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Signs of the Times, Vol. 5, No. 32.

General Articles

Signs of the Times

Aug 21, 1879

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, Cal. · Aug 21, 1879

General Articles.

By Ellen G. White

The Sufferings of Christ.

BY MRS. E. G. WHITE.
(Continued.)
THE fearful hour in Gethsemane is passed. Our divine Saviour has accepted the cup to drain it to the dregs. In behalf of man he has conquered in the hour of temptation. Serenity and calmness are now seen in the pale and blood-stained face. And the third time he comes to his disciples and finds them overcome with sleep. Sorrowfully and pityingly he looked upon them, and said, "Sleep on now, and take your rest; behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners." Even while these words were upon his lips, he heard the footsteps of the mob that was in search of him. Judas took the lead, and was closely followed by the high priest. Jesus aroused his disciples with these words: "Rise, let us be going; behold, he is at hand that doth betray me." The countenance of Christ wore an expression of calm dignity. The traces of his recent agony were not visible as he walked forth to meet his betrayer.
Jesus steps out in front of his disciples, and inquires, "Whom seek ye?" They answer, "Jesus of Nazareth." Jesus replies, "I am he." At these words the mob stagger backward; and the priest, the elders, the hardened soldiers, and even Judas, fall powerless to the ground, giving ample opportunity for Christ to release himself if he chose. But he stands as one glorified amid that coarse and hardened band. As Jesus said, "I am he," the angel which had ministered to him in his anguish, moved between him and the murderous mob. They see a divine light glorifying the Saviour's face, and a dove-like form overshadowing him. Their sinful hearts are filled with terror. They cannot stand for a moment in the presence of divine glory, but fall as dead men to the ground.
The angel withdrew, and left Jesus standing calm and self-possessed, with the bright beams of the moon upon his pale face, and still surrounded by prostrate, helpless men, while the disciples were too much amazed to utter a word. As the angel removes, the hardened Roman soldiers start to their feet, and, with the priest and Judas, they gather about Christ as though ashamed of their weakness, and fearful that he would yet escape out of their hands. Again the question is asked by the world's Redeemer, "Whom seek ye?" Again they answer, "Jesus of Nazareth." Jesus answered, "I have told you that I am he. If, therefore, ye seek me, let these go their way." In this hour of humiliation Christ's thoughts are not for himself, but for his beloved disciples. He wishes to save them from any further trial of their strength.
Judas, the betrayer of our Saviour, does not forget his part, but comes close to Jesus, and takes his hand as a familiar friend, and bestows the traitor's kiss. Jesus says to him, "Friend, wherefore art thou come?" His voice trembled with sorrow as he addressed deluded Judas. "Betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?" This most touching appeal should have aroused the conscience of Judas, and touched his stubborn heart; but honor, fidelity, and even human tenderness seemed to have left him. He stood bold and defiant, showing no disposition to relent. He had given himself up to the control of Satan, to work wickedness, and he had no will to resist. Jesus did not resist the traitor's kiss. In this he gives us an example of forbearance, love, and pity, that is without a parallel.
Though the murderous throng are surprised and awed by what they have seen and felt, their assurance and hardihood returns as they see the boldness of Judas in touching the person of Christ, whom so recently they had seen glorified. They lay violent hands upon Jesus, and are about to bind those precious hands that had ever been employed in doing good.
As the disciples saw that band of hardened men lie prostrate and helpless on the ground, they thought surely their Master would not suffer himself to be taken. The same power that prostrated that hireling mob could have kept them there, and Jesus could have passed on his way unharmed. They are disappointed and indignant as they see the cords brought forward to bind the hands of him whom they love. Peter in his vehement anger strikes rashly, and cuts off an ear of the servant of the high priest.
When Jesus saw what Peter had done, he released his hands, already held by the Roman soldiers, and, saying, "Suffer ye thus far," he touched the ear of the wounded man, and instantly it is made whole. Even to his enemies, who are bound to take his life, he here gives unmistakable evidence of his divine power. Jesus said to Peter, "Put up again thy sword into his place; for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?" "The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" Jesus said unto the chief priest, and captains of the temple, who helped compose that murderous throng, "Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and with staves to take me? I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and ye took me not; but the Scriptures must be fulfilled."
When the disciples saw that Jesus did not deliver himself from his enemies, but permitted himself to be taken, they forsook him and fled, leaving their Master alone. Christ had foreseen this desertion, and had told them in the upper chamber before it took place, what they would do: "Behold the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered every man to his own, and shall leave me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me."
