Earlier text: THE COMING TO JUDGMENTA DANGEROUS POPULAR DRIFT.
By S.
MANY religious teachers are now accepting the evolution theory of creation instead of the Biblical account, because they have come to believe that the Biblical narrative is “contrary to known laws of the evolution of nature,” and because “the truths of geology have supplanted” the record in Genesis. It is certain that there are few deductions more uncertain than the deductions of geologists in regard to the history of the earth. Each geologist who has attempted to give the age of the earth has reckoned it some millions of years older or younger than other equally learned geologists. Concerning the composition of the earth itself, the theories of scientists are various and diverse. Science has taught us, and proved to its own satisfaction, that the interior of the earth is a molten globe which is surrounded by a cooling crust of solid matter. Science has taught us, and proved to its own satisfaction, that the interior of the earth is the solidest kind of a solid, with a coating of molten matter between the solid core and the outer crust. Science rejects the scientific theory of the molten interior because of the scientific demonstration that, if the interior of the earth were molten, the attraction of the sun and moon would create a tidal wave of the molten matter that would completely disintegrate the crust of the earth, even if it were made of solid steel, and the earth would flatten in at the poles and expand at the equator until it became a circular flattened disk, revolving on a shortened axis6 like a great circular saw. Science has also rejected the scientific theory of a cushion of molten matter between the solid core and the solid crust for similar scientific reasons, and teaches now that the earth is solid from center to circumference. What the next scientific deduction in reference to the earth will be, neither we nor the scientist can tell. Science has given various scientific reasons for earthquake and volcanic phenomena, and these have been abandoned one by one, because later science has proved the older demonstrations unscientific and unreliable, being overturned by later manifestations of the powers that produce these phenomena. With many the deductions of science are sufficient to prove the Biblical account of creation wrong, because this “science” does not agree with the Bible. It hardly needs to be said that it is entirely to the honor of the Bible that such science does not agree with it. If it did, the Bible certainly would be overthrown, for “science” has continually overthrown “science,” and demonstrated the overthrow; and the process is going on to-day. The Bible could not agree with such science and be the Word of God. It is strange, however, that so many choose to believe that each of these untenable scientific theories has overthrown the Bible; and the strangest part of it all is that so many who have entered the sacred desk have forsaken the solid Word for the ever-shifting theories of science. “Science” has been able to arrive at few conclusions that it has not been able later to overthrow; and these few unassailable conclusions are in harmony with the teachings of that Book which is the fountain of true science. The “known laws of the evolution of nature” are not as “surely” known (?) now by the scientist as they were a few years ago. Even scientists are now discarding the Darwinian theory of the creation of animal life. The missing link has not been found; for no such link as the evolutionist is looking for was ever lost. There is more than one missing link, however, in the theory; for the Darwinian has not been able to weld up his chain from the protoplasm even up to the monkey,—not by many a phantom link. The differences between the other classes of animal life are as clear and definite as between the monkey and the man. The scientist can not trace any animal out of one species and into another, or trace the origin of one genus back into another genus. Each had its own beginning, and did not spring from a dissimilar order. With this showing it is asking us to exercise a credulity that the scientist would not tolerate for a moment toward the Bible, when we are asked by such scientists to accept such deductions and turn our back upon the Word of God. The psalmist declares that “the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.” It is better to be simple enough to believe that sure testimony of Him who is “from everlasting to everlasting,” and therein possess the truest wisdom, the key to the true science, than it is to give ourselves over to the wisdom of this world, shifting, uncertain, anchorless, rudderless, and self-destructive, believing all our lives that which is not true, and refusing to our eternal ruin to believe the sure Word of Him in whom we live and move and have our being. And yet to-day the whole tendency of popular religious teaching is away from the Word and toward the acceptance of these vacillating theories which contradict the Word. The colleges are full of them; the public schools are full of them; the popular pulpits are overflowing with them; and now the Sunday-schools are to take them up. The set purpose of the deceiver is to create in the minds of young and old disrespect for the Word of God and a disbelief in its teachings. The campaign is now on in all its might, and the baleful results are seen in a religion of cold formality, a patterning after the worldliness of the unconverted, a dearth of vital godliness, a lessening number of conversions, and a general turning to the world whose teachings they have put above the words of Holy Writ. As a consequence, faith is disappearing, and the stirring words of God’s last solemn warning are falling on leaden ears wherever that propaganda has found acceptance among the people. Perhaps the greatest menace to the soul to-day is found in this faith-destroying disease which is sweeping the popular churches like an epidemic of death. The Christian’s hope and shield are in God and the Word which He has given. To forsake that Word is to turn our back upon the One who