How Can it Be? by H. A. St. John

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 10, 1872

How Can it Be?

By H. A. St. John

The Scriptures present some examples, of prophecies of opposite statements, which must be fulfilled at the same time, in the same place, and among the same people. Do you ask how this can be? Attend while we explain. We will give two remarkable and unmistakable examples, both of which relate to the last days. The first one is rarely if ever misunderstood, while the second is very generally wrongly applied, or misconstrued.

The first, Rev. 3: 17, reads as follows: “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” From this statement we learn that the Laodicean state of the church will say that one condition, or state of things, will exist, while the contrary will be true. Or, in other words, these two prophetic declarations of opposite import will be fulfilled at the same time among the same people. Their saying fulfills the first part of the prophecy, while their doing fulfills the latter, so both statements, opposite though they be, are fulfilled at one and the same time. This conclusion will not be denied perhaps by any one. Now let it serve to illustrate the second example.

“But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow into it. And many nations shall come, and say, 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: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” Micah 4: 1–3.

“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 plowshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.” Joel 3: 9, 10.

These emphatic predictions, in almost every particular, are directly opposite in meaning, and yet it is undeniably true that they have their application at the same time—in the last days. Nor is it difficult to understand how they are contemporaneously fulfilled, for the first is what the people will be saying, while the second is what they will be doing. To say one thing, and do another, is no uncommon thing among the children of men, and this inharmony is the subject of this prophecy. We are living in a time when these prophecies are both receiving their fulfillment. The popular pulpits, and religious periodicals throughout the length and breadth of Christendom, are constantly ringing out the fulfillment of Micah 4: 1–3; while hundreds of manufacturers of implements of war, are no less plainly and loudly sounding the fulfillment of Joel 3: 9, 10.

In almost any popular church in our land, and upon almost any Sunday, you might, with propriety and truthfulness, at the conclusion of ministerial services, arise, and read Micah 4: 1–3, and say, in the language of Jesus, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” “Whoso readeth let him understand.”

H. A. St. John.