The Hour of His Judgment.
1. In what time of the world's history are we living? "But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to THE TIME OF THE END; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." Dan. 12:4. NOTE.—Following the evidence Biblically, from whatever standpoint we will, we are brought in every case to the same conclusion; namely, that we are in "the last days," "the time of the end." More than twelve lines of prophecy clearly show that we are nearing the end of earth's history. A score or more of special signs, pointing conditions in the political, the social, the physical, the religious worlds, add their united and cumulative testimony that the end of the ages is upon us, and that the dissolution of earth's present drama is soon to close in awful tragedy and sublime triumph—tragedy for the wrong, triumph for the right. And we may "know" this is so. Nay, more, the great Teacher has commanded us to know. "When ye shall see all these things, KNOW THAT IT IS NEAR, even at the doors." Matt. 24:33. And again and again His apostles have told us the same thing, as, for instance, "But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day [the great day of God's judgment] should overtake you as a thief." 1 Thess. 5:4. It is upon those who shall say, "Peace and safety" that "sudden destruction cometh," "and they shall not escape." Verse 3. God has done His part to enlighten us regarding "present truth;" are we setting it aside for "cunningly devised fables"? Condition of the Religious World.
2. What is declared to be the condition of the professedly religious world in the last days? "This KNOW also, that IN THE LAST DAYS perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; HAVING A FORM OF GODLINESS, but DENYING THE POWER THEREOF: from such turn away." 2 Tim. 3:1-5. "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: 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. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." Rev. 3:15-17. NOTE.—Such passages might be greatly multiplied. It is a sad, sad fact that from all parts of Christendom goes up the cry that
"The church has fallen, the beautiful church,
And her shame is her boast and pride."
Higher criticism has unsettled the faith of millions in the Bible, and the religious profession is all that marks the difference between professed Christians and the world. The POWER of Godliness lies in the creative, regenerating energy of the Gospel, but the basic facts of the Gospel—the incarnation, the atonement, the resurrection—are set aside, and evolution has come in to take their place. Pleasures, in a more refined form perhaps, but equally selfish and sensuous, are what the many are seeking as truly as the people of the world are seeking them. The same sins ascribed in 2 Tim. 3:1-5, quoted above, are the sins which possessed the pagan world in the days of the apostle. See Rom. 1:28-32. Jesus truly said of these days: "And because iniquity [lawlessness] shall abound, the love of many [the many] shall wax cold." Matt. 24:12. Division in belief, in great essential truths, characterizes the professed church of Christ, till her creeds are as numerous as her costly towers, and the only successful efforts at union are brought about by the ignoring of great essential truths of the Bible. 3. What is bound to follow when such conditions exist? "Where envying and strife is, there is CONFUSION and every evil work." James 3:16. 4. What is God's desire concerning His children? "That they all may be ONE; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be ONE IN US: that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that THEY MAY BE ONE, even as We are one. I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me." John 17:21-23. God's Desire Concerning Babylon.
5. How does Inspiration designate the present divided condition in the religious world? God does not use the term "Babylon," meaning "confusion," as a term of condemnation, but to show the division and confusion which exist among His followers who ought to be ONE. 6. What has ever been God's purpose concerning Babylon? "Take balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed. . . . We would have HEALED Babylon." Jer. 51:8, 9. NOTE.—The origin of earthly Babylon (or Babel, meaning confusion) is found in Gen. 11:1-9. It is here shown, in connection with the cuneiform records left us, that Babylon's origin was in the perversion of God's plan. To glorify Him is His purpose; glorify self, said Babylon. Scatter abroad is His command; keep together and make us a name, says Babylon. So they built a tower and glorified themselves, and called it Bab-il, the "Gate of God." That was their means of salvation instead of simple faith in God. But God called their effort, their plan, their perversion of His ways, Babylon, confusion. And the perpetuation of Babylonian ideas are the same to-day. 7. What message has God given for the healing of present-day Babylon? "AND I SAW ANOTHER ANGEL FLY IN THE MIDST OF HEAVEN, HAVING THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL TO PREACH UNTO THEM THAT DWELL ON THE EARTH, AND TO EVERY NATION, AND KINDRED, AND TONGUE, AND PEOPLE, SAYING WITH A LOUD VOICE, FEAR GOD, AND GIVE GLORY TO HIM; FOR THE HOUR OF HIS JUDGMENT IS COME: AND WORSHIP HIM THAT MADE HEAVEN, AND EARTH, AND THE SEA, AND THE FOUNTAINS OF WATERS." Rev. 14:6, 7. NOTE.—Angels of God heralded the Gospel when Christ was born. God's messengers of heaven cooperate with God's messengers and servants of earth. Spiritual forces, clad in power and light, are coworkers with every true child of God. Heb. 1:14. Spirits of evil are cooperating with all the forces of evil in the perversion and opposition of truth. (There will be many references to the above scripture.) "The everlasting Gospel." "The POWER OF GOD unto SALVATION to every one that BELIEVETH." Rom. 1:16. "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature ["there is a new creation," A.R.V.]." 2 Cor. 5:17. NOTE.—Not in the fables of evolution or the slow progress of ages of reincarnations or the scientific "divine immanence" in every man, or in the dreamy vagueness of "Christian Science," does God give us to hope, but in the CREATIVE POWER of His Gospel is His reform message for this time founded. 11. How far will this message go? To every part of the world's Babylon, "to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." 12. What is one emphatic demand of that message? 13. Who alone should be given glory? "GIVE GLORY TO HIM."
"Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name." Ps. 96:8. NOTE.—It requires no spiritual perception to see that in the present plans and desires of men to save or comfort the sinful the creature is glorified rather than the Creator. God is no longer to many a personal Father, but an abstraction. His word is no longer spirit and life, but a more or less fabulous tradition. The higher critics, Mrs. Eddy, the apostles of new thought, the speculators in evolution are glorified, while the Gospel message of the Bible is set aside. "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils," and turn to the living God.7 14. What reason is given as to why we should fear God? "For THE HOUR OF HIS JUDGMENT IS COME." 15. What did Paul say of the judgment in his day? "He hath APPOINTED A DAY, in the which He WILL judge the world." Acts 17:31.
"He reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and JUDGMENT TO COME." Acts 24:25. NOTE.—When the message of Revelation goes to the world it will not be to proclaim a judgment afar off, one to come, but a judgment impending. This message began at the close of the prophetic period of Dan. 8:14, "Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed." Those days ended in 1844. See SIGNS OF THE TIMES of Jan. 8, 1908. The cleansing of the sanctuary represented Christ's closing work, when "the mystery of God should be finished, as He hath declared to His servants the prophets." Rev. 10:7. The close of every probationary work is a judgment, and even thus the Gospel shall close. Rom. 2:16. That judgment will precede its execution at the second coming of Christ; for the righteous dead are not raised and then judged; but their cases are first examined, then adjudged; those "accounted worthy" have part in the first resurrection, and are raised immortal. Luke 20:35; 1 Cor. 15:51, 52. That investigation and determination of cases began in 1844, naturally with the first of the sleeping dead, and will proceed till the case of the last of the living is decided. That time we know not. "Be ye also ready." 16. What should we do in view of that judgment? 17. What only is true worship? "Thou shalt WORSHIP THE LORD THY GOD, and HIM ONLY shalt thou SERVE." Matt. 4:10.
"Why call ye Me Lord, Lord, and do NOT the things which I say?" Luke 6:46.
"If ye love Me, KEEP MY COMMANDMENTS." John 14:15. 18. Whom are we to worship? THE CREATOR. "Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." 19. What is the distinguishing mark between the true God and the false gods? 20. What special memorial of His creative works and sign of His recreative, sanctifying power has the Creator given? "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord [Jehovah] thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man servant, nor thy maid servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the LORD MADE HEAVEN AND EARTH, THE SEA, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: WHEREFORE the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." Ex. 20:8-11.
"Moreover also I gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and them, that they might KNOW that I am the LORD that SANCTIFY them." Eze. 20:12. NOTE.—He only who recognizes the true power of the Gospel can be a true Sabbath-keeper. He only can know the true rest—wrought by the creative power of God—there is in Christ Jesus. 21. What then does that Gospel message comprehend? Every positive truth of the saving, sanctifying power of God. It means the giving up of all human devices, the setting aside of all creeds, and the submission of every tradition of theory or practise to a "Thus saith the Lord." "Old-fashioned," "out-of-date," "antiquated," "the religion of a book," "the worship of a book," "Jewish," and many other kindred terms of reproach will be heaped upon it; nevertheless the religion of the Book is what regenerates and saves men from sin. It may be the weakness and foolishness of God, but it is stronger and wiser than men. 1 Cor. 1:25-31. What Rejection of God's Message Means.
22. How did ancient Babylon respond to God's desire? "We would have healed Babylon, but SHE IS NOT HEALED: forsake her, and let us go every one into his own country." Jer. 51:9. 23. How does modern Babylon treat God's message, and what is the result? "And there followed another angel, saying, BABYLON IS FALLEN, IS FALLEN, that great city, BECAUSE she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her FORNICATION." Rev. 14:8. 24. What does God call those who unite with the world, and what is their attitude to Him? "Ye ADULTERERS and ADULTERESSES, KNOW ye not that the FRIENDSHIP OF THE WORLD IS ENMITY WITH GOD! whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." James 4:4. 25. What is the duty of the Christian and the Christian church regarding the world? "LOVE NOT THE WORLD, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever." 1 John 2:15-17. 26. To whom alone is God's church lawfully united? "Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I AM MARRIED UNTO YOU." Jer. 3:14.
"I was an HUSBAND unto them, saith the Lord." Jer. 31:32.
"I have espoused you to ONE HUSBAND, that I may present you as a CHASTE VIRGIN TO CHRIST." 2 Cor. 11:2. 27. What does God call a union of His church with the world? 28. What has always been the tendency of the church which became backslidden from God? "Wo to the rebellious children, saith the Lord, that TAKE COUNSEL, BUT NOT OF ME; and that cover with a covering, but not of My Spirit, that they may add sin to sin; that walk to GO DOWN INTO EGYPT, and have not asked at My mouth; to STRENGTHEN THEMSELVES IN THE STRENGTH OF PHARAOH, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt." Isa. 30:1, 2.
"Wo to them that go down to EGYPT FOR HELP; and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many; and in horsemen, because they are very strong; but they LOOK NOT UNTO THE HOLY ONE OF ISRAEL, NEITHER SEEK THE LORD!" Isa. 31:1. NOTE.—Egypt and Assyria are types of civil powers. The principle is the same, whatever the nation or government. 29. What will be the final result of such union? "Therefore shall the strength of Pharaoh be your shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt your confusion." Isa. 30:2.
"Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit. When the Lord shall stretch out His hand, both HE THAT HELPEth SHALL FALL, AND HE THAT IS HELPED SHALL FALL DOWN, AND THEY ALL SHALL FAIL TOGETHER." Isa. 31:3. 30. What will inevitably follow when modern Babylon chooses her own way instead of God's way? "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich thru the abundance of her delicacies. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities." Rev. 18:2-5. See editorial, page 8. [The next reading is on the third part of God's great reform message, Rev. 14:9-14.]