gave it, and in that there is no hope. Science can not make one protoplasmic cell, to say nothing of a peopled world; neither can it save the souls of those who flee to it, flinging reproach upon the Word of Him who can do all this and a myriad other things of which we have never dreamed. It is best to believe God; it is safe to believe Him; and there is no safety in anything else. “Who is on the Lord's side?” was not a question of a special time; it is ages old and ever present. It comes to the people of to-day as truly as it came to the Hebrew host at Horeb's base fifteen centuries before Christ. It was then spoken by Moses the man of God. Then the sons of Levi responded to the call. Six centuries later, on Carmel's height, overlooking the Great Sea on the west and Israel's sun-parched, famine-stricken lands on the east, Elijah, the prime minister of God in the earth, asked the same question of Israel's Baal-blinded hosts: “If Jehovah be God, follow Him; but if Baal, then follow him.” And the record is that “the people answered him not a word,” and so put themselves on the side of Baal. Nine centuries after that, the Anointed of God put the same thought in this form: “He that is not with Me is against Me; and he that gathereth not with Me scattereth.” In the great moral world there is no neutral ground. Whenever duty is presented the same eternal question rings out insistent for answer. We make positive reply when we do the duty; we negative the question when we decline. We do not need to throw ourselves against God's requirement. We need not publish our opposition. In our better judgment we may admire the glory of the duty, the beauty of its doing; but to yield to it involves a cross; it will make us unpopular; it means the sacrifice of ease or cherished pleasure. Therefore we do nothing; we endeavor to remain neutral. But we have not so remained; we can not. To attempt it is to take sides against God, to choose Baal instead of Jehovah, to be against Christ instead of for Him. The great danger to be feared is not that God will some time arraign us before His awful court, from the decisions of which there is no appeal. He will do this; and it will indeed be an awful place for the hardened sinner. But the great danger, the awful thing, which the great God would have us dread, now, right now, is sin. It is no arbitrary decree of God which condemns the sinner at the bar in the last great assize; it is the sin which condemns. Neither will it be the sin written in the books of heaven which will condemn. They are but the record of what the condemned man has written in his own being, in body and soul and spirit, in mind and moral and muscle, he has by his negative decision of the awfully tremendous question above, sealed his own doom. There are two great principles in the universe—evil and good, or sin and righteousness. The former is doomed in its very nature; it is doomed because it is endeavoring to counterwork the will of Omnipotent, Omniscient Righteousness. Now it is permitted for a time as an object lesson for all eternity. Soon it will be forever banished from God's dominion with all the evils it has brought. The latter—righteousness—is in its very nature eternal. It is of God, and is co-existent with Him. He who identifies himself with sin perishes with the sin. He who identifies himself with righteousness identifies himself with God, eternal life, and immortality. “Sin, when it is full grown, bringeth forth death.” “The wages of sin is death.” “In the way of righteousness is life, and in the pathway thereof there is no death.” “The Spirit is life because of righteousness.” These are fundamental, eternal truths. We are all by nature sinners—identified with sin and death. But to him who wills to turn from the sin and yield himself to God, God in Christ Jesus destroys the sin and saves the man. But he who prefers the sin to duty enjoined of God will perish with the sin. When Israel put away their sin, and brought their offerings before God which represented their sin, their separation from sin, and their identification with, their dedication to, Him, the sin was taken away, and the people saved. “And there came forth fire from before the Lord, and consumed upon the altar the burnt-offering and the fat; and when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces.” Lev. 9:24. In juxtaposition to this record, God has caused to be set the account of an opposite example. Nadab and Abihu, the sons of the high priest offer incense before the Lord with strange fire, not commanded of God. Drunken, minds confused, sensibilities stupified, moral vision dimmed, they could not see the holiness of God's order and the exceeding sinfulness of sin. It is the very nature of God's presence to consume sin; and when they went into His presence identified with the sin, “there came forth fire from before the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord. Lev. 10:2. The awful, sorrowful thing was not the destruction; it was the choosing of sin, identification with its eternally destructive, desolating power. God taught the same lesson when Uzzah was slain for touching the ark, contrary to God's command. He taught the same lesson when Uzziah the King went forth from the holy temple a leper. He taught the same great truth when Ananias and Sapphira died in the presence of God identified with sin. He has given us all these examples that we in this careless age may learn that we can not sin with impunity. Yet, notwithstanding all God's warnings in word and awful example, men—professed teachers of God, professed priests of God, are doing as God through the prophet declared they would do. Read what He says:— “Her priests have done violence to My law, and have profaned My holy things; they have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they caused men to discern between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from My Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them. . . . And I sought for a man among them, that should build up the wall, and stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found none.” Eze. 22:25–31.
