A LL thru the history of this world is mingled the story of sadness and distress. Sorrow, disappointment, suffering, and every form of pain are the results of the abnormal condition.
The Lord is not the author of this state of things. The fruits of the Spirit of the Lord are “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.” Gal. 5: 22, 23. The Lord’s Spirit is always working to drive out and destroy sadness and pain, but it never produces these things. There will be sadness in the heart when the Lord reveals to us the evil and sin that is there. But this evil and sin is the cause of the sadness; the Spirit of God is the only light by which it is seen. And the object in thus revealing the evil to us, and of producing the consequent temporary sadness, is only that the cause of the sorrow may be removed, and we be led into the realm of eternal peace and enjoyment.
For thousands of years evil has had its abode in this earth, and men have been held in its chains as prisoners. There is no power in man that enables him by himself to break the bands of this slavery to the evil power. God alone can give the strength.
All thru the ages the Lord has sought to win men from the slavery of sin, and to set them free in Jesus Christ. And all who have learned the Gospel have come in contact with that which gives real freedom and which brings to men an inexpressible joy thru their experiences in the effects of the divine power upon their human lives. Those who have tasted of these divine joys are constantly amazed that so few have harkoned to the Lord’s earnest entreaties to come to Him that they might have the true life and the joy that comes with it. And those who refuse the Lord’s invitation not only make it hard for themselves, but they serve to perpetuate the evil that brings sadness and gloom upon all. There can never be perfect happiness in this world so long as there is a single soul that gives himself to the service of sin in any way whatever.
The world is being filled with evil men. There is no avoiding the conclusion that things are growing morally worse all the time. Common observation as well as documentary evidence shows this to be so. Corrupting vices and crimes, murdering, robbing, and every form of evil imaginable, are becoming bolder and bolder, and the world has its terrors for every one because of these things. No one seems to be safe from the weapon of the assassin, from the stealth of the robber, the cunning arts of the deceptive and vicious, nor from the tongue of the slanderer.9With all these things growing worse in the world, the picture is by no means a bright one if we look at it from the human standpoint wholly.
But, praise the Lord, we are not required to look at the picture from the human standpoint at all. Our Father in heaven is seeking to get us to look at these things from His standpoint altogether. He bids us enquire, “Watchman, what of the night?” And then He sends back the answer to us, “The morning cometh, and also the night.” Isa. 21: 11, 12. It seems like a contradiction. It does not seem possible that the morning and the night can both be coming at the same time. But such is literally the case. The darkness that is filling the world because of the crime and sins that are in the land everywhere is the foreboding of the approaching night. But this night is for those only who refuse to receive the light from God. Those who have received the Gospel of Christ, and who consequently know His word, are not disturbed by this darkness that is such a menace to all others. They know the promises of God, and know that the morning is coming, notwithstanding the gathering shades of midnight darkness.
The Lord would have us understand that the “morning cometh.” The time for the world’s release from the chains of sin is almost here. This darkness that is spreading over the world is not the indication of a deeper night, but it is merely that dark hour that immediately precedes the bursting glories of the coming day. This evil that we see in the land is nothing more than the last supreme effort of Satan to destroy as many as he can before the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to begin His everlasting reign. All who yield to the deceptions of Satan and cling to their sin, will indeed go down to destruction in the days that are just ahead of us. For all them it will be the beginning of the everlasting night that locks every vestige of sin in the well-merited oblivion of eternal death.
What an awful thing it is to refuse to know the meaning of these things in these times, and so be hurled into such a night, when the Lord wants us instead to walk out into the rising joys of His eternal day of release!
Every one in all the world should know that the coming of Christ is right at hand. All these wars, and rumors of wars, all this corruption in the world, all this criminality, all this violent rioting, all this plague of virulent diseases that seem to baffle the skill of the wisest physicians, in fact, all of these things that are filling the minds of men so full of dread in these times, are but the evidences of the coming day of the Lord. Satan and sin have had their day. The Lord’s day is now about to be ushered in. And when the glad morning comes, sin will have been forever put underfoot. Nevermore can it raise its hideous head to fill the hearts of men with sorrow and gloom.
Hasten the glorious day! Bid all the sons and daughters of Adam know that the time for their release is right at hand! The resurrection morning is almost here! The coming of Jesus our Saviour is right at the doors! Are you ready? Is your heart heaving with the joys of the coming morning? or are you bowed down beneath the gloom of the forebodings of night? Lift up your heart to God for light and power. He desires to help you to hasten to get ready for the realities of the pleasures of eternity. The day is at hand. How full of indescribable joy is this great fact!