THE MILLENNIUM by G. B. Thompson

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 22, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 38.

THE MILLENNIUM.

By G. B. Thompson

For years the doctrine of the millennium, or world’s conversion, has been proclaimed from the pulpit and the press, and under the soothing influence of this siren voice many have been lulled to sleep in the cradle of carnal security, to sleep, perchance, till the end. As the Lord seeks, as in Noah’s time, to arouse His slumbering people by means of a special message, the most thrilling one ever heralded to man since his fall, the dulcet tones of the soul-destroying delusion of a temporal millennium are heard on every hand.

Yet the Scriptures nowhere imply that sin will cease and all the world become converted prior to the coming of Christ. The wheat and the tares are to grow together till the harvest, which is “the end of the world.” Matt. 13:24–41. Evil men and seducers are to “wax worse and worse.” 2 Tim. 3:13. As it was in the days of Noah and Lot, when all the purposes and desires of men were vile, so it is to be when the Son of man is revealed in the clouds of heaven. Luke 17:26–30. The dragon spirit, which has persecuted the saints from the beginning, will make war against the very remnant of the church. Rev. 12:17. The beast, or man of sin, will exalt himself and oppose the work of God until he goes alive into the lake of fire. Rev. 19:20.

Instead of the last days being days of peace, we are told in the Word that they are to be the most warlike and revolutionary since Adam and Eve, because of sin, crossed the threshold of their Eden home for the last time. Violence is to fill the earth. Eze. 7:7–10. And as we read the list of upwards of ten thousand murders in the United States alone last year, and over six thousand suicides, and behold in imagination such a funeral procession go by, with its victims of rage, greed, and lust, followed by the broken-hearted who are left behind, we stand appalled before the awful fact that we have reached the time when violence fills the earth.

As we contemplate the tremendous, and hitherto unparalleled preparations for war among all nations, and listen to the tread of armed millions training for their work of slaughter, and armed with weapons the most deadly that men can invent; as we see them wheeling their battalions into line, preparing for an inevitable struggle, we can but be convinced that there is an impending conflict so terrible that the battles of the past centuries, where armed legions driven by mortal hate have fought and drenched the earth in blood, pales in comparison. In all this we see the fulfilment of the prediction in the Bible which forewarns us that the nations are to be angry and preparing for war when Jesus comes. Luke 21:25, 26; Rev. 11:18; Joel 3:9–16.

Some, as they listen to the muttering thunders, know they presage a storm. Bishop Newman, of the M. E. Church, a few months ago said:— We are now passing through the most unsettled condition of the world since the crucifixion of Christ. . . . And whatever cause it is that touches the first match to the fuse, no human power can foretell in what countries that fuse may lead to an international explosion.

Another clergyman, Canon Scott Holland, of England, recently said:—

The outlook in Europe never presented so wholly an unchristian spectacle since the days of Constantine. Even in medieval days peace and not war was regarded as the normal condition of men. Now nations are watching one another like wild beasts in a jungle, and Christian Europe has armed itself, in defiance of everything which Christ came to teach. Blood and iron rule; huge camps and seas crowded with horrible ships of war, meet the eye at every turn. Men scramble for land, and the question is, Who will be first in the race? Are we to be swept away in the pagan scramble?

Reader, the times are ominous. A storm is coming, and we will need a hiding-place, that we may not be swept away with the bosom of destruction. We can find it now in the Rock of Ages. If we neglect this, we will seek a refuge soon in the rent chasms of the rocks, and pray for mountains to cover us, as the earth sinks beneath the terrible disorder of sin. Now, while Jesus is standing with outstretched arms to welcome the most sinful of a fallen race, let us flee to Him and be saved.

G. B. THOMPSON.

Newburg, W. Va.