Reader, in this day of peril, what are you doing? Where do you stand? Are you against God, identified with sin? Or are you with Him restoring the breach in God's law, identified with Him altogether in all things? The recent fearful occurrences in Mexico and Martinique are bringing up the old questions about God and His character. Men ask, Is He not all-powerful? Could He not have prevented the destruction of St. Pierre and Quezaltenango? If so, why did He not? In answer to these questions some persons tell us that all these are the outworking of the regular laws of nature; others, that it is God working directly. Is it the former?—We do not believe it. We can not believe that the laws in nature formed and given of God would regularly, normally, work out destruction to God’s creatures. Neither do we believe that God working directly brought these calamities. He is the living God, the Life-bringer, not the worker of death. Far deeper and broader questions are involved in this awful problem now being solved in this little world,—the great problem of principles, the solution of which will effect the universe for all eternity. A noted chemist has a large laboratory, composed of many rooms. If he wishes to demonstrate the effect of certain combinations, it is not necessary that every room and every vessel in his laboratory be used. A single room and small vessel is as sufficient to test the matter as all. The master chemist, before it is tried, may know the result of an experiment which his class wishes to make. He may know that it will effect disastrously the vessel, the room, and to some extent the whole laboratory, and endanger human life. But his class may not be satisfied with his knowledge and conclusions. They demand that the experiment be made; and so, that it may be a lesson for all time, the chemist permits the experiment. The combination of the elements is made, powerful gases are generated, and a fearful explosion is the result. The room is shattered. Costly vessels are smashed, other powerful chemicals set free, new combinations result, the air is poisoned, and loss of life results. The whole laboratory is affected, and delicate machinery is warped and twisted. The good chemist does all that he can to restore equilibrium, heal the wounded, and set things right generally; but the evil has been wrought, perfect laws have been perverted by the poisonous gases and explosions, the class have become dissatisfied as to the result, and evils are perpetuated. This is a crude illustration of what has occurred in this universe. God created man a free moral agent. He asked of man willing, loving obedience. He gave to him the power to refuse to obey. This must be in order to form character. Wisely, faithfully, kindly, God warned His responsible creatures of the results of transgression of moral law. He told them the sure consequences, misery, sorrow, decrepitude, age, death. Man, under God the king of the earth, held the keys of its destiny. Its life vibrated from his. With him normal, it was normal, If he failed, it failed. “For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it.” Rom. 8: 20. The one who subjected it on this earth was man, its king. Not to extend these thoughts, it may be said in brief, that herein is earth’s sad history comprehended. “God’s universe is one, and when one member suffers all suffer with it. “The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now;” and the storms and cyclones and pestilences and typhoons and famines and earthquakes and tidal waves and volcanic eruptions are but the pains and groans of a failing earth, the manifest strains and rents and tears in the garment waxed old. God’s law has been set at naught. Selfishness has thrown across its life-flow its barrier, and perverted it to death and destruction. Sin has short-circuited its power, and calamity is the result. God permits it; not all, however, for much He restrains. Did He allow sin to work its way, life would soon be extinct. Sin full grown brings death. James 1: 15. In mercy God restrains, that souls may not perish unwarned, that souls may be won to God, that souls may come into right relation to His righteousness and life, and so in Him conquer forever. God permits the evil that men may see, that the universe may forever see, how sin is evil. Oftentimes it is beautiful in its counterfeited protean forms, and men will not believe God. As a lesson for eternity God must allow every typical form of sin, every typical perversion to develop according to an intelligent creature’s choice its own fruit—pain, disintegration, misery, death. When the lesson is complete, sin and all identified with it will be forever destroyed. God’s power shall regenerate and restore a marred and suffering universe, and righteousness and life will reign forever in souls sweetly submitted to God’s perfect will. Then: “There shall be no more curse;” “affliction shall not rise up the second time.” The So-called Change of the Sabbath.
