A Message of Warning Before Christ’s Coming by GEORGE I. BUTLER

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 22, 1908

A Message of Warning Before Christ’s Coming

By GEORGE I. BUTLER

GEORGE I. BUTLER

Every true believer in the Christian religion as taught in the Bible must accept the doctrine of Christ’s second advent. “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” John 14:3. “And they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” Matt. 24:30. “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.” Rev. 1:7. “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. This glorious doctrine is taught all through the Bible, and to disbelieve it is to disbelieve the Bible.

The second coming of Christ must, in the very nature of things, be the most wonderful event ever occurring in connection with this world’s history. It will be the climax, the consummation, of all God’s dealings with man. It will be the close of man’s probation. It will end the great rebellion of the human race, which for six thousand years has raged on this globe. It will end in the destruction of Satan and all opposers of God’s government. It will usher in the blessed reign of the loyal hosts of the righteous with Christ their Lord. What could be more important than such issues? Can we suppose that an event of such magnitude and interest to the human family would come without being previously announced? Such a conclusion would be most absurd. It would be contrary to all God’s dealings with mankind in the past. Events of far less importance have been fully proclaimed beforehand, that all those who would believe God might be prepared for them.

Ages ago, when the antediluvian race became so very wicked that it seemed probable that God would have no faithful ones left upon the earth to represent his government, he found it necessary to give the world a reminder of his justice and power for all time, and to demonstrate to humanity that God lives and reigns, and that it pays to serve him.

Before doing this, he sent Noah, a “preacher of righteousness,” to proclaim to the rebel antediluvians for one hundred twenty years the coming of the deluge. This event has never yet been wholly forgotten. It stands forth as a great monument of his almighty power; but it was of far less importance to the race than the second advent of our Saviour will be.

The Egyptians might have saved themselves from terrible disasters had they listened respectfully to the words of Moses, and let God’s people go. God raised up Moses, and for eighty years was preparing him for the special work of leading, educating, and preparing a people to be a great blessing to the human family. Through the selection and instruction and development of that people the knowledge of the true God was preserved in the earth. This movement was foretold long beforehand (Gen. 15: 13, 14); but it was small in comparison with Christ’s second coming.

Even in the threatened destruction of the wicked Gentile city of Nineveh, his agent was selected to warn the people. Before Israel went into captivity, God’s prophets were sent with messages of warning, to depict clearly Israel’s terrible danger, and how they might be saved from it. And in their restoration from captivity God had his agencies all prepared to carry out his predictions. In the grand crisis, when the Messiah was to come to the earth the first time, the event was foretold, and the time clearly predicted when it should take place. Dan. 9: 25-27. Christ’s forerunner was clearly pointed out, and the nature of his work designated. Isa. 40: 3-5. The place of the Messiah’s birth was given. Micah 5: 2. John the Baptist was specially raised up to do this work of preparing the people for Christ’s first advent. He was well acquainted with the work he was to do, and could give the very prophecy which predicted it. John 1: 19-23. Many pious souls, because of their belief in these prophecies, were expecting Christ’s advent, and were all ready to accept him as the coming One. Luke 2: 25-38. Christ’s coming to earth the first time was the grandest epoch in the plan of salvation up to that time, the great turning-point in that plan, when the world should be made acquainted with the fact that a Saviour was provided for their salvation.

But his coming the second time, without a sin-offering, unto the glorious salvation of all who have received him as their Saviour, is a still greater event. It is the consummation of all past ages, the final termination of the reign of sin and rebellion in the universe of God. Shall there then be no warning, no message announcing this greatest of all events in this world’s history? Many speak and act as if the coming of this event was to be like a clap of thunder from a clear sky, like the bursting forth of the sun suddenly in the darkness of midnight. Could there be greater blindness than such a supposition would indicate? It would, as we have seen, be contrary to all the analogy of past history; yea, it would be a terrible reflection upon the character of God himself, to bring such awful judgments as the destruction of all the wicked from the earth without giving them an opportunity to know that danger was near, and a chance to escape their doom. The absurdity of such a belief is simply inexpressible.

“Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand.” Joel 2: 1. “Howl ye: for the day of the Lord is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty. Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man’s heart shall melt. . . . Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.” Isa. 13: 6-9.

In his discourse to his disciples, in answer to their question, “Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” Jesus gave the special signs that should precede his coming,—the darkening of the sun and moon, and the falling of the stars. Then he says, “So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. . . . Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” Matt. 24: 3, 29-35.

How positively it is declared that believers are to know that Christ’s coming is near before the event takes place: “But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.” 1 Thess. 5: 4, 5.

Surely these scriptures demonstrate that God has a message to go forth before Christ’s coming, to warn the world of that event. In short, the last warning message will be the most extensively preached of any message that God ever gave to men. And God declares it shall “lighten the earth with its glory.” Rev. 18: 1.

Bowling Green, Fla.