DYING UNIVERSE
By D. M. PANTON, B.A.
Mockers, scoffing at
the Second Advent in the last of the days (Alford), are already found even within the nominal Church. The gigantic miracle of our Lord bursting out
of the sky to change the face of the world these men declare to be a pure
superstition. Canon Davey speaks thus in Liverpool Cathedral
(Christian
World, Dec. 20, 1934):- There is no season of the Churchs year more surrounded with
magic and superstition than Advent. There
are all kinds of Old Moores in regard to Advent. It takes shape in what are called Advent
testimony movements. You never get
through to the truth about Advent in that kind of environment - people who
interpret the signs of the times and who unfortunately never prophesy good but evil. They
take queer phrases such as are in the Book of Daniel to expound their theories,
but all the Bible is not intelligible, nor all on the
same level. Such people try to use the
Bible as if the Scripture was a cross-word puzzle which,
solved, gives them the date of the end of the world. They may be very clever, but they have nothing
to do with the definite message of the Christian religion.
THE
REIGN OF LAW
The mockers base everything, as does the entire body of science,
on the reign of Law. From the day that the
fathers fell asleep - for
all historic time all things continue as they were - the uninterrupted, unceasing reign of law from the beginning of the
creation. But to one catastrophe, immeasurable, appalling,
which instantly shatters the mockery, they are blind. For this they wilfully forget - they resolutely put from their
minds both the inspired records and also the proofs of the Flood found all over
the world: it requires an effort of the will to shut it out that the world that then
was, being overflowed with water, perished (2 Pet. 3: 5). The words of the infidel Hume sum up the attitude:- A miracle is a violation of a
law of nature; but the universal experience of ourselves, and of the whole
human family, proves that the laws of nature are uniform, without exception.
Yet the entire race of man, with the
sole exception of a single family, has already been miraculously swept out of
existence.*
[* The total destruction of the totally wicked is an
inescapable principle underlying the well-being of the universe. It is appalling
that mens iniquity should have become so full, their rebellion against God so
strong and so universal, their moral corruption and debasement so utter and pervasive,
as to make such treatment absolutely necessary in the interests of humanity. They become a moral cancer
that must be cut out in every fibre if the body is to be saved (R. A. Torrey, D.D.).]
FIRE
One enormous catastrophe has swept the world: another, far
worse, will consume it. The heavens that now are - for the coming ruin embraces the
heavens also and the earth, by the same word have been stored UP FOR FIRE:
either stored for fire or stored with fire: either the original creative word
limited the universes life by dooming it to fire; or else the creative word put
fire into its heart that will one day consume it. Three hundred volcanoes vomit flame to-day;
and at one of the British Association meetings in Edinburgh it was seriously
advanced that the explosion of a single atom, with the fire stored in it,
igniting others, might blow up the universe, which would roll away in flaming
gas. But perhaps it is the verbal doom
that is meant. The fire that fell on
Carmel licked up not the wood only, and the water, but also the stones (1 Kings 18: 38) - that is, it was annihilative fire; and when Jerusalem is an armed camp at
the close of the Millennium, the fire that falls (Rev. 20: 9) is probably the flame that starts
the conflagration of the worlds. The
creative Word which called the worlds out of nothing,
is matched by the annihilative Word, which sends the
worlds back whence they came, for both Words are omnipotent. The heavens shall dissolve (says the Apostle)
with a crashing roar,* and the elements melt with incalculable heat; for the earth and the heaven
fled away, and there was found no place for them (Rev. 20: 11). The universe lapses into its original nothingness.
[* The faintest of illustrations may
be given. The most terrific explosion
known within the span of recorded history occurred on August 27, 1883, when most of the
MEN
FOR THE CRISIS
The Holy Spirit now unfolds that such tremendous facts have
moral consequences no less tremendous. Seeing that these things are
thus all to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be! All things are dissolving; all persons are immortal: what a manner of person can rise above what a ruin of worlds! Who of us can imagine the preciousness of the
little interval between an eternity when there were no worlds and the moment when
there will be no worlds again? There is
no ark which will bear us over the deluge of fire. We must be in God. Men
love art, but the masterpieces of Raphael
will go up in flames: men love science, but science passes with the worlds
it examines: men love empire, but earth-lust vanishes with the earth: men love
pleasure, but all pleasure has the transience of a dissolving view. The mysterious
vault of the sky overhead was to the Apostles not an unfathomable immensity
peopled with unknown worlds, but the curtain which shut out from their vision
the throne of God, and they expected it to open before them at any moment
(J. Percival). Above the crash of ruined worlds the obedient
face rises like a star.