THERE is a great deal said about a change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week. Some advocates of Sunday observance in lieu of Sabbath-keeping maintain that Christ effected the change. Others, knowing that Christ Himself kept the Sabbath, and that His revealed Word contains no command for a change, are content with the assertion that the apostles wrought the change. Roman Catholic authorities tell us that “the holy Catholic Church” did it. But the greater part of those who observe the day do so because of the universal custom, regardless of its origin. However, to the oft-repeated question, “Who changed the Sabbath?” the simple, truthful answer is, No one; the Sabbath never has been changed. Those who hold that Christ changed His law must assume that He stultified His own Word. He stated positively that He did not come to destroy even “one jot or one tittle” of the law; but to change the Sabbath would have necessitated the elimination of the word “seventh” in the Sabbath commandment, as also all that portion which states the purpose of the Sabbath. But, notwithstanding the assumption that Christ changed the commandment in these respects, no professed Protestant ever has dared to write or print the commandment in conformity to the alleged change. Those who maintain that the apostles changed the Sabbath must assume that the Lord’s ambassadors did that which their Master had declared could not be done while heaven and earth should stand. The scripture references which are cited to sustain the assumption that the apostles would attempt such a presumptive act do not carry out the theory. The first of these is Acts 20:7, 11, where it is stated that Paul broke bread with the brethren at Troas. The facts are, that Paul and his company had been in Troas for seven days, having stopped over a while on a journey from Greece to Syria. This first-day meeting was held on Saturday night, their days being reckoned from sunset, and Paul designed to resume his journey in the morning. In fact, his company had already started in the boat, sailing around an extended point of land to Assos, where Paul, going across the country on foot, would meet them the next day. This being his last meeting with the brethren, they celebrated the Lord’s supper. But that act did not make that first day of the week the Sabbath-day. Those who rely on such evidence in behalf of the Sunday-sabbath must also admit that every day is the Sabbath; for the earlier disciples at Jerusalem continued “daily in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house.” The incident at Troas was merely a farewell occasion, and Paul resumed his journey in the morning—on the same first day of the week. Another Scripture reference which it is claimed sustains apostolic authority for a first-day Sabbath is 1 Cor. 16:2. Paul had asked the brethren in different parts to assist those in Judea, who were at that time in great need. So he wrote to the Corinthian brethren to lay by their donations, and have them ready when he came. Every one was to “lay by him in store” against the apostle’s arrival. In order that the matter might be surely attended to, he enjoined them to make it the first business of the week. It was not a collection at meeting, but a systematic laying up at home for the designated purpose, previous to his coming. Did this act make a Sabbath? No, there is not the slightest reference to the Sabbath-day. It was solely a benevolent business transaction. The next Scripture reference that Sunday-sabbath advocates cite in support of their doctrine is Rev. 1:10. John, then a prisoner on the island of Patmos, says, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.” It is claimed that the Lord’s day is the first day of the week, but this is sheer assumption, as there is no scripture to sustain the claim. There is but one day in the week that the Lord has specifically designated as His day, and that is the seventh day—the day that He sanctified (Gen. 2:3), and commanded to be kept holy (Ex. 20:8-11); the day that He calls “My holy day” (Isa. 58:13). The “Sabbath of the Lord thy God” is pre-eminently the Lord’s day. In considering the claim of the Roman Catholic Church to having changed the Sabbath, we must go back to the prophecy of Daniel to find the root of the matter. In the seventh chapter of this prophecy is the record of a vision which the prophet had, in which he saw four beasts coming up before him in succession. These represented four successive universal kingdoms that should rule the earth. It was explained to him by an angel that “the fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth.” Babylon was the first of these kingdoms, Medo-Persia was the second, Grecia was the third, and Rome was the fourth. This is self-evident, for the reason that these are the only universal kingdoms that the world has known, and the next one mentioned in the prophecy is the kingdom of the Most High. There is no gainsaying the fact that the fourth beast is Rome, and here is what the prophecy says concerning it. “He shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High; and he shall think to