The Saviour of the world was hurried to the judgment hall of an earthly court, there to be derided and condemned to death, by sinful men. There the glorious Son of God was "wounded for our transgressions, was bruised for our iniquities." He bore insult, mockery, and shameful abuse, until his "visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men."
Who can comprehend the love here displayed? The angelic host beheld with wonder and with grief Him who had been the majesty of Heaven, and who had worn the crown of glory, now wearing the crown of thorns, a bleeding victim to the rage of an infuriated mob, who were fired to insane madness by the wrath of Satan. Behold the patient sufferer! Upon his head is the thorny crown! His life blood flows from every lacerated vein! All this was in consequence of sin! Nothing could have induced Christ to leave his honor and majesty in Heaven, and come to a sinful world, to be neglected, despised, and rejected, by those he came to save, and finally to suffer upon the cross, but eternal, redeeming love, which will ever remain a mystery.
Wonder, O Heavens, and be astonished, O earth! Behold the oppressor and the oppressed! A vast multitude inclose the Saviour of the world. Mockings and jeerings are mingled with the coarse oaths of blasphemy.
His lowly birth and humble life are commented upon by unfeeling wretches. His claim to be the Son of God is ridiculed by the chief priests and elders, and the vulgar jest and insulting derision are passed from lip to lip. Satan was having full control of the minds of his servants. In order to do this effectually, he commences with the chief priests and elders, and imbues them with religious frenzy. They are actuated by the same satanic spirit which moves the most vile and hardened wretches.
There is a corrupt harmony in the feelings of all, from the hypocritical priests and elders down to the most debased. Christ, the precious Son of God, was led forth, and the cross was laid upon his shoulders. At every step was left blood which flowed from his wounds. Thronged by an immense crowd of bitter enemies and unfeeling spectators, he is led away to the crucifixion. "He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth."
His sorrowing disciples follow him at a distance, behind the murderous throng. He is nailed to the cross, and hangs suspended between the heavens and the earth. Their hearts are bursting with anguish as their beloved Teacher is suffering as a criminal. Close to the cross are the blind, bigoted, faithless priests and elders, taunting, mocking, and jeering: "Thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God come down from the cross. Likewise also the chief priests mocking him with the scribes and elders, said, he saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusted in God, let him deliver him now, if he will have him; for he said I am the Son of God."
Not one word did Jesus answer to all this. Even while the nails were being driven through his hands and the sweat-drops of agony were forced from his pores, from the pale quivering lips of the innocent sufferer a prayer of pardoning love was breathed for his murderers: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." All Heaven was gazing with profound interest upon the scene. The glorious Redeemer of a lost world was suffering the penalty of man's transgression of the Father's law. He was about to ransom his people with his own blood. He was paying the just claims of God's holy law. This was the means through which an end was to be finally made of sin and Satan, and his vile host to be vanquished.
Oh, was there ever suffering and sorrow like that endured by the dying Saviour! It was the sense of his Father's displeasure which made his cup so bitter. It was not bodily suffering which so quickly ended the life of death upon the cross. It was the crushing weight of the sins of the world, and a sense of his Father's wrath that broke his heart. The Father's glory and sustaining presence had left him, and despair pressed its crushing weight of darkness upon him, and forced from his pale and quivering lips the anguished cry: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
Jesus had united with the Father in making the world. Amid the agonizing sufferings of the Son of God, blind and deluded men alone remain unfeeling. The chief priests and elders revile God's dear Son while in his expiring agonies. Yet inanimate nature groans in sympathy with her bleeding, dying Author. The earth trembles. The sun refuses to behold the scene. The heavens gather blackness. Angels have witnessed the scene of suffering, until they can look on no longer, and hide their faces from the horrid sight. Christ is in despair! He is dying! His Father's approving smile is removed, and angels are not permitted to lighten the gloom of the terrible hour. They could only behold in amazement their loved Commander suffering the penalty of man's transgression of the Father's law.
Even doubts assailed the dying Son of God. He could not see through the portals of the tomb. Bright hope did not present to him his coming forth from the tomb a conqueror, and his Father's acceptance of his sacrifice. The sin of the world with all its terribleness was felt to the utmost by the Son of God. The displeasure of the Father for sin, and its penalty which was death, were all that he could realize through this amazing darkness. He was tempted to fear that sin was so offensive in the sight of his Father that he could not be reconciled to his Son. The fierce temptation that his own Father had forever left him, caused that piercing cry from the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
(To be Continued.)