HOLY
LIVING
But the Holy Spirit defines more exactly the manner of person
fitted to stand by the death-bed of a universe.
What
manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy living - perfected conduct and godliness - godlikeness, perfected character; looking for and earnestly
desiring the coming of the day of God. Holiness is the only
asbestos of the universe. The world passeth away, and
the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God ABIDETH
FOR EVER (1 John 2: 17). Godliness is the life of heaven
lived on earth; it is the activity of God reproduced in a human soul; it is the
air of eternity blowing through a human life. And the suddenness sharpens the preparation: the day of the Lord will
come as a thief. As no pleading can postpone it, no flight avoid it, no secrecy escape it, so nothing but
holiness in time can meet it.
OUR AMBITION
The Apostle next unfolds the golden ambition fitted for such a
situation. Wherefore,
beloved, seeing that ye look for these things - the annihilation of worlds and the creation of a
fresh universe give diligence - be
set, be rigid; not daily habit so much as one great life-effort (Alford) to be found - for inspection is coming in peace, without spot* - purity of heart and blameless - purity of life in his sight; and account that
the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation - a prolonged opportunity both to save others and to perfect
our own salvation. Plan your life on the
scale of these enormous events. Luther used to say that the world is
now in its working clothes, but by and by it will be arrayed in its Easter
robes: so the texture of our working clothes to-day determines the brilliance
of our Easter robes in the worlds to come.
[* It needs no argument that the spotlessness
here is not the spotlessness of fundamental salvation - which is possessed by
all believers, but the maintained spotlessness of a godly life: by no flight of
imagination can a regenerate man who dies a backslider be found spotless. ]
OUR
WARNING
A
warning, as so often in Scripture, now balances these golden truths. Ye therefore, beloved,
knowing these things beforehand - the whole mass of Second Coming truth beware lest, being carried away - swept from your bearings by the error of the lawless,
ye fall from your own steadfastness. It is most
significant that the lawless
(from whom we are in special danger in the last of the days are men who wrest the Scriptures: Unitarianism, Christian Science,
Mormonism, Christadelphianism, the Watch Tower group
- all abound in quoted Scriptures, which they wrest to their own destruction, for their creed holds no saving faith in
the Divine Christ. Thus our danger
is in making Scripture justify sin. In
the words of Dr. James Hastings:- If it be true that he who is faithful in that which is least
is faithful in that which is greatest, it is also true that he who permits himself
some private but real disloyalty to Christ without immediate self-rebuke or
repentance, is allowing forces to gather within him which will bring about a
sheer and, it may be, an irreparable fall.
OUR
GROWTH
So the lovely
conclusion of it all portrays the ripening saint. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ. We covet the blessed promise - He giveth more grace (Jas. 4: 6). As children of
eternity, we want a purer heart, a more melted spirit; we want a lowlier mind,
a more sensitive penitence; we want a sweeter temper, a quicker love, a richer
grace; and we want a deeper knowledge of what Christ is, and of what He can be
to us. We are to match the new heavens
to which we are rapidly going with the new character which we are rapidly
attaining. All the worlds may depart if
only I can keep God, and all that is in God.
Good God, cried a dying
nobleman, how have I employed myself!
in what a delirium has my life been passed! What have I been doing while the sun in its
race and the stars in their courses have lent their beams, perhaps, only to
light me to perdition! I have pursued
shadows, and entertained myself with dreams. I have been treasuring up dust, and sporting
myself with the wind. I might have
grazed with the beasts of the field, or sung with the winged inhabitants of the
woods, to much better purpose than any for which I have lived.
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