change the times and the law.” Verse 25, R.V. That Rome fulfilled this prophecy is amply shown in history and in her7 own claims. After the Papacy became the dominant power in the government (A. D. 538) until her power was broken by the influence of the Reformation, millions of Christians who opposed her blasphemous sway were put to death. As to thinking to change the law, Rome did think to do so, and boasts that she has done it, and claims the right and power to do it. For her own use and purpose the Roman Church has so mutilated the fourth commandment as to strike out the day of the Sabbath and the purpose of its institution. Rome sets up her alleged change of the Sabbath as the irrefutable proof of her power to change the law of God. And the fact that Protestants acknowledge this change is set forth as proof of Protestant inconsistency in not acknowledging the papal power to further manipulate the Word of God. It must be admitted, too, that there is a logic in this charge of inconsistency which Sunday-keeping Protestants can not evade. And it is a logic before which they are gradually but surely giving way. This is manifest in their ignoring the ordinance of feet-washing, their perversion of the ordinance of baptism, and their celebration of Easter, and other Romish institutions. But Rome has only thought to change the law. She has no authority to do so in reality. She has only perverted the purpose of the law, and deceived a great multitude of people in whose minds the papacy stands in the place of God. This is the work of the “man of sin” (2 Thess. 2:3, 4), the transgressor of the law (1 John 3:4). It is the development of the “mystery of lawlessness” (2 Thess. 2:7, 8). But “the law of the Lord is perfect” (Ps. 19:7), and all that the lawless one can do is to deceive for a time, a short time, when the coming of the Lord will expose the error of those who follow the traditions of men instead of His infallible Word. Rome has only thought to change the Sabbath. Man has no such authority. God Himself placed sanctity upon that day, and He alone can remove it. He has not done so, nor has He intimated that He would do so. The Sabbath has not been changed. It is a “perpetual covenant” (Ex. 31:16), and God never yet broke a covenant. He is the covenant-keeping God. Ps. 89:34. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” PREACHING THE GOSPEL IN BABYLON.
In our Sabbath-school lesson for the week (see page 15) the first thirteen verses of Daniel 2 are studied. It was and is God's purpose that not only the people of Babylon, but the people of every land should know His Gospel, the great essential of which is “God manifest in the flesh.” To Hezekiah was given the glorious opportunity of teaching and demonstrating this truth to Babylon when God healed him. Isaiah 38. That and the attendant astronomical miracle led the scientists and great men of Babylon to connect the miracle with Judea, and to Judea they came to learn the truth. But instead of revealing God and the riches of His grace, Hezekiah revealed himself and the material riches of his kingdom. Instead of ministering to the soul-need of the Babylonians, Hezekiah aroused their cupidity, and from that time Babylon looked to Jerusalem as a place of spoil rather than as a fountain of life and light. In a little over one hundred years the spoilers came, Jerusalem was looted, and the descendants of Hezekiah, who in peace might have been giving the Gospel to the world, were taken captives, and carried to Babylon, to be eunuchs in the king's palace. But the mission of God's people was still the same. God chose them for that purpose, and until they rebelled beyond all hope, He would use them if possible. Nay, more, even in their rebellion and idolatry they would still witness to the truth of His Word. But some of them knew God and were willing, co-operative witnesses; among them were Daniel and his three fellows. They demonstrated in the special trial of their three years' course of special study in the university of Babylon—physically, mentally, and spiritually demonstrated—that the servants of the living God, who regarded their bodies as God's temples, were superior to all the devout men of all the heathen cults. Nebuchadnezzar, the mighty king, saw the knowledge and wisdom; but to him it was of the earth. Nebuchadnezzar longed to know of what should follow. In answer to the God-given desire to which the king responded, the Lord taught him of heaven and hereafter. He showed the proud monarch that Babylon was of the earth, earthy; but in revealing this fact, he demonstrated through His servant that God dwelt in humanity, contrary to the assertion of the wise men of Babylon. Dan. 2:10, 11. They professed other than this in time of safety, therefore went forth from the king the decree that if they could not interpret his dream, and demonstrate the truth of their claims, they should be destroyed. This dream was given of God at the very close of the university course taken by Daniel and his fellows, B. C. 603. In it there is instruction for all subsequent ages, concerning time and eternity. HAS CHRIST COME THE SECOND TIME?
