THE WORLD'S STATE AT CHRIST'S RETURN.
By Archibald A. Brown
A SERMON PREACHED BY ARCHIBALD A. BROWN, IN THE EAST LONDON TABERNACLE, ENGLAND. "But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." Matt. 24:37-39. It seems the general idea that the world is to be gradually improved, and ultimately won by the agencies now at work; and that with united missionary societies, civilization, printing-presses, preaching, philosophy, and education, this fallen world is to be brought back again into the condition of Paradise. This text comes and cuts at the very root of this belief. It calls out with clarion note, "No, the world is never going to be won by agencies now at work; the world is not gradually to improve until the Son of man cometh; the world is not by progressive stages to be made fit for him, so that when Christ comes he shall only have to step into a world that has been regenerated for him by his servants." "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of man." A child can surely understand the force of "as" and "so." You have only to discover how the world was in the days of Noah to know what the world will be when Christ comes. As then, so now. These are the words of the Lord himself. It is the Christ who is coming, who tells us how he will find the world; and he says to his disciples, "I shall find the world busy about eating and drinking, and marrying and giving in marriage. I shall find the world as careless and thoughtless about me as it was careless and thoughtless about the testimony of Noah. I know they will keep right on, sunk in pleasure and sin, until the Judgment comes and takes them all away." I can imagine some are almost ready to say, "If the fancy we have entertained, that the world is going to be regenerated before the coming of Christ, is a pretty and blessed one, and serves to stimulate the missionary spirit, do you not think it almost a pity to cut and tear such an idea into shreds?" No, it is absolutely necessary, for many reasons. We will only mention one or two. If for no other reason than this, the idea must be dissipated- THE INTRINSIC VALUE OF TRUTH.
Let us hold that which is true. I do not want my zeal to be encouraged by a picturesque fiction. It is because the church so unwisely talks about the world being won by its agency, that the scoffers have such a magnificent opportunity of taunting us. I do not wonder at the skeptic turning round and saying, "You are going to win the world by preaching? Why, at the present rate you will have to go on millions and millions of years, and then you will be no nearer. Win the world by preaching! Why, the increase of all your churches put together scarcely amounts to the increase of the population!" Many a servant of God has had his faith staggered, and become chill in his work through disappointment. Why is he disappointed? He expects that which God has never promised. But let me only know that my work as a servant of God is to bear witness. Let me not anticipate that which God has never promised, and I am proof against all the scoffs of the world. They may say to me, "You are not converting the world." My reply is, "I do not expect to." They may jeeringly say, "The world has not got much better through your agency." I answer, "No, I expect it to get worse." And it is absolutely necessary that we should have a right opinion of this truth, because it will keep us always looking for Christ. If I believe that the world is to be a second Paradise before he returns, it is absurd to tell me I am always to be looking for him. It is for this reason that many are not on the qui vive waiting for their Master. They think that a great deal has first to be done with the world. But, as far as the condition of the world is concerned, Christ might come this morning. The world at his coming will be precisely what it was in the days of Noah, and I think it would be no very difficult to show you, that as it was in the days of Noah, so it is now. Let us look at the condition of the world in the days of Noah. That "as" will throw a flood of light upon the "so." Turn to Gen. 6:5: "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." Pass on to 5:12, "And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah: The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence." Take the very opposite of the description generally given of the state of the world at the coming of the Lord, and you get the exact truth. Do not run away with the idea that I am laying down any theory. I want to pin you down to these two words, "as" and "so." "God looked down, upon the world." What did he see? That the wickedness of man was great in the earth. He saw that the earth was corrupt. He looked again, and he said, "It is filled with violence, and I will destroy it;" and "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of man." The age of Noah was essentially "For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage"-that is, these things formed the staple of their existence; the aim and end of the lives of the men of those days was self-gratification. I do not say that they were thieving, or murdering, or doing any very awful deeds; no, they were all enjoying themselves; they were living as if there were no impending flood-it was just a hunt after pleasure. As old Matthew Henry very quaintly puts it, "There was no sin in their eating and drinking-the sin lay in this; they were eating and drinking when they ought to have been praying and repenting." It was just the sum total of their lives-they were given up to pleasure. They had their dinner parties, and their supper parties, and their balls, and their dancing; and the one idea of the day was, "Let us enjoy ourselves-life was given us to enjoy-do not let us be so straight-laced; as for that old Noah, he is an antiquated fool, he does not understand how the world wags; let us be as happy and as joyful as we can." The characteristic of the age was self-indulgence. What is to be the characteristic of the age in which Christ shall come? Precisely the same. Notice that our Lord put an emphasis on the word "until." "They were eating and drinking, and marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." Down to the very moment when Christ comes, the characteristic of the age will be self-indulgence and self-pleasing. Does the New Testament correspond with this in its prediction concerning the last days? Paul writes to Timothy: "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come." What is the chief characteristic? "For men shall be lovers of their own selves," and "lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God." And all this is to be combined with a certain