The Millennium by E. W. Boynton

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 4, 1871

The Millennium.

By E. W. Boynton

The doctrine called the temporal millennium is pleasant food to worldly-minded professors. They can enjoy a life of pleasure, follow the dictates of their own carnal hearts, and be ready to reign with Christ a thousand years here upon the earth. Where is the promise of this reign here a thousand years? Rev. 20 does say that those who have part in the first resurrection shall reign with Christ a thousand years, and that on such the second death hath no power. But the reign does not refer to this earth, for when they “reign with Christ,” they stand upon the sea of glass, Rev. 15: 2, which is before the throne. Chap. 4: 6. The Lord who looks upon sin with no degree of allowance, could not make his abode in such a sin-polluted world as this.

Matt. 13 teaches us that the children of the wicked one shall continue until the end, showing plainly that all the world will not be converted before the second advent of Christ. In Matt. 24, Luke 18, and 2 Tim. 3 and 4, we do not read that the last days will be “glorious,” that all will be love, peace, and harmony, which are the fruits of conversion, but rather “perilous” times. Thus do we see it verified each day as we look around us. Never in the history of the world have there been more murders, suicides, thefts, and iniquity of every description, committed than at the present day. A very poor preparation, truly, for the millennium!

Why do ministers preach from the pulpit the conversion of the world? Upon what are such strange theories founded? Certainly not upon the Scriptures. For we read that the days of the Son of Man shall be as the days of Noah were. Matt. 24: 37-39. He preached and worked one hundred and twenty years, and only eight persons (members of his own family) were saved in the ark. So shall it be when Christ shall come in the clouds of glory; but very few will be ready to welcome that glorious day.

The hope of the true church is not in the conversion of the world, but in the personal coming of Christ and the resurrection of the just. Acts 23: 6; 1 Thess. 4: 16. Do we who understand these things realize that the day of the Lord is just at hand, even at the doors? Are we willing to sit with folded hands and let sinners rush to destruction all around us? Let us awake to the awful condition of souls who slumber in sin, and may the day of Judgment not find our garments stained with their blood. The poor sinner knows not how to come to Jesus, clouds hang over him thick and heavy; the way is dark; shall we, by our acts, refuse him the information which will guide him to the path of glory? Let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. E. W. BOYNTON.

Williamsburgh, N. Y.