p. 93 | Signs by ETTA BOOTH

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 20, 1866

Signs.

By ETTA BOOTH

God's dealings with his people have never been dark nor mysterious to the wise, or to those who would understand. Mystification belongs to the bigot, the infidel, and to the unlearned. God has never failed to forewarn the world of his judgments. The execution of his wrath has ever followed phenomena, miracles and signs, thereby making his revelation, his universal scheme of government, and his high sovereignty, a plain, intelligible, comprehensive whole.

Great and portentous as were those signs preceding Jerusalem's destruction, and widely as they differ from all previous signs or miracles, or any that are yet to transpire, there are many, it is strange to believe, very many, who confound and crowd into this event what rightly belongs to their own age and generation.

Many claim that the signs predicted in Matt. xxiv, were all fulfilled at the destruction of Jerusalem. Let us look at Josephus' record of the prodigies that accompanied that event, and see if they will harmonize with Matthew's testimony. Josephus says:—

'Thus were the miserable people persuaded by these deceivers and such as belied God himself; while they did not attend, nor give credit, to the signs that were so evident, and did so plainly foretell their future desolation; but, like men infatuated, without either eyes to see, or minds to consider, did not regard the denunciations that God made to them.

'These base deceivers, were prophets of belial, suborned by the tyrants to impose upon the people, and who seduced them into the belief that God required and commanded them to secrete themselves within and upon the temple; for there they should receive miraculous signs of their deliverance; and thus about six thousand souls full of patient hope of deliverance, perished by the sword and flame of the Roman soldiers. Then as now, false prophets seduce, while God's denunciations pass unheeded.

'Thus there was a star resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and a comet that continued a whole year. Thus also, before the Jew's rebellion, and before those commotions which preceded the war, when the people were come in great crowds to the feast of unleavened bread, on the eighth day of the month Xanthicus, and at the ninth hour of the night so great a light shone round the altar and the holy house, that it appeared to be bright day-time; which lasted for half an hour. This light seemed to be a good sign to the unskilful, but was so interpreted by the sacred scribes, as to portend those events that followed immediately upon it. Moreover the eastern gate of the inner temple, which was of brass, and vastly heavy, and had been with difficulty shut by twenty men, and rested upon a basis armed with iron, and bolts fastened very deep into the firm floor, which was made of one entire stone, was seen to be opened of its own accord about the sixth hour of the night. Now, those that kept watch in the temple, came here upon running to the captain of the temple, and told him of it; who then came up thither, and not without great difficulty, was able to shut the gate again. This also appeared to the vulgar to be a very happy prodigy, as if God did thereby open them the gate of happiness.'

'Besides these, a few days after that feast, on the one and twentieth day of the month Artemisius, a certain prodigious and incredible phenomena appeared; I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those who saw it, and were not the events which followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals; for, before sun-setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armour were seen running about among the clouds, and rounding of cities. Moreover, at that feast which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into the inner temple, as their custom was to perform their sacred ministrations, they said that, in the first place, they felt a quaking and heard a great noise, and after that they heard a sound as of a great multitude, saying, 'Let us remove hence.'

'But, what is still more terrible, there was one Jesus, the son of Ananias, a plebian and a husbandman, who, for four years before the war began, and at a time when the city was in very great time of peace and prosperity, came to that feast whereon it is our custom for every one to make tabernacles to God in the temple, began on a sudden to cry aloud, 'A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, a voice against this whole people!' This was his cry, as he went about by day and by night, in all the lanes of the city. However, certain of the most eminent among the populace had great indignation at this dire cry of his; and took up the man and gave him a great number of severe stripes; yet did he not either say anything for himself, or anything peculiar to those that chastised him, but still he went on with the same words which he cried before. At every stroke of the whip his answer was, 'Woe, woe, to Jerusalem!'

'This cry of his was loudest at the festivals; and he continued this ditty for seven years and five months, without growing hoarse, or being tired therewith, until the very time that he saw his presage in earnest fulfilled in our siege, when it ceased; for as he was going round upon the wall he cried out with his utmost force, 'woe, woe, to the city again! and to the people! and to the holy house!' and just as he added at the last,—'Woe, woe, to myself also!' there came a stone out of one of the engines, and smote him, and killed him immediately; and as he was uttering the very same presages he gave up the ghost.'—Josephus b. vi, chap. v.

Are these the things that Matthew foretells to precede the coming of Christ? Is it not believed that Josephus gave a minute description of these wonderful events transpiring in his own time, and among his own people? How can it be possible for him to have left unnoticed the darkening of the sun and the moon, and the falling of the stars from heaven and the shaking of the powers thereof, if such occurred.

He records phenomena of far less moment and significance than those Matthew foretells, giving the strongest proof that no such things took place, as, if they had, he would have mentioned them. If Josephus had recorded anything similar or anything which might possibly answer to Matt. xxiv, from the hypothesis

of mistranslation, there might be place for conjecture. But, instead, there is no room for the least supposition to any candid mind, that Josephus ever beheld these signs, or that he failed to record "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," in this matter. He did not gain his information from hearsay, he did not borrow from another's pen, but as an inhabitant of his native city, he plainly relates what he saw, assuring us of facts we may justly deem the most reliable.

Further, the church of God had not passed through her tribulation in A. D. 70. That power was then but in its infancy which was to wear out the saints of the Most High, continuing for "a time, times, and a half"—"a thousand two hundred and three-score days"—forty-two months—all synonymous expressions, applying to that persecuting power.

As God decreed, so was it done. Tribulation passed, and the words of our Lord must follow. Heaven's height luminaries hid themselves from the face of mortal man. The inhabitants of earth tremblingly witnessed. Learned astronomers held their hearts in dismay and sought understanding beyond their mortal ken. A short period, then another powerful demonstration is given, leaving but one other to be completed. The stellar hosts fulfill their predicted mission, warning mankind of judgment nigh. Men's hearts failed them for fear of these things, because they were not established upon the word of God.

The shaking of the powers of heaven alone remains of this prophecy to usher the King of glory in. And oh! the dark dismay of those whose hearts fail them for fear in that great day. "But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved," and with hearts and hands uplifted, shall in ecstasy of holest delight, be able to exclaim, "Lo! this is our God, we have waited for him, and he will save us!"