employment, servants' work or city life where they will mix with and be employed by pleasure-loving, irreligious worldlings who fear not God, including public-school influences that draw them away from truth. There association with all classes of unbelievers brings seductive influences that are almost irresistible, causing sheltered young men and young women to be influenced by what they see and hear and to become like those with whom they associate, losing the simplicity and modesty guarded by Christian parents. Satanic agencies work through those who speak Satan's words and disobey God's commandments to destroy purity of mind and soul and to hold youth in the enemy's snare, with an approaching scourge and the world's iniquity being reviewed before God, and youth who have not learned obedience are especially vulnerable to temptation and may be harmed spiritually. Decisive warning must therefore be given against permitting children to enter that association, and families are to leave the cities, keep children at home and away from corrupting influences, and establish church schools where God's Word is the foundation of education to protect them from evil and cultivate love for the truth.
Condition in the Church
The perilous times foretold are marked by a character opposed to godliness that will appear not only among heathen but among professed believers in the last days. This class will arise among God's people as well as in the world, including Sabbath-keepers and even Seventh-day Adventists who claim great light. They are selfish, greedy, boastful, proud, irreverent, disobedient, ungrateful, unholy, loveless, untrustworthy, slanderous, uncontrolled, harsh, opposed to good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, and lovers of self, money and pleasure more than God. They keep an outward form of godliness while denying its power, resist the truth, and are corrupt in mind and faith, bringing the same religious decline and results as in the first centuries. The root is selfishness in every stage, where self-love becomes self-worship, man sacrifices to himself as God and worships the reflection of his own image, putting his own practices and natural tendencies where God's law should be and spending the Lord's goods on indulgence instead of relieving widows, orphans and sufferers.
The peril is present even in the churches entrusted with the treasures of grace, knowledge of truth, great light and precious opportunities. They have lamps yet few share the precious light given them and few bear fruit to the glory of God, failing to improve light and privileges and to arise and shine though glory is risen upon them. They keep only the outward form of religion and stop there, remaining fruitless under condemnation, seized by fatal delusion and darkness when they do not walk in the light nor make Christ their strength, falling easy prey to the deceiver. Mere assent to truth will not save from death, for safety requires being sanctified through the truth and overcoming every defect of character, lest any defect left unconquered overcome the soul and become a controlling power for evil. What is needed is not more evidence but pure sanctified hearts that receive and hold fast the light already given, with the Lord's sword penetrating to cut away fleshly lusts, appetites, passions, pride, false security and self-righteousness, opening blind eyes to need, uprooting hidden evil, hiding self in God and purifying the soul by obeying the truth, since prosperity itself can be a time of special danger and many do not recognize the dangers threatening the world despite religious advantages.
Many depart from the faith in these days now living, with evil people and deceivers growing worse while deceiving and being deceived. These times include heeding seducing spirits and teachings of devils, accepting error including one mind exercising complete control over another which God forbids, turning from truth to fables prepared on every hand to capture appetite, and sudden turnings away requiring far more of the Spirit of God to escape. Superficial faith produces only superficial experience and a repentance that itself needs to be repented of, joined with great lack of knowledge of the rise and progress of the third angel's message, false prophets arising to deceive many, and everything that can be shaken being shaken. Satan wars against the remnant who endeavor to keep the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus, using evil angels and men as agents to exert influence, hide and cover light, cause distrust and disbelief, and hinder God's chosen people from showing forth His praises and from being purified unto perfection and redeemed from all iniquity. While those already covered with deception and walled in by fables and error are sure, his malice is directed against those seeking truth to obey it in love, whom he can never weaken while they keep close to Jesus, stay closely united with God and firmly grounded in eternal truth to counteract evil and uplift and save others.
Abounding iniquity cools the love of many, where many means the professed followers of Christ who become affected by prevailing iniquity and backslide from God. Perilous times mean marked depravity when many disregard the precepts of the law of God, the commandment treated with indifference and even open contempt, and those professing to love God tempted to be carried away with prevailing wickedness to disregard Jehovah's law and render less reverence to the holy commandment. This cooling is not necessary, and when love for God and zeal and fervor wane because iniquity abounds it proves some partaking in that iniquity, since otherwise love would be unaffected, calling for standing clear from iniquity and letting zeal and love rise in proportion as the law is set aside, loving God's commandments above gold and reaching for higher holiness as contempt increases. Far-spreading manifest ungodliness prevails to a terrible degree under a cloak of Christianity and sanctification, continuing until Christ comes to be glorified in all them that believe, with scenes enacted in the very courts of the temple that few realize, and with prevailing iniquity and rejection of grace threatening to overcome His people and draw them into hostility against His remnant. In these perils God's people will be proved and tested so discernment is made between him that serves God and him that serves Him not, and before Christ's coming this apostasy prepares the way for religious powers to unite and use civil authority to enforce belief with penalties against dissenters, amid testing in which legislators abandon Protestant principles and support Romanism while God specially protects those entrusted with His law and intervenes for His honor and His people's salvation.
Within this danger destruction and violence are increasing in the world while in the church human authority is gaining control and the ascendency. People in positions of trust claim a right to rule, assert authority and seek to rule fellow workers, with self-sufficient leaders molding the work after themselves and stirring controversy. Those evil times have already begun and God's people must be prepared to stand amid their dangers, yet oppressive leadership and failure to learn humility and respect for God's workers leave a person unfit to help prepare them. The signs are visible even within the church where self-sufficient people reject the Lord's counsel, follow human judgment, work against God's plain commands and oppose His light and plans, bringing spiritual blindness and judgment through satanic agencies working through hearts not governed by God's Word. Seeing these predictions fulfilled should lead to earnest Bible study and to believing and teaching God's Word.
