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OUR FAITH AND HOPE;

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · BATTLE CREEK, MICH. · Jan 17, 1871

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 37, No. 5.

Read the full edition

OUR FAITH AND HOPE;

By James White

Or, Reasons Why We Believe as We Do.
NUMBER FIVE.—SIGNS OF THE TIMES.
BY ELDER JAMES WHITE.

NOAH'S TIME, AND OURS.

“What shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world?”—DISCIPLES.
“When ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.”—JESUS. Matt. 24: 3, 33.
Verses 36, 37. “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of Heaven, but my Father only. But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.” The day and hour, and even the year, of the second advent are purposely hidden. Some of the prophetic periods reach to the time of the end, while others extend still farther down, very near the end itself; yet none of them reach to the coming of the Son of Man. The prophecies clearly point to the period of the second advent, but do not give the definite time of that event. But many suppose that the text proves that nothing may be known of the period of the second advent. In this, they greatly err, as may be seen from the following reasons:
1. Because our Lord, after stating that the sun should be darkened, and that the moon should not give her light, and that the stars should fall from heaven, gives the following forcible parable, and makes the most distinct application of it to this subject. He says: “Now learn a parable of the fig-tree: When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh. So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.” Verses 32, 33. No figure should exceed the fact illustrated in a single particular. This being the case in the parable of the fig-tree, the point becomes an exceedingly strong one. No language can be more direct. No proof can be more complete. With all that certainty with which we know that summer is nigh when we see the buds and the leaves shoot forth from the trees in spring, may we know that Christ is at the doors. The most daring unbelief will hardly venture to deny these words of the Son of God, and assert that nothing can be known of the period of his second coming.
2. Because our Lord declares that as the days of Noah were, so should also the coming of the Son of Man be. Said God to Noah, “My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh; yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.” Gen. 6: 3. The period of the flood was given to the patriarch. And under the direct providence of God, he prepared the ark and warned the people. So the fulfilling prophecies and the signs distinctly declare that the second coming of Christ is at the doors, and the solemn message has gone forth.
3. Those who claim that the text proves that nothing may be known of the period of the second advent, make it prove too much for their own unbelief. As recorded by Mark, the declaration reads: “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in Heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” If the text proves that men will know nothing of the period of the second advent, it also proves that angels will know nothing of it, and also that the Son will know nothing of it, till the event takes place! This position proves too much, therefore proves nothing to the point. Christ will know of the period of his second advent to this world. The holy angels who wait around the throne of Heaven to receive messages relative to the part they act in the salvation of men, will know of the time of this closing event of salvation. And so will the waiting, watching people of God understand.
An old English version of the passage reads, “But that day and hour no man maketh known, neither the angels which are in Heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” This is the correct reading, according to several of the ablest critics of the age. The word know is used in the same sense here that it is by Paul, in 1 Cor. 2: 2: “For I determined not to know [make known] anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” Men will not make known the day and hour, angels will not make it known, neither will the Son; but the Father will make it known.
Says Campbell: “Macknight argues that the term know is here used as a causative, in the Hebrew sense of the conjugation hiphil, that is, to make known. . . . His [Christ's] answer is just equivalent to saying, The Father will make it known when it pleases him; but he has not authorized man, angel, or the Son, to make it known. Just in this sense, Paul uses the term know: 1 Cor. 2: 2: ‘I came to you making known the testimony of God; for I determine to make known nothing among you but a crucified Christ.’”
Albert Barnes, in his Notes on the Gospels, says: “Others have said that the verb rendered knoweth means sometimes to make known, or to reveal, and that the passage means, ‘that day and hour none maketh known, neither the angels, nor the Son, but the Father.’ It is true the word has sometimes that meaning, as 1 Cor. 2: 2.”
The Father will make known the time. He gave the period of the flood to Noah, which well represents the proclamation of the second advent, given in connection with the evidence of the termination of the periods of Daniel, during the great Advent movement of 1840–44.
And when the patriarch's work of warning and building was finished, God said to him, “Come thou and all thy house into the ark.” “For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights.” So when the waiting, watching, weeping, toiling time shall be finished, and the saints shall all be sealed, and shut in with God, then will the voice of the Father from Heaven make known the definite time. See Rev. 16: 17; Joel 3: 16; Jer. 25: 30.
The present is emphatically the waiting, watching time. It is the especial period of the patience of the saints. In definite time we would find relief from the state of suspense to which our present position subjects us. The Lord appeals to us thus: “Watch ye therefore; for ye know not when the Master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning; lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch.” Mark 13: 35–37.
One of the fatal consequences of not watching is distinctly stated in Rev. 3: 3: “If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.” The consequence of not watching will be ignorance of the time. What will be the consequence of watching? The inference is unavoidable, that it will be a knowledge of the time. In answer to the agonizing prayer of the Son of God, “Father, glorify thy name,” there came a voice from Heaven, saying, “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” The disciples understood these words from Heaven, while the people that stood by said it thundered. John 12: 27–29. So will the waiting, watching disciples of Christ understand the voice of God when he shall speak from on high. But the unbelieving world will not understand the voice. “The wicked shall do wickedly, and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.” In comparing Noah's days, and ours, the Lord continues:
