Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadQuiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About Our Lord's Return: 51. The Decisive Sign
TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About Our Lord's Return (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 51. The Decisive Sign
Other Subjects in this Topic:
The Decisive Sign
Is there any way by which we may be able to judge that the time is drawing nigh? Is it right to be looking for "signs" of His coming? It certainly is very natural to do so. It's especially so if you are working in some quarter of a city, like the Tenderloin district of New York, or the East End of London, or out in the heart of heathenism, or moving among professing Christian people whose resemblance to out-and-out worldly people seems perfect at every point. You get a bit wearied, perhaps, in your work, or witnessing, and wonder if He won't come soon and end it all. Is it right to be scanning the sky for weather signs? It is true that we are plainly taught that we are not to be figuring out times, [Note: Acts 4.] 6-8.] but are to give our strength to witnessing and watching.
Yet our Lord also tells us that certain things will be signs of His approach being near. [Note: Mat_24:32-33; Luk_21:28.] The red glowering in the sky tells of the storm coming, and affects one's plans. The night watcher in the sick-room is cheered by the grey or rosy dawn gleaming up the east; at last the night is over; day has come. There are some things which will precede the great event. In the Olivet Talk our Lord spoke of wars, rumours of wars, famines, pestilences, and earthquakes, as coming before the tribulation itself. But these have marked every generation since the words were spoken. We may think that some of these signs are intensifying. But it is not possible to prove this, even measurably, by careful comparative statements. These do not make a decisive sign indicating a near approach of the event.
The growth of evil in the world will clearly be a sign. There will be at least two marked characteristics of the tribulation itself, namely combination or organization, and a spirit of lawlessness. The awful leader of that time will clearly be at the head of some colossal, well-compacted organization, and he is the Lawless one. Any marked tendency in the spirit of our time toward these two things would seem to be a natural indication of what will later come. Yet this cannot be taken as decisive in itself of an immediate event, for it is impossible to tell how much time will be needful for these to reach the full maturity of the tribulation time. One can look back in history to times of most remarkable organizations on a colossal scale, such as the empire of Babylon at its height, and the later Roman empire, and to a spirit of lawlessness that seemed rampant. The thing that is near at hand always looks bigger. Distance or detachment is essential to true perspective.
A spirit of formalism and deadness in the outer Church would seem one of the sure indications cf the approaching end. Yet it does not take a very good memory to recall the awful conditions of the Church of the generations preceding the great Reformation. And this period is not alone in such characteristics. If Church-deadness were a sure sign by itself, the middle centuries of Europe would seem fully to have satisfied that indication.
Is there, then, any decisive sign by which one may really know that the end is drawing near? There remains yet one significant quarter to which to turn, a most significant quarter. Before the tribulation begins the Jew is to be back in his own land, the temple is to be rebuilt, and the old routine of daily sacrifices being offered. When that event actually takes place, it will be a decisive indication of the end within well-defined limits of time. And so any movement among the Jews toward nationalization becomes of intensest interest. The recent Zionist movement among the Jews has been the most distinctive, most advanced, move in that direction since the scattering under Titus. It makes one prick up his ears and begin to pray a bit more earnestly.
But—but, it must be remembered that racial movements like this, indeed all movements working out the fulfilment of prophetic foresight, are a good bit like the rising tide upon the seashore. The waters come up, then go back; they come up a little higher, and again go back. It is by this process repeated many times that full tide is reached at last. This is a good thing to remember in thinking of present events as fulfilling prophecy.
The present rising Jew tide may recede. It did recede toward Africa for a while, only to rise again on the Palestine beach, and then seemed to recede toward the plains of Babylon. Some day it will reach flood-tide. The decisive thing will be the actual Jew nationalization again in Jerusalem. Then "look up, and lift up your heads," for the storm is at hand, and beyond it the wondrous calm of His presence in control.