The perils of the last days are now present and must be taken to heart, calling for close searching of heart and self-examination before God. A chief danger is self-deception, where people professing truth are blind to their own wrongs, mistake the approval of friends and fellow believers for the gospel standard, and remain satisfied while falling short, so that when wrongs go unreproved the church's moral standard is lowered and those in error are encouraged. Satan powerfully stirs his agents to make the path difficult for believers, requiring seeking God's strength, support and grace, living truth rather than merely professing it, keeping faith active through love and soul-purifying, and guarding by humble dependence and watchful prayer against deceptive devices, sin and cherished habits that lead away from Jesus without the Holy Spirit. Those professing to live in these days with light on present truth may be marked by avarice, bringing scorn so even honest worldly people despise them, and by selfish, self-caring, stingy, covetous character that must be kept apart where it will least harm the cause, with faithful tested men, fathers and mothers in Israel who watch for souls placed at the head of the work and all called to awake to duty. God's children are called to learn meekness, humility and obedience and do a higher work than disparaging one another, since disparaging others brings judgment because it neglects what makes for peace.
Call to Watchful Faithfulness
The last days bring grievous times of widespread moral and spiritual corruption, and the command given with that warning is to turn away from such people. Selfishness in every stage marks the peril, with men loving self, money and pleasure more than God, greedy, boastful, proud, irreverent, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, loveless, untrustworthy, slanderous, uncontrolled, harsh, opposed to good, treacherous, reckless and conceited, keeping only an outward form of godliness while denying its power. That self-love becomes self-worship, putting human practices and natural tendencies where God's law should be and spending the Lord's goods on indulgence instead of relieving sufferers. The picture belongs to the world and also to the condition found in the church, including false teachers seeking entrance, and those who discern it must separate from corrupting influences and work entirely contrary to their ways. Outward profession without inward cleansing and true conversion is fruitless and worthless, and believers must remain spiritually alert and diligent rather than sleeping at the post while Satan and his angels are not idle.
Enoch proves that purity is still possible amid such wicked, debasing pollution and shows what can be done now in harmony with all God's requirements. He walked with God in separation from the world, receiving strength from the same source through devotion in prayer and communion, remaining pure, uncorrupted and free from lust even while surrounded by evil. He represents the saints who live amid the perils and corruptions of the last days, the faithful living who will be fitted for translation. For faithful obedience he was translated, and so the faithful who are alive and remain will likewise be removed from a sinful and corrupt world to the pure joys of heaven.
Safety in these dangers requires searching the Scriptures to understand the reasons of hope and faith, learning the sins to avoid, the plan of salvation, the way to heaven, and the revealed rules for holy living by which the dangers besetting every church member can be known and escaped. Filling the mind beforehand with the precious seeds of Bible truth prevents the growth of evil and occupies the mind with growing in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. God's word rightly understood and applied safeguards against terrible delusions, while rejecting light and truth leaves captives to Satan with ever greater darkness and deception. Because the perils are present, Revelation must be read in connection with Daniel and taught, discourses made short, spiritual and elevated, and every man entering the pulpit full of the Word of the Lord and mindful that angels from heaven are in his audience. When heavenly messengers empty the golden oil of truth into the teacher's heart the application becomes solemn and serious and expels sin unless the door is padlocked and Christ refused, giving life with no stagnation, constant growth to the full stature of Christ, deep experience in heavenly things, walking with the Lord as Enoch did and learning to abide in Christ. Superficial faith produces only superficial experience and a repentance needing to be repented of, amid great lack of knowledge of the rise and progress of the third angel's message, departure to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, false prophets deceiving many, and the shaking of all that can be shaken, so each person must gain individually an intelligent knowledge of truth and its reasons, learn thoroughly Daniel and Revelation, open the Scriptures text by text, find the strong evidences sustaining fundamental doctrines upon the platform of eternal truth, and hold fast the evidence that established truth until the close.
Perilous times are upon us and lie ahead, with the enemy on the track of God's people and Satan's increasing power to tempt making the age dangerous, so everyone knowing the truth should awake, watch in prayer, trust wholly in God and glorify Him rather than relying too much on human plans. Body, soul and spirit are to be placed under God's discipline, the whole armor put on, directions given through the Spirit of prophecy followed, and the truth for this time loved and obeyed as the guard against strong delusions. Warnings given line upon line and precept upon precept through word, testimonies and books making plain present duty and the position to occupy now must be heeded, leaving no excuse for disregard. Believers must continually learn from Christ the great Teacher in order to walk securely and righteously amid widespread evil, stand firmly for truth against self-sufficiency and false plans and theories that unsettle minds, cultivate every mental and physical power, and stay alert and resistant.
The chapter applies at this time to all churches throughout the world, calling churches and ministers to recognize the danger, wake out of lethargic slumber, trim lamps with grace and let them shine in clear bright rays to a dark world, and take up the great work of fitting up a people to stand in the day of the Lord and coming to the help of the Lord against the mighty. That preparation requires a special work of the Spirit more urgent than ever before, with personal conversion, humility, self-denial and holiness, using all means and abilities to warn the world. God's servants will have to confront false teachers and seducers who falsely accuse and despise the faithful. Parental authority is reversed as a sign of the days, with children following their own wishes while fearful parents yield control instead of requiring what is right, making it necessary to guard children still needing care and instruction from leaving home for schooling, employment or city life among pleasure-loving, irreligious worldlings where seductive influences are almost irresistible. Leaders must bear burdens prayerfully while all prepare a people for Christ's second advent.