p. 7 | Signs of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 46. (11/23/1904)

Earlier text: AN OBJECT LESSON IN REDEMPTION

Judgment "Is Come."

"And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come; and worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." Rev. 14:6, 7.

THE solemn announcement contained in this Scripture is to be made to all the world just before the coming of the Lord. Compare verses 14 and 16. The "everlasting Gospel," the Gospel of the ages, is to be heralded everywhere in view of the fact that "the hour of His judgment is come."

The reader will notice a few scriptures showing the force of the announcement and appeal, as it is found in the text. The Lord, by Solomon, says: "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." Eccl. 8:11. How often we see this verified. Men do evil, and because God's judgments do not follow at once, they soon become almost, and finally fully, abandoned to wickedness. This condition became general in the world in Noah's time. See Gen. 6:5: "Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." And thus the Saviour said it would be in the days just preceding His second coming. See Matt. 24:37-39; 2 Tim. 3:1-5.

Since it is the natural tendency with men to follow the bent of their hearts toward evil, and more and more since judgment is not meted out when the offense is committed, it follows necessarily that with the preaching of the Gospel there should be held out the certainty of coming judgment. This would have as great effect as any other thing could to hold men and women in restraint from doing evil. "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." 2 Cor. 5:10. What we have done will determine our destiny. This is the only equitable basis upon which judgment could be reasonably passed in the case of morally responsible creatures.

The office work of the Holy Spirit is to keep the certainty of judgment before the minds of men, as well as to convince of sin and of righteousness. John 16:7, 8. When Paul preached the Gospel to the Athenians, who knew not God, his appeal to them to repent was made "because He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world." See Acts 17:22, 23, 30, 31. This same preacher of the Gospel reasoned before Felix of "judgment to come." Acts 24:24, 25. The effect of this preaching was that "Felix trembled." God calls upon all the people of the land to tremble, because the day of the Lord is near and hasteth greatly. Zeph. 1:14.

Paul exhorts the Gospel minister to preach in view of the judgment at the last day. 2 Tim. 4:1, 2. Solomon, after speaking of the fact of man's existence and his destiny, states the "conclusion of the whole matter" as follows: "Fear God, and keep His commandments; . . . for God shall bring every work into judgment." Eccl. 12:13, 14.

Judgment "Is Come."

And thus it has been in the past, men who have spoken for God to a world in sin, urging them to repent, have appealed in view of judgment to come. But now we are in a time when even a stronger appeal is to be made to men. More solemn than judgment to come is the fact that the great tribunal which will settle forever the destinies of men is set in heaven, and that the records of human lives are passing under the inspection of the all-searching Eye. Hence it becomes us to examine the scriptures by which it may be known that "the hour of His judgment is come."

Several lines of prophecy in the book of Daniel culminate in the setting up of God's everlasting kingdom, after the final overthrow of the kingdoms of this world. In the seventh chapter, following the history of earth's great empires under striking symbols, there is given a very graphic description of the judgment. See verses 9-11. The two following chapters deal with the chronology of that great event in a way to leave no question as to when it is that the message is due, "The hour of His judgment is come." Rev. 14:7.

Under the symbols of a ram and a goat the kingdoms of Medo-Persia and Greece are set forth, and their work described. See verses 20 and 21 of chapter 8. The Roman Empire follows Grecia, under the symbol of a little horn, that power which "stood up against the Prince of princes," the Son of God. See verses 9-11, 24, 25.

The history of Rome was one of such unparalleled tyranny and cruelty, and the duration of its bloody history was so prolonged, that a holy one, as he viewed it, was constrained to ask the question, "How long shall be the vision?" concerning the abomination which caused both the sanctuary (the ministration of our High Priest in heaven) and the host (the church of God) to be trodden underfoot. The answer immediately follows: "Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed." Verses 13, 14.

This time is more fully set forth in a previous article, entitled "An Object Lesson in Redemption." It is there shown that the cleansing of the sanctuary culminates in the blotting out of sins; or the cleansing of that place from the sins of the penitent, which have been kept there in the records of men's lives till the great tribunal should determine their destiny. See Acts 3:19-21; Rev. 20:12.

In the ninth chapter of Daniel the chronology of the 2,300-day period is fixed. The Jews were in captivity in Babylon, and their city in ruins, because of their sins. Read 2 Chron. 36:11-17. Now the seventy years of their captivity is nearing its close; and Daniel, understanding this (verses 1-3), is praying to God to remember His covenant, and in mercy to turn away His displeasure from His disobedient people. Dan. 9:1-19. The angel Gabriel comes to him with words of comfort and assurance. Verses 21-23.

