The Great Background of Prophecy — There Need Be No Mistake
A KING is coming — not some petty tribal chieftain, nor yet the ruler of earth's mightiest nation, but the King of kings, and Lord of lords. The return of King Jesus is more than a theological doctrine; it is a tremendous fact.
Three hundred eighty times in the New Testament alone is the solemn event declared. One verse in each twenty-five proclaims it. Entire chapters are devoted to heralding the promises and the signs that are to precede His advent, while scattered from Genesis to Revelation are isolated texts enforcing the same mighty truth.
God has given, in these scriptures, a faithful picture of the generation called "the last"—the one that will witness His glorious appearing. He has painted the picture in vivid colors, that every eye may see it. The lines are very clear, for the painting is the Lord's. The picture has its high lights and its shades,—high lights of the gospel's conquering march, shades of sin, falling with awful weight upon a world intoxicated with iniquity.
THE SIGNBOARDS
A CLUSTER of signs which are the precursors of His coming stand out boldly in the foreground. Twenty-five centuries of fulfilled prophecy form the background. With one voice, they proclaim the coming
The swift recurring tidal waves, tornadoes, and other calamities announce it.
of our King. God has written it in heaven above and in earth beneath, announcing in advance certain unmistakable characteristics that will identify the last generation.
Unlimited in their scope, and unparalleled in their intensity, these characteristics will be found in every clime, and recognized in every walk of life. There are world signs, conspicuous and indisputable because of their universality and their intensity. Doubtless each one has been witnessed in certain localities, in a minor degree, at some time. But the time prophesied must come, when they will meet in the superlative degree, and in a single generation.
The generation now living is witnessing the incontrovertible signs which identify it as the last. This generation is marked. The living God has placed His signboards in every walk of life,—in the industrial world, the financial world, the social world, the physical world, the political world, the religious world, the scientific world, and in every other sphere of human activity, that all men everywhere may read and heed these portents of our times.
THE LABORER AND THE CAPITALIST
LET us notice, as briefly as is compatible with clearness, a few of these undeniable signs of our times. In James 5: 1-9, we are informed that in "the last days," men will "heap" treasures together; that the laborers will be oppressed, and defrauded of their wages; and that the industrial conflicts will grow more and more bitter.
The unprecedented fortunes being amassed by corporations and syndicates to an extent unparalleled in history, declare that we have reached the time foretold. How graphically present conditions fit the prophetic picture! The colossal fortunes, the wasteful luxuries, the starvation wages, the tremendous struggle of the force of capital against the force of labor, the harvest of lawlessness, springing from seeds of greed, injustice, and extortion — and all in "the last days."
The New York World of May 1, 1916, informs us that there were "one million eight hundred thousand workers on strike or lockout throughout the United States to-day." And this same restless spirit is rife in every nation.
Mr. Frank E. Walsh, chairman of the Federal Commission of Industrial Relations, says: "We have found that in this country of the greatest resources and education, one third of the toilers are receiving remuneration
which barely brings them above the poverty line. Two thirds are in abject poverty. There are more than nine million women workers in this country, more than one half of whom are receiving less than six dollars per week."
The irrepressible conflict is growing more sinister. Beneath the extravagant displays and dissipations of opulence may be distinctly heard the mutterings and threatenings of the social volcano that is destined to erupt as surely as effect follows cause.
PREPAREDNESS CRAZE FORETOLD
ANOTHER remarkable prophecy is found in Joel 3: 9-14. Here is recorded a call to "prepare war," to "wake up" the nations, to forge mighty slaughter weapons — and all this to take place when "the day of the Lord is near," when the great harvest (at the end of the world, Matt. 13: 39) is "ripe."
"Prepare war!" cried the prophet. "We must have preparedness," reply the modern statesmen.
"Wake up!" says the prophecy. "Let the nations awake and arm themselves," respond the helmsmen of our ships of state.
"Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears," continues the prophet. "We must build great arsenals and mammoth munitions factories; we must increase our army and navy; we must equip our fighting forces with the mightiest engines of destruction that can be devised," respond our modern preparedness advocates.
