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MEET THE AUTHOR 
Mr. Rudy spent the years 1925-1941 in 
Europe and the Near East, serving as gospel 
minister, also holding various executive offices. 
He resided in Prague, Warsaw, London, Ber-
lin, Riga, Athens, Cairo and other Old World 
centres. He has travelled and lectured in 
nearly all European countries. Mr. Rudy now 
resides in Canada. 
T
HE END of World War II 
punctuated a thirty years' world-
wide struggle over the soul of 
man. It did not mark the end of the 
fight, however. We have no way of 
knowing how many more rounds 
will yet be required by the great pow-
ers of the world before the final de-
cision is reached. Thus far the war 
has been horribly devastating and 
terrifying. If Hiroshima and Nagasaki 
are samples of the next round in 
world conflagration, then the future 
is dismal indeed. If the atomic bomb 
is to World War II what the ar-
moured tank was to the Great War, 
the world hasn't yet received an ade-
quate conception of total war. 
Only now are we beginning to 
measure the far-reaching effect of 
the first World War. It was a quarter 
of a century after Versailles before 
the meaning of 1914-1918 could reg-
ister upon man's stunned faculties. 
But with this registration has come 
another series of crushing shocks 
which will require additional time 
in which to impress itself upon the 
minds and hearts of men. 
Citizens of the North American 
continent and Western European 
countries didn't get the full signifi-
cance of what had taken place in 
Central and Eastern Europe during 
the first World War. They still felt se-
cure behind their traditional insti-
tutions: democratic governments, 
churches, and centres of learning. 
But east of Konigsberg, Breslau and 
Prague the people had undergone a 
complete revolution. Life had taken 
on a strangely different meaning. 
Communism had taken deep root 
and needed only time to develop 
into full bloom. 
This fundamental change was rec-
ognized most keenly by men in their 
late twenties and early thirties. War 
veterans and college students partic-
ularly belonged to this group. This 
was revealed to me in a personal visit 
with a former Austrian subject who 
attended ,my seminary lectures in the 
city of Prague, Czechoslovakia, in 
1925. He was an army officer only re-
cently returned from service for his 
country. Post-war revolutions were 
still smouldering throughout Europe. 
Monetary inflation was barely curbed. 
Unemployment was the order of the 
day. 
This young man, then thirty-three 
years old, was attempting to find his 
place in life. His father, a well-to-do 
man before the war, had lost every-
thing, and was now dependent upon 
his only son for support. The young 
man had completed his university 
studies, married a fine lady, and 
hoped to face life bravely. But some-
thing had happened in his life. The 
cultural roots of past tradition 
had become severed from their native 
soil. The present had become con-
fused and too fast-moving for him 
to comprehend. His every good inten- 
tion had seemed to meet with disaster. 
One evening my wife, our little 
three-year-old girl and I met him 
and his wife in a beautiful lane of 
walnut trees. The moon was full and 
bright and the sky sparkled with bril-
liant stars. Our conversation soon 
shifted from the beauties of nature 
to the hidden, unintelligible feelings 
of the heart. In the midst of the visit, 
this young man suddenly threw back 
his head, and smiting his breast with 
both hands, cried out: "0 my God, 
where is my youth? What is stirring 
in my breast? Is there a future left for 
me and my family?" Tears filled his 
eyes. Then after a brief pause, he 
added, "If we only could leave this 
part of the world and go to America, 
we might escape the terrible fate 
that awaits us in only a few years 
from to-night." 
Here was a typical cry of despair. 
Such cries were often heard all over 
Central and Eastern Europe until the 
Nazi terror came and broke the awful 
tension. 
It was in this soil of hopeless de-
spair that Communism, Fascism, and 
finally Naziism grew and flourished. 
Poverty, disease, mental and physical 
suffering, reigned in Eastern Europe, 
while the West, particularly North 
America, was joyously rolling along 
in luxury and wealth. Religious and 
cultural institutions grew spiritually 
and morally anaemic. There was little 
understanding of what was actually 
happening around the world. A few 
brave souls ventured a diagnosis of the 
situation only to discover themselves 
labelled "prophets of doom." 
At this time one of the greatest 
students of contemporary history, 
Oswald Spengler, published his mon-
umental work "Der Untergang des 
Abendlandes" (The Decline of the 
• 
MAN 
HIMSELF 
Vol. XXVII �
Editor, DALLAS YOUNGS �
Circulation Manager, C. M. CRAWFORD �
JUNE, 1947 �
No. 6 
• Published monthly, by the Signs of the Times Publishing Association (Seventh-day Adventist), Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. Entered as second-class mat-
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SIGNS OF THE TIMES without having subscribed may feel perfectly free to accept it. 
2 �
SIGNS of the TIMES 
WIB PHOTC 
The marching men of World Wars I and II have been disillusioned. Many have discovered there is no peace 
except as the individual obtains the abiding peace of Christ within his own heart. 
West). He was laughed to scorn by 
the Utopianists of the 1920's. About 
ten years later (1933) when the 
Nazis had already taken over the 
reins of government in Germany, 
he published his "Yahre der Ent-
scheidung" (Years of Decision) , in 
which he foresaw a second world war. 
The Nazis immediately banned Spen-
gler's writings in Germany, the same 
as they had done with other similar 
publications. So voice after voice 
was silenced. More than half of the 
world dreamed on, giving evil minds 
free rein, only to wake up in a fools' 
paradise when it was too late to save 
the situation. 
In the meantime industry and tech-
nology seemed to offer to man the 
clue to success and happiness. Mon-
ey began to flow freely, machines were 
JUNE, 1947 
multiplied, taking the place of man-
ual labour. Machines meant wealth, 
and wealth meant power. Money was 
invested in the purchase of more ma- 
chines to give man more power and 
more leisure. Man said in his heart: 
"Soul, . . . take thine ease." He had 
need of nothing. He believed he was 
master of the situation around him, 
and if more power was needed he 
could get that too. 
What a heyday for dictators! The 
world had never before offered such 
opportunities to acquire power. With 
the moral roots of the past dried up, 
man had little or no power of resist-
ance against the totalitarian wave 
that was sweeping Europe and large 
areas of the East and Far East. For 
the moment the world seemed to 
offer everything: luxuries, comforts, 
amusements, licence, even peace. 
War itself was outlawed by the na-
tions as an instrument of interna-
tional policy. 
But man had failed to consider 
one thing: a true knowledge of him-
self and of his relationship to his 
fellow creatures and to God. The for-
ces of evil were at work in human 
hearts striving for the mastery of the 
world. Lying, deception, brutality, 
disregard for human rights, hatred 
of every moral standard and precept, 
headed up in open hostilities to be-
come known as World War II. For 
six years the holocaust lasted. In 
Europe there were 2,075 days of fight-
ing; between the United States and 
Japan, 1,346 days; between China 
and Japan, 2,946 days, leaving a total 
of 22,060,000 military and civilian 
dead, and 34,400,000 wounded, be-
sides countless millions left home-
less and destitute. 
As the smoke cleared away, the 
ruins of smouldering cities and mil-
lions of wandering skeletons with all' 
their toll of moral and spiritual suf-
fering came into closer perspective. 
The spectacle startled the spirit of 
man. The beastliness of the unre-
generated human heart is coming 
into full view. What is more, the dis-
integration of civilization and culture 
has not abated, despite the cessation of 
open hostilities. Power is being 
matched with power. Weapons of 
destruction far more devastating 
3 
DISCO VERS 
By H. L. Rudy 
WATCH 
YOUR 
FOOD 
than the atomic bomb are conceived, 
with no peace in, sight. 
Man, who strode out into his world 
so confidently in the nineteenth cen-
tury, finds himself the victim of his 
own creation in the twentieth. In-
stead of living in a paradise, in peace 
and tranquility, he is face to face 
with the weapons of his own self-
destruction. 
This situation raises the centuries-
old question asked by the ancient 
poet David, "What is man?" Stand-
ing alone amidst the hills of Judea 
one night, looking up into the beau-
tifully lighted sky, beholding the 
beauty and majesty of the heavens; 
the musical harmony of the universe; 
his eye passing from the distant stars 
to the bright clear moon that gov-
erned the days and years of Jewish 
life; seeing within closer range the 
hilltops silhouetted against the sky; 
feeling the peace and soft atmos-
phere of the earth, man's home, he 
suddenly realized that amidst all the 
glory, peace and majesty of nature, 
man was his own most vexing prob-
lem. He remembered his own blood-
stained career, the heartache, suffer-
ing and death so often witnessed and 
caused by himself. He caught a new 
glimpse of man's true nature reflected 
by the beauty and perfection of the 
world once given to man as a home 
to enjoy. Then he gave poetic ex-
pression to his own discovery of him-
self: 
"When I consider Thy heavens, 
the work of Thy fingers, the moon 
and the stars, which Thou hast or-
dained; what is man, that Thou art 
mindful of him? and the son of man, 
that Thou visitest him? For Thou 
hast made him a little lower than 
the angels, and hast crowned him 
with glory and honour." Psalm 8:3-5. 
The discovery of the beast in mod-
ern man is frightening. Left to him-
self and his deadly weapons, man 
would soon end his record on this 
planet. 