Beginning his explanation of the 2,300 days, or years (see Eze. 4:4-6; Num. 14:34), the angel says to the praying prophet: "Seventy weeks are determined upon [marked off, or allotted to] thy people, . . . to make an end of sins." Verse 24. God was to give to the people, whom He had so long and so highly favored, this one more opportunity to cease from the sins which had darkened their history. If they still prove untrue at the end of the seventy weeks (490 days, or years), we will look for their rejection as a nation.

Cutting off 490 years from 2,300 we have 1,810 left. The 490 years begin with the command-ment "to restore and to build Jerusalem." Verse 25. The going forth of this decree was in B.C. 457. (See Ezra 7:7, and date in margin. See also article entitled "An Object Lesson in Redemption.") More strictly speaking, it was about 456 1/2 full years before Christ. Counting forward from this date 490 years (the seventy weeks) brings us to A.D. 33 1/2, or the autumn of A.D. 34. Subtracting as follows will make this clear: 490—456 1/2 equals 33 1/2. Thus we are brought to that eventful year—A.D. 34—when, because of their refusal to repent and to accept the gift of God in His only-begotten Son, they (the Jews) were set aside as a nation. Thenceforth the Gospel of salvation was to go to all nations without respect of persons. See Acts 10:28, 34, 35. When the Gospel of the kingdom is given to all the world for a witness, the end will come. Matt. 24:14. In the heralding of the everlasting Gospel announcing that the hour of God's judgment is come, this is done. See Rev. 14:6, 7.

Now add the remainder of the 2,300 years—the 1,810 after cutting off the 490—to A.D. 34, the year to which the 490 reached, and we are brought to the autumn of 1844. Then began the judgment in heaven to fix the destinies of men and to blot out sins forever. This mathematical calculation is so definite that all question is dismissed, and the conclusion comes with all its solemn weight to us living at this time that "the hour of His judgment is come." It gives force to the appeal which goes with the solemn announcement, "Fear God, and give glory to Him."

In the light of these things it is a fact fraught with meaning to us, that just at the time named above, at the close of the 2,300 years, in 1844, there was being heralded to the world, till every missionary station on the globe had heard it, the most solemn announcement that could be made to men: The judgment hour is here, and the coming of the Lord is near at hand. Many in America, and men in other countries in the same manner, and even children in those places where the state law restricted the freedom of the pulpit, gave this message to the world with a solemnity and power which carried conviction to thousands. The hand of God, so manifestly in that work, has led in the promulgation of this message until it is now heard in all quarters of the earth; and soon every nation and kindred shall have had the warning. Then the Desire of all nations shall come, and we shall see "the King in His beauty."

Dear reader, judgment bound with me, will you not now, if you have never heretofore given thought to it, study these great truths? The most fitting appeal that can be made in conclusion, is to quote again the words of the message: "Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come; and worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." Rev. 14:7. Amen.

LITERAL INTERPRETATION.

THE following was written by William Tyndale, the great English Reformer, in 1530. He, tho dead, should be allowed to speak:—

Thou shalt understand, therefore, that the Scripture hath but one sense, which is the literal sense. And that literal sense is the root and ground of all, and the anchor that never faileth, whereunto if thou cleave thou canst never err, or go out of the way. And if thou leave not the literal sense, thou canst not but go out of the way. Nevertheless, the Scripture useth proverbs, similitudes, riddles, or allegories, as all other speeches do; but that which the proverb, simile, riddle, or allegory signifieth is ever the literal sense which thou must seek out diligently.

Origen, and the doctors of his time, drew all the Scriptures unto allegories, whose ensample they that come after followed so long, till they at last forgot the order and process of the text, supposing that the Scripture served but to feign allegories upon, insomuch that twenty doctors expound one text twenty ways, as children make descant upon plain songs. . . . Yea, thou shalt find enough that will preach Christ, and prove whatsoever point of faith that thou wilt, as well out of a fable of Ovid, as any other poet, as out of St. John's gospel, or Paul's epistles. Yea, they are come into such blindness that they not only say the literal sense profiteth not, but also that it is hurtful and noisome and killeth the soul.

AN APPEAL TO PROTESTANTS.

PROTESTANTISM derives its name from the Protest of the Reformers at the Diet of Spire, 1529. It derives its life from simple faith in the Word of the living God. The great historian of the Reformation, in which Protestantism had its birth, well says:

The Reformation was accomplished in the name of a spiritual principle. It had proclaimed for its teacher the Word of God; for salvation, faith; for king, Jesus Christ; for arms, the Holy Ghost; and had, by these very means, rejected all worldly elements. Rome had been established by the law of a carnal commandment; the Reformation, by the power of an endless life.

The Reformation was but the revival of true Christianity, not in mere form, but in power; neither as an ism or a creed, but as a life. For, as D'Aubigne again says:

If there is any doctrine that distinguishes Christianity from every other religion, it is its spirituality. A heavenly life brought down to man—such is its work. . . . One of the tasks of the sixteenth century was to restore the spiritual element to its rights. The Gospel of the Reformers had nothing to do with the world and with politics.

The life of Christ, received by faith through His Word, must protest against the abuses which had crept into the church,—principles which were essential to the Papacy. And this it did in the celebrated Protest at Spire. The essentials of this Protest we learn from the Protest itself. Said the Protestants:

Because it concerns the glory of God and the salvation of our souls, and that in such matters we ought to have regard, above all, to the commandment of God, who is King of kings and Lord of lords, each of us rendering Him account for himself, without caring the least in the world about majority or minority. . . .

That there is no sure doctrine but such as is conformable to the Word of God; and that the Lord forbids the teaching of any other doctrine; that each text of the Holy Scriptures ought to be explained by other and clearer texts; that this Holy Book is, in all things, necessary for the Christian, easy of understanding, and calculated to scatter the darkness; we are resolved, with the grace of God, to maintain the pure and exclusive preaching of His only Word, such as it is contained in the Biblical books of the Old and New Testament, without adding anything thereto that may be contrary to it. This Word is the only truth; it is the sure rule of all doctrine and of all life, and can never fail or deceive us.

He who builds on this foundation shall stand against all the powers of hell, whilst all the human vanities that are set up against it shall fall before the face of God.

What the Protest Meant.

Says D'Aubigne again:

The principles contained in this celebrated Protest of the 19th of April, 1529, constitute the very essence of Protestantism. Now this Protest opposes two abuses of man in matters of faith; the first is the intrusion of the civil magistrate, and the second is the arbitrary authority of the church. Instead of these two abuses Protestantism sets up above the magistrate the power of conscience, and above the visible church the authority of the Word of God. It declines, in the first place, the civil power in divine things, and says, with the prophets and apostles, We must obey God rather than man. In presence of the crown of Charles the Fifth, it uplifts the crown of Jesus Christ. But it goes further, it lays down the principle that all human teaching should be subordinate to the oracles of God. . . . In this celebrated act in Spire no doctor appears, and the Word of God reigns alone. Never has man exalted himself like the pope; never have men kept in the background like the Reformers.

This is Protestantism: the Word of God only as the rule of faith, the power of the Spirit only for the propagation and preservation of the Gospel; Christ supreme above all earthly rulers; absolute separation of church and state; absolute non-interference of the civil magistrate in matters religious; conscience above creed; individual freedom of choice above the church. All these are involved in simple faith in the Word; for faith must be of individual exercise, and all the others are taught by the Word.

It was not until the Protestant church sought to confine to the cold, dead forms of human creed the living Word of God; to seek the aid of civil power to support and enforce the creed; to make faith a body of doctrine instead of a matter of personal relationship between the individual soul and its God, that church lost its power. The glorified and living Christ could not dwell in the creed-built tabernacles of Peter, or James, or John, or Calvin, or Luther.

If the Reformation, having attained a certain point, became untrue to its nature, began to parlay and temporize with the world, and cease thus to follow up the spiritual principle that it had so loudly proclaimed, it was faithless to God and itself. Henceforward its decline was at hand. It is impossible for a society to prosper if it be unfaithful to the principles it lays down. Having abandoned what constitutes its life, it can find naught but death.

And the historian goes on to say that God taught this great lesson right in the beginning of the Reformation. One branch looked to God alone, rejected the arm of flesh, and prospered; the other sought alliance with the world, and found sorrow and desolation.

But it was only a little while when those who rejected the power of the civil arm crystallized their faith into a creed, and allied themselves with the civil power. From thence sprang the "Protestant" state churches of Europe.

Departure and Dissent.

And all this necessitated dissent and dissenters. Christ could not be confined to human creed. No man or men could apprehend or express the whole of the living truth. The Spirit of God could not be limited by civil statute.

