p. 4 | KNOW YE by G. B. Thompson

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 10, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 45.

“KNOW YE.”

By G. B. Thompson

EVERYTHING in this world is filled with uncertainty. Unrest and uneasiness exist everywhere. Men speculate, guess, and predict as to the probable outcome of events. Startling things are taking place about us. Ominous-looking clouds are visible, threatening a storm of unwonted power. Violence fills the earth, the harrowing details of which shock the tender sensibilities of the race. Dark forebodings fill the mind; a feeling of impending calamity exists. Men desire to know, but do not. Many thirst for a knowledge they do not possess.

To all such we are able to say, God bids you know. Knowledge is with the Most High, and He calls up the future, and lays it at our feet. “Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.” Isa. 42:9. Not to know is death. “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” Hosea 4:6. The antediluvians “knew not” (Matt. 24:39), and the result was that they were all swept away by the waters of the flood. The Sodomites did not know their city was to be destroyed. They might have known, for angels were there to tell them; and being accountable for the knowledge they might have obtained, but did not, they were removed as an example for those who would ever after be ungodly. When Jesus came into the world, manifested in human flesh, the world “knew Him not,” and finally hung Him on a cross between thieves.

And so it will be when the Son of man is revealed. There will be many who will be crying, “Peace and safety,” telling of a good time coming. On all such sudden destruction will come, “and they shall not escape.” 1 Thess. 5:3.

But there will be another class who will not be in “darkness” and overtaken as a thief. Verses 4, 5. They will know. Signs in all the heavenly bodies, in the earth and sea, in the political world, in the church, and in the hearts of men, are to appear as heralds of the second advent. Luke 21:25–27. And when these appear, the Lord says, “So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that He is near, even at the doors.” Matt. 24:33, margin. We are not to guess and speculate concerning the event, and babble about the probabilities of a millennium in the distant future, but to know that “He is near.” Yes, to “know” it, be perfectly sure beyond a peradventure, to have absolute knowledge of the fact. We are not to know the day nor the hour, for these are not revealed; but we are to know of its nearness, for this is revealed. We are told that when these things “begin to come to pass,” our redemption “draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28); not is nigh, but drawing nigh. But when these things mentioned are come to pass, then the Lord says, “know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh.”

Reader, these things commenced to come to pass over a century ago; to-day they have all come to pass, or are being fulfilled about us, and the end “is nigh.” Like the noble Bereans, let us search the Scriptures daily, whether these things are so. And let us search till we know.

G. B. THOMPSON.

Rome, N. Y.