SIGNS OF EVENING-TIME by Rev. John Robertson

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 25, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 43.

SIGNS OF EVENING-TIME.

By Rev. John Robertson

[By Rev. John Robertson, of Glasgow, in Prophetic News.]

"BUT it shall come to pass, that at evening-time it shall be light." Zech. 14:7.

Do you think that it is about evening-time? Do you think that the day is about closing? I do. There are certain surroundings and characteristics of the evening-tide hour that we can easily discern. I noticed from the Ayrshire coast that as the sun sank in the west the hills of Arran seemed to shoot high up into the sky, and I said, "It is evening; for the sun is low and the hills high." For eighteen hundred years and more the sun of God's mercy has been circling in the firmament; but it is getting low, and there are interruptions on the landscape telling that it is about evening-time. There are great sins that are becoming accentuated on the earth by the very clustering together in the cities, and they are obscuring the Sun of Righteousness. I believe that the devil is as much in the conception of the city as God is, if not more. God gave the earth unto the children of men, but we have contracted the surface, and man's greed has driven, and commercial exigencies have driven, the human race into the clustering cities, that are developing iniquities enough to bring another bath of eternal fire. When you lay fagot to fagot, you get a great fire; and when you add unregenerate human heart to unregenerate human heart, iniquity is developed, and you get great depravity. Look at the social sin. It is getting so gigantic in its awfulness as to make us, at any moment as we look up into the blue, expect to see the jagged lightning flash of God's judgment. It is getting worse every year, worse as men cluster into the cities, and the luxury of self-indulgence awakens passions, and hell upon earth has begun.

Then there is drunkenness, that great peak. The temperance party has very largely given up the notion of success. We are downhearted; we are less far on to-day than ten years ago. The political parties—what do you get from them? They are discussing the eternal nuisance of this temperance thing that is always being tagged on, and that makes us lose votes, and lose the election. Ay, and the drink bill gets larger, and larger, and larger, and drunkenness increases by leaps and bounds. That is the fact. The vested interests in the drink traffic, the ever-ramifying interests of this awful octopus and vampire of civilization, have brought sudden darkness on this earth. The great hill of drunkenness says, "It is evening-time with the world." Then there is

That Greed-Developed Grind,

that mill of the world where flesh and blood and muscle are ground in an unholy competition. "Let us have unskilled labor at starvation wages," is its cry, "and when the exigencies of the poisonous manufacture make jaws rot, and teeth fall out, and men prematurely old, let them go, and let us get fresh hands." Greed sways the human race. Ay, this colossal commercial greed, this greed diabolical! It is evening-time when man's hand shall be against his brother; it is evening-time when the sodden dirks of human hatred will be plunged into a brother's breast. Ah, it is evening-time!

One characteristic about evening-time is that it gets chill, and you put on an extra coat, or, if a lady, you throw a shawl over your shoulders. It is chilly because the sun is low. Is not that a characteristic of the present time in the church? Has not the love of many waxed cold? Is it not the Laodicean age? Is there not an awful fear of enthusiasm and warmth? Why, by the pessimistic, unbelieving philosophy that is sapping religious society to-day, all belief in God and His righteousness, His honor, integrity, and love, is considered philosophical insanity. "We are not sure about anything to-day," is the cry. "What is the use of getting excited? Black is white, and white is black. . . . Ay, it is getting miserably cold, and the time is come of which the Lord said: 'I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of My mouth.' . . . Sleep betokens the evening. 'And at midnight they all slumbered and slept.'" The Christian church is asleep. There is no stirring up for a revival, no missionary fervor. The wail of missions all over the world is the great difficulty experienced in arousing more than a passing interest. Talk about the world getting better and becoming converted! Look at the state of matters. Look at the non-church-going in this Glasgow, and how careless we are about it. The majority of the inhabitants of this city will never put their feet within the doors of a house of God. Look at London, the center of the world, with a population of five million. Do you know how many of these five million turn their backs on God and His Christ, and refuse to enter any place of worship? Three million five hundred thousand. On the island of Manhattan, in New York, a census was taken on an area containing a population of nearly two million, and how many church-goers were there amongst them? —Eighty-five thousand only of all that vast population passed a church door that day. It is considered by statisticians that in America, where Christianity has some of its most devoted adherents, only ten per cent. of the inhabitants of the cities have the slightest regard to the claims of the Lord Jesus. Yet you will sleep on, and say that things are improving. I tell you, brethren, that it is growing dark, dark in this world; it is getting chill; it is getting about time to go into the house, and some have gone in already. . . . An Indian says, "Whenever the shadow is longer than the hunter, let him pitch his tent; evening has come." Why, there is more of shadow than of substance to-day. There is an increase of the form of religion, but a denying of the substance of it. The ritualism of to-day is the lengthening of the shadows, and the decreasing of the substance, and is evidence that it is evening-time. So with rationalism. These bats are all about us now; and an old-fashioned disciple of Jesus Christ can hardly walk without their flapping in his face; and very few have the courage to fling their bonnets at them. Ah, you let them flutter about, and Scotland pays men salaries who are supposed to be doing evangelical work, but are doing exactly the opposite, with a dishonesty that, if it were done in the army, would demand the shooting of the traitors! Ah, beloved, there are men who are traitors to the inspiration of the Book of God; there are men who are traitors to the atonement of the Son, who have turned their backs on their oath, and are now propounding damnable heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them! . . .

This unbelief is a strange thing in Scotland. Is there any hope? Have we anything to say about the evening-time in the land of the covenant? I have! It shall be light. Glory to God! I believe that before the Lord comes a sudden light is to break out. It is to break out through the proclamation of the Word of God. "The entrance of Thy Word giveth light."

Preacher, Be Faithful to the Word.

Fling from you all human gymnastics and men's methods, and be gladly, sweetly peaceful and content. If you just get the Word inserted into the heart, the Spirit will do the rest. . . . "Arise, shine, for thy light is come." "At evening-time it shall be light." The light breaketh, the light of His coming. I think star after star is blazing out as the Lord comes. It is evening-time, and the lamp of God will need to be lit. It is dark upon earth, and it is getting darker; it is chill upon earth, and it is getting chillier. I am looking out for the sudden glow in the heavens that will herald the coming of the Son of God.

Trim your lamps, and be ready for that midnight cry, for at evening-time it shall be light. Have you lit up? Brother, in the darkness have you lit up? Is your heart aglow with love to Jesus? Have you lit up, and are you ready to go forth to meet the Bridegroom? Prepare to meet God by accepting His Son as your Saviour. O, be ready when the Lord cometh! It is evening-time, but it shall be light. Amen.