The Immortality of the Soul.—History of the Doctrine.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

(Continued.)

THE RESURRECTION—THE EGYPTIANS.

The Egyptians were among the most ancient of nations. It is a well-known fact that they were celebrated for embalming the dead. This they did at great expense, and so effectually that many bodies, called mummies, are preserved in quite a perfect condition to the present day.
Their object in thus embalming their dead was to preserve the body for the resurrection. This is admitted by the ablest scholars, as will be seen by the following testimonies which are from the very best authorities. The first is from Calmet’s Dictionary of the Bible: "The ancient Egyptians, and the Hebrews in imitation of them, embalmed the bodies of the dead. . . . The art of physic was by the Egyptians ascribed to Isis, and in particular the remedy which procured immortality, which, in my opinion, was no other than that of embalming bodies, and rendering them incorruptible." (Art. to Embalm.) This language is remarkable. Their first idea of immortality was to preserve the body from decay till it should live again, and thus become immortal. "That the custom of embalming was very ancient in Egypt, is shown from the practice of cutting the bodies with an Ethiopian stone. Some mummies also bear the date of the oldest kings." (Egypt, and the Books of Moses, p. 71.)Our next testimony on this point is from that celebrated work, "Kitto’s Biblical Cyclopedia." Kitto says: "The feeling which led the Egyptians to embalm the dead, probably sprung from their belief in the future reunion of the soul with the body. Such a reunion is distinctly spoken of in the 'Book of the Dead;' and obscure as is the subject, probably on account of the obscurity of the details of the Egyptian belief, the statements are sufficiently positive to make this general conclusion certain." (Art. Embalming.) Thus we see that this critical author considers it certain that embalming was practiced to preserve the body from decay till its reunion with the soul, or till it should live again. What is more natural than this conclusion? and if this were not their object in embalming their dead, what could it have been? Mr. Chambers says: "This art [that of embalming] seems to have derived its origin from the idea that the preservation of the body was necessary for the return of the soul to the human form, after it had completed its cycle of the existence of three or ten thousand years." (Chambers’ Cyclopedia, Art. Embalming.)
We will now introduce another witness, Mr. Bunsen, whose testimony on this subject should be decisive. No author could be better prepared to judge than he is. "The real meaning," he says, "of the celebrated passage in Herodotus (ii, 135) about the reason why the Egyptians bestowed so much care on the preservation of the body, and, as it were, on preventing it from passing away, must have been this: The belief in a resurrection of the body. . . . Man justified is one with God, the eternal Creator, self-created. His bodily organ, therefore, is holy. This doctrine we may now read in every page of the sacred books. Hence, the popular notion in Egypt, that, unless its old human envelop were preserved, the soul would be subject to disturbances and hindrances in performing its destined course. . . . The Greeks and Romans had an equal faith in burial as necessary to insure the entry of the soul into the invisible world of spirits."
Another able author says: "The practice of embalming was not peculiar to Egypt. It was practiced among many nations of the Old World, and is in use among some people even at the present day." (Egyptian Antiquities, vol. 2, p. 121.)
Thus the earliest doctrine of a future life was that it must be obtained through the resurrection of the body.

THE ANCIENT PERSIANS.

The ancient Persians were among the oldest nations of antiquity, the immediate descendants of Noah. It is well known that they too hoped for a future immortality through the resurrection of the body. Says Alger, stating their doctrine: " 'But at last Ormuzd will rise in his might, and put an end to these awful scenes. He will send on earth a saviour, Sosiosch, to deliver mankind, to wind up the final period of time, and to bring the arch-enemy to judgment. At the sound of the voice of Sosiosch the dead will come forth. Good, bad, indifferent—all alike will rise, each in his order. Kaiomorts, the original single ancestor of men, will be the first-ling. Next Meschia and Meschiane, the primal parent pair, will appear. And then the whole multitudinous family of mankind will throng up. The genii of the elements will render up the sacred materials intrusted to them, and rebuild the decomposed bodies. . . . 'At the appointed epoch, Ahriman shall be subdued,' and 'men shall live again, and shall be immortal.'" (The Doctrine of a Future Life, Alger, part I, chap. i, pp. 138, 139.)
Here, again, the same primitive faith in a future immortality through the resurrection is expressed.

THE ANCIENT ARABS.

