Excerpts from The Great Paradox of the Ages

When The Church Is Fitly Represented By The Mountains.

   Through the time of this solemn work — a subject of paramount importance to the church of
God at this critical hour — is clearly set forth in the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy,  yet,
ironically, it is a matter little thought of and little understood by the people in the church it
concerns.  We therefore at this point inquire further into it.

   At the instance of Inspiration, the prophet Isaiah wrote: “For by fire and by His sword will the
Lord plead with all flesh: and the slain of the Lord shall be many…. And I will send those that
escape of them unto the nations,…and they shall bring all your brethren…in a clean vessel into
the house of the Lord.”  Isa. 66:16, 19, 20.

   Note that these prophetic words say that those who “escape” being among “the slain of the
Lord” are to be sent “unto the nations,” and that they “shall declare [His] glory among the
Gentiles.  And…shall bring all [their] brethren…out of all nations.”

Tract 2                            20

   As this great world-wide work of ingathering cannot be done after probation has closed, you
must not let the enemy deceive you “with good words and fair speeches.”  Show him that he
cannot explain these inspired passages another way, and yet have his explanation in harmony
with what the Lord has said in the foregoing scripture as well as in the following statement
from the Spirit of Prophecy:

   “While the investigative judgment is going forward in heaven…there is to be a special work
of purification…among God’s people upon earth…. Then the church which our Lord at His
coming is to receive to Himself will be ‘a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any
such thing.’  Then she will look forth ‘as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and
terrible as an army with banners.’ ” — The Great Controversy, p. 425.

   This statement from the Spirit of Prophecy also clearly indicates that the purification takes
place before probation closes, or “while the investigative judgment is going forward in heaven,
“and that then the church, clean and spotless, is to go into all the world conquering and to
conquer (Prophets and Kings, p. 725).

   Brother, Sister, do not rise up against this message of deliverance, and by so doing join the
ranks of the enemy, who sowed the tares in the church, and who is determined to keep them
there, for he knows

Tract 2                            21

that with a purified church, his power will be crushed, and the barriers which he has erected
against it will be smashed to fragments!  Indeed, “we need never expect that when the Lord
has light for His people, Satan will stand calmly by and make no effort to prevent them from
receiving it.  He will work upon minds to excite distrust and jealousy and unbelief.” —
Testimonies, Vol. 5, p. 728.

   From the evidences adduced, the fact towers forth that the purification takes place before the
work of the gospel is finished in any part of the world: for those who “escape” the slaughter are
sent to “bring all [their] brethren for an offering unto the Lord out of all nations.”  Necessarily
therefore, the consummation of this “special; work of purification” precedes the
commencement  of “The Loud Cry.”  Doubly conclusive proof of this is that the Spirit of
Prophecy states that “the true people of God, who have the spirit of the work of the Lord,…will
always be on the side of faithful and plain dealing with sins…. Especially in the closing work
for the church, in the sealing time of the one hundred and forty-four thousand….”  This special
work of purification and “sealing of the servants of God is the same that was shown to Ezekiel
in vision.” — Testimonies, Vol. 3, p. 266; Testimonies to Ministers, p. 445.

   Ezekiel’s vision discloses that those who “sigh and cry for all the abominations that

Tract 2                            22

be done in the midst thereof” (the church) are marked, or sealed, and that the men with the
“slaughter weapons” then “slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children and
women” who have not the mark.  The purification of the church, therefore, is a separation of
the sinners from the true people of God.  At the time of its fulfillment, the immediate future, the
144,000 receive the seal, or mark, escape the slaughter, become the “servants of God,” and go
forth unto the nations to finish the work.  This makes them the “first-fruits” of the living who are
to be translated, and “all their brethren” whom they bring in (the “great multitude” of
Revelation 7, verse 9), the second fruits of the living who are to be translated: for where there
are no second fruits, there can be no first. (For further light on this subject, read Tract No. 1,
Pre-“Eleventh Hour” Extra!.)

   Brethren, we must “sigh and cry” against the sins in the church; not against the message
which is to seal us for translation and make us a people fitly symbolized by the mountains of
brass.  Your sighing and crying for the abominations done in her “midst,” makes you eligible
for  the “mark”; but should you attempt to shield the abominations, you shall fall under the
slaughter weapons of the angels.  The church is to be purified and made clean and fit to be
God’s Dwelling Place.  In no other way can she be identified as the

Tract 2                            23

“mountain of brass,” the symbol of endurance.  This is the church that shall “enter upon her
final  conflict,” and the one with whom the dragon is to be “wroth:” for the symbolical
“woman” and “her seed,” as a body, keep the commandments of God and have the “testimony
of Jesus Christ.” Rev. 12:17.