Verses 38, 39. “For as in the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.” A picture of the present condition of the mass of mankind is here drawn. How dark the features! The people of the last generation will be like those before the flood, while the ark was preparing. Noah preached and warned them of the coming flood, and they mocked. He built the ark, and they scoffed and jeered. He was a preacher of righteousness. His works were calculated to give edge to, and set home to the heart, what he preached. Every righteous sermon, and every blow struck in building the ark, condemned a careless, scoffing world. As the time drew nearer, the people were more careless, more hardened, more bold and impudent, and their condemnation surer. Noah and his family were alone. And could one family know more than all the world? The ark is a matter of ridicule, and Noah is regarded as a willful bigot.
But the Lord calls Noah into the ark. And by the hand of Providence the beasts are led into the ark; and the Lord shuts Noah in. This is regarded at first by the scoffing multitude as something wonderful; but it is soon explained away by the wiser ones, so as to calm their fears, and they breathe easier.
The day of expectation finally arrives. The sun rises as usual, and the heavens are clear. “Now where is old Noah's flood?” is heard from a thousand impious lips. The farmer is caring for his herds and lands, and the mechanic is pursuing his work of building. On this very day, some are being joined in marriage. With many, it is a day of unusual feasting and sports. And while all are looking to long years of future prosperity and happiness, suddenly the heavens gather blackness. Fear fills every heart. The windows of heaven open, and the rain in torrents descends. “The fountains of the great deep are broken up,” and here and there come gushing up rivers of waters. The valleys are fast filling up, and thousands are swept away in death. Some flee to the highest points of land; but the water fast follows them up. Men bear their wives and children to the mountains, but are obliged to part with them there to drown, while they climb the highest trees. But soon they, too, are covered with water, so that there is not a resting-place for Noah's dove. All are still in death. Horrid death! made still more horrible by being in consequence of slighted mercy! But where is Noah? Ah! safe in the ark, borne upon the billows. Safe from the flood; for God “shut him in.”
By most people, the evidences of the soon coming of Christ are considered insufficient to base faith upon. But mark: the testimony and acts of one man condemned the people destroyed by the flood. The evidences then were sufficient, otherwise the world would not have been condemned. But a hundred times more convincing evidences come pouring in upon us, that the day of the Lord is near, and hasteth greatly. We follow down the numerous prophetic chains of Daniel, and of the Revelation, and we find ourselves in every instance standing just before the day of wrath. We see the signs spoken of by prophets, by Christ, and in the epistles, fulfilling, or fulfilled. And at the right time, and in the right manner, to fulfill certain prophecies, a solemn message arises in different parts of the world: “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. Wherever we look, we see prophecy fulfilling. While the knowledge of God and the spirit of holiness are departing, spiritual wickedness, like a flood, covers the land.
But these evidences are considered insufficient to rest faith upon. Well, what kind of evidence would the unbelieving have? “When the signs of the end,” says the skeptic, “are fulfilled, they will be so plain that no one can doubt.” But if the signs are of such a nature, and are fulfilled in such a manner, as to compel all to believe in the coming of Christ, how can it be as it was in the days of Noah? Men were not then compelled to believe. But eight believing souls were saved, while all the world besides sank in their unbelief beneath the waters of the flood. God has never revealed his truth to man in a manner to compel him to believe. Those who have wished to doubt his word, have found a wide field in which to doubt, and a broad road to perdition; while those who have wished to believe, have ever found everlasting rock on which to rest their faith.
Just before the end, the world will be hardened in sin, and indifferent to the claims of God. Men will be careless about hearing warnings of danger, and blinded by cares, pleasures, and riches. An unbelieving and infidel race will be eating, drinking, marrying, building, planting, and sowing. It is right to eat and drink to sustain nature; but the sin is in excess and gluttony. The marriage covenant is holy; but God's glory is seldom thought of. Building, planting, and sowing, necessary for convenient shelter, food, and clothing, are right; but the world has gone wholly after these things, so that men have no time nor disposition to think of God, Heaven, Christ's coming, and the Judgment. This world is their god, and all their energies of body and mind bow down to serve it. And the evil day is put far away.
The faithful watchman who sounds the alarm as he sees destruction coming, is held up before the people from the pulpits of our land, and by the religious press, as a “fanatic,” a “teacher of dangerous heresies;” while in contrast is set forth a long period of peace and prosperity to the church. So the churches are quieted to sleep. The scoffer continues to scoff, and the mocker mocks on. But their day is coming. Thus saith the prophet of God: “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. And they shall be afraid; pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them. . . . 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.
Most dreadful day! And is it near? Yes; it hasteth! It hasteth greatly! What a description given by the prophet! Read it; and as you read, try to feel how dreadful will be that day: “The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the Lord; the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers. And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord: and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy; for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.” Zeph. 1: 14–18.
Now we hear the “peace and safety” cry from the pulpit, and all the way along down to the grogshop. “Where is the promise of His coming?” is murmured from the impious lips of a thousand last-day scoffers. But the scene will speedily change. “For when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, . . . and they shall not escape.” The scoffing of the haughty scoffer will soon be turned to wailing and howling. “The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down; and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. For the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low.” Isa. 2: 11, 12. “And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth: they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung upon the ground.” Jer. 25: 33.
The last plagues, in which is filled up the wrath of God, now bottled up in Heaven, waiting for mercy to finish her last pleadings, will be poured out. Unmingled wrath of Jehovah! And not one drop of mercy? Not one! Jesus will lay off his priestly attire, leave the mercy-seat, and put on the garments of vengeance, never more to offer his blood to wash the sinner from his sins. The angels will wipe the last tear shed over sinners, while the mandate resounds through all Heaven, Let them alone. The groaning, weeping, praying church on earth, who in the last message employs every power to sound everywhere the last note of warning, lest the blood of souls be found in her garments, is now hushed in solemn silence. The Holy Spirit has written within them these prophetic words of their soon-expected Lord: “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still.” Rev. 22: 11.