p. 7 | Question Corner

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 20, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 42.

Question Corner

“Enquire and make search and ask diligently.”

871. The Famine of the Word.

In what time does Amos 8:4–6 apply?

In a measure it applied back to the time just before the ten-tribe kingdom fell. It is a type of the overweening covetousness and oppression of the last days. In fact, these things recorded of the past are types of the greater things to come. And the time God’s prophets forsook Israel, when they would no longer hear, and the nation was left without the Word of God, is typical of that time just before Christ comes, when there will be a famine in the land, “not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the Word the Lord.” The false prophets who cried peace will be confounded, and the true prophets will have done their work.

872. Feet-washing and Sunday-keeping.

Where do we obtain authority for feet-washing?

In the example and command of our Lord Himself. See John 13:1–17. “So after He had washed their feet, and had taken His garments, and was set down again, He said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call Me Master and Lord; and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. . . . If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” Verses 12–17. What would not many give to have as good evidence for Sunday observance? And if there were, we would gladly observe it. But even then, that would not abolish the Sabbath.

873. Isa. 65:20.

Will you kindly explain Isa. 65:20? L. R.

Read the context, verses 17 to 25. It is a picture of the inheritance of God’s people, contrasted with the earth as it now is. In that new heaven and earth “there shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days.” Age and youth will not then be reckoned as now; for all that will have passed away in the last period of judgment in the destruction of those who knew not God, who identified themselves with sin, mentioned in Rev. 20:4, 7–9, the “little season” (100 years?) when Satan deceives the risen host of the wicked, and they are finally destroyed; the child that filled this period, and the aged sinner will both die; “for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed.” But not so with God’s people, whose days are “as the days of a tree” (the tree of life).

874. Antediluvians and Sodomites.

(1) Will the people destroyed at the time of the flood, also at Sodom and Gomorrah, be resurrected at the second resurrection, to be destroyed again? (2) Would it be just to destroy them twice, and the rest only once? A READER OF THE SIGNS.

1. They probably will. “It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city.” Mark 6:11. This shows that Sodom and Gomorrah will be brought into judgment.

2. All the righteous die once, the wicked twice. The first death is the result of Adam’s sin. The second death we choose as we choose sin. The death of the sinners of Sodom was the consequence of remaining in the cities. Had they believed Lot, they would have fled. The real punishment of their sin will be the second death. And yet the destruction of those cities is a type of the destruction of the wicked, because it was utter destruction. “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” asked Abraham. “Just and true are Thy ways,” sing the saints in glory.