religiousness, "having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." Now, I ask you, will you tell me that the present condition of the world is such that Jesus Christ could not come to-day? There is not precisely what it was as it was then? There are thoughtful men who are becoming exceedingly anxious about the self-indulgence, the self-pleasing, the luxuriousness of modern life. The whole simplicity of life has in a very measure passed away; the sons want to begin where the fathers leave off. If there is more wealth, there is a larger proportion of that wealth spent on self-pleasing. There is an amount of luxury and sensual gratification now which may well appall any thoughtful man. It was not only an essentially worldly age, but it was also For it says, "and God saw that the wickedness of man was great"-great as to quantity, and as to quality also. There were gross sins, and they abounded on every hand. A defiling wave of impurity and sin had rolled over the world, just before the flood, and the whole race had become corrupt. I daresay many will turn round and object, "Yes, but you will hardly say that is the condition of the world now-the world is a great deal more civilized than it used to be." In civilization righteousness? Will you confound these two things together? Civilization is a very thin gauze veil which the world has cast over its rotten and iniquitous life. Lift up the gossamer413veil, and you will find festering sores and putrid wounds. "Oh," say some, "but I am sure our country is much better than it was. Think of the days of Charles II.-think of what the Court used to be." Stay a moment. If sin was more pronounced then, was it more general? And bear in mind, that the sinfulness of the present age is intensified by the fact that it is sinfulness in such a blaze of gospel light as the world never had before. They are shallow thinkers who bring up the state of society some centuries back, and say, "Oh, we are not so bad now as they were then." Were chapels within five minutes walk of each other? Was God's testimony rung out to the world then as it is now? If you put on the one hand the extra Christian effort, and then put on the other side the diminished amount of iniquity, I think you will have come to the conclusion, though it is a very sad one, that the positive wickedness of the world is just as great now as ever it was. You have read about the "Ober Ammergau" play in Germany. Estimate, if you can, the amount of wickedness that lies in the world by this fact-that at the present time, after the gospel of Jesus has been preached for eighteen centuries, thousands pour from every part of the world, chiefly from England and America, to see-what? I confess I almost tremble as I describe it-to see Christ's bloody sweat and Christ's death acted as a drama! and, as one newspaper correspondent says-and he did not apparently think that there was anything at all amazing in it-"I have observed that the next popular character to Jesus Christ is Judas Iscariot." IT WAS AN AGE OF VIOLENCE.
The Lord looked down, and violence filled the earth. I suppose in those days there were quarrels on a par with lawsuits in these days; the strong oppressed the weak, the rich ground down the poor, there were party fights, family feuds, and God saw ornamental murder in the shape of war, and he so abhorred it, that he said the earth was full of violence. "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of man." Is not the earth full of violence now? Run your eyes down the columns of a morning paper, and see whether a large percentage of every column is not occupied with a record of violence, of wrong or outrage. What a witness of oppression do our law courts give! The nations are burdened with an awful militaryism. Look at Austria, Italy, France, Germany, groaning under the load. What does militaryism mean? It means filling the earth with violence. See how Germany is honeycombed with bloodthirsty socialism, and Russia with frenzied nihilism. The whole social world is seething and roaring. And it is not going to calm down. "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of man." IT WAS ALSO AN AGE OF DISREGARDED TESTIMONY.
God was not without his witness. Do you think that it was not known all through the length and breadth of the land?-"There is an old man who says that God is going to send a flood, and he believes in it himself that he is actually building a big ark." In all ages God has raised up men who have been witnesses for him, and so will it be until the coming of the Son of man. And how much notice did they take of the testimony? "They knew not until the flood came and took them all away." Why did not they know? Because they would not know. They were willingly ignorant. They did not believe the testimony. Every dispensation yet has ended in judgement. And as it has been, so it will be; judgement is to be the end of this dispensation. The witnesses will bear witness until the coming of the Son of man; and the other side will be as true-thousands will reject the witness, and will not know until the flood comes and takes them all away. Let us use both the "as" and the "so" as a warning and as an encouragement. The "as" and the "so" will hold good in their final results. As it was then, so will it be when the Son of man comes. How was it with the skeptics? how was it with the pleasure-seekers? how was it with the men steeped in sensuality? how was it with those who did acts of violence? They were all drowned. They did not know until the flood came and took them all away." I do not think it needs a very vivid imagination to picture the scene, when they awoke to their condition-too late. What a rush there was to the ark then, and the Lord knew there would be, and so had taken the precaution to shut the door. I fancy I can hear them knocking and crying out to Noah, "For God's sake, let us in." He replies, "For a hundred and twenty years I warned you; only a week ago I gave my last witness." "Noah, for God's sake, let us in." "I cannot," he answers, "the Lord has shut the door." And as it was then, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of man. The "as" and "so" hold good also. As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of man." All who were in the ark were perfectly safe. What did it matter to Noah whether the billows rose or not? The higher the waters rose, the nearer he went to heaven. Not one died in the ark. I read, "And the Lord remembered Noah and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark." Dear soul, hast thou fled to Christ? The Lord put wings to your feet to-day. CHRIST IS COMING. Ye saints bear witness for him. CHRIST IS COMING! Ye sinners trust him. Amen.-The (London) Christian of October 28, 1880.