Between Egypt and Persia lived the Arabians, one of the most ancient of the nations. They believed in a future life, but not in the immortality of the soul. So says the very learned Dr. Good, who was himself a believer in the doctrine that the soul is immortal. He writes thus: "If we turn from Persia, Egypt, and Hindoostan, to Arabia, . . . we shall find the entire subject left in as blank and barren a silence as the deserts by which they are surrounded; or, if touched upon, only touched upon to betray doubt, and sometimes disbelief. The tradition, indeed, of a future state of retributive justice seems to have reached the schools of this part of the world, and to have been generally, though perhaps not universally, accredited; but the future existence it alludes to is that of a resurrection of the body, and not of a survival of the soul after the body’s dissolution." "And the same general idea has, for the most part, descended in the same country to the present day." (Book of Nature, Series 3, § 2, p. 372.)
This is another good proof as to what was the ancient faith of men.

THE MOHAMMEDANS.

The Mohammedans arose in Arabia in the seventh century, and now number over 160,000,000, more than one-tenth of the entire population of the world. Says Alger: "A very prominent doctrine in the Moslem creed is that of the resurrection of the body. This is a central feature in the orthodox faith." (Doctrine of a Future Life, p. 201.)
"They are not agreed on the subject of the condition of the soul between death and the resurrection. On this they have argued and speculated much, but they are still divided. The souls of the prophets, it is thought, are admitted directly to Heaven. The souls of martyrs, according to a tradition received from Mohammed, rest in Heaven, in the crops of green birds that eat of the fruits and drink of the rivers there. As to the location of the souls of the great mass of the faithful, the conclusions are various. Some maintain that their souls and those of the impious will alike sleep in the dust until the end, when Israfil’s blast shall stir them into life to be judged." (Ibid.)
The learned Dr. Good confirms this testimony thus: "Yet in this sublime and magnificent poem, replete with all the learning and wisdom of the age, the doctrine upon the subject before us is merely, as I have just stated it, a patriarchal or traditional belief of a future state of retributive justice, not by the natural immortality of the soul, but by a resurrection of the body. And the general idea has, for the most part, descended in the same country to the present day; for the Alcoran [the sacred book of the Mohammedans] which is perpetually appealing to the latter fact, leaves the former almost untouched and altogether in a state of indecision; whence the expounders of the Eslam scriptures, both Sonnites and Motazzalites, or orthodox and heterodox, are divided upon the subject, some embracing and others rejecting." (Book of Nature, pp. 372-3.)
From modern nations they have to some extent imbibed the notion that the soul lives without the body, though this view is not held by all. The primitive doctrine of the resurrection is still firmly held.

THE JEWS.

The Jews were the near neighbors and contemporaries of the Arabians. We have the history of their ancestors from Adam. God directly and frequently instructed them concerning a future life. That, as a nation, they were firm believers in the resurrection of the dead, is well known to all readers of the Bible. We need not argue that point here. But many learned men who believe in the immortality of the soul have frankly confessed that nothing is said upon this subject in the Bible.
Olshausen, in his comments on 1 Cor. 15:13, says, "The doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and the name, are alike unknown to the entire Bible." This is a good confession, and here is another of the same kind. Bishop Tillotson, in his sermons of 1774, vol. ii, says, "The immortality of the soul is rather supposed, or taken for granted, than expressly revealed in the Bible." This is virtually admitting the whole question.
Dr. Bagnall, in the Methodist Quarterly Review for April, 1852, while advocating the natural immortality of man, makes this confession: "In the Bible, we think, there is no passage which can be strictly said to declare that all human souls are immortal." The celebrated Richard Watson corroborates this statement thus: "That the soul is naturally immortal . . . is contradicted by the Scripture, which makes our immortality a gift dependent on the will of the giver." (Theol. Inst., vol. ii, part 2, chap. xviii, p. 83.)
Mr. Alger, in his late popular book, says: "The whole tenor and drift of the representations in the Old Testament show that the state of disembodied souls is deep quietude. Freed from bondage, pain, toil, and care, they repose in silence." (Doctrine of a Future Life, chap. vii, p. 153.)
Archbishop Whately, in his "Revelations of a Future State," says: "To the Christian, indeed, all this doubt should be instantly removed, if he found that the immortality of the soul, as a disembodied spirit, were revealed in the word of God. . . . In fact, however, no such doctrine is revealed to us; the Christian’s hope, as founded on the promises contained in the gospel, is the resurrection of the body." (Quoted by Horne in the Watch Tower, p. 8.)
Bishop Lowth, in his "Lectures on Hebrew Poetry," p. 78, says, "We there find no exact account, no explicit mention, of immortal spirits." (Ibid. p. 12.) This is a significant confession, since the bishop was a firm believer in the soul’s immortality.
Dr. Neander, says, "It was an old Jewish notion that immortality was not foun'ed upon the nature of the soul, but was a peculiar gift of divine grace." (Church History, p. 444.)
Here is another good admission from an orthodox writer: "We would express our conviction that the idea of the immortality of the soul has no source in the gospel, that it comes, on the contrary, from the Platonists." (Darby’s Hopes of the Church.)
Says Gibbon: "We discover that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is omitted in the law of Moses." (Decline and Fall, vol. i, chap. 15, p. 530.) Milman thus admits the same: "Modern writers have accounted in various ways for the silence of the Hebrew legislator on the immortality of the soul." (Ibid. note.)
Nemesius, bishop of Emesa, in the fifth century, thus states the doctrine of the Jews: "The Hebrews say that originally man was made evidently neither mortal nor immortal, but on the confines of either nature; so that if he should yield to the bodily affections, he should share also the changes of the body; but if he should prefer the nobler affections of the soul, he should be deemed worthy of immortality." (De Natura Hominis, chap. i. Quoted by Hudson, Debt and Grace, p. 310.) This plainly shows the faith of the ancient Hebrews, as well as the doctrine of the Bible upon this point.