But God has not designed man to 
end his existence in total self-destruc-
tion. The God who created the uni-
verse and man upon the earth has a 
better solution to the problem that 
threatens human • existence. Man, 
therefore, who only so recently con-
sidered himself capable of working 
out his own salvation, has discovered 
the real god of his devotion—self—
only to find that he is doomed to sud-
den extinction, and that there re-
mains only one other course open 
if he wishes to escape the fate of this 
evil world. He must look up into the 
eyes of God, see himself in the light 
of divine revelation, and then yield 
to the course of life set before him 
by his Creator. 
4 
I
T IS rather striking to note that 
in Canada in 1945, according to 
the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, 
there were 101 deaths from typhoid 
fever and 2,010 from diarrhcea and 
enteritis. The figures are even more 
impressive when considered over a five-
year period. As a result of typhoid 
fever alone there were 884 deaths. We 
all know that one of the principal 
causes of the spread of typhoid, and the 
same applies to enteric diseases in gen-
eral, is contaminated milk and water 
supplies. While being the best food 
for us, milk is also the best food for 
such bacteria as those which may pro-
duce tuberculosis, typhoid, dysentery, 
scarlet fever, septic sore throat, diph-
theria, and undulant fever. The 
Health League of Canada in their 
bulletin of February 1947 argues that 
as far as milk is concerned there is 
only one way to prevent these—to kill 
all these organisms—and that is pas-
teurization. Pasteurization does not 
in any way impair the nutritional 
value or digestibility of milk. In On-
tario in the three years immediately 
prior to compulsory pasteurization 
enactments there were 259 cases of ty-
phoid fever with 38 deaths. After pas-
teurization legislation had been en-
acted the number of cases dropped to 
76 with only 9 deaths. 
Milk and water are not alone the 
source of danger from the standpoint 
of typhoid fever. At hand is a warning 
from Dr. J. A. Taylor regarding the 
eating of oysters from unregistered 
beds in the Nanaimo area. He states 
that oysters found in Nanaimo har-
bour and Chase River districts are con-
taminated from sewage outlets and are 
not fit for human consumption. The 
statement of December 30, 1946 re-
vealed the fact that a local 15-year-old 
boy was just recovering from typhoid 
fever, while several months prior a 
woman from the Prairies had died 
from this infection. 
In this connection it would be well 
to quote from Dr. C. E. Dolman of 
the University of British Columbia, 
writing in the Canadian Public 
Health Journal of August, 1941: 
"If proper sewage disposal, and safe 
water and milk supplies were available 
to all, and if we all washed our hands 
thoroughly before preparing or par-
taking of food, we would neither give 
nor get typhoid or paratyphoid fevers, 
or dysentery. If we never spat, shouted 
nor openly coughed or sneezed in 
crowded and ill-ventilated indoor 
places, we would rarely give or get 
pulmonary tuberculosis, pneumonia, 
influenza, the common cold, or any 
other of that large group of droplet-
borne infections. If we always drank 
pasteurized milk, we would avoid un-
dulant fever. If meri never consorted 
with prostitutes, our chances of ac-
quiring or conveying syphilis and 
gonorrhoea would be very much re-
duced. If no Moslem pilgrimaged to 
Mecca, cholera would stay in the Gan-
ges Valley; and if no Hindu ever 
washed himself in that holy river, 
cholera would begin to vanish from 
Bengal. Finally, if the world desisted 
from wars, there would be no threats 
of pandemic typhus fever, influenza, 
and other plagues, and no recrudes-
cences of venereal diseases, tubercu-
losis, or gross nutritional deficien-
cies." Doctor Dolman would add 
leptospirosis, brucellosis (undulant fe-
ver) , tularaemia and poliomyelitis to 
cholera, typhoid and paratyphoid fe-
vers, and dysenteries on the list of in-
fections which may be water-borne. 
He states, "It seems strange that all 
these hazards should be so uncon-
cernedly accepted by certain commu-
nities in a land where water is served 
to drink at almost every meal, where 
SIGNS of the TIMES 
Even though the blight of sin rests upon the earth, it still yields an abundance of 
food for every creature. The 20th century increase of knowledge has brought us the 
means by which it may be preserved. 
By 
W. H. Roberts, M.D. 
uncooked salads are apt to accom-
pany even hot dishes, and where raw 
sea foods are by some much esteemed." 
Doctor Dolman was particularly 
grieved when recently the Vancouver 
City Council saw fit to end chlorina-
tion of its water supplies. 
The importance of proper sewage 
and garbage disposal is brought to 
view in connection with a small out-
break of typhoid fever occurring in 
Vancouver, a few years ago, which was 
finally traced to crabs• caught in False 
Creek, described as "a salt water in-
let almost traversing the city, whose 
euphonious name and picturesque 
appearance give no clue to its deplor-
able bacteriological content." Here 
crab fishermen had been permitted to 
, let down their pots, on condition that 
any catch was to be boiled on board 
the boats. The fishermen obeyed this 
regulation; but the law did not forbid 
them to wash the boiled crabs or the 
utensils afterwards in the waters from 
which they had been taken. The Creek 
had been contaminated by sewage from 
a large nearby hospital and by shack 
dwellers on its banks. Nineteen cases 
of typhoid fever occurred as a result, 
with three fatalities. 
Common food infections usually are 
traceable to Salmonella infections. 
Animal reservoirs include rats, mice, 
horses, cows, sheep, pigs, goats, dogs 
and cats, turkeys, ducks and chickens. 
The first two mentioned are of course 
not too particular in their habits as 
they clamber over accessible foodstuffs. 
The symptoms usually complained of 
appear after an interval of 12-36 
hours, and include vomiting, diar-
rhoea, abdominal pain, accompanied 
by fever and prostration. The abdomi-
nal pain and diarrhcea may be severe, 
but the illness is typically over in a 
few days, although sometimes of 
longer duration. The average mortal-
ity rate is one-half per cent. 
JUNE, 1947 
Staphylococci, the germs that cause 
pimples and boils, being universally 
present may contaminate foodstuffs. 
Pasteurization markedly reduces this 
particular hazard as far as milk is con-
cerned. Apart from pasteurization 
proper refrigeration is recommended, 
also the rebaking of chocolate eclairs, 
and other pastries containing custard 
or cream fillings. These foods are likely 
to be exposed to warm room tempera-
tures after manufacture. These meas-
ures, of course, cannot be effective 
against enterotoxins already elabo-
rated in some ingredient prior to its 
incorporation in the final foodstuff. 
The symptoms of staphylococcal food 
poisoning which come on after an in-
terval of as little as one to four hours 
has broken up many a banquet. 
Staphylococci are present in room 
air, on healthy human skin and mu-
cous membranes, thus making preven-
tion of contamination of foodstuffs 
difficult. Doctor Dolman suggests: 
"Speculation as to the possibility of al-
together eliminating such contamina-
tion soon exhausts itself in devising ob-
viously impractical measures. For not 
only would food handlers have to be 
always well scrubbed, and their hands 
free from pimples and abrasions, but 
they should also be certified not to 
carry enterotoxigenic staphylococci 
in their nose and throat. Moreover they 
should always wear freshly-laundered 
caps and gowns, their utensils should 
be thoroughly scalded before and after 
use, their kitchens should be fly-
proofed, and the air filtered or steri-
lized. Thus installed in their operating 
theatres, these ideal food handler 
5 
would provide further touches of se-
curity for the proceedings by using 
aseptic technique. There would be no 
rubbing of eyes, scratching of hair, or 
fingering of nose; and the food would 
not be coughed or sneezed into, 
sweated upon, talked at, or wept over. 
A visit to the kitchen of almost any 
contemporary eating-place will re- 
veal what counsels of perfection such 
proposals represent." There is still 
prevalent the idea that foods are safe 
until signs of spoilage appear. How-
ever, enormous numbers of staphylo-
cocci may be present in a food without 
changing its appearance, odour, or fla-
vour. Rigorous confinement to the re-
frigerator should apply not only to all 
"perishable foodstuffs" but also to 
such commodities as ham and cheese. 
Ham is frequently involved in staph-
ylococcus food poisoning outbreaks 
not only because it is often and care-
lessly handled but because curing and 
tenderizing may have been unsatisfac-
tory. The only known fatality from 
staphylococcal food poisoning oc-
curred in Ottawa. A man ate the re-
mains of a ham which had been kept 
for four days in a drawer at a rooming 
house. 
As stated above, symptoms of poi-
soning occur after one to four hours 
beginning with a period of nausea 
which may last from only a few min-
utes up to nearly an hour. Sudden 
vomiting then occurs. There may be 
several bouts ensuing over the next 
few hours associated with abdominal 
cramps and marked diarrhoea. The 
pulse is rapid and in severe cases may 
become thready, the temperature is 
often raised, and the patient may be 
collapsed and apprehensive. After 
three to five hours improvement sets 
in, colour returns, and pulse becomes 
stronger. Mild symptoms may persist 
for a day or two' longer. 
One ham which had been respon-
sible for an outbreak was examined 
at the Provincial Laboratories with the 
following report: "A portion of ham 
taken from just beneath the surface 
gave a count of two hundred million 
staphylococci per gram. A sample 
taken about six centimetres below the 
surface gave a count of one hundred 
seventy-five thousand staphylococci 
per gram. The question arises, "Why 
eat ham?" 
