THE SIGNS OF OUR TIME by James White

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 20, 1881

THE SIGNS OF OUR TIME.

By James White

THESE are fast times. More history is now made in one year than was made in the days of our grandfathers in ten. The world is moving rapidly. And there is a general expectation that some great event is at hand. Some still persist that we are soon to enter upon the golden age, and that the dawnings of the temporal millennium are even discernible; and they console themselves with the delusive hope that this is the next great event. But the plainest facts, both of prophecy, and in the history of the church, especially for the last thirty years, are against the supposition that the world will soon be converted. Apostacy, infidelity, and crime mark the course of the nominal churches for the last thirty years, as they have rapidly glided down to, and onward with, the world in the broad way to ruin.

That which constitutes a sign of the times, in a Scriptural sense, must be a matter of prophecy. The prophetic pencil gives a sketch of what shall take place in the political and religious world near the end. Time shows the fulfillment. The student of prophecy compares the prophetic sketch with the facts of the history of our time, and, finding a perfect agreement, he knows that the end is nigh.

The slumbering churches who are dreaming of peace and safety and future glory for the church in this mortal state are saying in the language of the prophet “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob. And he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” “And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” Micah 4:2, 3.

This is a prophecy of the popular sentiment of the church in the last days. Please turn and read Micah 4:1-5, and note the fact that this is just what the popular churches are saying, and that, too, at the very time when the nations are making the grandest preparations for war the world ever knew, in fulfillment of the word of the Lord by the prophet Joel: “Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles. Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up. Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears; let the weak say, I am strong, Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about; thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat; for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about.” Joel 3:9-12.

These two prophecies, by two of the prophets of God, Micah and Joel, both point to the same time, and yet they are directly opposite. One speaks of peace, and the other of war. But the word of God is not yea and nay, by any means. The attentive reader will see that one is a prophecy of what men would say in the last days, while the other is what God says would be just before the last great day of battle.

Modern Spiritualism, which had its birth only thirty-two years since in the little village of Hydesville, N. Y., already embraces its millions, and boasts of its giant strength. Its bold apostles laugh at the sober wisdom of the great of past time, and the credulity of the good who have suffered for Christ; and very knowingly talk of progress. Progress, indeed! But which way? It will amount to quite a sum in the end whether, with the blessed Bible in our hands, and the Spirit of God upon our hearts, we progress toward Heaven, or whether we, under the influence of the spirits of darkness, put the Bible away from us, and banish God, Christ, the Judgment, and the reward of the pure and the good from our thoughts, and make rapid progress toward perdition. This ism, deceptive in its character, flattering in its promises and hopes, terrible in its tendencies, and powerful upon the minds of those who fully yield to it, is fearfully described upon the Sacred Page as constituting a sign of the near approach of the day of God.

The spirits of Spiritualism are described in Rev. 16:14, 15, as the “spirits of devils working miracles which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.” The coming of the Son of God and the Judgment of the great day, constitute the great event of the soon future. And the world-wide manifestations of demons whose visitations are in the names of the dead, are among the most prominent signs of our time.

That the second coming of Christ is to immediately follow the deceptive power of spirit manifestations is plainly affirmed by the inspired Paul. When speaking of Christ and of his coming he says: “Even Him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” 2 Thess. 2:9-12.

The mass of spiritists have cast aside the Bible, and, feeling free from the restraint of the word of God, they have fast fallen into moral corruptions. But there are a few who may be called Christian spiritists, who are restrained for the present by the Christianity of the Sacred Scriptures. These are exceptions, while the majority are the rule. The word of God speaks in unrestricted terms of the rule. After Paul in his epistle to Timothy gives a photograph of our times, in his description of those who have a form of godliness in the last days, in which he speaks in general terms of eighteen distinct sins, he speaks more definitely of those who fall under the power of this most terrible ism, in these words: “For of this sort are they which creep into houses and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts. Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth; men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. But they shall proceed no further; for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was.” 2 Tim. 3:6-9. Their day is coming. Their manifestations were to be just before, and a sign of, the end. Their career is short. The end will come when they shall proceed no further.

J. W.