ALONE WITH GOD     

The Sign Of The Times

    "For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: . . . the sword of the Lord is filled with blood; it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs, and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams; for the Lord hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea. And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls: and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness. For it is the day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion."—Isa. 34 :5-8. "For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he . . . hath delivered them to the slaughter. Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcasses."—Verses 2, 3. "And they shall be habitations of monsters, and a court for ostriches. And devils shall meet with satyrs, . . . having found for themselves a place of rest."—Vs. 13. 14. Septuagint Version. "And the carcasses of this þThe Kingdom of God people shall be meat for the fowls of the heaven."—Jer. 7:33. What an awful picture, but how true. The sword of the Lord which smites the nations, and is filled with blood is the "sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.'—Eph. 6:17. "Cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood."—Jer. 48:10. This great slaughter is also called a "sacrifice," because many of them possessed noble attributes, and were even mighty through God, but when the whole truth was presented they would not get saved from the last spot of sin and sectism; therefore, God had to sacrifice them to evil spirits in order to get a pure church. The rams, lambs, bullocks, etc., show that the parties were in the main offerings to God on the altar of his grace.

  "And their stink shall come up out of their carcasses." The condition of fallen sectism, as described by Foster in another part of this chapter, is surely a stench in the nostrils of God. It is offensive to every sanctified soul. It is further said that these spiritual carcasses shall be inhabited by "monsters," "fowls," etc. In them "devils have found for themselves a place of rest." This perfectly harmonizes with the description given in Rev. 18:2. Different kinds of birds, and foul spirits being grouped together in these texts carries our minds back to the ruins of ancient Babylon, which was a hold of all manner of birds and beasts, and which clearly typified the swarm of unclean and deceptive spirits which throng sectism today. This great sacrifice is also clearly described in the following texts. Ezek. 39 :4, 17-20, 11-13; Jer. 12 :9-12; Isa. 18:3-6.

  Beloved reader, the foregoing is present truth, now strikingly fulfilled. As before observed, it being used in such close connection with the coming of the Son of man proves that we are near the end. This accords with the Revelator's description of the triumph of Christ's kingdom and church in these last days, as given in Rev. 19:11-16. "And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword [viz., the pure word again preached, which pierces to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and discerns the thoughts and intents of men's hearts], that with it he should smite the nations." —Ver. 15. The nations, thus smitten, compose the armies of the beast, which are "gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse [Jesus Christ], and against his army" (the host of saints gathered out of sectism which stands on the sea of glass with victory over the beast, etc., and who follow Christ the "Captain of our salvation").—Ver. 19. At this time an angel is seen "standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God."—Ver. 17. All this relates to the same slaughter, and sacrifice of souls to evil spirits, taught in the texts to which we have already referred. But mark the fact that this sacrifice is called "supper," which proves that it was to take place in the evening of the dispensation day. Immediately following this the beast and false prophet are cast into the lake of fire and brimstone. Ver. 20. This will take place when Christ comes. As the great sacrifice or supper is here, it gives us data to calculate our whereabouts on the stream of time. Surely the evening l shadows are gathering, and eternity is near.

  We will yet consider one more sign of the times, and in fact, the special sign of Christ's coming—

The Gathering of the Elect

  In the twenty fourth chapter of Matthew it is recorded that as Jesus went out and departed from the temple "his disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple." He then told them that the temple should be utterly destroyed. "And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?"—Matt. 24:1-3. Two questions were here asked: First. When shall these things be? namely, the destruction of Jerusalem, and of the temple, etc. Second. What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? You will observe that the apostles understood that the second coming of the Lord, and the end of the world would be coincident events.

  Christ then began to describe a number of events that I were to transpire before and during the destruction of Jerusalem; also, he carried his description of things right up to the consummation of time. In verses 30-33 he clearly answers their second question. Remember, they asked for a special "sign" of his coming. Hear his answer: "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: . . . he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. Now learn a parable of the fig tree; when his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: so likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors." There are those who have thought that this gathering together would follow Christ's coming. But such is a wrong premise. This gathering together of God's people was to be a sign of his coming, and when it would take place we were to understand that the end was near, "even at the doors." "His angels," in this text, are God's holy ministers. Angel— from anggelos—means messenger or agent. It is used with reference to angelic beings, and also God's ministers, as in Rev. 1:20; 2:1,12, 18, etc. The seven angels of the seven churches in Asia were the ministers in charge. 

  We are happy to inform you, dear reader, that the very gathering spoken of in the text quoted above is now taking place. The elect being gathered are the true people of God. The great apostasy has scattered and divided the people of God into hundreds of sects and cut-off factions. They have been, as it were, scattered to the four winds. But now, in this evening time, God is sending forth a host of fire baptized messengers who are blowing the trumpet of truth among all the nations; the true standard of purity and unity is being lifted up. Thousands are being purified by the blood of Christ, tempered together by the Holy Spirit.