Mention should also be made of 
botuli5m as reported in the Canadian 
Public Health Journal of January, 
19-17 by Dr. C. E. Dolman and Donna 
E. Kerr of the University of British Co-
luniLia. They reported that there have 
been a total heretofore of three out-
breaks affecting thirty-one persons, 
with sixteen deaths. During a corres-
ponding period from 1899 to 1945 
there were in the United Statei 438 out- 
6 
breaks, involving 1,179 cases and 772 
deaths. In 1919 near Dawson City, 
Yukon, there was a large outbreak af- 
fecting twenty-three persons, with 
twelve deaths. Commercially canned 
beets were the probable source. In1933 
there was a small outbreak near Zurich, 
Ontario, involving three persons, one 
of whom died. Home-canned toma- 
toes were apparently responsible. Fi-
nally in 1940 five Indians fell ill after 
eating uncooked salmon eggs kept for 
several days in a moose bladder. Three 
of them died. The last recorded 
outbreak resulted in three fatal cases 
of botulism at Nanaimo, B. C., in 1944 
following consumption of home-
canned salmon. On September 1, 1944 
an unemployed man brought up from 
the basement two tins of salmon which 
had been canned at home one year pre-
viously. The ends of both tins were 
bulging. The first tin was discarded 
because, when punctured, much foul-
smelling gas blew off. The other tin 
was then opened, its somewhat less 
evil-smelling contents were emptied 
into a dish, tomato ketchup was poured 
on, and lettuce added. The wife added 
more condiments to the fish, after 
which the man, his wife and a son par-
took of the fish. The girl refused to eat 
any, and sat at the other end of the ta-
ble to avoid the smell. The next morn-
ing at 8 a. m., the daughter found the 
others unable to get out of bed, and 
complaining of vomiting. but no diar-
rhcea or abdominal pain. There was 
headache and failing eyesight, and also 
difficulty in swallowing. 
Doctor Dolman in reporting this in-
cident makes this comment: The re-
cently processed cans were all said to 
have been 'sterilized' by the man 
(who had been a cook in the first 
World War) using a newly purchased 
pressure cooker of reputable manufac-
ture, but of presumably unfamiliar 
mechanism. The wife was experienced 
in canning but was employed away 
from home at the time of the canning." 
Furthermore, "The man displayed a 
remarkable ignorance of the basic 
principles involved in home-canning, 
against which the availability of a 
pressure cooker afforded no protec-
tion. These fatalities illustrate drama-
tically enough the extent to which 
simple motives and traits such as econ-
omy, obstinacy and undue solicitude 
for the pride of others in their small 
accomplishments, may together over-
come both common sense and the ele-
mentary human impulse of revulsion 
against putrefying foods." As a rule 
it is unsafe to even taste home-canned 
meats and vegetables until they have 
been brought to the boiling tempera-
ture which effectually destroys the 
botulinus toxin. 
By 
Greg C. Robinson 
T
HE following questions are often 
asked, "What is the battle of 
Armageddon? When and where 
will it be fought? And, Was the last 
war Armageddon?" No, the last war 
was not it. But it is coming, and it ap-
pears to be near. 
The term "Armageddon" is found 
in Revelation 16:16. This is a literal 
conflict in which the nations of the 
earth are involved, and in which, also, 
God has a part. 
This battle occurs during the time of 
the outpouring of the seven last 
plagues (see Revelation 15 and 16) . 
These plagues, or judgments of God, 
are the last that God will visit upon the 
people of this present world. In them 
is filled up the wrath of God upon sin 
and unrepentant sinners. 
God's judgments are now mixed 
with mercy, but these last judgments 
will be • unmixed with mercy. (Tames 
2:13; Revelation 14:10; 16:19.) There-
fore it must be that the time of mercy 
has passed when the battle of Arma-
geddon occurs. The time is passed 
when God will forgive sin and sinners. 
From Revelation 16:13,14, we under-
stand that the nations are gathered to 
the battle of Armageddon by the spirits 
of devils. Consequently, we would ex- 
SIGNS of the TIMES 
About 
ARM 
In the light of the closing developments of World War II, the above methods of warfare seem quite antiquated. 
What the future holds, only the Word of God can safely predict. 
AGEDDON 
pect that those gathered there would 
be under the inspiration and leader-
ship of the devils. 
In this last battle of Armageddon 
the nations of unrepentant men are 
arrayed not only against each other, 
but against God. They blaspheme the 
name of God in open rebellion against 
His judgments upon them. This con-
flict continues throughout the sixth 
plague and ends with the seventh 
plague, which is God's part in this 
last struggle. 
The plagues are God's last judgment 
upon unrepentant mankind and fall 
not only upon the armies of the nations 
but also upon the nations themselves. 
This is evidenced by the statement in 
Revelation 16:19: "And the cities of 
the nations fell." From this we would 
understand that God's part in Arma-
geddon is world-wide in effect. (See 
also verses 20 and 21.) 
This battle of Armageddon, being 
the last conflict of this present world, 
immediately precedes the coming of 
Christ in the heavens. 
Revelation 11:18 declares that "the 
nations were angry,"—when they 
reach this place God pours out His 
wrath upon them. This would indicate 
that the anger of the nations and God's 
JUNE, 1947 
wrath are closely related. The wrath 
of God is followed by the giving of the 
rewards to the saints. From Revelation 
22:12, we understand that both saints 
and sinners receive their reward at the 
time of Christ's coming. We under-
stand also that Armageddon is primar-
ily a conflict between God and unre-
pentant humanity, and will end when 
the Lord comes. 
Where will the battle of Armaged-
don be fought? 
The word "Armageddon," freely 
translated, means the hill or mountain, 
the city, or the •vicinity of, Megiddo. 
(Smith's Bible Dictionary.) Smith pre-
sents it as Mount Megiddo, located 
on the south border of the plain of 
Esdraelon. In Zechariah 12:11, this 
plain is called "the valley of Megid-
don," and receives its name from the 
city and the mountain of Megiddo. 
This valley, or plain of Esdraelon, 
extends from the Mediterranean to 
the Jordan River across central Pal-
estine. It lies between the ranges of 
Carmel and Samaria on the south and 
those of Galilee on the north. It is 
divided into two areas. The eastern 
portion is the Blain, or "valley of Jez-
reel." The western portion was known 
as the plain of Accho, and derives its 
name from the ancient city of Accho 
on the Mediterranean coast, about 
thirty miles south of Tyre. It was later 
named Ptolemais, (Acts 21:7) , and 
still later, St.. Jean d'Acre. 
Jezreel is on the eastern end of the 
plain of Esdraelon, or the valley of 
Jezreel, and Mount Tabor is on the 
northeastern corner of the plain. (See 
Bible maps of Palestine.) . 
There are other prophecies concern-
ing the events of the last days which we 
cannot consider here. Some of these 
are in process of fulfilment at the 
present time, while a very few are yet 
ahead. In Luke 21: 28, 31, Jesus tells us 
that when we see the prophecies con-
cerning the end of this present world 
being fulfilled all around us, we may 
know that we are near the end and 
our redemption is at hand. 
He says further, in verse 34, that 
as we see these prophecies come to 
pass we are to take warning—we are 
to see to it that we do not become 
entangled in worldly things. We are 
not to make the mistake that was 
made before the flood—our hearts 
must not be "overcharged with sur-
feiting, and drunkenness, and cares 
of this life," that Armageddon come 
upon us unawares. 
This is the time to make our calling 
and election sure,—to clear up the 
King's highway and get rid of all sin. 
Soon the fiat of Revelation 22:11 will 
go forth from the throne of God. Then 
the time of repentance and forgive-
ness of sins will be passed forever. 
Dear reader, where will you stand 
in that day? Are you making your 
calling and election sure? Remember 
"to-day is the clay of salvation." "Now 
is the accepted time." 
7 
H. ARMSTRONG ROBERTS 
CVI 
 
UUoman's 
Secret Weapon 
The first drink is the first step toward be-
coming the despised town drunkard. 
A
LITTLE over a century ago a 
great spiritual awakening began 
in America which gave birth to 
the temperance movement. Leonard, in 
his History of Oberlin, referring to 
"these periods of refreshing," tells us 
they first made their appearance in 
1798 to 1803. He says, "Temperance 
agitation had its beginning in this 
period. The sin and woe resulting 
from the use of strong drink were felt 
as never before, because hearts and 
consciences had been aroused and 
made sensitive by the Spirit of God." 
—Page 67. 
This marked the beginning of the 
great temperance wave which swept 
over the entire civilized world. The 
first temperance society was organized 
in the year 1824. This organization 
permitted its members to use wine, 
beer, and cider. Only "ardent spirits" 
were prohibited. 
About this time, in 1827, Captain 
Joseph Bates, a converted sea captain, 
8 
with twelve others, organized what was 
known as "The Fairhaven Temper-
ance Society." Wine, beer, and cider 
were at first permitted as beverages. 
One of the members of the society 
was reported to have been intoxicated, 
but he denied having violated his 
pledge, and declared he had taken 
nothing stronger than cider. His wife 
said she "would a great deal rather 
he would drink brandy, for when he 
got drunk on cider, he was as ugly 
again." 
The society now saw the necessity 
of amending its constitution by strik-
ing out "ardent spirits" and inserting 
 
in its place "all intoxicating drinks. 
