Signs of Christ’s Coming by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Apr 3, 1913

Signs of Christ’s Coming

By C. M. S.

Are there any signs now fulfilling which tell us that the coming of our Redeemer is drawing nigh? According to the Word of God, there was to come, at a certain period in the history of the church, “a falling away.” This is the announcement:—

“That day [the day of Christ’s coming] shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.” 2 Thess. 2:3.

That falling away was to come prior to the coming of Christ. The chief trend of pulpit preaching to-day in the great fashionable church organizations is along the line of “civic righteousness,” whatever that may mean, and farther and farther away from the soul-stirring teachings of the true evangelist, the burden of whose heart is the salvation of souls. Sit down to-day in the luxuriously appointed church, and listen to the words that roll from the tongue of the polished speaker, and it is not difficult to determine that you are not listening to the expression of Christ’s yearning pleadings for the souls of men, but to the cold, comfortless philosophies of human wisdom.

What is the result of this? and what is the cause? The result is simply that the cold formalism of the pulpit philosophy finds its echo in the lives of those who drink it in from week to week, until the vitality of their Christianity is quenched at the fountain, dies out of the heart, and leaves a form of clay, where should have been the living, moving, burden-bearing man of God, a harvester, a shepherd. Then, in the field where such a one should have carried on his work, weeds are growing, wolves are ravening, and souls are perishing; while in many cases the house dedicated to the service of God has been given over to feasting and pleasure. Dancing clubs and boxing clubs have been organized in church edifices, and the dance, the card game, and the boxing bout have been carried on within its dedicated walls. While many have not gone to this extent, the influence that has made these things possible has worked upon them also, lowering the tone of their spiritual vitality, and hindering the work they might otherwise have done.

A great religious body has decided to abolish the prohibition which had stood so long against card-playing and dancing and theatergoing, and permit its members everywhere to indulge in these things; and this at the very time when the evils of the dance, the degradation to which it leads, have been faithfully set before the people by converted dancing-masters. A great, popular religious journal declares editorially that the restriction against these pastimes never ought to have been adopted.

As a result of the lifting of these restrictions, we hear of a “progressive euchre party” held in a great New York church, in which 2,400 church-members took part, and in which the players played—gambled—for some 250 prizes put up by the church giving the card-party. The prevalence of such things to-day indicates a deplorable falling away from the first principles of the gospel of Christ.

In the conduct of the individual member there is coming in more and more the idea of going with the world as far as we can, “in order to win them;” but the prime essential of keeping as close to Christ as possible assumes, with such ones, a secondary place, and finally is covered up entirely by the policy of the world. Following this policy, we hear of a clergyman dining with a fashionable club, and telling its members that “clergymen are too highly specialized nowadays—so highly that a glass of wine or a cigar is denied them.” It was plainly evident by other remarks made by this same clergyman that he had not denied himself in the matter of the wine at least.

Pleasure-loving church-members are patterning closely after the ways of “society;” and the farther and faster the church follows after society the farther and faster society follows after pleasures that are wholly carnal and thus is being accelerated that race away from God and into the pleasures and pitfalls of Satan.

In the spirit of confederacy also we find a harbinger of the advent. God has warned his people that when the spirit of confederacy takes hold of the great mass of the people, they who are his must halt, must hold aloof, must not “walk in the way of this people,” nor give their sanction to the confederating idea. But rather, they are to “bind up the testimony,” and “seal the law” among his disciples, and “wait upon the Lord” and “look for him.” See Isa. 8:9-18. It is not merely a coincidence that while the confederacy of the churches of this world is taking place, there is also being carried on that other work of directing men’s attention to the testimony of God and to the law of God, and teaching the people to “wait upon the Lord” and “look for him.”

That confederacy idea was carried a step farther this present year when the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America voted to drop the word Protestant and the Protestant idea out of their organization, in order that there might be cooperation between the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America and the Roman Catholic Church. This opens the way for the amalgamation of the two in their objects and operations; and in such amalgamation and such operations Rome will play the leading part. Such a striking illustration of history repeating itself has not been often witnessed.

It is no wonder that our Saviour asked, “When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” It will be scarce, even as the question indicates; and the evidence now before us shows plainly that we have entered upon that time of scarcity of faith which our Lord foresaw, and which was to be one of the characteristics of the time in which he would come again. The great mass of Christendom seems to have lost its hold upon the arm of the Infinite, and to be leaning more and more heavily upon the arm of the world.

Even in theological schools, where young men are supposed to be fitted for the ministry, that bane of the world, the secret society, is fostered; and evolution and the contradiction and denial of God’s Word are publicly espoused. Thus warm love for God and for the

salvation of souls is dying out. A chill is falling over what is known as the popular church, like the chill that follows sunset. Evolution is usurping the place of the Creator, and man is being taught to usurp the place of Christ, and become his own savior.

We are in the time of the last great falling away, which was to take place just prior to the second coming of Christ; and these fulfilling signs are to us harbingers of that nearing event.

C. M. S.