Our Times and Hopes

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 5, 1864

Our Times and Hopes.

NEARLY two thousand years have elapsed since the ascension of our Lord, and we have positively reached the time spoken of by Daniel, the prophet, thus:—

“Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” Who can doubt? “He that runneth may read” this. Still another fact is not less obvious. It is that so clearly predicted by our Saviour thus: “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” The bands that bound society together, civil, social, and religious, all seem to be giving way; the time of trouble spoken of by both Daniel and our Saviour is upon us. “Like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt,” so it is now with the troubled masses. “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” This is now the moral phase of society, and precisely our prophetic whereabouts of the Church, our nation, and the world at large. The Church is in exile, weeping and praying, “even so come, Lord Jesus.” While the latter-day “scoffers” in derision are saying, “Where is the promise of his coming?” Thousands are deceiving and being deceived by the delusive dream that the millennial day is softly stealing upon our world, and there shall be the much-talked-of golden age. Alas! for such! Between our time and that future glory of Messiah’s reign there lies a region as dark as midnight, strewed with such ruined hopes and blasting terrors as this world has never known—such a time of plagues and tribulation as never was, when all hopes based on finite good shall utterly perish, with all those who have deceived themselves thereby.

There is a most manifest blind, persistent rejection of the glorious truth, that the next great event which will mark the history of our world, make an end of Satan’s usurpation, and bring in everlasting righteousness, is the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ to establish his kingdom, in answer to that prayer he himself indited: “Thy kingdom come,” the very kingdom ascribed to him, “for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever. Amen.”

No person who may be favored with grace enough to divest himself of prejudice, and sit down as an humble learner at the feet of Christ and his Apostles, and receive their exposition of the Prophets, can resist the fact that the hope of the primitive Church was, and the true hope of the Church now is, “the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” (Titus ii, 13.) Not until then will the Church be disentangled and saved from all her enemies, coming out of the wilderness, “fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners.” Not until then will God’s incorrigible enemies bow and confess, under the heavy pressure of his righteous judgments, and be removed as tares and cumberers of the ground. Verily, there is no other legitimate Bible hope for the people of God in this trying hour. If other hopes are entertained, they are of human origin, and never to be realized. They are but “the light of the fire, and the sparks of their own kindling.” With all deference to the opinions of others, such is the modern theory of this world’s conversion, and the building of Christ’s everlasting kingdom in his personal absence by human instrumentality. In the light of God’s immutable truth, it may safely be affirmed that God has nowhere commissioned men either to convert the world or build his kingdom proper in this world. If any doubt, let such disprove by plain, obvious scriptural testimony. Christ has commissioned and sent forth men to preach the Gospel of the kingdom, and deigned to tell us what the sure result would be, namely, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned.” The labors of more than eighteen hundred years, the world over, have invariably confirmed this certain result. We are forced to the conclusion that, during the present dispensation, fallen humanity will remain the same, and that the Gospel, like its author, will continue the same; nor will God change. Hence the results of gospel preaching, and all other means of grace, will not be more efficient in their results than they have been in the primitive Church, and through the ages past. To what other conclusion does revelation, reason, and common sense lead? The apostle Paul certainly understood the nature of his calling, and may safely be regarded as a model minister and missionary of the gospel. In all his writings, there is nothing to indicate that he thought his commission was to convert the world, or build the kingdom of Christ Jesus. His words may be forced into such a construction, as they frequently have been. We will hear him speak for himself, thus: “I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.” He meddled not with things beyond his calling and measure. Would to God it were so with all who claim to be sent of Christ to teach and preach in our day.

The lameness of the various efforts to prove the world’s conversion from the Sacred Oracles, proves the fallacy of that theory. Mere assumption and inference can, in no case, be admitted as evidence. Take the following specimens, which are, in substance, what lately appeared in print, to prove the world’s future conversion in the present dispensation. First, to prove the world’s conversion the following language is quoted: “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” (Rom. v, 20.) The most that this Scripture proves is, that divine grace so abounds, that whosoever will may be saved, and nothing more. Grace provides and reveals the means of salvation, but is not salvation itself, nor does its freeness prove that one sinner will accept of it, much less the whole world. Again, “All things are put under his feet.” Very true; and, therefore, we must submit to be saved by His grace, or fall and perish by His righteous judgments. How does this prove the conversion of this world? Once more: “Ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” (Ps. ii, 8.) Why omit the ninth verse, which explains the meaning of the eighth, and is a part of the same paragraph, and which tells what Christ will do with the unbelieving part of the world given unto him? Certainly not save them, for they will not believe, more than would the antediluvians or Sodomites. The ninth verse, so carefully avoided, clearly states what shall be the final doom of such heathens, thus: “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” Does this prove, or look like, the world’s conversion, when the two verses are read together, as common honesty would dictate? This garbling and perverting the Sacred Scriptures to sustain a favorite but false theory, is one of the most alarming signs of our times, for which there can be no excuse or apology.

This is not the age or dispensation of the kingdom and reign of Christ, but a preparatory dispensation of the Holy Ghost to illuminate, purify, strengthen, and comfort those who receive him by faith in Christ. Thus is the Lord preparing a people for himself “meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.” (Col. i, 12.) The fact that God is now raising up witnesses in all parts of the world to this precious truth, is certainly worthy the consideration of all.—Advocate.