THE K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
January, 1940
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for us ? Think it over—the greatest war in human history, the greatest famines in human history, the greatest pesti lence in human history, and among the greatest, if not the greatest earth quakes in human history—all coming within a period of about ten years—con temporaneous events! Great as have been the wars, famines, pestilences, and earthquakes of the past, they have been spread over centuries of time. But those of which we now speak all came within a period of only ten years! If this does not suffice for the fulfillment of the sign that our Lord gave His disciples, then what will it take to ful fill His words? Really, are the words of the incarnate God, who spake out of His infinite wisdom, without meaning? Never! After “ The Beginning of Sorrows” “But the end is not yet . . . All these are the beginning of sorrows” (vs. 6, 8). What immediately followed in the wake of the World War, famine, pesti lence, and earthquake? Who of us who have lived during this last score of years, does not know? But let the in fallible Word of the living God give answer: “THEN shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you” (v. 9). Christ was not speaking to Gentiles when He uttered those words. Christ clearly declared: “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 15:24). He' refused to see the Greeks who pled, “We would see Jesus” (John 12:20, 21). Not until He should be rejected ef His own, and by them be “lifted up” (John 12:32), would He draw the Gentiles to Him. Consider the awful agonies that have come upon the children of Jacob since these four destroyers—War, Famine, Pestilence, and Earthquake — began their rampant ride twenty-five years ago. Around the world, in every land, the “brethren” of Joseph are aquiver with fear. Millions upon millions of them have come to know the fullness of the meaning of “the beginning of sorrows”—and never before since the days when Christ walked upon the hills of old Judea, have the sons and daugh ters of Jerusalem been sobbing so bit terly as in the present hour, as they meditate upon the words of their great Lawgiver: “And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the Lord shall give thee there a trem bling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind: And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life: In the morning, thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were mom- \Continued on Page 37]
"When?" "Then!" By LOUIS S. BAUMAN* Long Beach, California
I T WAS nearly two millenniums ago. The incarnate God sat down upon the brow of old Olivet, overlooking David’s royal city. Despised and re jected of men, yet undiscouraged, He confided to His disciples that there would yet come a day when the nation that was then demanding His very life’s blood, would see its folly, repent, and cry: “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Matt. 23:39)! Natu rally, the question sprang to their lips: “When?” It was as if they were saying, “Lord, when will Israel cry before You: ‘Blessed is he that cometh in the name of. the Lord’ ?” “Tell us,” they begged, “ . ... . what shall be the sign of thy com ing, and of the end of the world [R. V. margin, ‘consummation of the age’ ] ?” In answer to that question, there fell from the immaculate and immutable lips of Jesus Christ, one of the longest of His discourses—probably the best known of them all. Mark you, He did not say to them, as some would have us believe He said: “It is none of your business” ; or, “It is not for you to know.” Rather, He gave them sign after sign, and said: “When . . . Then.” “And WHEN these things begin to come to pass, THEN look up, . . . for your redemption draweth nigh” (Lk. 21:28; cf. vs. 25-27). % When ?“Then! WHEN “nation shall rise against na tion, and kingdom against kingdom” (Matt. 24:7). Some will say that this warring con dition always has been in evidence, and that, for this reason, wars fail as a sign. They tell us that the historian can count only about two hundred fifty years that have been free from war in all parts of the earth. But Jesus gave this as a part of His answer to the question—“when?” Are we to impugn the wisdom and the in telligence of the Christ, who was none other than “God . . . manifest in the flesh,” by saying this part of His an swer was meaningless? God forbid! The meaning must be that there will be more than war in just certain parts of the world. The war that is to be the “sign” will encircle the globe! There will be what never was before—a World War. We had it; and we called it so. WHEN “there shall be famines” (v. 7). * Pastor, First Brethren Church.
The World War was followed by three of the greatest famines known to historians. Two of them were in China. At one time, twenty millions were re ported by the authorities as starving. It is estimated that twelve million per ished. Only the great famine in Bengal (1769-1770), when an estimated ten million died, approached the Chinese famine that followed the World War. The third famine was in Russia, in 1921, when an estimated three million perished. Prior to tiie World War, there had been pestilences. But they were local ized. The “Black Plague” was confined to Europe. But in 191& a pandemic of influenza Swept around the earth. No nation, no people 'were exempt. Great cities ran out of coffins. Mechanical trench diggers were used in places to dig graves. It has been estimated that twenty-four million people died as a result of this plague. No other pesti lence known to man has ever equalled it. Following in the wake of war, fa mine, and pestilence, came three of the greatest earthquakes in the records of man—the Chinese earthquake of 1920, in which 180,000 human beings were killed; and still another earthquake in Kansu, China, in 1927, in which, though the total number of slain will never be known, it is known that it exceeded greatly 100,000 people—some estimates reaching double that number; and the Japanese earthquake of 1923, on which we have official figures. In the Japa nese disaster, 142, 807 were “killed and missing” and 103,733 were wounded. Only two earthquakes in all the history of man can compare with these. In 1703 there was an earthquake in Japan in which it is said that 200,000 people were slain; and, regarded as the greatest of them all, there was the Indian earth quake of 1737 in which 300,000 were slain. The Encyclopaedia Britannica says, re ferring to the figures in the two last- named quakes: “Figures such as these may be exaggerated, but there is no mistaking those for the Japanese earth quake of 1923.” Seismologists declare that the Japanese earthquake was the greatest disturbance of them all, from the standpoint of the earth’s surface that shook, while perhaps the Kansu earthquake was the most violent. The Chinese even declared that in that earthquake “mountains walked for two miles.” Do these facts have any significance
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