And yet the dissenters could not learn this lesson, and creed of dissent has followed creed to the present day. Each Protestant creed has, however, consistently and uniformly held to the one principle,—the all-sufficiency of the Word of God,—and has as inconsistently and uniformly excommunicated and denounced as heretics those who have had the courage to follow the principle outside of the creed.

Still, at the beginning of the century just closed, the great Protestant body—diverse tho it was in creed—held strongly to the great principle of the Word of God as the all-sufficient rule of faith. Baptists, Friends, and Presbyterians were united in protesting against any union of church and state, or any interference of the civil power or its officers in matters of religion, or any preference by the state of one creed or religion over another, affirming that such union or interference or preference would erect "a claim to infallibility which would lead us back to the church of Rome."

Yet upon this principle—so vital to Protestantism and the world—this great body of Protestantism was to be tested.

A Revival of Protestantism.

In "the fulness of the time" Christ is to come again, even as He came in "the fulness of the time" at the first. A reform message in the spirit and power of Elijah is to precede His second coming, to prepare the way before Him, even as such a message preceded His first advent. That message will of necessity restore the primitive faith, the primitive power, the primitive purity of Gospel teaching. It will declare as the Gospel, even as the prophet and apostle declared it, that "all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away; but the Word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is the Word which by the Gospel is preached unto you." 1 Peter 1:24, 25; Isa. 40:3-8.

And this message of preparation which thus exalts God and His Word, and holds out no hope in the human, is the everlasting Gospel of God. This is the message preceding the King’s coming, represented by an angel proclaiming with a loud voice that all the world may hear: "Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come; and worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." Rev. 14:6, 7.

The power of this Gospel Word is creative power, the power of Him who made all things, who "spake, and it was," who "commanded, and it stood fast." The power of this Gospel is this same mighty, creative "power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." Rom. 1:16.

That Word, that Gospel, presents as man’s only Saviour, Jesus Christ, in contrast to salvation by human aid; as man’s only hope, naked faith in the creative power of God, in contrast to so-called scientific evolution; as man’s only life, that which comes through the righteousness of God by Jesus Christ, in contrast to the erroneous doctrine of man’s inherent immortality; as man’s only rule of conduct, God’s holy law, as given and kept by our Lord, in contrast to that law perverted by human tradition; as the only Husband of the church, Jesus Christ, in contrast to the alliance of the church with civil power; as the culmination of the hope of all the ages, the second coming of our Lord, in contrast to the utterly groundless, scriptureless hope of a converted world; in brief, the pure water of life of God’s truth, in contrast to the wine of Babylon’s fornication.

It was God calling from lifeless creed to the living Word; from helpless humanity to a divine Lord; from lying tradition to the eternal law of truth; from a perverted Gospel to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, with its special setting for these very days.

What Did Protestantism Do?

Would to God we could write the answer differently! If we could only say that she has been true to her essential, fundamental principles, principles which gave her life, the maintenance of which are necessary to her existence, we would not need to pen this. Her present condition of power and unity would answer the question. Her conquests over the strongholds of error would demonstrate her right to exist.

But, as God’s providence developed and revealed, oftentimes through humble instruments, His glorious Gospel in contrast to the error of creed, the churches refused to walk therein.

By the majority, life through Christ and His righteousness only, was rejected for the old pagan belief in the immortality of the soul, and from this false basis, Satan, through Spiritism, has swept away millions.

Creative power, as recorded in Genesis, has been rejected, and evolution has taken its place, offering no hope to the poor sinner; for surely, if God’s Word does not mean what it says as regards the creation of the earth, it does not as regards cleansing from sin and regeneration of heart.

Still holding the traditionary Sunday, which has no mandatory support save in pagan and papal precept, she is turning from the law of God, and the Sabbath of the Lord in that law, that she may keep her own tradition. Having no support for Sunday in the Word of God, she is appealing to the state to help her enforce the traditions of men.

Still quaffing the wine of Babylon’s fornication, drunken with human prestige and prosperity, many of her children have come to regard God’s Word as an object of criticism, containing many errors, insufficient of itself as a rule of practise.

In holding this view of the Word, in repudiating the divine law, obedience to which made Jesus Christ the character that He was and is, in turning from the increasing brightness of the truth-lighted pathway, Protestantism is left a prey to every delusion of the enemy; and, on the one hand, thousands are becoming entangled in the snares of "Christian Science," "Modern Spiritism," Evolution, Unitarianism, and other modern and ancient cults, while thousands of others are becoming meshed in the Roman net, deeming the great "mother" more consistent, stronger, and more aggressive than the Protestant body, honeycombed as it is with every species of error. All is Babylon—confusion—now to the poor souls longing for truth.

