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A NEW EPOCH STARTS AS WELL AS A NEW YEAR
Detroit, Mich., Dec. 27 Speaking at the Detroit Opera House,
Pastor Russell took for his text St. Peter’s words, “A day with the Lord is as
a thousand years, ” and the Prophet’s statement, “A thousand years in Thy sight
are but as yesterday. ” (2 Pet. 3:8; Psa. 90:40) He said in part:
All resolutions against sin and in favor of righteous
thinking and living are commendable and helpful. But I recommend a
comprehensive resolution; namely, to get right with God through His appointed
Channel, the Lord Jesus Christ, and through the instructions of His Word, the
Bible. While progressing in the knowledge of the Truth and in its spirit, the
individual will be abiding in God’s Love—" under the shadow of the
Almighty."
But this implies faith in God, faith in Christ, faith in the
Bible and the study of it so as to get fully into alignment with the Divine pur
poses and away from the perverting influences of the creeds. While every creed
may be said to contain some elements of Truth, nevertheless these creeds are so
horribly mixed with errors in such poisonous combinations that it is a wonder
we did not all follow blind leaders into the ditch of infidelity long ago.
From the Divine standpoint we see that the six thousand
years of earth’s history, from Adam’s day until now, are merely the work-day
portion of a great Week whose Seventh Day, or sabbath, of a thousand years is
“the day of Christ,” “the last Day,” “the Day of Judgment, or trial for the
world--the Day in which ”every knee shall bow and every tongue confess, to the
glory of God;" The Day in which “the righteous shall flourish, and evil
doers shall be cut off” in the Second Death; the Day during which God will
“pour out His Spirit upon all flesh,” as He now grants it to His servants and
handmaidens. In the Divinely arranged custom of the Jews the new day began at
sunset. Thus we are in the evening, or beginning, <3H643> of the great
Seventh Day of the Divine Week the Day which means so much of blessing,
uplifting, privilege, opportunity of Divine favor to our race through Messiah’s
glorious Kingdom, which throughout this Seventh Day will reign “from sea to sea
and from the river to the ends of the earth,” putting down everything contrary
to the Divine standards, and uplifting the world of mankind (bought with the
precious blood at Calvary) from sin, degradation and the tomb up, up, up, step
by step, the human perfection in a world-wide Eden. The unwilling, resisting
Divine favors and privileges, shall be destroyed in the Second Death. Acts
3:19-21, 23
WEARIED
CHILDREN FALL ASLEEP
“Six Days shalt thou labor and do all thy work; but the
Seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work.”
Whoever reads carefully, intelligently, the pages of history must be struck
with the energy which has been manifested by our race. The pyramids and the
ruins of ancient cities and civilizations all tell us of humanity’s ceaseless
struggle against the adverse conditions prevailing in the earth, including the
strife against sickness and death and, by a few, a noble fight against further
degradation.
Well does the Prophet express the truth of our observation,
saying, “We have not wrought any deliverance in the earth.” (Isa. 26:18) a few
have gained fabulous riches, name of fame, place or power; but during all this
period the majority have gone down to the tomb, slain by the great asso ciated
monarchs whom the Bible declares are reigning Sin and Death.
Even the comparatively few who have gained eminence and
whose victories are most loudly extolled in human history have fallen also many
of them in the very prime of life all of them in comparative childhood. Why
should not a man live for a hundred years when we have the Divine assur ance
that even under the Divine sentence Father Adam resisted death for 930 years so
vigorous was his constitution?
From the Divine standpoint the children of Adam, all born in
sin, shapen in iniquity, of few days and full of trouble, fall asleep in death,
like children wearied in their play; albeit that it is a play grim with
tragedy, in which each actor performs his part most realistically.
From the Divine standpoint human ambition, strife and energy
are accom plishing a useful purpose, even though the efforts are usually
selfish and often brutish. The lessons now being learned by Adam’s children
will not all be lost. The greater mellowness of heart and the broader views of
the majority of those who have thus battled selfishly for even fifty years
suggest that our race as a whole might do better work in a second century than
in the first. Moreover, the Scriptures indicate that the great drama of sin,
selfishness and passion being enacted by humanity is furnishing a lesson to
angelic hosts respecting the exceeding sinfulness of sin its downward tendency,
its bitter fruit, and the hopelessness of any escape therefrom except by Divine
assistance.