So some persons who profess to believe the Scriptures aver. In a letter before us from Florida, written evidently by a minister, the writer declares that Christ always spoke of His coming, of the end of the age, “as an event that would affect the people whom He addressed;” that by “this generation” He meant that generation living when He spoke the words, while by “this generation” the SIGNS OF THE TIMES means the present. The writer says further:— You see He never mentioned it but He impressed upon them the fact that this event should happen to them. They certainly understood it in this way, for they did not fail to impress on hearers the imminence of this great and glorious consummation. Their writings are full of this thought, the certainty and nearness of this great day. Space would fail me to quote all the passages bearing on this point, a few must suffice. “The night is far spent, the day is at hand.” “Now is your salvation nearer than when ye believed.” “Yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry.” “The coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” “The Lord is at hand.” “Brethren, the end of all things is at hand.” “We which are alive and remain.” They confidently expected to be alive and remain, for “we” includes the speaker. You quote Joel, but Peter declares his prophecy was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost; “the last days,” says Peter; so in Heb. 1:1—“hath in these last days.” So “the last days” were in the time of the apostles; but John declares the last hour had come. This epistle is probably the last of inspiration written. “Little children, it is the last hour; and as ye have heard that Antichrist should come, even now [1900 years ago] are there many antichrists, whereby ye know that it is the last hour.” You will observe that Christ and His apostles exhausted language—used every word, term, and mode of expression—to impress on their hearers that that great day would come upon them in their day and generation, so that they have no language left to express its nearness now but that they used to express its nearness then—see! The people addressed must have understood it in that way. They could not understand it in any other way, and if He did not come at that time, then they were grossly deceived. I do not believe that they were deceived. Before noticing, directly the above, let the reader consider these two questions: (1) What is the manner and effect of Christ’s second coming? (2) For how many, and for how long, are the Scriptures given and is Jesus Christ Saviour and Teacher? 1. What is the manner and effect of Christ’s second coming? (a) His coming is not death; for Jesus comes to give life, not death. Truly said the weeping sisters, “Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” John 11:21, 32. His coming meant life, not death, to Lazarus. He does not send the cruel “enemy,” the last to be destroyed, as His representative. 1 Cor. 15:26. (b) His coming is not in a secret manner, or by His Spirit, as at conversion. “Nevertheless I tell you the truth,” He affirms; “it is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you.” John 16:7. “Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, He is in the desert, go not forth; behold, He is in the secret chamber, believe it not.” Matt. 24:25, 26. Then how will He come? What are its manner and results? “For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.” Verse 27. Said the shining messengers from God to those who saw Him ascend:— “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven.” Acts 1:11. “Behold, He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him; and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him. Even so, Amen.” Rev. 1:7. And our Lord Himself, after giving a series of signs which should precede, and some of which should herald, His coming, declares:— “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” Matt. 24:30. “For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” 1 Thess. 4:16, 17. “And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power; when He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.” 2 Thess. 1:7-10. But that great event has not taken place. Christ has not been seen “coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory;” the wicked have not been destroyed; the righteous living have not been made immortal; the righteous dead have not been raised; every eye has not seen Him; all the tribes of the earth have not mourned because of Him. And therefore Jesus Christ and His apostles spoke of the imminence of His coming for later times. 