the hospitals will be shut down, when all doctors and nurses will be out of a job, and medicines will be worthless and uncalled for? Can you imagine an age when there will not be poverty; when chil dren will never die; when everybody will have everything they need; when violence and crime will be practically unknown? Can you imagine a time when there will be no waste lands; no storms, no droughts, no crop failures, no floods; when even the wild animals will be tame and harmless, and will cease devouring one another? This is not merely imagination. It is a certain, unquestionable fact, as certain as the sun rises and sets. You ask me, “Where in the world did you get that wild dream?” It is the Word of the living God who made all the creation. I f you ask me “Where do we find any such information?” you have but to read your Bible, the Word of the living God. It is full of descriptions of that glo rious coming age of full redemption, and crea tion’s restoration. We can spend hours just read ing passage upon passage from the Word o f God alone, foretelling this glorious future golden age of redemption. |n Isaiah 2:2 we find the first words, “And it shall come to pass in THE LAST DAYS.” Two things are clearly set forth: first of all, the cer tainty of this event; then the time o f its fulfill ment. Since it has never yet come to pass, and these conditions have never existed in this world, it must still lie in the future, for God Himself says, “ It shall come to pass.” Far be it from us to ques tion the Word of the eternal God! Secondly, it will occur in the last days. It will take place at the close of the ages of man’s sojourn upon this earth. These two things then, are absolutely definite. As we study history, and look upon the con fused state of the world today, however, it does seem almost impossible that such a situation could even be conceived. Think of it! After almost two thousand years o f Gospel preaching, there are still more pagans and infidels in the world than there have ever been before. Only a fraction of the two billion inhabitants of this world are even nominally Christian, and no one knows how many of these have truly been born again. After nine teen hundred years of preaching the gospel o f the Prince of Peace, this world has seen the two most devastating and cruel wars in all of its history, and today the fear of a third world war with its atomic horrors and consequences overshadows the world. Crime is at an all-time high. The Christian home has degenerated. The divorce evil has in creased until it now approximates one divorce for every three marriages, sending an ever-increasing stream of neglected children from broken homes into a cruel, unkind world and decaying society, to add to the already amazing volume of juvenile
deliquency. Drunkenness is increasing by leaps and bounds. Moral standards are sinking lower and lower, while a crazy age is dancing its way into perdition in the very shadows o f impending judgment. In the face of these conditions, which no one can deny, we are led to ask: “Has the gospel of the grace of God then failed?” Certainly Chris tianity appears to be a colossal failure, and the Gospel of grace a farce and anything but the power of God, if we are to judge from the prog ress which we have made in converting the world in this present dispensation. But Christianity is not a failure, and the Gospel is not a failure. Righteousness and truth will still prevail, tri umphing in the end, when the time comes for it in the long-range program o f God. There is not a single verse in the entire Bible which teaches that God’s plan is that the whole world should be converted to Christ in this present dispensation. Quite to the contrary, the Bible teaches that wickedness will increase and become worse and worse up until the very moment of Christ’s second coming again. God’s program for this age is not world con- version, but rather the taking out of a remnant of believers, a minority, to form the Body of Christ, and the Bride of our Lord. When that number is full, according to God’s sovereign plan, then Jesus Christ will return to judge the nations of the earth. Then and then only His Kingdom will be set up, and world conversion result, when “ every knee shall bow to Him, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory o f God the Father.” Then the knowldege of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea, and all men shall know Him, from the least even unto the greatest. Earth’s golden age will then be ushered in. It is not God’s program to convert the world before the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. His plan is still running exactly on time. The golden age will come only when Jesus Christ returns to this earth, to catch away His Bride, then to judge and cleanse the earth. After Jesus returns, the hundreds of prophecies of earth’s jubilee will find their complete fulfillment. ^^onsider the effect of Christ’s return upon the nation of Israel: “ Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely, and this is his name whereby he shall be called, the Lord our righteousness. There fore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that they shall no more say, The Lord liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt. But, The Lord liveth, which brought up
THE KING'S BUSINESS
22
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs