Sign Reading by Walter Scragg

Signs Publishing Co. · Melbourne, Victoria · Jun 14, 1920

FromAustraliasian Signs of the Times, Vol. 35, No. 24.

Sign Reading

By Walter Scragg

WALTER SCRAGG

The business man of today spends considerable sums of money on advertisements. Everywhere the eye turns in our cities and towns it rests inevitably upon some such striking reminder. Our memory is continually called to the fact that one can get everything at such and such a place, or at “The Big Store, Adelaide, you can secure best articles of clothing at lowest prices”; and so business men are persistent in their activities to remind the public that they have the goods they need for disposal.

But all this forethought and expenditure would avail nothing if the public did not note these capital advertisements. Most people read and study them, to their financial benefit or otherwise. But some read and pass by with no second thought of them.

God is carrying out a business propaganda in this old world. It is the business of saving men, and is of paramount importance. He has given heaven’s best gift to establish it and unlimited potential gifts and graces to propagate it. And throughout the earth His business is being advertised by preaching and printing and by the silent witnessing of godly lives, the earnest expression of His power to save and keep.

This business has been in progress nearly six thousand years, and is still the strongest and healthiest on the earth, and stands out separate from the shaky and uncertain business concerns trembling on the brink of financial and economic ruin today.

Yet it, too, is about to close its doors, not because it has become bankrupt or is going to pieces. No! but because it has nearly finished its contract. Its business is to give the gospel of Christ to all the world, and when this is done its work on earth will cease.

And the all-wise Manager has notified the world that the many striking political and social infirmities show His business of soul saving about to close its work forever. These are signs which are everywhere conspicuously noticeable today. The all-important question is, “Can we read them in their true light? And can we read them to our own eternal benefit?”

The business of soul saving will close with a tremendously important and fearful event. It is the coming of the Christ to take home His redeemed ones. John 14:1-3; 1 Thess. 4:16, 17.

Now, it is the signs that point with unerring accuracy to this event that are being written in political disturbances, social dissolution, and spiritual declension which must be noticed today. I say must, because our eternity depends on how we read them.

Christ was rejected by His people because they failed to notice the signs mercifully given by God to warn them of the Messiah’s first advent; and these were written of long before the events transpired. Consider well the denunciation spoken by Christ Himself against the self-important Pharisees recorded so faithfully in Matt. 16:1-3. They desired a sign by which they might know Him. Jesus “answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather today: for the sky is red and lowering. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?”

Why the Jews Rejected Jesus

They could not discern, and yet of that nation they were the intellectuals, the leaders in every branch of thought and science. In the elucidation of fine points and theories they were the expositors. Why could they not read the signs heralding the Saviour’s

advent? Was it because they lacked opportunity to investigate? We must answer in the negative. They had both opportunity and learning. Why was it, then, they failed to understand?—Because their eyes were blinded by the dust of filthy lucre, selfish ambition for temporal power, and blighting hypocrisy. This is why so few great men will be saved. They had long lost their spiritual eyes.

What were the signs heralding the peace-bringing Saviour? Isaiah predicted the virgin birth of the Messiah in chapter 7, verse 12. He pictured Him in chapter 9:6 bearing the weight of government; a wonderful Man; a Counsellor; a mighty God; the everlasting Father; the Prince of Peace.

Balaam located His birthplace. Num. 24:17. A star would rise out of Jacob to do this. It did over fourteen hundred years afterwards, and wise men from the East saw it and knew for what it stood. Matt. 2:1, 2.

Jeremiah predicted over six hundred years before the awful event, the dreadful slaughter of innocents that would follow on the birth of Jesus. Jeremiah 31:15. It came (Matt. 2:16), and upwards of twenty thousand dead infants and weeping mothers witnessed to the sad fact. These demonstrated the truth that Christ was in the flesh.

At the time when the Saviour was rebuking the Pharisees some of the mightiest and most wonderful evidences that the Son of God was on earth were being seen and talked the country round. The wonderful Man had come, who, “being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant.” Phil. 2:6, 7. The Counsellor had come, for “no man spake as this Man,” said those who had been commanded to arrest Him. The mighty God had come with power to liberate those who were fettered by physical infirmities and bound in the prison house of sin. The Prince of Peace was there to heal the broken-hearted, to preach the gospel to the poor, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. Luke 4:18. These were soul-moving facts, wonderful in every potent and merciful feature. But the Jews failed to understand.

Unmistakable Evidence

Again, another sign stood out in a conspicuous way. It was the witnessing of John the Baptist, the forerunner of the Christ, the one sent to clear the way. He came in fulfilment of the prophecy in Isa. 40:3. The Pharisees and Sadducees were among those who listened to John’s preaching, and heard him declare that One would come after him whose shoe’s latchet he was not worthy to unloose. John 1:27.