  This great work was prophesied in the book of Daniel. "And I heard one saint speaking, and a saint said to a certain one speaking, How long shall the vision continue, even the removal of the sacrifice, and the bringing in of sin of desolation; and how long shall the sanctuary and host be trampled? And he said to him, Evening and I morning there shall be two thousand and four hundred days; and then the sanctuary shall be cleansed."—Dan. | 8:13,14. 14. Septuagint Version. We will first show what sanctuary referred to here is. The tabernacle pitched  Moses in the wilderness was God's sanctuary at that  time. For God said to Moses, "And let them make a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them. According to all  that I show thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall make it."—Ex. 25:8, 9. "The first covenant had also ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary. For there was a tabernacle made."—Heb. 9 :1, 2. A description of this tabernacle is given in the twenty-sixth and twenty seventh chapters of Exodus. It was divided into two apartments. The first was called the holy place. The second was called the most holy place. A veil, or curtain of very rich cloth, divided the holy place from the most holy place. Outside the door leading into the holy place was a brazen altar (Ex. 27:1-8), also the laver... Ex. 30:17-21. Before entering through the second veil into the most holy place was the golden altar. Ex. 30 :1-10. This tabernacle was a type or "figure" of the church of God, which is "a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands."—Heb. 9:8-14. Christ is said to be "a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched. and not man."—Heb. 8:2. "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men."—Rev. 21:3. So the sanctuary of God in this dispensation is not the glory  world,, as Adventists vainly teach, but the church of God, which Christ built. Every specification of the Jewish tabernacle is antityped in the New Testament church. Its twofold services typified two degrees of grace in Christ's salvation. (See our book "Two Works of Grace.") The Jewish sanctuary was God's dwelling-place upon earth under the law (Ex. 25:8), wherein the Jewish people offered their sacrifices and worshipped God. After the children of Israel had possession of Canaan, a house was built in Jerusalem by Solomon. after the pattern of the tabernacle, and this was God's dwelling-place and sanctuary. But where shall we look for God's dwelling-place on earth in this dispensation? Let the Word answer. "Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit."— Eph. 2:19-22. "Ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them."— 2 Cor. 6:16. "Hereby know we that we dwell in him and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit."—1 John 4:13. "Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ."—1 Pet. 2:5.

  How clear— God's people are his temple or sanctuary builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. In them he dwells. Through the abounding grace of God they are all made holy priests and offer spiritual and acceptable sacrifices. Further proof is not necessary; for all spiritual minds can see at a glance that God's church is his sanctuary. But when and how was it defiled? In the light of God we answer: During the great apostasy, by sect organization and authority. "The people of thy holiness have possessed it but a little while: our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary. We are shine; thou never bearest rule over them: they are not called by thy name." —Isa. 63:18, 19. The "little while" here spoken of during which God's people possessed holiness was the early morning of the Christian era. True holiness adorned the church of God in the primitive days. Her chief characteristics were purity and unity. These are inseparable. The one cannot exist independently of the other. Unity is the natural result and fruit of heart-purity. Had the church but retained this glorious truth and experience, this globe today would be girdled with a belt of light and salvation. But instead, an apostasy came. The light of truth was soon extinguished by dark clouds of superstition and false doctrines which arose. Holiness is really the mainspring of all gospel truth. It is a golden thread which runs through the entire New Testament. To retrograde from it would be to throw open the doors to every species of false doctrine and error. It was in this manner that the way was paved for the great apostasy.

  At a very early date true holiness was hid from the general masses of the people. Had it ever been retained by the church, there had never been an apostasy. At the close of the third century there is good reason to believe it was already lost sight of. Before the close of the second century the apostasy rapidly developed, and about 270 A. D. the papacy was substantially set up. Human organization was substituted for the divine, and the church of God was crushed under human authority and creeds of men, and thus was the true sanctuary trodden under foot.

  "And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land. And it waxed great even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them. Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practiced, and prospered."— Dan. 8:9-12. Next follows the conversation of saints, saying, "How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot?"— Ver. 13. This little horn as we have shown in a previous chapter signifies popery. The casting down of the stars doubtless refers to the host of saints who fell from the holy plane of the gospel during the apostasy. Mark the fact that it was during the reign of this power (popery) that the place of his (Christ's) sanctuary was cast down. In Daniel 11:31 it is plainly stated that they—the rulers of this apostasy—"shall pollute the sanctuary of strength and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate." Here then it is made clear that the defiling of the sanctuary was during the reign of Romanism, and we shall hereafter prove it includes the babel of Protestantism.

