BIBLE THOUGHTS | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 13, 1872

BIBLE THOUGHTS.

“Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” Luke 18: 8.

The Son of man shall come! This is one of the special burdens of this parable. This is one of our special messages, whether speaking to the church or to the world; whether exhorting the saint, or warning the wicked. He that shall come will come, and will not tarry. The scoffer may mock and say, “Where is the promise of his coming?” but he shall come. The faithless servant may say, “My Lord delayeth his coming;” but he shall come. Whether men are ready or unready, he shall come. “Behold, he cometh with clouds.” “Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints.” But when he comes, what shall he find? and what shall he not find?

1. What shall he find? Many things which will offend; few that will please.

(1) An afflicted people. Our Lord’s parable here specially announces this. His church is likened to an injured widow, crying for redress. She is a little flock, a lily among thorns, an election, a band of pilgrims passing through a hostile territory to the kingdom.

(2) A luxurious world. The days of Noah and of Lot are types of the days before the advent. Then all was luxury, lasciviousness, riot, ungodliness, flesh-pleasing. They were eating, drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage. The flesh was indulging itself to the full. God was forgotten. The world to come was disbelieved. Even so in the last days perilous times shall come.

(3) A defying Antichrist. For Antichrists fill up the whole space between his first and second coming; and the great Antichrist shall grow and gather strength, till he shall openly defy God and deny his Christ.

(4) A groaning creation. For during all the time of his absence will creation groan; its groans will grow louder and sadder as the advent draws nigh. He comes in pity, to bring it deliverance; for nothing but his coming can hush its groans, or end the curse.

(5) A raging devil. For Satan walketh about, like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. And he is in great wrath in the last days, because he knows that he has but a short time.

All these evils, and many connected with them, he is to find when he comes again; for man cannot deliver himself or his world. He has tried it in vain.

2. What he shall not find. This is expressed in the question of our text. “Shall he find faith on the earth?” A question this which intimates how low faith shall be; how powerful and widespread unbelief; unbelief in his coming; unbelief in God. The cry will then be at its loudest. “We will not have this man to reign over us;” and, also, “There is no God.” And as faith shall then be low, so shall love have waxed cold; and, “Lovest thou me?” shall meet with but faint response, even among those who call themselves by his name. Instead of a world full of faith and love, he shall find earth one great region of enmity and defiance; and even his own church neither looking out for or desiring his arrival.

Let us then watch and pray. He may be nearer than we think. Let us not sleep as do others; but let us watch and be sober.

There are many kinds of unbelief which shall then be developed; some more daring than others. We see the seeds of these vanities in the present day. There is the bold unbelief of atheism, or the more specious unbelief of pantheism, or the unbelief in the Christ of God, accompanied with professed faith in God himself; unbelief in the Spirit of God; unbelief in the word of God; unbelief in prayer; unbelief in the cross, and in the gospel of the grace of God; unbelief of many shades and forms. There shall be special unbelief in the prophetic word; disregard of the light that shineth in a dark place; contempt for the church’s blessed hope. There shall be faith in man but not in God; faith in human power and wisdom; faith in intellect and science; faith in nature;—but all this faith set in opposition to God, and setting aside his power and wisdom, his personal interference with the affairs of man. There shall be faith in the miracles of science, but none in the miracles of the Son of God. There shall be faith in the regenerative power of literature and liberal government, but none in the regenerative power of the Spirit or the energy of Him whose scepter is that by which alone earth is to be governed and renewed.