This included cider, wine, and beer. 
This gave the members of the organ-
ization the name of "teetotalers." This 
was in reality, as far as I know, the first 
teetotal temperance society ever or-
ganized. Other organizations of a sim-
ilar character soon followed, and as a 
result, by the year 1831, or in a short 
space of four years, over three thou-
sand teetotal temperance societies were 
organized, with a membership of 
about 300,000. 
Out of these developed the crusade 
movement. Doctor Lewis was the prime 
mover in this.The experience through 
which he had passed fitted him for the 
work which he so successfully carried 
forward. Speaking of his childhood 
days, he said: "There was trouble at 
our house when I was a small boy. My 
father had forgotten everything but 
drink." As a result, his mother, he said, 
"was the victim of abuse and violence. 
Often she would cry in the presence 
of her children, and sometimes, when 
she could bear it no longer, she would 
drag her weary limbs up into the gar-
ret. We knew what she went up there 
for, and sometimes we could hear her 
say, '0 God, help me, help me! 0 Lord, 
how long, how long?' Then she would 
keep very still for a while. When she 
came down to us again, her cheeks 
were wet, but her face shone like an 
angel's. She taught us, to pray. To-day, 
By D. H. Kress, M.D. 
more than forty years after those dark-
est times, I believe in my heart that a 
woman's prayer is the most powerful 
agency on earth." Confidence in his 
mother's prayers led him to appeal to 
women to combine and unite their 
prayers in closing up the saloons. 
Speaking at Hillsboro, Ohio, he re-
lated how his mother and several of her 
Christian friends united in prayer for 
the liquor sellers of his native town 
until they gave up their business. 
Turning to his audience he said: "La-
dies, you might do the same daing in 
Hillsboro if you had the same faith." 
As a result about seventy of the women 
banded together and entered upon the 
task before them, calling at drugstores, 
saloons, and hotels, until by contin-
uous visitations, with persuasion, pray-
er, song, and Scripture reading, "the 
drinking places of the town were re-
duced from thirteen to one drugstore, 
one hotel, and two saloons." 
The movement spread to other 
towns and villages. "In fifty days it 
drove the liquor traffic out of 250 towns 
and villages, increasing by one hun-
dred per cent the attendance at church 
and decreasing that at criminal courts 
in almost like proportion." We are in-
formed that "hundreds of dram shops 
were closed, countless barrels of alco-
holic drinks gurgled into the gutters, 
as church bells pealed forth the peo-
ple's joy." 
The women of America, through 
prayer, succeeded in ridding America 
of the saloon. If they will preserve 
the Christ spirit in which the temper-
ance movement had its inception, and 
continue to depend upon prayer as 
their mightiest weapon, they may again 
close the saloons, and rid the country 
of many another social peril. 
Some years ago Mrs. Kathleen Nor-
ris, the popular author, speaking in 
favour of law enforcement at San Fran-
cisco, said: "In its defence I ask wo-
mankind to use the strongest weapon, 
one which the Wets never use,—
prayer." This, though the mightiest 
of all weapons, we are in danger of 
ignoring as we come to depend more 
and more upon organization and po-
litical influence in the accomplishing 
of our ends. 
SIGNS of the TIMES 
RELIT IOUS NEVI 
The Bible reveals the Christ of Calvary as an eyewitness to creation. 
CHRIST 
WAS 
THERE 
p 
EARTH'S earliest days—Is the 
record of the Scriptures in the 
book of Genesis reliable? Do I really 
believe that Moses wrote the exact 
truth in regard to creation and the 
flood?" 
As I questioned thus one summer 
afternoon, I saw in imagination a ra-
diant angel messenger entering at 
the door of my room. 
"0 man, greatly beloved,". he said, 
standing before me, "I am come to 
give thee knowledge and understand-
ing. Believest thou that our Lord Je-
sus Christ, who is also called 'the 
Word of God,' was present when the 
world was created?" 
"Yes, 0 angel," I replied slowly. 
"He must have been there, for the 
apostle John declared that 'all things 
were made by Him; and without 
Him was not anything made that was 
made.' John 1:3. And the apostle 
Paul declared that `by Him were all 
things created, that are in heaven, 
and that are in earth.' " Colossians 
1:16. 
"True, 0 man," he replied kindly. 
"So thou also believest that Christ ac-
tually witnessed all the steps in the 
creation, and all the changes made 
by the overwhelming might of the 
world-transforming flood? And all 
the deeds of men since that time? 
Was Christ an eyewitness?" 
thought for a moment and then 
said: "Yes, He must have seen all. He 
was a living eyewitness." 
"Thou art right. Christ was the 
faithful and true Witness then, as 
He is now," responded the angel. 
"And in His love for mankind He re-
vealed those things which He saw to 
His servants the prophets, the 
'mouthpieces of God,' so that they 
might proclaim them and write them 
to the people. This He commanded 
them to do." (2 Timothy 3:15, 16; 
1 Peter 1:11.) 
/3)/ 
Arthur 
Warren 
"Tell me, 0 angel," I asked, "Was 
Moses one of these prophets, chosen 
by the Lord Christ? is this book of 
Genesis inspired by Christ, the faith-
ful Witness? Did Moses receive this 
story of the creation and this story 
of the flood from the Lord Christ?" 
"Yes," said the angel. "Moses re-
ceived this knowledge from Christ 
the Eyewitness. He was one of the 
greatest of prophets. for the Scrip-
ture says of him: 'There arose not a 
prophet . . . like unto Moses, whom 
the Lord knew face to face.' (Deuter-
onomy 34:10.) He wrote under the 
guidance of the Spirit of Christ. The 
Lord Christ declared of his writings: 
'If they hear not Moses and the proph-
ets, neither will they be persuaded, 
though one rose from the dead.' 
(Luke 16:31.) So marvellous are his 
writings!" 
"Angel," I said, "Then the book 
of Genesis is Christ's own revelation 
of earth's earliest days." 
"Yes," replied the messenger of 
God. "And when our Lord was on 
earth, He quoted His own revelation 
when He referred to Moses' Story of 
Cain and Abel,' his 'Life of Abraham,' 
his 'Story of the Flood.' And also his 
'Story of Sodom and Gomorrah.' (See 
Matthew 23:35; John 8:39, 40; Mat-
thew 24:38; Luke 18:29, 30.) Our 
Lord had witnessed these great events; 
He had inspired Moses to recount 
these narratives to the people. He 
knew they were the truth. 
"Remember that!" he went on. 
"These stories are absolutely true. 
Christ declared that 'the Scripture 
cannot be broken.' (John 10:35.) 
So believe not those who reject this 
word of Christ; who cover fables with 
a show of much learning, or with 
dramatic broadcasts. Examine thou 
carefully God's great book of nature. 
What God wrote on the rocks is the 
same thing He tells through Moses. 
Examine the fossils well; notice the 
strangely varying strata, the rocks 
and stones, the mountains and river 
gorges. Interpret all nature's displays 
by God's book of revelation, the 
Sacred Scriptures. Thou shalt find 
that this Bible makes the great prob-
lems of geology amazingly simple. 
Thou shalt find: 'Through faith we 
understand.' " Hebrews 11:3. 
He turned to the door and raised 
his hand as if in benediction. "Fare-
well! May God be with thee!" he said. 
And he was gone! 
JUNE, 1947 �
9 
H. ARMSTRONG ROBERTS 
"He is despised and rejected of men; a Man of sorrows, and acquainted 
with grief." Isaiah 53:3. 
I
N A famous European art gallery 
there stands a statue of a mother 
holding in her arms the lifeless 
form of her little son. Lines of grief 
in the mother's face reflect the sorrow 
that grips her heart. By her side stands 
her husband staring vacantly into 
space. Beneath the statue a bronze 
plaque bears the title, "The First 
Death." 
How vividly the sculptor has depic-
ted the universal pain and heartache 
from which our war-wrecked world 
suffers to-day! With bewildering sud-
denness the grim reaper strikes, leav-
ing in his wake broken hearts and 
broken lives. How many as they stand 
by the open grave of one who was 
near and dear to them repeat the 
eternal question, "Why?" 
In lower Manhattan one evening 
last year, I was waiting for the Staten 
Island ferry. In the crowd, the man 
10 
next to me unburdened a great sor-
row that had just come to him. 
"My son is in the air force over in 
the South Pacific," he told me. "Yes-
terday was his mother's birthday and 
he sent her a cable wishing her a 
happy birthday." 
The man's voice choked with emo-
tion for a moment, and then he added, 
"Poor boy, he didn't know that his 
mother passed away a few days before 
he sent the message! I haven't told 
him yet. It wouldn't do any good and 
it would only make him feel bad." 
How full of aching hearts this world 
of ours is to-day! Many a headline an-
nouncing some airplane crash, rail-
way or automobile accident, or other 
unusual accident, brings heartache 
and grief to mothers, wives, husbands, 
relatives and friends of those who will 
never come back! Into many homes 
grim tragedy has stalked with its sha-
dow of death. 
A father received word that his son 
—a fine young man, the pride and 
joy of his life—had suddenly lost his 
life in a railway accident. In bitter-
ness he challenged his pastor who 
sought to comfort him—"Tell me, sir, 
where was God when my son was 
killed?" 
