Prophetic References to the Event
By J. O. CORLISS
The Final Adjustment of Human Awards—No. 5
Prophetic References to the Event
Having learned how the work of the judgment is adjusted in the cases of those whose names are found in the book of life, we shall be content to leave the cases of those whose names are not recorded in that mysterious volume, until after we locate the time of that work already considered in previous studies. When exhorting the Athenians to seek a purer worship than that which he found among them, the great apostle gave as an incentive to that end, that God had “appointed a day” in which he would judge the world in righteousness. Acts 17:31. An “appointed” day in God’s economy is a set time which can not be permitted to pass unheeded, and so must usher in the event or events for which it was appointed. To have it otherwise would be to destroy the certainty of God’s word, and so make his statements unreliable. We are therefore justified in believing it possible to locate the “appointed day” when the judgment session begins. The revelator points out the definite time of this event. He says that when the seventh angel sounds, the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. At that time, too, the nations become angry, and God’s wrath is visited upon them. This is also the time, he says, when the dead are to be judged, and the reward given to the saints, and to them who fear the name of the Lord. Rev. 11:15-18. To learn when the sounding of the seventh angel is due, we must necessarily locate the sounding of those which preceded it. This may be done by a study of chapters 8-11 of this wonderful prophecy. It is not necessary to enter into all the details of these chapters; it is enough to state that nearly all students of prophecy are agreed that these trumpet voices, seven in number, symbolize the great wars of the Christian era by which the great empires of the world have been disintegrated. Thus the first four of these refer to the dissolution of the old Roman empire by the incursions of northern barbarians, which was fully accomplished near the close of the fifth century. The last three of these are called woe trumpets, because the wars they symbolize were religious, engendering persecution for conscience’s sake. This is set forth in chapter nine by the introduction of the Mohammedan power, which arose in the latter part of the sixth and early part of the seventh centuries. Following the death of its symbol founder,—Mohammed,—Abu-Bekr, his father-in-law, assumed charge in the year A. D. 635. But having comparatively little influence, the work he undertook soon came to a standstill; and although making almost continually murderous attacks upon Christianity for hundreds of years, the Mohammedan tribes remained in a somewhat unorganized condition until near the close of the thirteenth century. In that period Othman organized a monarchy of the principal tribes, and thus fulfilled the prophecy which says that “they had a king over them.” Rev. 9:11. Having thus assumed the place of king, or sultan, Othman became the high priest of the nation, and so was pre-eminently the angel, or messenger, of the “bottomless pit,” whence the Mohammedan religion arose. His name, as given in both Hebrew and Greek, means the “destroyer.” To this name he was loyal, as testified by Gibbon, who says: “The great blood of one hundred and thirty thousand Christians was a grateful sacrifice to the Arabian prophet.”—Gibbon’s Rome, chap. 57. Regarding the exact time when Othman began his work, Gibbon further says: “It was on the twenty-seventh day of July, 1299 of the Christian era, that Othman first invaded the territory of Nicomedia.”—Chap. 64, par. 14. The power of this organization was to “hurt men five months.” The one hundred and fifty days included in this specification must be considered more than ordinary literal time, in order to have the importance given it by the prophecy. From Eze. 4:1-6 we learn that God’s method of reckoning symbolic time is to make a “day” stand for a year. Beginning, then, with the time given when the Ottoman empire began its work of destruction upon Rome’s eastern empire, an added one hundred and fifty years would reach to July 27, 1449. During this time the Mohammedans were permitted only to “hurt” men. But when this woe ended in 1449, a remarkable change came about, for then the sixth angel sounded, which was the introduction of the sixth woe. Under this woe, power was given to “slay” men for the period of an hour, a day, a month, and a year. Rev. 9:15. According to the uniform method of reckoning symbolic time, this would extend over a period of 391 years and 15 days. This will be clear when we consider the following: The Hebrews reckoned thirty days to the month, and twelve months to the year, in all, 360 days. But to prevent a disarrangement of the seasons, every third year a thirteenth month, called an intercalary month, was added, which was composed of the days of that year and the two preceding ones not reckoned in the regular rotation. But the regular year was made up of three hundred and sixty days. In the computation of this prophecy, therefore, we make the one symbolic year stand for three hundred and sixty years; the month, thirty years; the day, one year; and the hour (one twenty-fourth part of a year), fifteen days. Adding these together, we have 391 years and 15 days, which would extend from July 27, 1449, to Aug. 11, 1840. This gives the date of the close of the second woe. This was, therefore, the time when the power of the Ottoman empire to “slay” at will was to cease; in other words, its independent reign was then to end. Elder Josiah Litch, of Boston, Mass., reached this conclusion as early as 1838, and so published his convictions to the world. The outcome of his calculations was watched with the deepest interest, and when the year 1840 arrived, the sultan of Turkey found himself wasted beyond the hope of recovery in a war with Mehemet Ali, pasha of Egypt, and on Aug. 11, 1840, he actually submitted to the dictation of the four great powers of Europe,—England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia,—since which time the Turkish empire has existed only by their sufferance. Following this date the prophecy points out a great world-wide movement in which the proclamation of the end of the world would come at a definite time. Revelation 10. This was evidently fulfilled between the years 1840 and 1844, when the great advent demonstration stirred the entire world. That prophecy also pointed out beforehand the great disappointment which was to follow that movement, and closes with the assertion that the people must prophesy again “before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.” After giving some additional ideas in chapter eleven of what would take place under the sounding of the sixth angel, the prophet exclaims: “The second woe is past; and behold the third woe cometh quickly.” Chap. 11:14. Then is announced that with the sounding of the seventh angel, the time has come for the dead to be judged. Following as this does the prophecy of chapter 10, we may be sure that the time of the judgment began in 1844. This position seems fully established from the fact that the next angel to make an announcement, declares that the hour of God’s judgment has really come. In our next it will be necessary to our purpose to show what connection this hour of judgment has with the atonement work of Christ for mankind.