Worse than the Flood by Percy T. Magan

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Dec 12, 1916

FromSigns of the Times, December 12, 1916

Worse than the Flood

By Percy T. Magan

Have the Days of Visitation Broken Loose?

By PERCY T. MAGAN

“THE days of visitation are come, the days of recompense are come; Israel shall know it: the prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad, for the multitude of thine iniquity, and the great hatred.” Hosea 9:7. If there is one thing clear above another in the fulfillment of prophecy, it is that, beginning with the first days of the month of August, 1914, something happened in heaven. Some sort of decree went forth at that time. Some word was issued, and there was a change in the dealings of God with men; for at that time, there came “the days of recompense” on this old world, “the days of visitation,” as never before.

Think for just a moment on this point. Do you know that you and I are living in the time when greater judgments are being poured out than before since the days of the Flood? Have you thought, since this war began, that there is nothing in all the history of the world to compare with what is going on at the present time? There is nothing in all the history of the world, except the Flood itself, to compare with the loss of life, with the destruction of property, that is occurring at the present hour.

Even Worse than the Flood

You may even take a stronger position than that; because the Flood itself, while it was a mighty judgment, caused less sorrow, less trouble, less suffering, than there is in the wake of the present struggle. When the Flood came, in only a few hours, all those poor, sinful souls were dead and gone. But at the present time, it is different. There has been woe and sorrow and death and pain and disease and famine and trouble the like of which the world has never seen from the days of the Garden of Eden down to the present time. It is the mightiest judgment that has ever come upon the world since the days of the Flood; and in some ways, it is far more awful and terrible than that.

All the wars of all the world have been a mere nothing compared with what is taking place now. All the wars of Julius Caesar would not make a decent rear guard action compared with what is going on to-day. All the wars of Clovis and Charlemagne, all the wars of Charles V and Louis XIV of France, all the wars of Napoleon Bonaparte, — the man who was supposed to be the greatest pugilist of war that ever lived up to his time, — would not make a reconnaissance force compared with what is occurring at the present time.

Think of it! To the battle of Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte led only 125,000 men; but since this war began, there have been 28,000,000 men called to the colors of the armies of Europe. There has never before been anything like it. Out of the original armies that went to the front, there is hardly a soul that is alive and strong and well to-day. It is almost impossible for us to realize what this means. Here is one instance: A major in one of the armies led a thousand men, a battalion, into a battle; fifteen men and three officers came out. That is only one little instance among very many that might be related.

On the western front, there is a battle line five hundred miles in length; on the eastern front, the line extends from the Baltic clear down into Galicia, over one thousand five hundred miles. And that is saying nothing about the fighting in the Balkans, in Egypt, in Africa, and other places. I repeat, there has never been anything like it in all the history of the world.

God Also Makes a Stir

When this terrible war began, there were many men and many statesmen who said, “It will all be over in about three months.” Yet more than two years have past, and the war is going on stronger than ever. Why? — Because “the days of visitation” have come; because “the days of recompense” are here; because, beginning with the summer of 1914, there came a change in the way God was handling things down here on this old earth.

It has taken all the kings of Europe, all the statesmen, all the generals, and all the millions of men, to make all this mighty stir in the earth; but God is going to do something mightier than that. He is going to take a mere handful — say 144,000 — of poor men and women, without any earthly government back of them, without any men of great wealth, without any men of great knowledge or learning, and He is going to put His Holy Spirit on those men and women, and He is going to attract the attention of all the earth to what those men and women do, far more than it is attracted now to all the armies of earth.

While intensity is taking hold of every earthly power, intensity must also take hold of the people of God. We must set our faces to seek the Lord. We cannot go along in this way much longer. It seems to me that the way we are doing is as if England and France and Germany and Russia should try to fight this war with an army on a peace footing. I tell you, my friends, they cannot do it, and you and I cannot do it.

We have come to the place where we cannot fight this battle through with a missionary army on a peace footing. We have come to the place where every son and every daughter and every man and every woman must be engaged in the fray. We have struck a new day in this cause, when we have to hurl ourselves into the work as we have never done before. We cannot do it by excitement; we cannot do it by working up a frenzy; we have to do it by having our hearts made intensely earnest by the living fire from the God of heaven.