November 1931
490
T h e
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true thanksgiving for all the blessings of life, but espe cially for the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ. A sailor on one of the battleships lost a leg in the bat tle of Jutland. As the visitors streamed through the hos pital wards, speaking with the patients, he noticed that ninety-eight per cent of them commiserated with him on the loss of his leg, and that about two per cent expressed gratitude for the fact that he had not lost both legs. Real thanksgiving includes an appreciation of all the blessings of life, plus the recognition of the will of God concerning each one of His children. Sing thanksgiving to Him, and His blessings will enrich your life in great measure.
expressive of real gratitude to God, come to mind. As boys, we sang this hymn over and over until it found its permanent place in mind and heart:
I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath; And when my voice is: lost in death, Praise shall employ my nobler powers. My days of praise shall ne’er be past While life and thought and being last, Or immortality endures.
The best cure for depression is praise. The greatest aid to optimism is praise; the real enemy of pessimism is praise; therefore, let us give to God heartfelt praise and
FALSE TEACHING, A SIGN OF THE END . . . B y W . H . ROGERS, Portland, Ore.
! "For there shall arise f a l s e prophets, and shall shew great signs and1¡wonders, insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very, elect. Behold I have told you before’’ (Matt. 24:24, 25). HËSE PERTINENT w o r d s form a part of our Sav iour’s answer to’ the three
the Lord Jesus Christ in power. T h e S ign of C hr ist ’ s C oming The second question was: “What shall be the sign of thy coming?” In answer to this, Christ clearly set forth the char acteristics of the age of grace and named them as the signs of the nearness of His return— wa r s , international conflicts, pestilences, famines, persecu tions, tribulations, false teach ers, counterfeit Christs, and un faithful prophets, all coming to an awful intensity at the end. This dark picture is as far from that of a converted world as m i d n i g h t , with its intense
questions propounded by His disciples when they' stood with Him oil the top of Mount Olivet. The three questions were: “Tell us, when shall these things be ?” “What shall be thé sign of thy coming?” “Wha:t shall be the sign . . . of the end of the age?” Let us look at these signifi cant questions and the impor tant answers the Saviour gave to them.
lit
HINSON MEMORIAL BAPTIST CHURCH (PORTLAND, ORE.), OF WHICH DR. ROGERS IS PASTOR.
blackness, is from the mid-day with its clear sky.
T he D estruction of J erusalem First, “Tell us, when shall these things be?”—that is, the things about which He had been talking, the over throw of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple within it. The answer to this question is given in Luke 21 :20 to 24. It is clear from the two accounts of the Olivet dis course, in Matthew and in Luke, that-Christ was thinking of two sieges of Jerusalem—the one which took place at the beginning of the dispensation of grace, and the other which will take place at the end of that period. Luke em phasizes the first; namely, the siege by Titus in A.D. 70. Verse twenty-four was literally fulfilled when the city was taken by the Roman armies. The Jews fell “by the edge of the sword” ; they were “led away captive into all na tions” ; and Jerusalem was “trodden down” under the foot of the Gentiles. Matthew emphasizes the final siege at the end of the age. Then, according to prophecy, the city will again be taken, in the bloody battle of Armageddon, but God’s own people will be delivered ,by the glorious coming of
F alse T eachers Today we see many of these signs which clearly mark the nearness of the end of the age. I want to call your attention chiefly to one of them; namely, false teaching. In answer to the questions of His disciples, the very first utterance of the Lord recorded in the twenty-fourth chap ter of Matthew is this: “Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.” In the eleventh verse of the same chapter, He says: “And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.” And again, in the twenty-fourth verse: “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and won ders ; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.” The same thing is reiterated by every New Testament writer. The church is warned by an overwhelming body of truth against the false teaching which is to char-
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