With tender sympathy the man of 
God replied, "My friend, God was in 
the same place He was two thousand 
years ago when His own Son was 
killed—not accidentally, but as the 
victim of one of the most terrible 
crimes of all history!" 
Yes, when you and I pass through 
the rivers of affliction, when our hearts 
break with grief, let us remember 
that our heavenly Father saw the life 
of His Son snuffed out upon the 
cross of Calvary. If our hearts ache 
when we lose loved ones, think how 
He who made the human heart must 
have felt as He yielded up His only 
begotten Son upon the cross! 
We are assured that God does not 
willingly bring these sorrows upon 
us. It is not a pleasure for God to see 
His children suffer any more than it 
is a pleasure for you, father or 
mother, to see your children suffer. 
"But though He cause grief, yet 
will He have compassion according to 
the multitude of His mercies. For He 
doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve 
the children of men." Lamentations 
3:32, 33. 
Have you felt, my friend, that be-
cause God had permitted some great 
sorrow to enter your home He 
no longer loved you? Did you feel 
that He was punishing you for some-
thing wrong you had done? If you 
have felt that way, it was Satan trying 
to discourage you. Listen to this 
blessed assurance from• the pen of In-
spiration: "My son, despise not thou 
the chastening of the Lord, nor faint 
when thou art rebuked of Him: for 
whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth." 
Hebrews 12:5, 6. 
The Reverend H. W. Pope tells of 
an interesting conversation a certain 
man had with a friend of his. The 
man was chiding Mr. Pope's friend for 
being a Christian despite the loss of 
practically all that he had. 
"First you lost your property," the 
man said. "Next your wife had a long 
sickness; then a broken knee laid you 
on your back for six months, and 
when you got up you had a stiff leg 
for life. Now how do you account for 
all this trouble? If God is as good to 
His people as you say He is, why does 
He pei-mit these disasters to come 
upon you?" 
"Well," said the man addressed, "I 
don't know that I can account for 
these things to your satisfaction, but 
I think I can to my own. You know I 
SIGNS of the TIMES 
am a blacksmith. I often pick up a 
piece of steel, and if I think it will take 
a temper, I put it into the fire and 
bring it to a white heat. Next I 
plunge it into the water and suddenly 
change the temperature. 
"Then I put it into the fire and 
again into the water. This I repeat 
several times. Then I lay it on the an-
vil and hammer it and bend it, and 
make some useful article which I put 
into a carriage where it will do good 
service for twenty-five years. If, how-
ever, when I first strike it on the an-
vil I think it will not take a temper, 
I throw it into the scrap heap and 
sell it for a quarter of a cent a pound. 
"Now I believe that my heavenly 
Father has been testing me to see if I 
will take a temper. He has put me 
into the fire and into the water; He 
has laid me on the • anvil and ham-
mered me and rasped me. I have tried 
to bear it just as patiently as I could, 
and my daily prayer has been, 'Lord, 
put me into the fire if You will; put 
me into the water if You think I need 
it; do anything You please, 0 Lord, 
and burst on the side of the hill where 
the British troops were encamped. 
Immediately from the ragged hole 
which it made in the ground came 
out a copious stream of clear, cold 
water. Thus, in a most extraordinary 
way, the British soldiers, who had 
great difficulty in getting water, had 
their needs supplied. So God often 
turns to our good and our help that 
which appeared to be for our hurt." 
—The Quiver. 
The wise man declares: "It is bet-
ter to go to the house of mourning, 
than to go to the house of feasting. 
. . . Sorrow is better than laughter: 
for by the sadness of the countenance 
the heart is made better." Ecclesiastes 
7:2, 3. 
"Many of the loveliest songs of peace 
and trust and hope which God's chil-
dren sing in this world they have been 
taught in the hushed and darkened 
chambers of sorrow. . . . Afflictions, 
sanctified, soften the asperities of life. 
They tame the wildness of nature. 
They temper human ambitions. They 
burn out the dross of selfishness and 
would have it—for it was part of 
God's answer to her daily prayer that 
we all might be an unbroken family 
in the kingdom of heaven. 
My high school days were careless, 
carefree days, filled at times with those 
thoughtless escapades that furrow the 
brows of Christian mothers. They 
were days of worldliness that drew me 
away from the influence of the 
church and the home, into the smoke-
laden atmosphere of the boxing ring. 
They were months of patient prayer 
on the part of a mother who longed 
to see her son saved in the kingdom of 
God. 
And then the blow fell! There 
came to me in a small town out on the 
prairies of Iowa a message that 
pierced my heart. Fifteen hundred 
miles away in Florida my mother lay 
in a coma. She had been •calling for 
me. As soon as it was humanly pos-
sible I was at her bedside—but she 
never regained consciousness. During 
those days that she lingered I had a 
chance to think things over—to recall 
those lessons I had learned at my be- 
TIIE MEANING OF SOR11011 
only for Christ's sake, don't throw me 
into the scrap heap.' " 
It is true as Paul the apostle states, 
"No chastening for the present seem-
eth to be joyous, but grievous." He-
brews 12:11. But then he goes on to 
say: "Nevertheless afterward, it yield-
eth the peaceable fruit of righteous-
ness unto them which are exercised 
thereby." 
Dr. J. R. Miller says: "Many of the 
sweetest joys of Christian hearts are 
songs which have been learned in the 
bitterness of trial. . . . Many a cold, 
icy nature is made warm and tender 
by the grief that crushes it."—"Week-
Day Religion," pp. 91, 93. 
And it is true that while trial and 
sorrow may crush us for the moment, 
yet from the ashes of the affliction 
there may spring forth a flower of 
greatest blessing. That which may 
have embittered our hearts for the 
moment may be the means of softening 
and tendering our natures so that we 
are saved eternally. 
"During the Crimean War, a bomb-
shell fired from the fortifications of 
Sebastopol buried itself in the earth 
worldliness. They humble pride. They 
quell fierce passions. They reveal to 
men their own hearts, their own weak-
ness, faults, blemishes, and perils. 
They teach patience and submission. 
They discipline unruly spirits. They 
deepen and enrich our experience." 
--"Week-Day Religion," pp. 92, 93. 
Not only is this true, but the psalm-
ist declares that sometimes affliction 
and sorrow bring men and women 
back to God. "Before I was afflicted I 
went astray: but now have I kept Thy 
word." Psalm 119:67. 
Man, when he goes his own indif-
ferent carefree way, often forgets his 
Creator. God sometimes has to per-
mit pain and suffering to arrest us in 
our headstrong course and cause us 
to turn to Him. ' 
I know from personal experience. 
To-day I have a mother who lies sleep-
ing beneath the spreading branches 
of a moss-laden live oak tree in a little 
cemetery down in central Florida. In 
my heart of hearts I feel that she is 
there that I might be here preaching 
the gospel of a coming Saviour. And, 
somehow, I .am sure that it is as she 
loved mother's knee from the time I 
was big enough to toddle around. 
Then came that day I shall never 
forget, when with all of us kneeling 
by her bedside the silver cord gave 
way and the one who was nearest and 
dearest to me fell asleep in Jesus. 
That experience did something to 
my worldly heart and life that led me 
into another room where, upon my 
knees, with my Bible open before me, 
I sobbed, "Lord, I surrender! What 
wouldst Thou have me to do?" As 
clearly as though someone in the same 
room had spoken to me, came the 
words of the Lord in Proverbs 23:26: 
"My son, give Me thine heart, and let 
thine eyes observe My ways." 
My heart! That was what God 
wanted! In order to startle me from 
(Continued on page 16) 
By 
Robert Pierson 
JUNE, 1947 �
11 
W
E have all heard how moun-
tain climbers who set out to 
scale certain Alpine peaks rope 
themselves together, each to the other. 
The reason is obvious. If one of the 
party should lose his footing on those 
treacherous steeps, the others can save 
him from death. A study of the Scrip-
tures will show that God has em-
ployed this same principle in saving 
men from eternal death, for Acts 2:47 
says, "And the Lord added to the 
church daily such as should be saved." 
The church, of course, is a company 
of fellow-believers, and according to 
the verse we just read, when the Lord 
set out to save a man in New Testa-
ment times, He led him to identify 
himself as a member of that company. 
Does the Lord still do this? Or has 
He changed His plan? 
There seem to be a great many 
Christians all about us who have come 
to question the sincerity of the 
church, any church. They have more 
confidence in the preacher who claims 
no denominational ties than in the 
most sincere minister of any organized 
church. These good people have usu-
ally gone from evangelist to evangel-
ist seeking for what they consider to 
be an honest presentation of Bible 
teaching. We find that many of them 
have gone so far as to seriously in-
vestigate the doctrines held by two or 
three denominations, and in their dis-
appointment have concluded that 
there is no truly scriptural church 
anywhere. Is that conclusion war-
ranted? Has God no longer any spe-
cific church which He honours as His? 
It not, what does He lead His true 
followers to do to-day? In New Testa-
ment times He added them to the 
church. Where does He lead them to-
day? 
