Close of Probation Passes Unnoticed

September 13

But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. 

1 Thessalonians 5:1, 2. 

The righteous and the wicked will still be living upon the earth in their mortal state—men will be planting and building, eating and drinking, all unconscious that the final, irrevocable decision has been pronounced in the sanctuary above. Before the flood, after Noah entered the ark, God shut him in, and shut the ungodly out; but for seven days the people, knowing not that their doom was fixed, continued their careless, pleasure-loving life, and mocked the warnings of impending judgment. “So,” says the Saviour, “shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” Silently, unnoticed as the midnight thief, will come the decisive hour which marks the fixing of every man's destiny, the final withdrawal of mercy's offer to guilty men.38The Review and Herald, November 9, 1905.

The people are fast being lulled to a fatal security, to be awakened only by the outpouring of the wrath of God.39The Great Controversy, 562.

The Lord in judgment will at the close of time walk through the earth, the fearful plagues will begin to fall. Then those who have despised God's word, those who have lightly esteemed it, shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord and shall not find it.... The ministers of God will have done their last work, offered their last prayers, shed their last bitter tear for a rebellious church and an ungodly people.40Manuscript 1, 1857.

The eye of Jesus, looking down the ages, was fixed upon our time when He said, “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace!” It is still thy day, O church of God, whom He has made the depositary of His law. This day of trust and probation is drawing to a close. The sun is fast westering. Can it be that it will set and thou wilt not know “the things which belong unto thy peace!”? Must the irrevocable sentence be passed, “But now they are hid from thine eyes” (Luke 19:42)? 41Letter 58, 1887. 

Maranatha, p.264.