How was it with the rebellious inhabitants of the antediluvian world? After rejecting the message of Noah, they plunged into sin with greater abandon than ever before, and doubled the enormity of their corrupting practices. Those who refuse to reform by accepting Christ find nothing reformative in sin; their minds are set to carry their spirit of revolt, and they are not, and never will be, forced to submission. The judgment which God brought upon the antediluvian world declared it incurable. The destruction of Sodom proclaimed the inhabitants of the most beautiful country in the world incorrigible in sin. The fire and brimstone from heaven consumed everything except Lot, his wife, and two daughters. The wife, looking back in disregard of God’s command, became a pillar of salt. (TM 75.1) MC VC

How God bore with the Jewish nation while they were murmuring and rebellious, breaking the Sabbath and every other precept of the law! He repeatedly declared them worse than the heathen. Each generation surpassed the preceding in guilt. The Lord permitted them to go into captivity, but after their deliverance His requirements were forgotten. Everything that He committed to that people to be kept sacred was perverted or displaced by the inventions of rebellious men. Christ said to them in His day, “Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law?” John 7:19. And these were the men who set themselves up as judges and censors over those whom the Holy Spirit was moving to declare the word of God to the people. (See John 7:9-23, 27, 28; Luke 11:37-52.) (TM 75.2) MC VC

Come when it may, the advent of Christ will surprise the false teachers who are saying, “Peace and safety;”(1 Thessalonians 5:3) “all things continue as they were from the beginning.” 2 Peter 3:4. Thus saith the word of Inspiration, “Sudden destruction cometh upon them.” 1 Thessalonians 5:3. The day of God shall come as a snare upon all who dwell upon the face of the whole earth. It comes to them as a prowling thief. “If the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.” Matthew 24:43. Habitual watching is our only safety. We must be ever ready, that that day may not overtake us as a thief. (TM 233.1) MC VC

Let everyone who loves God consider that now while it is day is the time to work, not among the sheep already in the fold, but to go out in search of the lost and perishing ones. These need to have special help to bring them back to the fold. Now is the time for the careless to arouse from their slumber. Now is the time to entreat that souls shall not only hear the word of God, but without delay secure oil in their vessels with their lamps. That oil is the righteousness of Christ. It represents character, and character is not transferable. No man can secure it for another. Each must obtain for himself a character purified from every stain of sin. (TM 233.2) MC VC