Let us endeavour to discover when 
God organized the church body. The 
church institution did not originate 
when Christ taught and healed among 
men nineteen centuries ago. It existed 
long before that. According to Acts 
7:38 it was in existence at least fifteen 
hundred years before Christ, for Acts 
7:38 calls the assembly of Israelites 
at the foot of Mt. Sinai "the church 
in the wilderness." And according to 1 
Corinthians 10:1-4, it was a Christian 
church: "Moreover, brethren, I would 
not that ye should be ignorant, how 
that all our fathers were under the 
cloud, and all passed through the sea" 
—Paul is referring here to the chil- 
dren of Israel as they crossed the Red 
Sea. Reading on: "and were all bap-
tized unto Moses in the cloud and in 
By 0. B. Gerhart 
the sea; and did all eat the same spirit-
ual meat; and did all drink the same 
spiritual drink: for they drank of that 
spiritual Rock that went with them 
[marginal reading]: and that Rock 
was Christ." 
So the New Testament teaches that 
Christ was the leader and sustainer 
of the "church in the wilderness." 
Therefore, the Old Testament church 
was a Christian church, too. The New 
Testament church had no greater 
claim to Christ's leadership after He 
left than did the Israelites of Old 
Testament times who followed Christ 
in that pillar of cloud and who heard 
His voice speak the ten command-
ments from Mt. Sinai. Both were Chris-
tian churches, you see. And the Jews 
were still the church of Christ when 
He finally came in human flesh and 
lived among them. When the woman 
of Samaria tried to involve Jesus in an 
argument as to whether the Jews or 
the Samaritans were the true church 
Jesus said plainly: "Ye worship ye 
know not what: we know what we 
worship: for salvation is of the Jews." 
John 4:22. If any plainer statement 
is desired on this point, we read it in 
Matthew 21:43: "The kingdom of 
God shall be taken from you, and 
given to a nation bringing forth the 
fruits thereof." The kingdom of God 
shall be taken from you—so it had 
not yet been taken from the Jews. 
"But it shall be," Jesus said. And 
when it should be taken from the Jews, 
the church was not to disappear from 
the earth. Oh, no. "The kingdom . . . 
shall be ... given to a nation bringing 
forth the fruits thereof." 
Years later the apostle Paul wrote 
about this casting off of the Jewish 
nation which had then taken place. 
In Romans 11:13 he says, "I speak to 
you Gentiles . . . ." And what does he 
say to the Gentile converts? Begin 
with verse 19: "Thou wilt say then, 
The branches were broken off, that I 
might be graffed in. Well; because 
of unbelief they were broken off, and 
thou standest by faith. Be not high-
minded, but fear: for if God spared 
not the natural branches, take heed 
lest He also spare not thee." So the 
breaking off of the Jewish branches 
in nowise destroyed the tree. The 
church still remained, but its mem- 
bership was different now. The king-
dom had been taken from the unbe- 
lieving Jew and given to the believing 
Gentiles—that was all. But it was the 
same kingdom. Its Ruler was the same 
—Christ. It was still the Christian 
Church. The converts gained through 
the ministry of the apostles were or-
ganized into units called churches. 
Wherever the New Testament preach- 
ers went, these units sprang up. They 
had definite membership rolls; they 
had their denominational headquar-
ters; they had their denominational 
leaders. And since some may question 
all this, suppose we pause to read be-
fore we pass on. 
First, a text that shows they had 
definite membership rolls is Acts 14: 
27'. "And when they were come, and 
had gathered the church together, 
they rehearsed all that God had done 
with them." Here was a special meet-
ing of believers in a certain city. Two 
visiting ministers had come. The rec-
ord is that they "gathered the church 
together"—an impossible task if no 
one knew the names and addresses of 
the church members. But someone did 
know all these, we see. 
The headquarters for the whole 
Christian church were at Jerusalem 
for a number of years. When a diffi-
culty over doctrine arose, it was re-
ferred to Jerusalem for consideration. 
Acts 15:2 says, "When therefore Paul 
and Barnabas had no small dissension 
and disputation with them, they de-
termined that Paul and Barnabas, and 
certain other of them, should go up to 
Jerusalem unto the apostles and el-
ders about this question." There is 
abundant evidence that the New 
Testament church was not less thor-
oughly organized than was the Old 
Testament church before it. 
NOw the Christians of that day 
were numerically inferior to the 
older Jewish Church. But they were 
God's chosen church, just the same. 
And it was to that little church that 
God added such as should be saved. 
But now let us come directly to the 
question we started out to consider in 
this Bible study. Has the Lord Jesus 
any specific organization to-day that 
He honours as His church? Or have 
the pride, the worldliness, the unfaith-
fulness of many denominations turned 
" ,fiad WW zoird 
12 �
SIGNS of the TIMES 
• 
rL. 
It 7 ,ito 
H. ARMSTRONG ROBERTS 
God's church on earth to-day is a retreat where the soul may receive spiritual food and 
drink. It is, as was the ancient sanctuary, a place where God meets with and blesses His• 
people. 
madded 
16- 
God from the idea of church organ-
ization altogether? Come to Revela-
tion—that book which above every 
other in all the Bible deals with events 
and organizations of our day—let us 
read the answer there. But, first, let 
us remember that since the book of 
Revelation is entirely prophetic, it 
must' of necessity be written in sym-
bolic language, and those symbols 
are discreetly defined elsewhere in the 
Bible, where none but the devout be-
liever will take the time to look for 
them, and God's description of the 
symbol always answers to the doc-
trines and practice of the organiza-
tion symbolized. So the answer to this 
question about God's church to-day 
will naturally be clothed in figurative 
language, if indeed God mentions it 
at all. Does He? 
Revelation 12:17: "And the dragon 
was wroth with the woman; and went 
to make war with the remnant of her 
seed, which keep the commandments 
of God, and have the testimony of 
Jesus Christ." This dragon is the 
devil, Satan, for Revelation 12:9 says: 
"The great dragon was cast out, that 
old serpent, called the devil, and 
Satan." And who is this woman with 
whom Satan is angry? Why Jeremiah 
6:2 reads: "I have likened the 
daughter of Zion to a comely and deli-
cate woman." Paul writes in 2 Cor-
inthians 11:2 to the Christians: "I 
have espoused you to one husband, 
that I may present you as a chaste vir-
gin to Christ." So a woman is used 
sometimes as a symbol—symbol of a 
church. In fact, when symbolic lan-
guage is used, a woman always means 
a church. In Ezekiel 23, backslidden 
Israel and Judah are likened to two 
lewd women. A fallen woman in sym-
bolic language always means a fallen 
church, and a pure woman a pure 
church. Now, since this woman of 
Revelation 12 is a pure woman, it is 
clear that the dragon's wrath against 
her refers to the devil's wrath against 
God's church. But there is a certain 
part of this church with which the 
devil will be more than angry. Read 
Revelation 12:17 again: "The dragon 
was wroth with the woman, and went 
to make war with the remnant of her 
seed." What is this remnant of the 
woman's seed? Why, it is the last end 
JUNE, 1947 
of God's church on earth. It is the 
church of God in the last days, then. 
You who fear that God has abandoned 
all denominations nowadays; take 
courage. Take courage, for just as 
surely as we are living in the last days, 
there is an organization, a church 
somewhere, that the God of heaven 
acknowledges as His. And how can 
we know this church? Read once more: 
"And the dragon was wroth with the 
woman, and went to make war with 
the remnant of her seed, which keep 
the commandments of God." There is 
one of the marks to look for, then. 
Any church in these days that has the 
reputation of being a stickler for 
the ten commandments is worth 
investigating, anyway, for that is 
one of the earmarks of the remnant 
church. Now while allegiance to the 
ten commandments is still written 
into the creeds and confes,sions of most 
churches, it is very disappointing to 
hear their ministry advising their 
members nowadays that those ten 
commandments were nailed to the 
cross, that faith in Christ does away 
with the need to keep them, and so on. 
Thank God there are still preachers 
in every denomination who have not 
partaken of this apostasy, but where 
there is one, there should be one hun-
dred. But according to the prophecies 
of Revelation there is to be an entire 
organization in the last days which 
will be a commandment-keeping 
church. Its ministry and membership 
will be noted for that very character-
istic. 
13 
czy 
/ �
/ 
cm...I 
TODAY and 
The Days of Vengeance 
"THEN said He unto'them, Nation 
shall rise against nation, and king-
dom against kingdom. . . . For these 
be the days of vengeance, that all things 
which are written may be fulfilled." 
Luke 21:10, 22. Thus Christ typified 
the days of the years of the end. That 
we have come to that time seems be-
yond cavil. 
Another great step was taken by the 
United States State Department in 
changing its foreign policy when 
Great Britain signified her intention 
of laying down her responsibilities in 
Greece. Students of American history 
will view the acceptance of the re-
sponsibility laid down by Britain, if 
the United States accepts, as a fur-
ther step away from the original pol-
icy of the republic. They will smile 
a bit as they think of the naivete of 
those who imagined that the United 
States could stop after it started to 
participate in world affairs with the 
annexation of the Philippines. 
More interesting and more to the 
point is the consideration of the rea-
sons why Greece needs the help she 
must get. There are many who think 
that if Greece were left alone—en-
tirely alone—so far as her internal af-
fairs are concerned, she could solve 
her own problems. They recognize the 
existence of pressure from expansion-
ist powers to the eastward. In view of 
the extremely strategic position which 
Greece occupies geographically, the 
final success or failure of those ex-
erting the pressure is of extreme im-
portance to the western powers. 
