Now corresponding to these facts are the events of Providence. As when Spring is nigh we know by certain signs, so we know from the Scriptures, Providence, and Pyramidal teaching, where we stand and the season we are in. “O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky, but can ye not discern the signs of the times?” said Jesus to the proud and critical Pharisees and learned and doubting Sadducees. These parties affected to be specially wise and discriminating in their knowledge of the times and seasons, and interpreting the prophets and writings of Moses. Yet their conduct betrayed their ignorance, for they saw not the end of that grand old prophetic age, nor the fading symbolism of the temple, nor the departing glory and decay of their nation. They knew not the fulness of the time in which they lived, though it bulged out like a mountain. They did not know that one time hath ended, another time begun, for they still dated their documents 4032 of the world, when it was the year of our Lord and their Lord 32.
The antediluvians stand condemned because they were willingly ignorant of the Providential tokens and signs of the times. They set at naught the teachings and warnings of Noah, and in exulting pride they rejected the idea of a special Providence. Their faith, like many in this day, was planted and nourished by the laws of nature, and the analogous continuance of the same, not accepting the doctrine of a Divine Providence. They cried aloud, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.”
Do you, like the Jews of old, demand more signs, when those given you are not understood, or, if understood, they are undervalued? The prophets have been lavish in portraying the calamities of the last days, or the times into which we are entering. For the words last days are the few years preceding the battle of Armageddon. The calamities of these days are of four kinds: First, social disorders; second, religious feuds and wars; third, wonderful political disturbances; fourth, temporal or physical disasters. Of the social condition of these last days, Paul instructs us: “This know, also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.” Then he groups together nineteen immoral attributes of the social state of these last days: “Men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud blasphemers, disobedient (to parents especially), unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce despisers, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than God, formal in religion” (2 Timothy iii.). What, we ask, will be the state of society when the social condition becomes such?
The religious feuds and persecutions of the last days we can but faintly conceive. It was terrible when the beast, two hundred years ago, held sway. The Inquisition, the rack, the stake, and all the horrors of a wise age will be brought to bear. For in these days to come, the beast will be joined by Anti-Christ,
who will burn with rage, and vent his displeasure on Christ’s followers. Also the barbarism and savage disposition of the Pagans will be let loose. Then will the dragon tear and destroy. This will, indeed, be a day or time of visitation. The political disturbances will be terrible. Nation against nation plotting and deceiving; internal strife and outward dangers. These are of a kind to appal one in reading them. Then come the temporal or physical evils. These are to be a horrible train of ills in the form of pestilence, famine, and earthquakes. The plague of yellow fever is as nought to some of the scourges that will then go forth. Gibbon, the historian, tells of a plague that swept away two-thirds of Europe and Asia. At that time the dead lay unburied by thousands. In Constantinople, for three months, five and even ten thousand persons died daily. The famines in India and China give us some idea of those yet to come. Of the earthquakes, such as have been will be repeated in increasing terror, violence, and destruction. To all these shall be added fire from heaven, hail, whirlwinds, and floods. These are times that will try men’s souls. Read the prophets for yourselves, and range yourselves on the Lord’s side.
WONDERS OF THE FUTURE.
Discourse XIV.
PURPOSE OF THE FLOOD—THE ABRAHAMIC CURRENT—RENDING MOUNT OLIVET—FORMER EARTHQUAKES—BOUNDARIES OF PALESTINE—DAN AND GAD TO GUARD THE “GATES”—GAD THE SCOTCHMAN—THE FUTURE JERUSALEM—THE DEAD SEA AND MEDITERRANEAN TO BE JOINED—MISTAKE OF SPIRITUALISING EVERYTHING.
“And His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the East: and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the East and toward the West, and there shall be a very great valley; and half the mountain shall remove toward the North, and half of it toward the South.”—Zech. xiv. 4.
Some four thousand years ago the earth was washed with the regenerating waters of a terrible flood. Millions were suddenly cut off, with their handiwork and antediluvian civilisation. The swelling floods subsided, and the God-avenging waters retired to their appointed place. The earth again stood forth in virgin strength, lonely, bare, and citiless, but with a potency and promise inviting and grand. Across these swelling floods one craft had been safely borne; in it was stored the seed-stock of a new world of man and beast. The destruction had been complete and terrible. If we credit Dr. Gurney and others who have written on this subject, the population far exceeded the inhabitants of to-day. But whether they did or did not, we know that many must have perished, and civilisation must have been hurled back to a primitive beginning. No doubt the present seas and oceans cover over the ruins of that age. Eliphaz, the Temanite, when addressing Job, said: “Hast thou marked the old way, which wicked men have trodden, which were cut down out of time? whose foundation was overflown with a flood?” Now is it not reasonable to
suppose that in this and every other great change in nature God has a purpose—a design agreeable with His own exalted character? He is too wise to err, and too good to be unkind. The flood came for the same reason that He only gave Adam one wife. And what was that reason? It was that He might fill the world with a godly seed. “And did not He make one? Yet had He the residue of the Spirit. And wherefore one? That He might seek a godly seed” (Mal. ii. 15). The same Spirit which made one Eve could have made twenty, for the residue of the Spirit was with Him. It was in the interest of morality and godliness that the flood came.