FOURTEEN REASONS by G. W. A.

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 3, 1861

FOURTEEN REASONS

By G. W. A.

WHY I BELIEVE THE LORD IS SOON COMING.

1. The sun shall be supernaturally darkened before that awful day. PROOF. Matt. xxiv, 29. "Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened." Abundance of history shows this to have been most remarkably fulfilled, May 19, 1780.

2. The moon shall not give her light. PROOF. Mark xiii, 24. "But in these days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light." The same histories which show that the sun has been darkened, also show that at the same time the moon did refuse to give her light.

3. The stars shall fall. PROOF. Matt. xxiv, 29. "And the stars shall fall from heaven." Millions of living witnesses will now attest how this was fulfilled in 1833.

4. The gospel shall be universally preached before the end. PROOF. Matt. xxiv, 14. "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come." Reports of missionary operations and Bible societies tell us the gospel has been sounded to every tribe and language and people upon the face of the whole earth.

5. An unprecedented increase of knowledge. PROOF. Dan. xii, 4. "Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." Whether this means a great triumph of science, art, and literature, or knowledge on the Scriptures, particularly the prophecies, both are astonishing matters of fact,—though we think Bible knowledge is meant,—and the present generation are the witnesses of its fulfillment.

6. Heaping up treasures for the last days. PROOF. James v, 1–3. "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. . . . Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days." Every one can see how this prediction is verified in the present covetous, money-making, over-reaching, selfish age.

7. The general declension of piety among professing Christians. PROOF. 2 Tim. iii, 1–4. "This know also that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men ("Christians"—Wakefield's trans.) 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." Whether this dark picture is wholly fulfilled now or not, we all do know that the nominal church is fast becoming like a dead carcass, and that the vilest iniquities are cloaked up under the garb of piety.

8. The rise and progress of the doctrine of Spiritualism. PROOF. 1 Tim. iv, 1. "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils." This is the master-piece of Satan's deception, and is to flourish immediately in connection with the end of all things.

9. The proclamation of the three messages of Revelation. PROOF. Chap. xiv, 6–12. These messages, which we have not space to quote, follow in consecutive order; the first announcing that the hour of the judgment has come; the second, that the nominal churches are fallen; and the third, a reform upon the commandments of God. For the last twenty years the globe has rung with the doctrine of the coming of the Son of man, which is the crowning idea in these messages.

10. The prevalence of mockers and scoffers as they were to be in the last days. PROOF. Jude 18; 2 Pet. iii, 3. "There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of His coming?" Peter's scoffers and Jude's mockers are now developed wherever the doctrine of the Second Advent is preached, and by this we know that we have reached the days of the Son of man.

11. The anger of the nations, and a general preparation for war. PROOF. Rev. xi, 18; Jer. xxv, 15–38. "And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged." Those who watch the signs of the times, and carefully read the Bible, see in the present warlike attitude of the nations a most perfect fulfillment of this scripture, and by it understand that we are in close proximity to the last great day.

12. Rail-roads and steam chariots. PROOF. Nahum ii, 3–6. "The chariots shall be with flaming torches in the day of His preparation . . . they shall rage in the streets, they shall jostle one against another in the broadways: they shall seem like torches, they shall run like the lightnings." Millions of people who have been hurried over the ground at the rate of a mile a minute, and have wondered at this extraordinary invention of man, have never stopped to think that it is a fulfillment of prophecy, and a sure sign that we are in the days of God's preparation.

13. Likeness of the last days to the times of Noah and Lot. PROOF. Luke xvii, 26–30. "And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man." The last days are to be times of great iniquity and wickedness; the world is to wax worse and worse until men get so vile and so corrupt that God will rain fire and snares and brimstone and a horrible tempest upon their heads. Surely the wrath of God can be restrained but little longer from this wicked and pleasure-loving generation.

14, and last, though not least, A universal and general expectation of some great event. Like as it was at the first advent, when all men were "in expectation," so it is now. Every body believes we are just on the eve of some great and important event, but the Christian only knows what it is. While others are groping their way in darkness, let us be thankful that we have the heavenly light in our dwellings, and be always ready to give a reason of our advent hope.