Christ’s birth, His work, and John’s witnessing with their accompanying events, were unmistakable evidence that the Christ was among them. But they could not read them as such because they prejudiced themselves against Him and hardened their hearts to reject Him. The fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 was the appalling testimony to their proud rejection of the Son of God.

Today there are signs which stand out as such, telling us that the second advent of Christ is near.

In Dan. 12:4 the angel admonishes the author to shut up the words and seal the book even till the time of the end, saying that many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be increased.

We Are in That Time

History fails to record a time paralleling this wonder-working inventive age. Men can sweep over the country at a terrific speed, outdistancing the fleetest-footed beast. They can follow the fish in its paths through the deep blue sea, and ride majestically over their backs on the foaming billows. They can soar away in the air and compete with the swiftest-winged bird. They can turn night into day by the operation of a switchboard. They can send their messages through the unseen paths of the air without even a spider-web conveyance. They can cut the finest tempered steel with a burning light as though it were butter. It would be superfluous to enumerate any more of present day wonders. Every school boy has greater wonders in his toy-house than our forefathers ever dreamed of. Surely men have knowledge today.

And, too, there is an increase in the knowledge of the Book of Daniel as the above texts suggest. Secure the book, “Daniel and Revelation,” by Uriah Smith. It is full of wonderful light. This increase in knowledge is one sign that we are in the last days.

The Saviour said there would be great national strife and upheavals and that they

would increase in violence and perplexity and reach a terrible climax. Matt. 24:6, 7. Nations have been rising against nations and kingdoms against kingdoms from time immemorial, but now they are doing so more vindictively and more scientifically. An eager desire to grasp the control of commerce has sent the nations of the world pushing forward in an aggressive effort to reach their selfish objectives. The warring nations have left behind them a trail of blood, famine, and pestilence, and when asked to take a retrospective view along this fearful ruin, they see not the trail of woe but simply their own selfish determinations and, regardless of consequences, they plunge ahead through blood and sorrow to Armageddon.

If All Goes Well

Yes, Armageddon! It looms in the distance. Nothing can stay it. John Sandes, writing on the first meeting of the League of Nations, as stated in the Sydney Daily Telegraph of April 6, writes, “Mr. Balfour rose . . . to inaugurate the meeting that may, if all goes well, mark a turning point in the history of the human race, but which threatens, if unhelped by its greatest spirits, to destroy itself by making every field a battlefield.” A strange comment on the world’s cherished hope!

Notice, “If all goes well.” All is not going well and is not likely to go well. The above-named writer mentions with some misgivings the meeting convened by the Dutch Government to consider like resolutions to those arrived at by the League of Nations’ representatives; for he states further, “Is the Dutch Government’s projected international court intended to be a rival of the international court which the League of Nations has set up? Why has the Dutch Government invited the assistance of jurists from Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, and Holland exclusively? Is it a mere coincidence that these are the countries which the programme of pre-war Pan-Germanism sought to sweep into the Pan-Germanic net? These are questions which time will answer.” It surely will tell. Still further the writer says, “It must be admitted that the League of Nations has made a useful beginning. More can hardly be said, seeing that chaotic Russia, restless Germany, and distracted America are among the nations that still remain outside.”

Here is independent action on behalf of minor nations with Russia, Germany, and America disinclined to join in the League that is to bring about a world-wide lasting peace. Not all the great nations will join the League, and therefore the way will still be left open for every field to become a battlefield.

The great minds endorse this, the newspapers confirm it, and conditions today are carrying all toward it. And the Word of God predicts it (Rev. 16:13-16), and we cannot escape it. We must recognise this national unrest as a sign of the end.

Another Sign

“As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. . . . Likewise as it was in the days of Lot.” Luke 17:26-28.

Lost in pleasure and debased by sensuality, besotted with drink and degraded by perverted appetites, the world is staggering to its grave. Humanity, weakened by its continual defeat in its pusillanimous attack on sin, has tottered on to the platform of irreverent bravado. It is toying with the serpents of worldly pleasures, burning lust, and unchecked appetites for harmful indulgences, and these, awaiting their time, will turn and strike them with death in the progress of its folly.

Facts and figures could be quoted to show the terrible certainty of the above texts. But it is unnecessary. Our towns and cities are burdened with immorality of the worst type. The world groans under its oppressive weight. It benumbs the senses, sears the conscience, and works to flout the purposes of God. The Saviour made no mistake when He drew the comparison.

The world has long since been moving downwards, but it has been gathering speed in its descent. Reader, if you have spurned God’s offer of salvation through faith in the power of Christ’s blood to cleanse and keep you, will you pause now and accept that offer? Make haste, for the time is short and He who has promised to come will come and will not tarry. God’s advertisements are in every conspicuous place. They tell us Christ is coming soon to close His work on earth. Will you step in now and secure for yourself a place in God’s eternal kingdom?