The Revelation of Jesus Christ 89 Note the significance of Jesus' words, as He said further: "Many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ ... ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars ... nation shall rise against nation ... there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places ... Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you" (Matt. 24: 5-9}. · When Jesus made the statements quoted above, although He was talking to His disciples, He did not have them in mind: He was thinking, rather, of the Jewish nation, which is to come into view once again after the church age is over. His disciples occupied the relationship to Him that the Jewish nation shall occupy during .the period represented by the seventieth week of Daniel. Those disciples were not members of the church at the time; for the church did not come into existence until the day of Pentecost, after Christ died and rose again and ascended into heaven.• They were individual · believers, and they aptly represent the relationship that the faithful Jewish remnant shall bear to the Lord Jesus Christ at the time of the end. And how shall His coming be? "As the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be" (Matt. 24: 27). Coming events cast their shadows before them: and dur ing the present age there have been wars and rumors of wars, pestilences, earthquakes, and false Christs. But all of these things that have been since the church age began, and that are now in the world, are but shadows of coming events. Have you not noticed, my friend, in studying history, that every war becomes greater in magnitude than the preceding war, and that the world, reeling and staggering under each fresh war, has to put forth greater and greater efforts to right herself? The wars of past years were as nothing compared with the World War. Nineteen years have passed since the signing of the Armistice, and yet the world has not recovered herself. There are more men under arms than ever before in the world's history. Nations are racing for first place in armaments with a veritable frenzy. Statesmen agree that war is inevitable; and their only question is, "How long may it be postponed?" And just as the Napoleonic wars were as ' nothing compared with the World War of 1914-1918, so the
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