The Con­verg­ing Crisis

Satan is work­ing that the his­tory of the Jew­ish nation may be repeated in the expe­ri­ence of those who claim to believe present truth. The Jews had the Old Tes­ta­ment Scrip­tures, and sup­posed them­selves con­ver­sant with them. But they made a woe­ful mis­take. The prophe­cies that refer to the glo­ri­ous sec­ond appear­ing of Christ in the clouds of heaven they regarded as refer­ring to His first com­ing. Because He did not come accord­ing to their expec­ta­tions, they turned away from Him. Satan knew just how to take these men in his net, and deceive and destroy them.… The very same Satan is at work to under­mine the faith of the peo­ple of God at this time. There are per­sons ready to catch up every new idea.

The prophe­cies of Daniel and the Rev­e­la­tion are mis­in­ter­preted. These per­sons do not con­sider that the truth has been set forth at the appointed time by the very men whom God was lead­ing to do this spe­cial work. These men fol­lowed on step by step in the very ful­fill­ment of prophecy, and those who have not had a per­sonal expe­ri­ence in this work, are to take the Word of God and believe on “their word” who have been led by the Lord in the procla­ma­tion of the first, sec­ond, and third angels’ mes­sages. These mes­sages, received and acted upon, are doing their work to pre­pare a peo­ple to stand in the great day of God. If we search the Scrip­tures to con­firm the truth God has given His ser­vants for the world, we shall be found pro­claim­ing the first, sec­ond, and third angels’ mes­sages. {2SM 111.3}