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CHRIST’S COMING NEAR

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 14, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 40.

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CHRIST’S COMING NEAR.

By Lena E. Howe

MATT. 24 : 3: “And as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?”
Matt. 24 : 4–14. Jesus tells them something of the condition of the world preceding his coming.
Matt. 24 : 23–26. He warns his followers against being deceived by the signs and wonders done by the false Christs.
Matt. 24 : 27. No one who understands the nature of Christ’s coming need be deceived, because he tells us in Luke 9 : 26. He comes in his own glory and in his Father’s and in the glory of the holy angels.
Matt. 24 : 29. As special signs of his coming, he gave the darkening of the sun and moon and falling of the stars.
NOTE.—“Those days” of tribulation refer to the 1,260 years of papal persecution, beginning A.D. 538 and ending A.D. 1798. Matthew says, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days,” and in Mark 13 : 24 we read, “In those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light.” The persecution almost entirely ceased about twenty years before the expiration of the days. Then, in order to be signs of Christ’s coming, the darkening of the sun and moon must come between the years 1778 and 1798. On May 19, 1780, the sun was “supernaturally darkened,” and the following evening the moon, tho in the full, gave no light. See Webster’s Dictionary, Art. “Dark Day.”
REV. 6 : 13 describes the falling of the stars, which was also to be a sign of his coming.
Matt. 24 : 30; Mark 13 : 26. The next event brought to view is the coming of the Son of man in the clouds of heaven.
Matt. 24 : 32, 33. Jesus says that when these signs have been given, we may know that he is near, just as we know that summer is near when the trees put forth their leaves.
Matt. 24 : 36. No man knoweth the day or the hour of his coming.
Matt. 24 : 37, 39. The world will be taken unawares just as they were at the time of the flood.
Luke 21 : 34. Christ warns his people against being so engaged with the things of this life that they have no time in which to learn of his coming. LENA E. HOWE.