The World when Christ Comes.
It is clearly set forth in the Scriptures, that the return of Christ to Judgment will find the world anything but holy, peaceful, Christian, and happy; and that the last days will be earth's worst days, crowded with all forms of abounding wickedness, apostasy, irreligion, disorder, and sensuality. Indeed, it is one of the uniform laws of Providence, that judgment never comes in a pure and peaceful age. It is only when the blasphemies of men run highest that the Almighty strikes. When the wickedness of the old world culminated, the flood came. When the iniquities of Sodom were at their height, the day of doom dawned. When the “iniquity of the Amorites was full,” the sword of Israel was upon them for their extermination. When the Jews, in their many crimes and apostasy, added the responsibility for the Messiah's blood, the ploughshare of destruction overturned their city, destroyed the last remnant of their state, and entailed eighteen centuries of woe upon their children. The greatness of judgment is also graduated by the extent and turpitude of the offenses which call it down. As all divine judgments, hitherto, have been samples and earnests of the great Judgment to come; and as, when it comes, it is to be the most universal and awful of all, we are forced to the conclusion that it will overtake the world in a condition of the most unbounded guilt and godlessness, transcending everything that has thus far marked the history of man. To this, also, agree all the scriptural statements on the subject: “When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8.) “And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.” (Luke 17:26, 27.) We know what sort of days those of Noah were. We know that they were not centuries of righteousness and peace. The testimony of God certifies to us what was the state of things. The inspired record is, that “God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The earth also was corrupt before God; and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.*” (Gen. 6:1–13.) Such is the awful portrait of those times, sketched by the Holy Ghost himself. And the word of the divine Jesus, more than once recorded, is: “AS THE DAYS OF NOE WERE, SO SHALL ALSO THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN BE.” (Matt. 24:37–39.) We know, too, from the same infallible source, what was the moral state of the cities of the plain at the time. They were overwhelmed. “The Lord said: the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and their sin is very grievous.” Not ten righteous men could be found in all their teeming populations. (Gen. 18:20–32; 19:1–17.) But the word of Jesus is, “Likewise, also, as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all; even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.” (Luke 17:28–30.) Paul testifies to the same effect: “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” (2 Tim. 3:1–5.) And if this correctly portrays what is to be the prevailing condition of the professing church, what shall be said of the vulgar multitudes who make no pretensions to piety or godliness?—Prophetic Times.