HUMANITY’S
NEXT LESSON
The forbidden fruit of Eden was from the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. Doubtless the Creator would eventually have given
our first parents a full knowledge of both good and evil, and merely forbade
them an immediate plunge into knowledge to their own disadvantage. Craving
knowledge before its due time, Mother Eve disobeyed her Maker, and enticed her
husband also into disobedience. The result has been that instead of learning
the philosophy of good at first and of evil later, they and their race have
been precipitated into lessons respecting evil first, with the knowledge of
good to come later.
The holy angels, who have never transgressed the Divine Law,
have contin ually the lesson of good an appreciation of the Divine character,
the principles of righteousness, etc. Their lesson in respect to evil they are
gaining by observation instead of by experience the way recommended to our
first parents by the Creator, but in their ignorance rejected. But God foreknew
the course which His human children would take under the influence of
temptation; He foreknew that they would fall into sin and would therefore
experience its penalty of sin, sorrow and death. While for six thousand years
His eye has pitied His poor creatures, nevertheless He has allowed His great
original Plan of the Ages to move along slowly to a grand climax the Plan which
He had purposed in Himself from before the foundation of the world.
That climax in human affairs, we believe, is at hand. It
marks a great change of dispensation. The six thousand years of the reign of
Sin and Death are ending with a terrible Time of Trouble which not improperly
might be termed the natural result of human selfishness (sin) operating under
the influence of the great principles of the New Dispensation, now being
ushered in. Selfishness, as represented in the accumulated financial power and
energy called trusts and combines, is about to come into conflict with
selfishness (sin) represented in the combining forces of humanity, labor
unions, etc.
The “head-on collision” which thinking people foresee, and
which the Scriptures graphically portray, will give society an earthquake
shock. More than this, the graphic picture is that of a world-wide
conflagration which will involve the heavens, or ecclesiastical powers, as well
as the earth, or social system, and the mountains, or kingdoms, of the world.
The picture would be too terrible to paint, and useless as well, were it not
for the silver lining of the cloud.
The awful shock, which God’s people are warned to avoid, so
far as possible, by following peace and benevolence, will merely prepare the
way for the glorious blessings of the great Seventh Day, in which man will rest
from his own schemes and endeavors, and will come fully under the control of
the great Messiah, whose Rule of Righteousness for human uplift has been
prophetically pictured for centuries.
THE PICTURE
IN RETROSPECT
Still looking from the Divine standpoint at the Six great
thousand-year Days in which Sin and Death have reigned, we perceive that one
effect has been just as foretold to <3H644> Mother Eve—“I will greatly
multiply they sor rows and thy conceptions.” We perceive that our race has
multiplied much more rapidly than it would have done had it remained perfect,
as at first; for the first children, in the days following the Fall, were
frequently born when the fathers were one hundred years old.
We have already referred to the lesson respecting the
sinfulness of sin which comes to all mankind most fully, most consciously, to
those favored by contact with the people of God, who have received the Divine
Revelation. The enlightened ones have been but a small proportion of the whole.
After two thousand years of the reign of Sin and Death, God fore told in an
obscure manner the blessing which He purposed to bring subsequently to the
race. To Abraham He said, “In thy Seed shall all the families of the earth be
blessed.”
That Message, followed in Israel by the giving of the Law
Covenant, has been the light of the world. For eighteen centuries it was the
only light of hope, of prospect. Then, in partial fulfillment of that Promise,
came Jesus, the first practical expression of Divine Love for our race. No
longer would God content Himself merely with promises. He would now begin the
WORK OF
HUMAN RESCUE.
But if any hoped that world-wide blessings would immediately
spring up as a result of Jesus’ work, he was mistaken. On the contrary, Jesus
Himself was combated by the Prince of Darkness and his deluded subjects. For
nearly two thousand years the same principle has obtained all followers of
Jesus have been obliged to take up their cross and suffer for righteousness,
for godliness, in the midst of a perverse people, amongst whom they have shone
as lights and whom to some extent they have assisted in enlightening,
civilizing, etc.
Thus for Six Days of the Week, so far as light, truth,
knowledge of God, is concerned, have all been dark Days. The lights which God
provided in His people have been as candles set upon candlesticks. They have
indeed reproved the darkness, but they have been powerless to scatter it. Nor
did God so design. His declaration through the Prophet is, “Weeping may endure
for the night, but joy cometh in the morning.” (Psa. 30:5) Again, “darkness
covers the earth, gross darkness the people;” but “the Sun of Righteousness
shall arise with healing in His beams.” Isa. 60:2; Mal. 4:2
This promised Sun of Righteousness which is to scatter the
darkness of earth consists, we are distinctly told, of Jesus and those who have
walked in His footsteps throughout the Gospel Age. These, approved by the
Father, will be glorified beyond the Veil by a resurrection to glory, honor and
immortality. Then speedily will these “shine forth as the Sun in the Kingdom of
their Father.” (Matt. 13:43) This will mean the usher ing in of the great
Seventh Day Messiah’s Day.
