WILL THE WORLD BE CONVERTED?
By A. F. Ballenger
[A paper prepared by Evangelist A. F. Ballenger, by request of the Ministers’ Association of Annapolis, Md., and read before that Association, April 30.] Do the Scriptures teach that the world will be converted before the second coming of Christ?” By way of introduction, I desire to say a few words regarding the importance of the subject which the Association has requested me to discuss at this hour. There are those who divide the Scriptures into what they term essentials and non-essentials. And this subject is sometimes classed with the non-essentials. But there are no non-essentials in the Scriptures. To declare that there are, is but to charge the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, from whom and by whom we have received the “Holy Scriptures,” with trifling with non-essentials. But let the Scriptures themselves answer this charge that they contain non-essentials. “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroly furnished unto all good works.” 2 Tim. 3:16, 17. It therefore takes “all Scripture” to “thoroly furnish unto all good works.” Our Saviour’s teaching included all Scripture, as shown by the following: “O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken; ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” Luke 24:25–27. There is also a growing prejudice to-day against what is termed doctrine. We are admonished sometimes to confine ourselves to the preaching of the Gospel and not waste our time preaching doctrine. But no man can preach the Gospel without preaching doctrine. The apostle Paul makes this very plain in his charge to the evangelist Timothy, as follows:— “I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom, preach the Word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” 2 Tim. 4:1–4. The Question of the Kingdom.
The subject under consideration to-day, like all other Scriptural subjects, is a part of the Gospel. We are to study the kingdom question, which is declared to be the Gospel by our Saviour in these words:— “This Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” Matt. 24:4. In our study to-day, we are seeking an answer to this simple, but all-important question, “Do the Scriptures teach that the world will grow better and better before the coming of Christ until all the world shall be converted? Or do they teach that it will grow worse and worse, and that the children of God shall be numbered as a little flock, walking in the narrow way, hated and persecuted by a sinful world, but as pilgrims and strangers looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ?” But what difference does it make, it is asked, whether the world will be converted or not before Christ’s second coming, if we are only sanctified and ready? It makes just this difference: If we do not have the truth on this subject when He comes, we shall be entertaining error, and shall not, therefore, be sanctified and ready, because we are sanctified by the truth and not by error. Our Saviour prayed for us in these words: “Sanctify them thru Thy truth; Thy Word is truth.” John 17:17. Eternal life and eternal destruction are bound up in this question. It was over this question that the Jewish nation, God’s chosen church, stumbled to its destruction. The Jewish teachers, in their pride and ignorance of the Scriptures, had picked out those prophecies which spoke of the glory of the everlasting kingdom, and promised to the Seed of David that He would inherit the heathen, and rule them with a rod of iron,—these they selected and dwelt upon, while ignoring those scriptures which spoke of the humility and suffering of the Messiah. When therefore the Messiah came, they measured every word and act of His life by their fatal error, and consequently crucified the Son of God. Erroneous Views and the Coming Results.
And now let me show you how this same error concerning the Gospel of the kingdom will again lead to the crucifixion of the coming One in the person of His saints. If the popular view that the world is growing better, and will continue to grow better until all the world is converted to Christ, is an error, and I am thoroly persuaded that it is,—if the church leaders have again picked out those prophecies which speak of the glories of the world to come, and are looking for their fulfilment in this world, then they will measure all movements in Church and State according to this perverted view, and condemn or approve of these movements from their erroneous standpoint. The “little flock” are walking in the narrow way, and are crying aloud and lifting up their voices like trumpets, and faithfully pointing out the sins of a wicked world and a backslidden church; and like their Master they are painting these modern movements in their true colors, as whited sepulchers, godly forms without Gospel power; these faithful witnesses will be condemned, as Christ and His disciples were condemned, as enemies of the church and troublers in Israel. Concerning Peace Conferences.
Let me make the matter more plain by making it personal. I believe the Scripture statement that “wicked men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived,” consequently I measure all modern movements by these scriptures. To illustrate: When a World’s Peace Conference assembles at The Hague, and the representatives of the nations predict a millennium of peace when “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks,” I answer, That is what you say in the peace conference, but what are you doing in your war councils? Are you not bending every energy of money, mind, and muscle, to prepare war, to wake up the mighty men, to beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears, in preparation for the battle of the great day of God Almighty? Again, when the course of our own country is cited, and its foreign conquests are pointed out as a part of the movement toward the world’s conversion, I reply, Instead of this movement being any part of the world’s conversion, it is, on the other hand, a part of the movement to convert the “land of the free” into a liberty-destroying empire, as is plainly pictured by the lamb-like beast of the prophecy of Rev. 13, which in its later course is transformed into a persecuting dragon. Again, when my attention is called to the rich and fashionable congregations which throng the cloud-piercing edifices on Easter morn and festal days, I reply, “In the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud; . . . having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” I point to the little handful of members at the mid-week prayer or class-meeting, and then to the multitude who are found at the card-party, at the theater, the dance, and the church-festival, and repeat again the solemn prediction of the Word of God, “In the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, . . . lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.” If I am wrong in these and many other interpretations of present-day movements of Church and State, then I am an enemy of the5Gospel of the kingdom. On the other hand, if I am right, if I am voicing the truth of God, and the popular idea of a world’s conversion is wrong, then the mass of the church people, and you, brethren of this Ministerial Association, if you hold the popular view, will condemn me and my teaching as heretical; and continue to regard the modern movements in Church and State as inspired of God for the world’s conversion, instead of that “falling away” from the truths of the Gospel which, according to Scripture, is to characterize the last days. I have dwelt at length on this phase of the subject in order to take the question, in any mind here, from the side of the non-essential over to the side of the essential, and to show its vital connection with the Gospel of our salvation. Your attention is now called to a few scriptures which bear directly upon the subject, Do the Scriptures teach that the world will be converted before the second coming of Christ? For your convenience in discussing the paper, I will number the points which I shall make in maintaining the negative of this question. 