Close of Probation Passes Unnoticed

[devotional at egwlists.whiteestate.org]

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Ellen G. White Estate, Devotional for September 13
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Close of Probation Passes Unnoticed

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 Thess. 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 Savior, "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. 

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

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. 

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)?

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