Chapter II. The Time Of The Evening.
The morning was of 270 years' duration. The first form of the apostasy lasted, as we have shown, 1260 years, bringing us to the Lutheran reformation in 1530. Now when we ascertain the duration of the second beast power we will know the time the sun, moon and stars reappear in the evening. One especial text that gives us information on this subject is found in Revelation. In speaking of the two witnesses the Revelator says: “And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth. And after three days and a half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them.” Rev. 11:10, 11.
In this we learn the duration of the power of Protestantism and the breaking forth of the evening light. We have before proven that a day in Scripture is used to represent different lengths of time, sometimes the whole of the Christian era, sometimes a thousand years, sometimes a hundred years, and sometimes a year. In this text a day represents a century. Three days are three centuries, and a half day is a half century. After three days and a half, which are three centuries and a half, or 350 years, of the reign of Protestantism, the Spirit of life from God entered into them. This is the dawning of the evening, when the whole and entire Word of God is believed and experienced and the Holy Spirit has the same power in governing the church of God as he did in the days of the apostles. The downfall of the first beast, or Romanism, and the arising of the second beast, or Protestantism, was in the year 1530. The duration of Protestant power is 350 years, which added to 1530 brings us to the year 1880 A.D., at which time the dark noonday closes and we emerging hail with joy the peaceful glowing evening light.
Prior to the year 1880 it was, with rare exceptions, universally conceded that to gain heaven we needs must unite with some religious denomination. About this time God by his Holy Spirit gave to men everywhere (whose hearts were prepared) an intuitive knowledge that we could be saved and live a Christian life outside the walls of sectism. Just to lean upon [pg 462] God alone and be guided solely by his Word and Spirit, they discovered to be their blessed privilege. We are not alone in thus interpreting Rev. 11:11. We will quote from other authors. “Cloudy day (Protestantism). Length of period 350 years.” Rev. 11:9.—S. L. Speck in Bible Readings, p. 104.
“The two witnesses [Word and Spirit] lie dead three days and a half [three and one-half centuries]. Rev. 11:7-9. The church dwells in a wilderness, which is neither dark nor light. Period 350 years. Time from 1530 to 1880.”—W. G. S. in Bible Readings, p. 69.
“Time of reign of second beast, from the year 1530 to 1880, making 350 years.”—H. C. Wickersham in Holiness Bible Subjects, p. 178.
This same author on page 244 in quoting Rev. 11:11 encloses in brackets the words: “At the end of three hundred and fifty years of Protestant sectism the true children of God come out of Babylon and are sanctified.”
“The three days and a half they were to lie dead is interpreted by the Holy Spirit to mean three centuries and a half. This gives us the length of the Protestant age.”—Biblical Trace of the Church, p. 143.
In the few years prior to 1880 A.D., there was a great declension in the spirituality of Protestantism. Who can deny this fact? Quite a number of the leading denominations held revivals, where was witnessed [pg 463] the power of the Holy Spirit. People were genuinely converted. They loved and worshiped God in quite a degree of simplicity and equality. The ministry was of a humbler class and more devoted to its charges. In the decade preceding 1880 there was a great change. This change perhaps can be no better described than is done in the following words of Mr. Foster, bishop of the Methodist denomination:
“Worldly socials, fairs, festivals, concerts, and such like, have taken the place of the religious gatherings, revival meetings, class and prayer-meetings of earlier days.... Under such worldly performance spirituality is frozen to death.... The early Methodist ministers went forth to sacrifice and suffer for Christ. They sought not places of ease and affluence, but of privation and suffering. They gloried not in their big salaries, fine parsonages, and refined congregations, but in the souls that had been won for Jesus. Oh, how changed! A hireling ministry will be a feeble, a timid truckling, a time-serving ministry, without faith, endurance, and holy power. Methodism formerly dealt in the great central truth. Now the pulpits deal largely in generalities and in popular lectures. The glorious doctrine of entire sanctification is rarely heard and seldom witnessed in the pulpits.”