“This is the day that we looked for; we have found it, we have seen it.” Lam. 2:16.
Centenary anniversary! We hail this privilege. Providence and circumstance have so united to make us witnesses of a century’s death and a century’s birth. Sad the one, joyous the other. Play softly Saul’s “Dead March” at the obsequies of the one, and sing loudly Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” at the inauguration of the other. Drape the tomb of the one; and garland the cradle of the other. Eulogize the one for its discoveries and inventions, its humanitarianism and religion; and wish the other greater advancement, greater prosperity, and its termination more stupendous. Farewell, 1900! Welcome, 1901! Rest sweetly, thou nineteenth century! Activity distinguish thee, thou twentieth! Peace to thy ashes, sixth millennium! Blessings crown thee, thou prophetic seventh!
Unlike are the circumstances of the present compared to those of Jeremiah’s day, yet the same thing is now true, as then—the point of view is everything. Distance and magnitude can not be estimated and appreciated by lowland observation. “Come up hither” (Rev. 11:12) was the utterance of the great voice in the Apocalypse. Higher on the mountain side and rocks and lochs and sea below sparkle like diamonds or reflect like mirrors; while trees, bathed in the sunlight, shine like shafts of glory or pillars of fire. High on this Mt. Blanc of the centuries, we look backward, forward, upward,—backward, a magnificent panorama of six thousand years; forward, the outlines of beauty, curtained by mists; upward, clouds of purple and vermilion, through which “the glorious lamp of heaven” shines, giving verdure of fields, color of flowers, and youth and beauty.
Look backward! How does the account of weeks and years and decades stand with you? Would to God that all wrongs, all jealousies, all secret and public sins, could be blotted from the past; and all good, all sweet thoughts and acts, shine as the stars in the firmament of heaven. But—
“Past things are past and over,
The tasks are done, the tears are shed.
Yesterday’s errors let yesterday cover;
Yesterday’s wounds, which smarted and bled,
Are healed with the healing which night
has shed.”
Look forward! Right-about face, please. Let there be a look forward.
The wonderful century is no more. Forces have been set in motion that have changed the face of the whole earth, and revolutionized the history of the world. The wonderful transforming power of Aladdin’s lamp is being outdone, and millions are gazing into the unknown precinct, and asking: “What will the future bring forth? What?”—I know not, but would exhort you, in Solomon’s words: “Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil.” Good advice, is it not? Let the millions of beings heed it, and what will result?—A transformation. Character will be at its best; vice will disappear, and sickness decline. The highwayman will break his club; the incendiary will extinguish his torch; and the murderer will throw away his dagger. Nations will be a unit in disbanding their armies and dismantling their fortresses and spiking their guns. King Alcohol will be throttled, monopolies crushed, strikes ended, and, in one sentence, it will be “on earth peace, good will to men.”
“But will it be?” you ask. I’m afraid not. There will doubtless be a greater increase in knowledge; a multiplicity in invention; accumulation of greater wealth; a bringing of lands and cities together by steam and electric appliances as never before; a means of communication with other planets; the Isthmian canal begun and finished; doubtless a railroad bridge across Bering’s Strait, thus connecting Asia and America; ships passing through the air as well as the sea; but with all these things, I am bound to confess, with the dying Gibbon: “When I look forward, all is dark and doubtful.”
Where these wars will end, I know not; to what extent these monopolies will run, I can not tell; how much power the rum traffic will wield, I am ignorant; how long some of our cities will be dens of infamy and slaughter, God alone knows; but this I do know, that some day there will be the demolition of empires, and the incineration of the earth; and that before that time, there will be for you and me new experiences. There will be golden to-morrows and stormy to-morrows, prosperous to-morrows and to-morrows of adversity. We shall hear the music of running brooks and singing birds coming from the great organ of nature; and when the vox humana stop is pulled out, we shall catch the tremolo of aching hearts and bruised emotions.
May God prepare us for that future. Not knowing it, we should prepare for it. Carefully let us pick our way, let us carry the light of truth along its dark corridors; and should you want a charm which is a preventive of disaster and a sure promoter of happiness, usefulness, and blessedness, take with you Jesus Christ, who is “all, and in all” (Col. 3:11), and “over all, God blessed forever.” Rom. 9:5.
But there is a look upward.
