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THE KING’S BUSINESS
John adds another feature of the last days in his 1st epistle, the 18th verse of the 2nd .chapter, “Little chil dren it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists : whereby we know that it is the .last time.” Now John is the only apostle who uses the term antichrist, and he defines it for us in the 22nd verse of the same chapter. “He is antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son.” The spirit of antichrist denies the unique relationship between the Fath er and the Son and directly attacks the essential Deity: of our Lord. Christianity declares that God has de scended to man in the person of Je sus of Nazareth: antichristianity teaches that man has been reaching Up to God by a process of evolution. The religion of Christ is the incar nation of God; the religion of anti christ is the deification of man. It is hardly necessary to point out that this antichristian spirit as John defines it dominates a very large part of mod ern religious thought. These three characteristics of the religious declension of the last time as defined by these three apostles are found existing together in the relig- ious condition of our own days. They have never been found existing to gether in any former period of the Church’s history, however dark it may have been. It is evident that that particular form of religious de cay which was to mark the period immediately preceding our Lord’s ad vent has already set in. ONLY ONE GOSPEL. 3. A missionary sign —the univer sal preaching of the Gospel, “This Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a wit ness unto all nations” (24:14). Now the Lord comes to a definite and un mistakable sign of His coming, for He adds the statement, “And then
VOID QF. POWER. Paul’s description of this religious declension is in 2 Timothy 3 :l-5. It will be noticed, how this passage dif fers from the description of the state of society in Paul’s own day as given in the first chapter of Romans. There is an absence of the grosser forms of wickedness which characterized that age. The special feature which in Paul’s, description marks the charac ter of the last days is an outward re ligiousness that is; void of inward power. “But know this, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves . having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” There may be much out ward form but little spiritual life: there may be perfect organization and much aggressive effort and yet little achievement, because the Divine .mo tive power is absent. Many thought ful Christian leaders have been call ing our attention during the past few years to such a condition in the Church as exactly corresponds with this feature of the Apostle’s descrip tion of the religious condition of the last days. Peter describes the character of the last days in the 3rd chapter of his second epistle, vs. 3 and 4: “Know ing this first that there shall come in the last days, scoffers walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for, since the fathers fell asleep, all things con tinue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” That is, there shall be a prevailing skepticism as to the miraculous, based on the continued observance of the uniformity of the laws of nature. There has been no miracle or Divine intervention in our experience of nature, therefore it is folly to expect such a supernatural event as the personal return of Jesus Christ. This describes exactly the scientific attitude of the present day.
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