the_shadow_of_impending_doom

The crowded cities are filled with spiritual darkness and wickedness. The record of crime and iniquity is appalling. The enemy of souls is working to gain control of people's minds. Christian workers must urgently warn and prepare the cities while there is still time. Satan is causing confusion and discord in cities and leading people into selfish pursuits. The world is heading towards destruction, and cities full of transgression will be destroyed. God's judgment will come upon those who persistently disregard His law. The wickedness in large cities is increasing, and the time is near when they will be swept away. The work in cities has been neglected, and there is a need for wholehearted service to warn of coming judgments. The wickedness in cities is like Sodom and Gomorrah, and the work in cities must be hastened. The end of all things is at hand, and we must turn our hearts fully to God and warn the cities of their impending doom. Section 2 The Metropolitan Masses In the shadow of impending doom, subheading, millions in the cities must soon decide. The spiritual darkness that covers the whole earth today is intensified in the crowded centers of population. It is in the cities of the nations that the gospel worker finds the greatest impenitence and the greatest need. The record of crime and iniquity in large cities of the land is appalling. The wickedness of the wicked is almost beyond comprehension. Many cities are becoming a very sodom in the sight of heaven. The increasing wickedness is such that multitudes are rapidly approaching a point in their personal experience beyond which it will be exceedingly difficult to reach them with a saving knowledge of the third angel's message. The enemy of souls is working in a masterful manner to gain full control of the human mind, and what God's servants do to warn and prepare men for the day of judgment must be done quickly. The conditions that face Christian workers in the great cities constitute a solemn appeal for untiring effort on behalf of the millions living within the shadow of impending doom. Men will soon be forced to great decisions, and they must have opportunities to hear and to understand Bible truth in order that they may take their stand intelligently on the right side. God is now calling upon His messengers in no uncertain terms to warn the cities while mercy still lingers and while multitudes are yet susceptible to the converting influence of Bible truth. Review and Herald, April 7, 1910. Subheading on the March to Death. Satan is busily at work in our crowded cities. His work is to be seen in the confusion, the strife and discord between labor and capital and the hypocrisy that has come into the churches. That men may not take time to meditate, Satan leads them into a round of gaiety and pleasure-seeking, of eating and drinking. He fills them with ambition to make an exhibition that will exalt self. Step by step, the world is reaching the conditions that existed in the days of Noah. Every conceivable crime is committed, the lust of the flesh, the pride of the eyes, the display of selfishness, the misuse of power, the cruelty and the force used to cause men to unite with confederacies and unions, binding themselves up in bundles for the burning of the great fires of the last days. All these are the working of satanic agencies. This round of crime and folly men call life. The world, who act as though there were no God, absorbed in selfish pursuits, will soon experience sudden destruction and shall not escape. Many continue in the careless gratification of self until they become so disgusted with life that they kill themselves. Dancing and carousing, drinking and smoking, indulging their animal passions, they go as an ox to the slaughter. Satan is working with all his art and enchantments to keep men marching blindly onward until the Lord arises out of his place to punish the inhabitants of earth for their iniquities, when the earth shall disclose her blood and no more shall cover her slain. The whole world appears to be in the march to death. Manuscript 139, 1903. Subheading, Ambitious Devisings. Men and women living in these cities are rapidly becoming more and still more entangled in their business relations. They are acting wildly in the erection of buildings whose towers reach high into the heavens. Their minds are filled with schemes and ambitious devisings. Manuscript 154, 1902. Subheading, If Heaven's Warnings Go Unheeded. I am bidden to declare the message that cities full of transgression and sinful in the extreme will be destroyed by earthquakes, by fire, by flood. All the world will be warned that there is a God who will display his authority as God. His unseen agencies will cause destruction, devastation, and death. All the accumulated riches will be as nothingness. Calamities will come, calamities most awful, most unexpected, and these destructions will follow one after another. If there will be a heeding of the warnings that God has given, and if the churches will repent returning to their allegiance, then other cities may be spared for a time. But