All of this is another demonstration 
of the extreme complexity of the af-
fairs of the world; and of the increas-
ing friction between the ideologies of 
the East and the West. It seems to us 
that only the wilfully blind can fail 
to see the slenderness of the hope for 
peace in the world. 
This is according to prophecy, a 
bit of which appears above. "Nation 
shall rise against nation, and kingdom 
against kingdom," says the prophecy; 
and nations continue to rise in power, 
and tension continues to mount un-
til horrible wars break out. "These 
be the days of vengeance;" not only 
the vengeance of God, which is to 
14 
INTERNATIONAL 
come, but days of the vengeance of 
man, to an unprecedented extent. 
Thank God that He has indicated 
that these things are the fateful har-
bingers of the establishment of the 
kingdom of God! 
Bad Dreams 
THESE are the days of Wellsian fan-
tasy. No longer, do thoughtful men, 
though skeptical, doubt the possibil-
ity of almost anything happening. 
Recent news dispatches out of Ger-
many underscore this. These dis-
patches revealed the deadly earnest 
measures of the allied military guards 
in rounding up a Germany-wide un-
derground movement. Individuals 
captured in the raids were former 
storm troopers, members of the old 
Elite Guard, Hitler youth, German 
intelligence bureau, and other simi-
lar agencies—the most desperate and 
fanatical elements in Germany. 
It was stated that the avowed ob-
ject of this movement was the re-
sumption of the war and that the 
movement possessed powerful secret 
weapons, including bacteriological 
weapons ready for use. 
At such reports as this we admit 
that we start uneasily from our every-
day complacency as a man troubled 
TOMORROW7 
v\ 
by a bad dream. It no longer takes 
an army of hundreds of thousands to 
endanger the world. Later dispatches 
quote leaders of the movement as 
boasting that only a "handful" of 
men could, with the weapons in their 
possession, have brought England to 
her knees. 
We do not know the nature of 
this bacteriological weapon men-
tioned in the news dispatches. The 
accounts seem over-simplified, and 
we doubt that anywhere near the full 
truth has been told. However, we do 
know something of the nature of the 
atom bomb and the V-2 rocket, and 
their possibilities. Some of our top 
scientists have told us that the atom 
bombs dropped on Hiroshima and 
Nagasaki were "primitive," and that 
.much better (or worse) bombs are 
now in existence. Worse than this, 
we are now reminded that in the 
near future it may be possible to de-
stroy continents of people without 
actually dropping such bombs upon 
the continent destined for the attack. 
This would be done by releasing 
"clouds" of radiant material which 
would release the same sort of 
deadly emanations that destroyed 
thousands of lives in the two Jap-
anese cities mentioned. The radiant 
material could be released to be 
carried over its objective by the 
world's prevailing winds. 
This is in the realm of possibility. 
Increased radioactivity was detected 
over the eastern seaboard after the 
first explosion, in New Mexico. The 
radioactivity from the Bikini bombs 
was detected within a week in the 
United States. Of course the power 
of the instruments of destruction now 
in our grasp would have to be in-
creased, but that is not at all impos-
sible. Dr. Edward Teller, of the Uni-
versity of Chicago, who had consider-
able to do with the development of 
the atom bomb, reminds us that the 
ones used so far are merely the re-
sults of first attempts and should not 
be considered as measures of future 
possibilities. 
All this makes one very uneasy. 
For, as we have pointed out, it is 
no longer necessary to have an army 
of a million men to start a war. The 
"push-button" war of the future may 
SIGNS of the TIMES 
Solomon's Wailing Wall, where the descendants of Abraham still pray for the 
Messiah to come. 
INTERNATIONAL 
well be waged by a comparative hand-
ful. It may be undeclared. It may 
come as stealthily as a rising west 
wind. It may mean death to conti-
nents of peoples. 
"This know also, that in the last 
days perilous times shall come," wrote 
Paul to Timothy. We are quite sure 
that he had no idea just how perilous 
times could be. Perhaps even we do 
not yet realize to the full extent. But 
we know we are living in those times. 
A time of bad dreams. 
Palestine Again 
RIOTING and bombing in Palestine 
again make headlines. These things 
have been happening so long that one 
rather expects to read of them, and is 
not surprised, although the latest out-
breaks are especially violent and vi-
cious. 
Investigation of the Palestine ques-
tion makes for a great deal of confu-
sion for the average person. There is 
so much to be said on so many sides 
of the question that one is hard 
pressed to reach any satisfactory con-
clusion. Just now we are sure that the 
British government would agree with 
us on this point. 
Harsh accusations have been made 
against Britain's efforts to settle the 
question. Perhaps some of them may 
be true. At any rate the British govern-
ment is not at the present time pos-
ing as being infallible in this respect. 
In fact it seems that she may unload 
the whole burden on the UNO. At 
the present time it seems that no one 
would be able to do much better in 
spite of Churchill's bitter denuncia-
tion of the present policy. 
Right now the order is to evacuate 
all non-essential British civilians 
from the danger area and to evacu-
ate all Jews from certain areas in Je- 
rusalem. These measures have been 
met with bitterness and violence on 
the part of the Jews and with com-
plaints on the part of the British that 
they are unnecessary. 
In the midst of it all one thinks of 
the Jew with sadness; surely he is the 
saddest spectacle in a sad and tired 
world. For one remembers that this 
is not the first time—nor the second—
nor the third. The Jews of the world 
have not had a place of security and 
peace for many centuries. 
Whenever we read accounts such 
as those we have just mentioned we 
are irresistibly reminded that these 
happenings are a fulfilment of an-
cient prophecies. When God chose 
Israel as His peculiar people they 
were not only given great opportuni-
ties, but they were likewise placed 
under great responsibilities. If they 
failed to meet these God said the 
penalty would be severe: "And 
thou shalt become an astonishment, 
a proverb, and a byword, among all 
nations whither the Lord shall lead 
thee. . . . And the Lord shall scatter 
thee among all people, from the one 
end of the earth even unto the other; 
and there thou shalt serve other gods, 
which neither thou nor thy fathers 
have known, even wood and stone. 
And among these nations shalt thou 
find no ease, neither shall the sole of 
thy foot have rest: but the Lord shall 
give thee there a trembling heart, 
and failing of eyes, and sorrow of 
mind: and thy life shall hang in doubt 
before thee; and thou shalt fear day 
and night, and shalt have none as-
surance of thy life." Deuteronomy 
28:37, 64-66 (italics ours) . 
No prophecy has ever met its ful-
filment more exactly and more ter-
ribly than this. We cannot believe 
that this fulfilment was the wish of 
God; it was His foreknowledge. The 
fact that He foretold these things will 
not cause Him to excuse the perse-
cutors of the Jews nor to overlook the 
failure of any who could extend them 
succour and do not. 
A Forgotten Standard 
RECENTLY two police officers were 
killed and another was wounded 
severely, a bandit was killed and an-
other seriously wounded, in a gun bat-
tle that took place in an industrial dis-
trict in the city of Vancouver. The 
criminals involved were seen, masked, 
in the vicinity of a branch bank and 
were reported to the police, who were 
trying to apprehend them when the 
fatal shooting occurred. 
This, the first police killing in 
many years in the city, shook the town 
to its foundation. It was shaken even 
more by the revelation that the ban-
dits were all teen-agers. They were 
evidently not amateurs, even though, 
they were a bit careless in approach-
ing the bank, for they used guns with 
ease and accuracy. Where they se-
cured their weapons and learned to 
use them in such a deadly manner is 
still a question for investigation. 
At least one of the boys' parents 
claimed that they had no idea that 
he was involved in any questionable 
activities whatsoever. They said he 
had always been "a good boy." 
If this instance of juvenile crimi-
nality were isolated it would not be so 
bad, but, as everyone knows, it is far 
from being so. It is safe to say that if 
all our criminals under the age of 
twenty-one were rounded up and 
properly restrained there would be 
comparatively little for police officers 
to do. Furthermore, statistics—not-
ably those of the United States Fed-
eral Bureau of Investigation—show 
that the age of youthful criminals is 
becoming younger and younger. 
There are many factors that are 
causing this, but what we need to 
know is what will prevent it. It is 
surely a hundred times better to pre-
vent the juvenile from getting afoul 
of the law than to wait until he does 
and then set his feet on the straight 
and narrow path. 
However, there is one cause that 
may direct us to a preventative. That 
cause, we shall call the flight from re- 
sponsibility. It means that the par-
ents have shifted the responsibility 
of training their children to the 
schools, to the churches, to the social 
organizations, or they have just fled 
from the responsibility of training 
them, and they do not care who does 
it. 
We are liv;ing in an age that seeks 
any panacea that does not involve 
personal sacrifice and effort. We la-
bour under the delusion that if only 
JUNE, 1947 �
15 
LAMBERT 
our schools were better all our diffi-
culties with young people would be 
over. We blame the churches for not 
making them better. If the churches 
were what they ought to be, we say, 
our young people would not go 
wrong. If we had more recreational 
facilities for our youth we could keep 
them off the streets. Every street-
corner philosopher has his solution. 
Now, we believe in the church, the 
school, the playground programmes 
and other organized efforts to help 
the children, but we do not believe 
that any of these agencies can solve 
our problem. We believe that only 
as parents are willing to shoulder 
their personal responsibility as par-
ents who are determined to see to it 
that their children have the proper 
character training regardless of what 
others may do—only then will we see 
a desirable change. 