CHRISTIANS.

It is well known that, with isolated exceptions, simply here and there one, the great body of the Christian nations have from first to last firmly held to the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. This is true of the Greek church, numbering about 70,000,000; the Catholic church, about 170,000,000; and the Protestant churches, about 90,000,000, about one-quarter of the race. We mention this to show how large a place the doctrine of the resurrection has always had in the faith of men; and it is because this is what God taught men from the very beginning of the world. Since that time, they have corrupted this simple doctrine by a thousand speculations of their own. D. M. CANRIGHT. (To be Continued.)

PEACE.

By Amanda T. Jones

THERE fell upon my soul a shadow dreary— 'Twas the heart's evening following its day— With its long thought my toiling brain was weary, And scarce could frame the prayer my lips would say.
In the soul's oratorio, kneeling lowly, Thus with the Giver of my life I plead: “O! let the seraph, Peace, high-browed and holy, Bind her white flowers about my aching head.”
All my sad soul dissolved in that petition; Then to my prayer a still, small voice replied, “Peace, of love's labor is the glad fruition; The heritage that waits the furnace-tried.”
Then, answer made I none; my heart was shaken; As the spent dove, held by the hungry hawk, So was my soul by gray-winged Dread o'ertaken, And felt strange fears its bitter anguish mock.
Then said I to my soul, “Where is thy labor? And where the cure thy healing touch hath wrought? Hast thou sought out thy sorrowing friend or neighbor, And fed him with the bread of holy thought? Hast thou not loved thyself, O! mournful spirit, More than all things upon the earth that be? Thou hast. Then thine own bitter thoughts inherit; For the white flowers of Peace are not for thee— Never for thee, until thou hast forgotten Thy selfish sorrows in another's woe! Then shall sweet Peace, of love and truth begotten, Around thy brow her snowy chaplet throw.”
—Amanda T. Jones, in Ladies' Repository.

The Coming of the Lord.

