Coming Troubles And The Second Advent

Thus it is obvious that in the closing judgment­scenes of this dispensation, the saints will be associated with the Lord Jesus in destroying the political, ecclesiastical, and social systems which aggregately constitute " this present evil world. " This is a work of devastation for which the mere religious sentimentalists of the age would be unfit. It will involve much destruction of life, after the wholesale example of the flood, and develop a time of trouble, such as never has been witnessed since there was a nation on earth-- " a day of darkness and gloominess--a day of clouds and thick darkness-the great and dreadful day of the Lord. " Widespread will be the desolations produced; bloody and scathing the judgments ministered at the hands of Jesus and the saints. " The lofty looks of man shall be humbled; and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day; for the day of the Lord of Hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up, and he shall be brought low.... They shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth " (Isa. 2v11, 12, 19).

It must be obvious, then, that before this judgment period commences, the saints will be removed from the spheres which they occupy in the world; otherwise they would not be with Christ, and would be involved in the general troubles, which is contrary to the words in which they are addressed in Isaiah 26v20, 21:-

" Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself, as it were, for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast, for, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth, also, shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain. "

The mode of this " entering into the chamber, and shutting the door " to hide, is made apparent in the New Testament; first, by reference to Matt. 25v10, where we read " They that were ready went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut " : and second, by reference to Rev. 19v7, 8, where we find that this marriage is the reunion between Christ and his people at his coming. This is further manifest from the teaching of Paul in I Thess. 4v16­17:-

" 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 WE EVER BE WITH THE LORD. "

This is referred to in II Thess. 2v1, as " the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him. " The first event that takes place, then, after the return of the Lord from heaven, is the " gathering together " of all His saints to him, including the dead of past ages, who shall have been raised for the purpose. This gathering together is to judgment. Paul says: " We (brethren) must all appear before the judgment­seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad " (II Cor. 5v10); and the parables which Christ spake on earth, illustrative of his then approaching departure to heaven, and his subsequent return, have this characteristic: " And it came to pass that when he was returned, having received the kingdom, then he commanded these servants TO BE CALLED UNTO HIM, to whom he had given the money. " (Luke 19v15).

From all this, it appears, that on his return, his dead servants will be raised, and his living servants gathered with them from every part of the earth where they may be scattered, to be arraigned before him, that he may " take account of them " (Matt. 18v23). He will approve of some, and reject others: the latter will be sentenced to share in the judgments which will descend upon the apocalyptic " beast and his armies, " or sin, as politically and ecclesiastically incorporate in the powers that will " make war with the Lamb " and his army; the former will be admitted to the marriage ceremony, in which they will be confessed, " before the Father and all the holy angels " (Matt. 10v32; Rev. 3v5), and will thenceforward " follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth " (Rev. 14v4), and co­operate with him in the infliction upon the nations of that " judgment written " which was treated of in the earlier part of the lecture.

All this takes place before divine judgments commence, but not before that " distress of nations with perplexity, " which is the preliminary symptom of the approaching " time of trouble, such as never was. " That state of political embarrassment will, probably, prevail for a considerable time before the saints are called away to the reckoning, and men will only consider it a repetition of commotions that have many times recurred in the course of history. They will only look to its proximate cause. They will never suspect that a divine hand is guiding the development of events, or that " the judge is nigh, even at the door. " They will never dream that the world is on the verge of the most awful crisis that has ever occurred in its history--that divine indignation, long restrained, is about to visit the world in destroying judgments that will break up the entire system of human society, as politically, ecclesiastically, and socially organised.

But like the little hand­cloud presaging the coming storm, the saints will be removed at a particular juncture of affairs without previous intimation. In all probability, the event will be so inconspicuous as to attract little attention. All that the world in general will know of it will be that a few obscure individuals, holding " fanatical " doctrines, have mysteriously disappeared; few will ever seriously suppose that there is anything supernatural in the occurrence. Theories of the phenomenon will be ready to hand, and the incident will be forgotten-at least by the majority. Some who happened to know that this expected removal was part of the doctrine of these fanatical people, may be unable to quell a certain feeling of uneasiness which will trouble their breasts; but the world at large will be unaffected, and will move on to the destruction that awaits it at the revelation of Jesus with all his saints.

For the sake of clearness, it will be well to summarise the events already spoken of, in their chronological order:-

1st.- " Upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, " arising from the complication of international politics, described as " evil going forth from nation to nation, " and producing a failing of heart among men (Luke 21v26; Jeremiah 25v32).

2nd.-The coming of Christ as a thief (Rev. 16v15), after the development of certain events to be spoken of hereafter.

3rd.-Resurrection of " the dead in Christ. "

4th.-The gathering of the saints to Christ from all parts of the earth, including the living and those who have been dead.

5th.-The judgment of His servants, comprising the rejection of the unworthy; and acceptance of the " good and faithful " ; the sending away of the former into the territory of the nations on whom judgment will descend, and the uniting of the latter as " the bride made ready, " in glorious marriage, to the long absent but then arrived bridegroom.

6th.-War between the " powers that be, " and the Lamb, who shall overcome them.

7th.-Heavy judgments inflicted on the nations by Jesus and the saints, producing great slaughter over all the earth, and resulting in the complete abolition of the existing order of things, and in the teaching of righteousness to men.

8th.-Setting up of the kingdom of God, which will last for a thousand years, and then undergo a change in its constitution, adapting it to the necessities of the eternal ages beyond.

This is a general outline of the events which will occur at " the end, " in connection with the establishment of the kingdom of God. It is deficient, however, in one important respect; it does not embrace those events which constitute the occasion of the Messiah's thief­like advent, and takes no note of the political signs which are revealed in Scripture as the premonitory indications of the near approach of the end. These, with the question of how near the world probably lies to the great crisis, will be dealt with in the next lecture.