GOD HAS
NOT NEGLECTED US
From this Divine standpoint God is not slack concerning His
promises. Only Six Days of the Week have yet passed. The glorious Seventh Day,
in which the Great Mediator between God and men will assume His Kingdom powers,
is just at hand. Instead of thinking that God is neglecting us and forgetting
to fulfill the Messianic promises, we should with the eyes of faith realize
that He is working all thinks according to the counsel of His own will. We
should consider the matter from the standpoint that God has exercised great
patience with humanity in not blotting out the race. He has been
long-suffering; and this fact assures us that the Unchangeable One would prefer
that none of His creatures should perish in death, but rather that all, if they
would, might turn unto Him and live. Ezek. 33:11
The great opportunity for the masses of our race to turn to
the Lord and attain life everlasting will be after the darkness shall have
passed, and the Sun of Righteousness shall be shining forth; after the Highway
of Holiness shall have taken the place of the Broad Road to destruction; after
Messiah, the great King, shall have dethroned Satan, the Prince of Darkness,
from the control of the world; after the Prince of Peace shall have established
lasting peace upon a proper basis. We can sing heartily with the poet:
“A thousand years!
earth” s coming glory!
‘Tis the glad Day so
long foretold;
‘Tis the bright morn
of Zion’s glory
Prophets foresaw in
times of old!"
WAITING
FOR THE MOTHER
Our race was generated by Father Adam as well as condemned
to death through his disobedience. What the race needs is another father, or
life-giver, and this is exactly what the word Savior signifies Life-Giver. At
the cost of His own life the Redeemer became the purchaser of Adam and his
race, with a view of their resuscitation, their resurrection from sin and
death. Is it not one of the Redeemer’s titles “The Everlasting Father” the
Father who gives everlasting life? (Isa. 9:6) Unquestionably He has not yet
fulfilled this glorious office of Life-Giver to Adam’s race. He will fulfill
it, however—" in His Day."
Speaking to His faithful disciples, His followers in the
Narrow Way, Jesus promised them, “In the regeneration ye shall sit upon twelve
thrones.” (Matt. 19:28) That regeneration period corresponds exactly to St.
Peter’s “Times of Restitution,” or years of restoration (Acts. 3:19-21): and
both of these statements agree to the general teachings of Scripture respecting
a resurrection, at the last Day Messiah’s Day the Thousand years of
regeneration, resurrection, restitution, which will afford Adam and his race
fullest opportunities for attaining perfection of human nature in an Edenic
world-wide Paradise.
The Lord through the Prophet assures us of the wonderful
success which will attend the establishment of the New Empire of earth, the
Dominion of the Prince of Light, which will supersede the dominion of the
Prince of Darkness, when Satan shall be bound for a thousand years, that he may
deceive the people no more. Thus it is written, “Judgment also will I lay to
the line, and righteousness to the plummet; and the hail (Truth) shall sweep
away the refuge of lies.” Isa. 28:17
But why the delay, do you ask? Ah, we answer, God did not
permit Adam to begin the establishment of his race until first He gave him Eve
as his bride, his wife. The world needed not merely a life-giver, but a mother,
a care-taker, a helpmate. <3H645> Similarly, in the Divine arrangement
God has provided that the Restitution Time, the world’s uplifting period, the
regeneration Epoch for man kind, shall not begin until first the true Church,
the Little Flock, the Bride of Christ, shall have been completed and united to
the Heavenly Bridegroom beyond the Veil made partaker with Him of glory, honor
and immortality.
Thus the great Plan of the Ages, timed by Infinite Wisdom,
has delayed long enough to permit all of God’s spirit-begotten children to make
their calling and election sure to a share with our Redeemer in His glorious
work. How glad we are that the Heavenly Father and the Kingly Redeemer are
beckoning us to share the things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,
neither have entered into the heart of man, but which are reserved for all who
love God sincerely more than they love houses or lands, parents or children or
self! The Divine Plan of the Ages rolls onward toward completion, and at every
stage its progress makes for new blessings and revelations of the glorious
things which God purposed in Himself from before the foundation of the world.
The
National Labor Tribune, December 31, 1914