By George Muller

At the Advent Conference held in Mildmay Park, London, June, 1879, Mr. George Muller, founder of the Bristol Orphanages, whose work of faith is so well known in the world, preached on the subject of the coming of the Lord. We present some extracts from his sermons, copied from the Christian Herald:-
The first time he came he was manifest in the flesh when he was born at Bethlehem. Now, the second time he shall come again also, and, therefore, a personal return of the Lord Jesus Christ plainly is referred to here. One or other may say: "But what great difference is there between my going to him, and his coming personally again? Is it not just the same if I die, or that the Lord Jesus Christ comes again?" There is a vast difference between the two. Let us notice a few points though there are many other points which might be noticed to show the difference.
First of all, when we die we put off our earthly tabernacle, and the spirit goes to the Lord Jesus Christ. But this has only to do with us as individuals; for our beloved brethren and sisters in Christ, the church militant, we leave behind. Therefore, death affects us only individually.
But the return of the Lord Jesus Christ has to do with the whole body of Christians—not only has to do with all the saints living at the time on earth—not only has to do with the saints under the present dispensation having fallen asleep previous to the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, but has also to do with all the old covenant believers with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and those who, like them, trusted in the Messiah for the salvation of their souls, and, therefore, has to do, in other words, with the whole church of Christ. This is one difference.
But more than this, thirdly, we individually do not receive our glorified bodies when we die. We put off our tabernacle, but we have no glorified bodies. This only takes place at the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. Only then we obtain the glorified body; and the whole of Christ will at that time attain to a glorified body—at the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, in this particular there is a vast difference. Fourthly, when we fall asleep we are not at once seated with the Lord Jesus Christ on his throne; because he has not yet taken manifestly his throne to himself to reign. He is yet there seated as the great High Priest at the right hand of God on the Father's throne. He is not yet seated on his own throne. And so we the believers shall sit together with the Lord Jesus Christ, and this will only take place at the return of the Lord Jesus Christ; and therefore in this particular also there is a vast difference between our going to the Lord Jesus Christ at the time when we die and his return.
We will now consider, some of the events which will take place at the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. Time will not allow us to enter upon them all, and, as I propose only to bring elementary truths before the saints this evening, it is on that account also desirable not to enter too minutely into the subject, but merely refer to some of the leading events which will take place at the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.
One of the especial points to be noticed is the first resurrection. In the first epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, chap. 15, we read this in the twenty-second and following verses. "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming." Notice this particularly, not as one or the other may suppose, a general resurrection, when the Lord Jesus Christ comes, of all who ever died previously; not so: but at the coming of Christ, those that are Christ's, those that fall asleep as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ previously—"they that are Christ's at his coming."
This, as we afterwards, is called the first resurrection. It is particularly to be noticed not all will be raised up at that time. "Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule, and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."
But this is still further set forth in the first epistle to the Thessalonians 4: 16, 17, a passage to which I have already referred, but in connection with this point we must allude to it again: "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall ever be with the Lord." Here you see again the point clearly, distinctly, in the plainest terms, brought before us.
I will only refer to one other event which will take place at the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, that is, the separation between the good and the wicked. In the thirteenth chapter of the gospel according to St. Matthew, our adorable Lord Jesus Christ particularly speaks on this subject. We read his own words in this chapter at the twenty-fourth verse. In the thirty-seventh and following verses of the same chapter, the disciples having asked him for the explanation, he graciously gives it.
The point on account of which this parable is of such vast importance is that many real, true Christians have an erroneous idea that the world will get better and better, so that at last the whole world will be converted, and that this will introduce the state of the millennium. Now, this is in entire opposition to the whole of the statements of the New Testament. In the first place, the work of this dispensation is to gather a people out from among the Gentiles, not to convert all nations. I do not wish to be misunderstood in making this statement, as if it were not our duty to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature! Most assuredly it is; and it is the sin of the church that so little, so extremely little comparatively, has been done, particularly within the first 1700 or 1800 years, to accomplish this will of our adorable Lord Jesus Christ.
Whilst individually we should seek to do what we can in winning souls for the Lord Jesus, and in strengthening the hands of our fellow disciples, we have to hold it fast, as plainly, distinctly, unquestionably revealed in the New Testament, that, instead of things getting better and better towards the close of the dispensation, things will get worse and worse. Lawlessness increases more and more, and we see the beginning of those fearful days now.
What is socialism? What is the lawlessness of the day? It is the indication that we are getting nearer and nearer to the close of the present dispensation. That things instead of getting better and better will get worse and worse, till at last they will come to a state when the wicked will conspire against the Lord and his Christ and his saints. That will be the close of the whole.
Let us take particular heed that we do not belong to any of these classes. Disobedience to parents, that is one of the sins of the last days; without natural affection, parents not having natural affection for their children, yet having a form of godliness; children not having natural affection for their parents. Remember particularly this last word: "Despisers of those that are good." Just of all this. That is just the precursor of the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that blessed One will come again for the very purpose of introducing a better state of things, a holy state of things, a heavenly state of things. He will come again to have the tares burned up, having first gathered them in bundles, and separated them from the wheat.
And now mark this particularly which follows: "Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." This is to be coupled with all the characteristics which are given previously regarding these individuals in 2 Timothy 3.
These words, "having a form of godliness," are to be ad led in connection with every one of these characteristics. Though men are covetous, though they are proud, though they are without natural affection, yet they have the form of godliness, but deny the power thereof. Now, consider this. My beloved Christian friends, this is the state to which things will come in the last days previously to the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, how it becomes us to rouse ourselves and to bestir ourselves that we do not belong to this class of men; that we do our part if it were possible yet a while to stem the torrent of impending iniquity.
Continue reading: Modern Spiritualism. "DOCTRINES OF DEVILS."