if men who have been deceived continue in the same way in which they have been walking, disregarding the law of God and presenting falsehoods before the people, God allows them to suffer calamity that their senses may be awakened. The Lord will not suddenly cast off all transgressors or destroy entire nations, but he will punish cities and places where men have given themselves up to the possession of satanic agencies. Strictly will the cities of the nations be dealt with, and yet they will not be visited in the extreme of God's indignation, because some souls will yet break away from the delusions of the enemy and will repent and be converted, while the mass will be treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath. Chapter 35 Subheading, To Arouse the People While at Loma Linda, California, April 16, 1906, there passed before me a most wonderful representation. During a vision of the night, I stood on an eminence from which I could see houses shaken like a reed in the wind. Buildings great and small were falling to the ground. Major resorts, theaters, hotels, and the homes of the wealthy were shaken and shattered. Many lives were blotted out of existence, and the air was filled with the shrieks of the injured and the terrified. The destroying angels of God were at work. One touch, and buildings so thoroughly constructed that men regarded them as secure against every danger, quickly became heaps of rubbish. There was no assurance of safety in any place. I did not feel in any special peril that the awfulness of the scenes that passed before me I cannot find words to describe. It seemed that the forbearance of God was exhausted and that the day of judgment had come. The angel that stood by my side then instructed me that but few have any conception of the wickedness existing in our world today, and especially the wickedness in the large cities. He declared that the Lord has appointed a time when He will visit transgressors and wrath for persistent disregard of His law. Terrible as was the representation that passed before me, that which impressed itself most vividly upon my mind was the instruction given in connection with it. The angel that stood by my side declared that God's supreme rulership and the sacredness of His law must be revealed to those who persistently refuse to render obedience to the King of Kings. Those who choose to remain disloyal must be visited in mercy with the judgments, in order that, if possible, they may be aroused to a realization of the sinfulness of their cause. Testimonies, Volume 9, page 92, 1909 Subheading, A View of Great Destruction Last Friday morning, just before I awoke, a very impressive scene was presented before me. I seemed to awake from sleep, for it was not in my home. From the windows I could behold a terrible conflagration. Great balls of fire were falling upon houses, and from these balls fiery arrows were flying in every direction. It was impossible to check the fires that were kindled, and many places were being destroyed. The terror of the people was indescribable. After a time I awoke and found myself at home. Letter 278, 1906 Subheading, Because Large Cities Will Be Swept Away Everywhere there are men who should be out in active ministry, giving the last message of warning to a fallen world. The work that should long ago have been an act of operation to win souls to Christ has not been done. The inhabitants of the ungodly city, so soon to be visited by calamities, have been cruelly neglected. The time is near when large cities will be swept away, and all should be warned of these coming judgments. But who is giving to the accomplishments of this work the wholehearted service that God requires? At the present time there is not a thousandth part being done in working the cities that should be done and that would be done if men and women would do their whole duty. Letter 253, 1910 Subheading, Destruction of Thousands of Cities Oh, that God's people had a sense of the impending destruction of thousands of cities, now almost given to idolatry. Review and Herald, September 10, 1903 Subheading, Hasten the Work As I consider the conditions in the cities that are so manifestly under the power of Satan, I ask myself the question, What will be the end of these things? The wickedness of many cities is increasing. Crime and iniquity are at work on every hand. New species of idolatry are continually being introduced into society. In every nation the minds of men are turning to the invention of some new thing. Rashness of deed and confusion of mind are everywhere increasing. Only the cities of the earth are becoming like Sodom and Gomorrah. As a people we need to hasten the work in the cities, which has been hindered for lack of workers and means and spirit of consecration. At this time the people of God need to turn their hearts fully to Him, for the end of all things is at hand. They need to go humble their minds and to be attentive to the will of the Lord, working with earnest desire to do that which God has shown must be done to warn the cities of their impending doom. Review and Herald January 25, 1912.