God Still Calls.

Still God loves all these. He solemnly warns the professed church that Babylon is fallen, and that she will soon meet her doom. Rev. 14:8; 18:1-8. He solemnly protests against the worship of all earthly powers, against the reception of all marks of human homage, against all human exaltation, error, pride, and power. Rev. 14:9-11.

And souls will heed His Word. Souls will believe and be saved, of whom it will be said, "Here is the patience of the saints; here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." Verse 12. They will return to the life of Protestantism,—faith in the living Word,—and will live. Some of the children of this remnant church may be persecuted; some may die for their faith. Nevertheless, she will gloriously go forth in the light of the dawning morning, "fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners;" for with her is the "Chiefest among ten thousand," and the One "altogether lovely."

THE GREAT FINAL, FIERY TEST.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

God's Touchstone.

WE prize most those things which will endure the test, which are proved to be genuine. So God's people are a tried people, those who endure. In His plan, life and immortality are dependent upon righteousness, and righteousness upon faith. By choosing, believing, receiving, and submitting to God, we have life. By rejecting Him we choose sin, and choosing sin, we choose death.

But the great deceiver has persuaded man to believe that he is immortal and will live forever, whether a sinner or saint; that a something conscious survives all material death and destructive agencies; that to all eternity the pains of hell or the torments of the damned will not shorten or curtail the existence of one miserable sinner.

And yet man is a material being, of the earth, earthy; and, being sinful, subject to death. Here are the two—character and claim. God declares that only in righteousness is life; only in living connection with God is continued existence possible. On the other hand, a false theology and a false science, inspired and fostered by the father of lies, claim that man lives in and of himself. Out of this blossom other errors, as, for instance, Universalism, Spiritism, eternal misery, etc. The test now between the two, character and claim, is not multitudes, but God's Word. The final test will be by fire.

In speaking of the work of the Christian ministry and its results in the souls affected by it for good or ill, the apostle says:

"Every man's work shall be made manifest; for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is." 1 Cor. 3:13.

The same fact is set forth in Rev. 14:10, 11, where it is said of those who reject the Gospel:

"The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever; and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name."

The word "torment," noun and verb, comes from the Greek words basanos and basanizo, and are defined by the standard Greek lexicon of Liddell & Scott as follows:

Basanos, the touchstone [Latin, lapis Lydius] a dark-colored stone on which pure gold, when rubbed, leaves a peculiar mark. 2. The use of this as a test; generally, a test, trial whether a thing is genuine, solid, or real. 3. Inquiry by torture; tormenting labor, torture of disease. Matt. 4:24.

Basanizo, to rub upon the touchstone; hence, of things, to put to the test, prove, to investigate scientifically. 2. (If persons, to examine closely, cross-question, to question by applying torture, to torture, rack.)

From the above definitions it will be seen that the root meaning of the term is to test or try by words or torture. The idea of torment, or of causing pain, is not a necessary element in the original meaning of the word, but is wholly a derived one. Test or trial is the primary meaning, and the use of the word in the Scriptures must have correspondence to the original and proper use of the word.

God's great touchstone by which the final test between the false and true is to be made is fire, the burning glory of His presence, which shall set on fire the earth. "The fire shall try." "Our God is a consuming fire." "Whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the forthshining of His presence" (literal meaning). "Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence; a fire shall devour before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about Him." "She [great Babylon] shall be utterly burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her." "And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them." These are a few of the utterances which speak of God's last great test of claim and character. To this the prophet also refers:

"The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" Isa. 33:14.

And he answers: "He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly." The claim to inherent life apart from character withers and is consumed by devouring fire, carrying with it all who have trusted in it. The character endures the flame, even as the three Hebrew Christians endured the fiery furnace, because Christ was with them.

The "torment" (testing) is forever; the test is final, and the smoke of the testing ascends forever from sight, and the incorrigibly wicked are no more. Ps. 37:20. Sin and all identified with sin are forever destroyed, and the tested jewels of God's casket abide forever in the presence of His joy.

Reader, God in mercy, veiling His glory, desires to come into your heart now, that He may purge you of sin. Will you let Him in? He would have you choose His presence now, that you may endure the presence of His unveiled glory when He comes. Let us entreat you, choose Him now; choose Him forevermore. Let the sin be put away and destroyed, that you may not be destroyed with it in His presence.

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