2. For how many, and for how long, are the Scriptures given and is Jesus Christ Saviour and Teacher? The writer of the above letter declares that with the close of the apostolic age “the last word of inspiration had been written.” Then if Christ and His apostles wrote only for their own time, of what worth is the Bible to us? Was He not as truly the Saviour of Adam, and Abel, and Abraham, and Moses, as of James, and John, and Paul, and Silas? And is He not just as truly our Saviour and Teacher to-day as He was the Saviour and Teacher of Peter, and Andrew, and Thomas, and Philip? We know that He is. The Scriptures are for every age which came after they were written. The Son of God is the Teacher to-day, speaking through His Word as truly as He spoke through the flesh of Jesus of Nazareth. There are many evidences of the great truth that the Gospel was spoken to those who lived anciently, but written for those who live later. Seven centuries before Christ, Isaiah the prophet uttered the glorious prophecy, recorded in chapter 40:3, “The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” Surely the Jews of that time would understand that ye meant them, and that our included the prophet himself. But seven centuries dragged their slow length along before it sprang into life in the person and work of John the Baptist. Matt. 3:3. A little later Isaiah uttered the sublime words found in chapter 61:1-3. Surely it looks as tho the word me referred to Isaiah himself. But again seven hundred years pass, and Jesus Christ stands up in the synagogue of Nazareth, and speaks again in living power the prophecy of seven centuries before, stopping in the middle of verse 2, and declaring, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” Luke 4:17-21. Why did He pause at the first clause of Isa. 61:2, “to preach the acceptable year of the Lord”? Why did He not repeat the next clause, “and the day of vengeance of our God”?—The only reasonable, adequate reply is, That the first clause met its fulfilment in Him and His work, seven centuries later, but the next clause would not be fulfilled till just prior to His second advent. Then men will proclaim “the day of vengeance of our God.” And this clearly shows how all the passages written above concerning Christ’s second coming will apply, and will be applied, when His servants preach the message of His second coming. The passages quoted (not always correctly) by our Florida correspondent are from the following: Rom. 13:12, 11; Heb. 10:37; James 4:8; Phil. 4:5; 1 Peter 4:7; 1 Thess. 4:17; Acts 2:16, 17; 1 John 2:18. But the warnings given by Paul, and John, and Peter, and James, and the writer of Hebrews were not alone for their time, but for ours, for the church of God in these days according to her need as truly as for the church then. Furthermore, some of the Old Testament prophecies, like that of Joel 2, have a double application, a partial fulfilment at some great crisis, a plenary fulfilment in the great crisis of the world. “In the last days” includes also the very last day. Neither did Jesus believe that His second coming was to be 1800 years ago. In Matthew 24, Luke 21, and Mark 13, our Lord gives the signs of His coming and the end of the age. Among these were to be wars and rumors of wars, nation rising against nation and kingdom against kingdom, a thing not manifest or possible then in the Roman Government. But these were not to be immediate signs of His coming; for of these events He says, “All these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet;” “all these are the beginning of sorrows.” Matt. 24:6, 8. The destruction of Jerusalem must come; the great tribulation must run its course; false christs and false prophets must do their work; Mormonism and Spiritualism must deceive many; definite and specific signs must be manifest in the sun, the moon, the stars; trouble and perplexity would spread over the world, “men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth; for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” Matt. 24:15-30; Luke 21:25-27. And the generation which should see the culmination of these things—“this generation”—should not pass away till all be fulfilled, till Christ should come. So “this generation” of Ps. 95:10 referred to a generation of five centuries before; and “this night” of Ex. 12:12 referred to a night two weeks away from the time it was spoken; and “this day” of Ps. 2:7 met its application a thousand years later. Paul did not believe that Christ was coming in his day. Some persons in the church obtained that idea, and the apostle thus corrected it:— “Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter, as from us, that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means; for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.” 2 Thess. 2:1-3. Surely this is emphatic. The true church of God in all ages is one; this the apostle knew, and he classed himself with them in the we and our. Yet he knew that he would die. 2 Tim. 4:6-8. Our blessed Lord knew of the evils and dangers of these last days; and He gave the messages needed. And now that they are needed, He has clothed them with life, even as He has all present truth of the past. The warnings and assurances of His coming are living, present truth of to-day. Happy is he who knows it. Christ’s Promise to Return
We know that Christ will come again, because He promised to come and take His people to their heavenly home. John 14:1-3. This promise will not fail. 2 Peter 3:9. “Therefore watch and be ready, for ye know not the time.” Matt. 24:42.