The Great Controversy - Righteousness is Love

247step he traced down the great lines of prophecy. Angels of heaven wereguiding his mind and opening the Scriptures to his understanding.Taking the manner in which the prophecies had been fulfilled in the past asa criterion by which to judge of the fulfillment of those which were stillfuture, he became satisfied that the popular view of the spiritual reign ofChrist–a temporal millennium before the end of the world–was notsustained by the word of God. This doctrine, pointing to a thousand years ofrighteousness and peace before the personal coming of the Lord, put far offthe terrors of the day of God. But, pleasing though it may be, it is contraryto the teachings of Christ and His apostles, who declared that the wheat andthe tares and to grow together until the harvest, the end of the world; that"evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse;" that "in the last daysperilous times shall come;" and that the kingdom of darkness shall continueuntil the advent of the Lord and shall be consumed with the spirit of Hismouth and be destroyed with the brightness of His coming. Matthew 13:30,38-41; 2 Timothy 3:13, 1; 2 Thessalonians 2:8.The doctrine of the world's conversion and the spiritual reign of Christ wasnot held by the apostolic church. It was not generally accepted by Christiansuntil about the beginning of the eighteenth century. Like every other error,its results were evil. It taught men to look far in the future for the coming ofthe Lord and prevented them from giving heed to the signs heralding Hisapproach. It induced a feeling of confidence and security that was not wellfounded and led many to neglect the preparation necessary in order to meettheir Lord.Miller found the literal, personal coming of Christ to be plainly taught in theScriptures. Says Paul: "The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with ashout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God." 1Thessalonians 4:16. And the Saviour declares: "They shall see the Son ofman coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." "For asthe lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shallalso the coming of the Son of man be." Matthew 24:30, 27. He is to beaccompanied by all the hosts of heaven. "The Son of man shall come in Hisglory, and all the holy angels with Him." Matthew 25:31. "And He shallsend His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gathertogether His elect." Matthew 24:31.At His coming the righteous dead will be raised, and the righteous livingwill be changed. "We shall not all sleep," says Paul, "but we shall all bechanged, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the