1. Our Saviour says, “Enter ye in at the strait gate; for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat; because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” If the modern view of the conversion of the world is correct, this scripture will have to be reversed so as to read, Broad is the way that leadeth to life, and all the world shall find it; but closed is the gate that leadeth to destruction, and none go in thereat. 2. Under the parable of the tares, the Lord gives us a description of the condition of the world down to the harvest, or end of the world. In this parable he tells us that the “wheat,” or “children of the kingdom,” will grow together with the “tares,” or “the children of the wicked one,” until the “harvest,” or “end of the world.” This parable, to accord with the idea of a world’s conversion, would have to be changed so as to read that all the tares, as the result of careful cultivation, became wheat, so that at the end of the world there were no tares to gather and burn, but only wheat to harvest. 3. Again our Saviour says, “As the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” Matt. 24:37. Of the people of the days of Noah, we read (Gen. 6:5), “And 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.” Again, the Lord says, “Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; . . . even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.” Luke 17:28, 30. And now let me read God’s description of the sins of Sodom, which He says shall be the sins of the people just before the coming of Christ: “Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before Me; therefore I took them away as I saw good.” Eze. 16:46, 50. I will not attempt to change this scripture to accord with the popular view. 4. From the parable of the ten virgins we learn that one-half of the children of the church who profess to be waiting, as pure and spotless virgins, for the return of the Bridegroom, or the coming of Christ, will be unprepared to meet Him when He comes, and will hear the awful words, “I know you not.” Who will attempt to revise this scripture so as to make it teach that all professed Christians, not to say the world, will be walking in the light, converted men and women, when the Lord shall come? 5. “When the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory; and before Him shall be gathered all nations and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats; and He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. . . . Then shall He say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” Matt. 25:31–34, 41. If the world is to be converted before the Lord shall come in His glory, what means the presence of the goats? Why have they not been converted into sheep? If the world is to be converted before the coming of Christ, there will be no need of a dividing between the sheep and the goats; for there will be but one flock, and all of them sheep. Who will undertake to add to or take from this scripture so as to make it teach a world’s conversion? Paul’s Description of Present-day Conditions.
6. Passing now to the writings of the apostles, we come to Paul’s description of the last days, already referred to. “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, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” 2 Tim. 3:1–5. Later on in the chapter the apostle speaks of persecution thus: “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.” Verses 12, 13. With this agree the words of our Saviour: “In the world ye shall have tribulation.” “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept My saying, they will keep yours also.” John 16:3; 15:18–20. That this persecution of the saints is to continue to the end of the world; and that there will be the persecuted and the persecutor when Christ shall come in His glory, is plainly proven by the words of the apostle Paul to the Thessalonians thus: “To you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power, when He shall come to be glorified in His saints.” 2 Thess. 1:7–10. So much for the perverseness of men; now let us notice the perversion of Scripture in the last days. 7. After describing the perverseness of men, as recorded in the third chapter of second Timothy, as previously quoted, the apostle Paul has this to say of the perversion of Scripture in the last days: “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom, Preach the Word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” 2 Tim. 4:1–4. 8. In harmony with all this, the apostle Peter bears this witness: “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days, scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water; whereby the world that then was being overflowed with water perished; but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. . . . Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness.” 2 Peter 3:3–7, 17. The Voice of “Peace and Safety.”
9. This idea of a world’s conversion before the second coming of Christ is a peace-and-safety cry well calculated to quiet the fears of a boasting world and a backslidden church, and make of no effect the warnings of the faithful watchman who would warn a wicked world and a worldly church of the wrath to come, and point out the signs of a soon-coming Saviour. Even this peace-and-safety cry is itself an evidence that instead of the world being converted when the Lord shall come, it will be waiting in darkness for that destruction which is its doom. To this the apostle Paul bears this striking testimony:— “But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of the light, and the children of the day; we are not of the night nor of the darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but watch and be sober.” 1 Thess. 5:1–6. Thus it is seen that before the coming of the Lord there will go forth a peace-and-safety cry, which will lull men into carnal security, and prepare them for that sudden destruction that shall come upon those who scoff at the doctrine of the promise of our Lord’s soon coming. By way of removing unnecessary objections I desire to say that I do not undervalue the faithful work of the missionary, or belittle the triumphs of the cross in distant lands. I want to see, and expect to see, mission work increase an hundred-fold; but all this will not convert the world, but rather will it fulfil the promise of the Great Master of missionaries: “This Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” Matt. 24:14. The Gospel will be preached in all the world for a witness, note the expression, for a witness; not that it will convert all the world, because all the world will not receive it now any more than they did when it was preached by Jesus Himself or by the apostles when they were clothed with power from on high. But as Peter and James stated at the first church council, as recorded in the fifteenth chapter of Acts, it will be preached “to take out a people for His name.” Let us not, therefore, brethren, be deceived by the peace-and-safety cry of a world’s conversion, but bear faithful witness against sin, knowing full well that the time has come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts will they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, men and women who have a form of godliness without the power; who love pleasure more than they love God, who love to have their ears tickled with fables instead of their hearts touched with the truth. Let us therefore be instant in season, out of season, in preaching the Word, rebuking, exhorting, with all long-suffering and doctrine, pleasing the Master rather than the multitude, looking for our reward to the time when the Chief Shepherd shall appear with our crown of glory.