  The reader will observe that with the downtrodden and defiled condition of the sanctuary stands associated "the abomination of desolation" also called the "sin of desolation," all of which was brought in by the great apostasy. "The semblance of an identical and exterior organization was gradually substituted for that interior and spiritual communion, which is the essence of the religion of God.... The living church retired gradually within the lonely sanctuary of a few solitary hearts. An exterior church was substituted in its place."—D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation, Book I, Chap. 1. It may be a question in the minds of some how the abomination of desolation can apply to sectism when Jesus, as recorded in Matt. 24:15, 16 and Mark 13:14, clearly associates it with the destruction of Jerusalem. We will here insert a clear solution of this from the pen of Brother D. S. Warner.

  "The abomination spoken of by Daniel was to be placed by the little horn Romanism, and the question is, How could that abomination appear on the sacred ground of the temple when the city was besieged by the Roman army in A. D. 70, when the power which was to constitute it did not develop into existence until 200 years later? Only the wisdom that cometh from above can interpret these mysteries.... The temple and church of God sustain the close relation of type and antitype. The former was once the awful dwelling-place of God. The latter is his chosen and everlasting habitation. His presence and law ruled the former, and he worketh all things in all members of the latter. But the Roman army came and set up their ensign on the sacred ground of the temple, and that was the sign of the foreign power which took command of the city where only God should reign. This standard and the foreign power it represented, resembled, in several features, the institution of sect government, a foreign and human rule set up in the spiritual house of God, and in fact, constituted a type of the same. As the Romans invaded Jerusalem and demanded subjection from their subjects, so sect power usurps sway over the spiritual city and temple of God, and demands loyalty to its creeds, even at the expense of loyalty to God. So be it understood that man created churchism is the real abomination that maketh desolate, and the Roman standards are the same thing in figure. The detestable thing was present in figure at the destruction of Jerusalem in A. D. 70, and was brought in and set up in reality in 'the greater and more perfect tabernacle which the Lord pitched,' in the form of Romanism and Protestantism.

  "We see in the Roman ensign that abomination not only because a figure or usurped sect rule, but because it bore images which were actually worshipped by the Romans. Accordingly we read in Josephus's Book 6 of the Jewish wars and at the beginning of the sixth chapter: 'And now the Romans, upon the flight of the seditious into the city, and upon the burning of the holy house itself and of all the buildings round about it, brought their ensigns to the temple, and set them over against its eastern gate; and there did they offer sacrifices to them, and there did they make Titus Imperator, with the greatest acclamations of joy.' Thus also says Turtullian, one of the early church Fathers: 'Almost the entire religion of the Roman camp consisted in worshipping the ensigns, swearing by the ensigns, and preferring the ensigns before all their gods.'— From "Turtullian's Apology." Surely that idolatry was a shocking abomination to all worshipers of the true God, who commands that we should worship him only. It being the banner of the only army that did desolate the city and the holy temple, was indeed an abomination and a remarkable figure of the sect abomination that has brought confusion into the spiritual temple of God.... Let us now call attention to several points of analogy between these ensigns and the institution of sectism.

  "First. Jerusalem and the temple, where the abomination appeared in figure, were types of the church, where the antitype appeared.

  "Second. When seen compassing Jerusalem, compare Luke 21:20, 21, Matt. 24:15, 16; Mark 13:14. Then it is said by the Lord, 'Know that the destruction thereof is nigh,' and truly it did come; and just so, where sectism has been set up among spiritual disciples of Christ, strife and desolation have followed as a result.

  "Third. The Romans worshipped their ensigns; and just so the sectarian world is 'mad on their idols.' They worship their sect names and institutions more than they do God. This is a present fact seen by all whose eyes are open to behold things in the light of God.... By the sect machinery, large salaries are ground out of its people to support clerical prodigality and sloth—empty preachers, who are a detriment to their supporters.

  "Fourth. When the abomination was seen about Jerusalem, that was the signal for the disciples of Christ to depart out of the doomed city. So in these last days the sin and confusion of sectism are being now manifested as a filthy and oppressing city whose prophets are light and treacherous persons, and whose priests have polluted the sanctuary (Zeph. 3:1-4); and the Lord having already gone out of her, we hear 'another voice from heaven, saying Come out of her my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities."—Rev. 18 :4, 5.

  "Fifth. As the Jews were cut off from being the people of God, and scattered abroad, and reduced to slavery, so the mass of sectarians are cut off and dispersed from God and are oppressed under bondage to their creeds, and to pride and the lust of the flesh. So it is clearly seen that there is a remarkable correspondence between the abomination that was hoisted upon the holy ground of ancient Jerusalem and that which was placed by man as a substitute of the living God in the New Jerusalem; viz., the sect system.....