p. 278 | He Is Coming Again by Tyler E. Bowen

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · May 4, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 18.

He Is Coming Again

By Tyler E. Bowen

The Generation That Is to See the Great Event

By TYLER E. BOWEN

How do we know that Jesus Christ, the divine Son of God, who walked and talked with all classes of people some centuries ago throughout Galilee, Judea, and east of the Jordan, will come back again personally, visibly, to this earth? He has been away so long, been apparently on such a long journey, what assurance have we that He will not remain away as much longer? Many generations have been born, lived a few fleeting years, and then joined the great multitude of the dead, since Christ was here. How do we know but that as many more generations shall live ere the return of the Son of man takes place?

These questions often arise in every mind. God knew beforehand that they would, and He has therefore very definitely answered them in His book.

No Man Can Guess When Christ Shall Come

In the first place, no one knows anything about it at all of himself. No man on earth could guess within a thousand years of the time. And if it depended upon us — any man — unaided by inspiration, to say, we might as well put our hands over our mouths, and lay down our pens, and give up the consideration altogether of the question of even the approximate time of the return of Jesus of Nazareth to this world. One man’s guess is as good as another’s. But laying aside all of man’s speculations, let us see what God says about it in His word.

Jesus Went to Heaven

We know that Jesus will come back to this earth, because He said He would. He told His disciples, before He left them, that He was going away. They seemed to be of the opinion then that He would stay with them right along, set up a kingdom here on earth, in which they were to hold high positions.

The Lord disabused their minds of this error by telling them plainly, again and again, that He was going away. “The poor always ye have with you,” He said, “but Me ye have not always.” John 12:8. He would soon be gone. His chair at the table would be vacant. When they went out to work for the people, they would have to go alone, so far as His bodily presence was concerned. He would not be along to lead the way.

And He went away, as He said He would. They saw Him go, through eyes blurred with tears. They saw Him go, too, where He told them He was going, to His Father and their Father. And they knew that meant that He was going to heaven.

The Disciples Knew Where

The disciples went back to Jerusalem that day sorrowful, in a way, and yet happy. Likely some of the unbelieving world slurringly insinuated that this was just as they expected it would turn out. Their Master, whom they so much doted on, had abandoned them, and nobody knew where He was. But they knew. Eleven men, perhaps more, knew where Jesus was. They saw Him go up into a cloud as plainly as they ever saw anything with their eyes. This was forever settled. Their Lord and Master had gone to heaven. That was sure. The question with them now was, not as to where Jesus was, but the rather, Shall we ever be able to follow Him where He has gone? This was the main point with them.

So Surely Will He Come

But just as surely as Jesus had told them that He was going away, and they had seen Him go, just so surely He had said that He would come back. His words were—and they all heard them: “If I go, . . . I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” Yes; but when?

Jesus did not promise to return while those men were living. He did not say that centuries would not pass before He came back. True, there was a hope in the breasts of His true followers that He would come while they lived. But you can find no promise of the Lord’s that He would return during these earlier generations of the Christian era.

He Foretold the Generation

But before He left these same eleven, there upon that same mount from which, a little afterward, He departed from them. He had pointed out the very generation that should witness His return. He left no one in uncertainty as to the approximate time when He would come back.

“Immediately after the tribulation of those days,” Jesus said—that terrible persecution of His saints that was to be permitted to go on, under Satan’s inspiring, for the twelve long centuries that the papal church had control of the governments of earth, this persecution abating about 1770–75, although the allotted time given the papal power went on to 1798—“shall the sun be darkened [1780], and the moon shall not give her light [the night following], and the stars shall fall from heaven [1833]. . . . Then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. . . . Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.” Matt. 24:29–34.

“This generation”—what generation? Any of those enduring the persecution He said was coming?—No. What generation did He single out, then, that should not pass until they saw the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven?—Evidently the generation that should see these signs He pointed out, as signs of His coming.

The Generation That Sees the Signs

From 1833 the darkening of the sun and the moon and the falling of the stars were preached to the world as signs of the near approach of the Son of man. The generation, then, that follows these great signs, and hears of them as signs of the appearing of Jesus—this generation shall not all pass away until “all these things be fulfilled,” is the sure promise of Him who told the disciples that He was going away, and would return.

We have now come to the very generation pointed out by the Lord. He Himself darkened the sun and the moon, and shook the stars as a fig tree is shaken by a mighty wind. He Himself attended to the giving of the signs. And they were held out where people could see, in the heavens, by the Lord Himself.

The generation mentioned is now growing old, but it has not yet passed away, neither shall, according to Christ’s promise, until all is fulfilled.