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00 Preface - The Great Controversy · Philosophy and Faith

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  Speaker 1: Preface. This book, reader is not published to tell us
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  Speaker 1: that there is sin and woe and misery in this world.
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  Speaker 1: We know it all too well. This book is not
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  Speaker 1: published to tell us that there is an irreconcilable controversy
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  Speaker 1: between darkness and light, sin and righteousness, wrong and right,
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  Speaker 1: death and life. In our heart of hearts, we know
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  Speaker 1: it and know that we are participators, actors in the conflict.
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  Speaker 1: But to every one of us comes at times a
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  Speaker 1: longing to know more of the great controversy. How did
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  Speaker 1: the controversy begin? Or was it always here? What elements
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  Speaker 1: enter into its awfully complex aspect? How am I related
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  Speaker 1: to it? What is my responsibility? I find myself in
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  Speaker 1: this world by no choice of my own? Does that
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  Speaker 1: mean to me evil or good? What are the great
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  Speaker 1: principles involved? How long will the controversy continue? What will
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  Speaker 1: be its ending? Will this art sink, as some scientists
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  Speaker 1: tell us, into the depths of a sunless, frozen, eternal night,
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  Speaker 1: or is there a better future before it, radiant with
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  Speaker 1: the light of life, warm with the eternal love of God.
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  Speaker 1: The question comes closer still, How may the controversy in
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  Speaker 1: my own heart? The strife between inflowing selfishness and outgoing
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  Speaker 1: love be settled in the victory of good and settled forever.
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  Speaker 1: What does the Bible say? What has God to teach
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  Speaker 1: us upon this question? Eternally important to every soul. Questions
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  Speaker 1: like these meet us from every side. They rise insistent
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  Speaker 1: up from the depths of our own heart. They demand
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  Speaker 1: definite answer. Surely, the God who created in us the
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  Speaker 1: longing for the better, the desire for the truth, will
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  Speaker 1: not withhold from us the answer to all needed knowledge.
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  Speaker 1: For the Lord Jehovah will do nothing except he reveal
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  Speaker 1: his secret unto his servants, the prophets. It is the
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  Speaker 1: aim of this book reader to help the troubled soul
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  Speaker 1: to a right solution of all these problems. It is
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  Speaker 1: written by one who has tasted and found that God
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  Speaker 1: is good, and who has learned in communion with God
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  Speaker 1: and the study of his word, that the secret of
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  Speaker 1: the Lord is with them that fear Him, and that
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  Speaker 1: he will show them his covenant. That we may better
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  Speaker 1: understand the principles of the all important controversy in which
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  Speaker 1: the life of a universe is involved. The author has
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  Speaker 1: set it before us in great concrete object Lessons of
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  Speaker 1: the last twenty centuries. The book opens with the sad
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  Speaker 1: closing scenes of Jerusalem's history, the city of God's Chosen
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  Speaker 1: after her rejection of the Man of Calvary who came
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  Speaker 1: to save, thence onward along the great Highway of the Nations.
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  Speaker 1: It points us to the persecutions of God's children in
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  Speaker 1: the first centuries, the great Apostasy which followed in his church,
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  Speaker 1: the world awakening of the Reformation, in which some of
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  Speaker 1: the great principles of the controversy are clearly manifest, the
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  Speaker 1: awful lesson of the rejection of right principles by France,
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  Speaker 1: the revival and exaltation of the scriptures and their beneficent,
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  Speaker 1: life saving influence, the religious awakening of the last days,
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  Speaker 1: the unsealing of the radiant fountain of God's Word with
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  Speaker 1: its wonderful revelations of light and knowledge to meet the
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  Speaker 1: baleful upspringing of every delusion of darkness. The present impending
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  Speaker 1: conflict with the vital principles involved, in which no one
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  Speaker 1: can be neutral, are simply lucidly, strongly set forth. Last
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  Speaker 1: of all, we are told of the eternal and glorious
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  Speaker 1: victory of good over evil, right over rome, light over darkness,
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  Speaker 1: Joy over sorrow, hope over despair, glory over shame, life
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  Speaker 1: over death, and everlasting, long suffering love over vindictive hate.
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  Speaker 1: Former editions of this book have brought many souls to
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  Speaker 1: the True Shepherd. It is the prayer of the publishers
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  Speaker 1: that this edition may be even more fruitful of eternal good.
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  Speaker 1: The Publishers, end of preface