Can we not see the tremendous significance of it all? God has been writing an advance history of the world, and now the events foretold are in process of fulfillment. Inspiration is confirmed. God's word is true, and among the events of the immediate future predicted with fearful accuracy is the approaching advent of our King.
"MANY SHALL RUN TO AND FRO"
TURN again to Dan. 12: 4, and observe that in "the time of the end," "many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." The tidal wave of ingenuity and progress that has swept over the world in the past ten decades, came not by chance. It is here in response to the call of God to bring into service every conceivable agency for the speedy finishing of His work on the earth.
In unmistakable language God has predicted it. "Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." Why?—For "this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come." Matt. 24: 14. How complete is the preparation for the world-wide work! Steel rails span every continent. The printing press is flooding the world with literature in every language. The universal postal systems spread the glad tidings. Ocean greyhounds of marvelous size and speed throng every sea, with gospel messengers aboard. Motor cycle and automobile shorten the work of the missionary, while the telephone and the telegraph have drawn the ends of the earth together. The whole world has been made accessible. Ample provision has been made for the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom just before the end. Can we not see what these things signify?
TREMENDOUS AWAKENING
THE glad news of the Master's speedy return, foretold in Matt. 24: 14, is sweeping to earth's remotest bounds. A consecrated company of more than five thousand men and women are devoting their entire time and energy to proclaiming this one mighty fact to every nation,—that the final period is about to be placed upon the last page of earth's sin-stained history. And with the sound of this united army is mingled the sound of a multitude of other voices that here and there help to swell the warning cry. The divine plan is working out. In 1800 there were only632
four missionary societies in the world. To-day there are 995, with a total force of 22,058 foreign missionaries and 88,542 native workers. On May 7, 1804, the British and Foreign Bible Society was organized. May 8, 1816, marked the founding of the American Bible Society. To-day these two societies alone have 16,000 auxiliary and affiliated societies. The Bible is printed at the rate of 20,000,000 copies a year, in over five hundred distinct forms of human speech. Such are the preparations for this world-wide work.
"God has given, in these scriptures, a faithful picture of the generation called 'the last.' The negative of current history has produced the picture corresponding to the prophetic description."
FEATURES OF OUR TIME
LISTEN also to the prophetic description of twenty additional yet prominent characteristics of "the last days," as recorded in 2 Tim. 3: 1-5: "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."
What a startling arraignment of the conditions of the twentieth century! The feverish haste of the twentieth century has produced an unquenchable thirst for amusement. The death grip that pleasure has upon this generation is forcibly illustrated by the fact that over $350,000,000 annually passes from the pockets of the habitués of moving picture shows in this country alone into the tills of the promoters. Men have eagerly seized upon this pleasure craze, and as a cold business proposition, they spend as high as one million dollars in the production of a single film.
It is the love of money that is corrupting the age. It corrupts the politicians. It blinds the judges. It blinds the legislators. Even professed ministers of the gospel have caught the mania. How unlike Him whom they profess to follow, who had not where to lay His head!
The nations are learning by bitter experience the truthfulness of the statement that this is the day of the truce-breakers. These conditions, prevalent to a degree unknown to the centuries of the past, point the finger at the present and cry out, "These are the last days."
WILD CARNIVAL OF CRIME
WE stand upon the threshold of troublous times. We are in the midst of a wild carnival of crime, and the reign of lawlessness is encouraged by the strangling of justice. We are living in the time foretold by the Master in Luke 21: 25-27, when "there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory."
The prophecies of the last days are in process of fulfillment. The negative of current history has produced the picture corresponding to the prophetic description.
The ever multiplying pests,—insects, parasites, and diseases,—that destroy the crops, declare it. (Joel 1: 4; 2: 1.)
The swift recurring tidal waves, tornadoes, and other calamities announce it.
The old earth herself trembles it forth; for the steady increase of continent-shaking earthquakes is an unmistakable herald of the end. (Luke 21: 25; Matt. 24: 7.) The ravages of "free love," "trial marriages," "affinities," and the alarming disintegration of the home so characteristic of the century, point it out. (Matt. 24: 37-39, compared with Gen. 6: 2.)
Truth could not be more direct, exact, conclusive. This generation is the last. O soul, prepare to meet thy King!
L. E. F.