It is ascension day. Christ is coronated by the cloud, which throws her mantle around His shoulders, and Father and Son kiss each other. Below, loving eyes are uplifted, when two men “in white apparel” interrupt them. “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven.” True—
“Looking forward strains the eyesight;
Looking upward opens heaven.”
It is to man alone that God has given this upward look. Looking backward, sometimes gives pain; looking forward creates worry; but looking upward gives comfort and hope. “Look up, and lift up your heads,” cried Jesus, “for your redemption draweth nigh.” Luke 21:28.
As we enter upon this century, somehow I feel we are being ushered into the most important epoch of the world’s history. Instead of being engrossed with the things of this life, we ought to look upward, and pray, with Dean Alford:—
“O dawn millennial day! Come, blessed morn!
Appear, Desire of nations! rend thy heavens,
And stand revealed upon thy chosen hill!”
That day is near. Talk of jubilee days and coronation days! Why, that day will be a grand holiday. Saints will throw off the infirmities and disabilities incident to this life, for the vigor of immortal youth. Every hot brain will then be cooled, every tearful eye be dried, every breaking heart be healed, and every desert place of the soul made to rejoice and blossom as the rose. Then the dogs of war will be chained; the frightful scars of earth will be effaced; the groans of suffering earth and its noble citizens will give place to hosannas; sin and vice will slink away into the darkness of hell; and God’s people will attend the marriage feast of the Lamb, and from that day there will be a sweetness, a blessedness of a Sabbath rest, which shall last forever.
“But, pastor,” you say, “why do you think the twentieth century is the seventh millennium, and that this seventh is the age of the coming Christ?” I answer, Because God’s word portrays it; and the existing events corroborate it.
Look at the physical signs. Mark and Luke specify those of the heavens, distress of nations, storms and floods, and famines, which “are the beginnings of sorrows.” Mark 13:8; Luke 21:25. Are they not now in force?
Look at the intellectual signs. Daniel speaks of the increase in knowledge (Dan. 12:4), and with it “there shall come,” said Peter, “in the last days scoffers.” 2 Peter 3:3. Has history ever recorded the like in a greater degree?
Look at the commercial signs. Never were nations so concerned in commerce. Germany wants to equal England. Europe wants to stem the progress of the United States. Luke tells us that before “the day when the Son of man is revealed” (Luke 17:30), it shall be as in Lot’s day, when “they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded.” Verse 28. Was there a fact ever verified more than this to-day?
Look at the political signs. Paul tells us the cry of peace, which the ambassadors at The Hague sent forth, that when the people cry, “Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh” (1 Thess. 5:3); and the isles of the sea and the whole of Europe are realizing this.
Look at the social signs. Paul sounded the warning cry to Timothy when he said: “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud,” fierce, and lustful. Any reader of the daily papers will not dare to refute this assertion.
Look at the spiritual signs. Paul declares, “That day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed” (2 Thess. 2:3); “that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1 Tim. 4:1), “unthankful, unholy, . . . lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof” (2 Tim. 3:2-5); so that Christ’s question might well be asked: “When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?”
Religiously, we are in a bad state. Nominally, the United States numbers millions of Christians; practically, they can be counted by thousands. Doubt me? Answer me then: Why so much publicity of vice? Why so many divorces? Why so many unholy, dishonest failures in business? Why so many corrupt persons in the Church?
Christ is coming! That’s my cry. Christ is coming!
“The times are prophets now,
They preach impending doom;
Let each repentant bow,
And saints prepare for home.
We wait for Jesus from the skies;
Soon shall His glories greet our eyes.”52
Christ is coming! Lift up your heads. It will aid you to be straight in your character; manly and womanly in your bearing; and lofty in your aspirations. To be enraptured with the earth and earthly things is to be like the Duke of Alva when asked by King Henry IV if he had observed certain eclipses that had occurred that year. “No,” was the reply, “I have had so much business to attend to upon earth that I have had no time even to look up to heaven.”
Look up, I pray you. He’s coming—the King of kings. He’s coming—the Friend of friends. He’s coming to dry our tears, to heal our hearts, to stop our sighs, to remove our poverty, to take us to himself. Oh that He’d come now! Come while I am preaching, come while I may be looking, come while I am hoping, come while the organist prepares to play, and God’s people to sing, the doxology, come, and—
“Come, quickly come, great King of all;
Reign all around us, and within;
Let sin no more our souls enthrall,
Let pain and sorrow die with sin.
Come, quickly come; for thou alone
Canst make thy scattered people one.”