Shame 
WE DO NOT believe that children 
should be burned to death or tor-
tured to death in any other way. One 
of the things which the world will 
not forget about the Nazi regime in 
Germany is that it caused the de-
struction of the lives of countless 
helpless women and children. If we 
knew of a near-by power that was 
continuing to torture children, we 
believe we should do something about 
it. 
But the newspapers recently carried 
the sordid story of trial involving the 
cruel death of two tiny children in 
British Columbia. The father ran a 
beer hall. The mother likewise spent 
much time there; so much, in fact, 
that she was often gone six or seven 
hours consecutively, leaving her chil-
dren in the care of one of the neigh-
bourhood children. 
Upon this particular occasion the 
children were left under the care of 
one of the neighbour boys. During 
the evening he decided to go to a 
near-by ice arena to buy some pop-
corn. While there, he became inter-
ested in a hockey game and did not 
think of his small charges until he 
heard a fire alarm and went to see 
where the fire might be. He found 
that the house where the children 
were was on fire, and before firemen 
could rescue them the two small chil-
dren were dead. 
"Gross negligence" was the charge 
of the court. We think of stronger 
language than that to apply to such 
a crime. 
As long as we tolerate the sale and 
use of alcoholic liquor, such things 
will continue to happen. Children 
will be tortured and killed; women 
will be mistreated; men will be de-
graded. Shame on any government 
that permits such things! 
The Edztortals in this issue were 
written by R. E. Finney, Jr.—Ed. • 
Editor Change 
WITH keen regret we announce the 
passing of our editor, R. B. Thurber. 
Readers of this journal during the 
past three years have come to value 
highly the quality of editorial leader-
ship of Mr. Thurber, evidenced 
by many letters of appreciation re-
ceived from time to time from sub-
scribers. 
A keen thinker, an able writer, a 
devoted worker, a consecrated and 
loving personality has departed from 
us. As publishers of the SIGNS we 
are acutely conscious of our loss in 
that Mr. Thurber was qualified 
through years of experience in several 
countries under the flag to represent 
Christian interests throughout the 
Dominion as well as abroad. His 
evangelical vision transcended na-
tional boundaries. 
We are able to announce the name 
of Mr. Dallas Youngs, who has been 
invited to assume the duties laid 
down by Mr. Thurber. He comes to 
us from Washington, D.C., where he 
left a fruitful field of evangelism, 
Bible instruction and literary work. 
Mr. Youngs has now entered upon 
his duties as editor of this journal. 
We bespeak for him the same ap-
probation and support of our read-
ers as that accorded his predecessor. 
H. P. Evens, General Manager, 
SIGNS OF THE TIMES 
PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION. 
The Meaning of Sorrow 
(Continued from page 11) 
my careless and lost condition He had 
touched the one who was nearest and 
dearest to me and had taken her from 
me! Perhaps nothing less would have 
reached my worldly heart. But I am 
sure that, loving me as she did, she 
would gladly give her life that one of 
her children might be saved. She 
would not want it otherwise! 
Though the pain cut deeply into 
my heart, I am constrained to say with 
the psalmist: "It is good for me that 
I have been afflicted; that I might 
learn Thy statutes." Psalm 119:71. 
I feel sure that many who read 
these lines would be able to bear simi-
lar testimony—that through sorrow 
and suffering you have found Christ. 
Through it all your heavenly 
Father who loves you is near to 
strengthen and uphold you: "There-
fore despise not the chastening of the 
Almighty, for He maketh sore, and 
bindeth up: He woundeth, and His 
hands make whole." Job 5:17, 18. 
The psalmist declares that God 
keeps a record of all our tears that 
flow: "Put Thou my tears into Thy 
bottle: are they not in Thy book?" 
Psalm 56:8. 
"Never a trial that He is not there, 
Never a burden that He doth not bear, 
Never a sorrow that He doth not 
share, 
Moment by moment I'm under His 
care." 
"I Do" 
(Continued from page 17) 
back of him! Express your confidence 
in him! Tell him you know he will 
win in the end, and don't forget to 
tell him you love him. He will recip-
rocate and bless the day you said, "I 
do." 
And last but not least, make your 
newly founded home a Christian 
home. Base it upon Christian prin-
ciples, and make the Bible the fore-
most book of the household. If you 
will make Bible study and family 
worship habitual, and will let the 
voice of prayer ascend from your 
housetop to heaven, God will send 
His angels to your home with a bless-
ing. And another thing not to neg-
lect is faithful attendance at church 
and prayer meeting. The Lord ad-
monishes (Hebrews 10:25) to for- 
sake not "the assembling of ourselves 
together." And one thing more, the 
Bible tells us to train up the children 
in the way they should go when they 
are young, and when they are old 
they will not depart from it. 
So now, June Bride, the Lord bless 
thee and keep thee as you say "I do," 
and enter upon your great adventure. 
16 �
SIGNS of the TIMES 
H ARMSTRONG ROBERTS 
Don't enter into marriage blindfolded. Learn and observe the rules of matrimony 
and avoid the divorce courts. 
husband." And the likelihood is that 
he won't take it sitting down. I once 
knew a family, George and Mabel. 
According to Mabel, George didn't 
know how to manage things nearly 
as well as she did; so she bossed him. 
It was common among the neigh-
bours that George could hardly 
breathe unless Mabel o.k.'d it. It 
worked out badly with the children, 
too—the mother did not respect the 
father, and neither did the chil-
dren. Well, it came to pass in the 
process of time that Mabel died, and 
the neighbours said: "Now what will 
poor George do, with no one to tell 
him what to do?" But to the surprise 
of everyone, George got along very 
well indeed. Make it a rule, June 
Bride, if you would have a happy 
home, to let your husband be the man 
of the house and fill the position God 
gave him to fill. 
The cry of the distressed young 
wife oftentimes is, "What can I do 
to hold my husband's love?" The an-
swer is, "Do the same thing you did 
to win it in the first place." What 
did you do? You paid attention to 
your appearance. You never let him 
see you in a soiled dress and with un-
combed hair. You were pleasing and 
interested in the things he was inter-
ested in. In other words, you sold 
yourself to him as one who would 
make a desirable life's companion. 
Now do it! Don't let him come home 
from a hard day's work and find you 
in a soiled house dress, with disor-
dered hair, and a disagreeable dispo-
sition. Don't expect too much of him 
at first. Remember that age and ex-
perience are against him, and he may 
not be able to support you in the 
style in which your father did. Stand 
(Continued on page 16) 
17 
I UNE is the month of brides. It is 
J very fitting—a beautiful month for 
a beautiful occasion. June is bright 
with the prospects of summer and 
autumn harvest—June marriages are 
bright with the joy of the moment, 
and the anticipation of a long and 
happy married life. To the June bride 
the long highway of life seems to be 
"with sunshine spread." Not a cloud 
dots the horizon. 
But be careful, Miss June Bride—
not all is gold that glitters. There are 
storm clouds ahead, as the divorce 
courts attest. Don't enter into mar-
riage blindfolded—it is far better to 
open the eyes before than after. 
Marriage should not be entered into 
hastily. It is a solemn lifetime con-
tract and should be made on the 
basis of time, contemplation and 
prayer. It is better to learn a few 
simple rules of successful marriage 
and live up to them, than to shed 
tears of regret for not having done 
so. Some things are small and almost 
trivial in themselves, but failure to 
observe them oftentimes brings do-
mestic catastrophe. 
To begin with—don't nag at any 
time, ever. Remember, it's one thing 
to get a good husband, but it's a 
better thing to keep him—happy. 
No self-respecting husband will stand 
for nagging. Nothing will drive him 
more quickly from the family fire- 
' 
�
�
side. He will soon form the habit of 
spending the evening at the "country 
store," "the club," or with the boys. 
Or perchance he will seek the com-
pany of one of the opposite sex to 
gain relief from a nagging wife. So 
don't forget, June Bride, don't nag— 
. �
never, NEVER, NEVER. 
Another thing, don't try to domi-
nate him. In other words, don't "hen-
peck" him. He can't retain his stand-
ing and self-respect with his associates 
if it is known that he is a "henpecked 
JUNE, 1947 
"I 
DO" 
• �
By Dallas Youngs 
IBLE ANSWERS 
*rota aible Answerman 
Send your Bible and religious questions to "The Bible Answerman" 
Box 398, Oshawa, Ontario. 
QUESTION: Will you please explain 
what it means in Romans 6:14 where it 
speaks of being under the law and under 
grace? 
ANSWER: Suppose we quote that 
verse. It says: "Sin shall not have do-
minion over you: for ye are not un-
der the law, but under grace." Paul 
is here writing to the Roman Chris-
tians. They were converts from hea-
thenism to Christianity. When they 
were in their sins (when they were 
heathen) they were under the law—
under the condemnation of the law, 
and therefore condemned to death. 
But when they accepted Christ as 
their personal Saviour, confessed 
their sins and obtained forgiveness, 
they were no longer under the law 
but were now under grace. 
Grace means unmerited favour or 
pardon. That is to say, when Christ 
forgave their sins and pardoned them 
they did not merit it—they received 
it because of divine mercy. 
Sin is the transgression of the law 
(1 John 3:4); therefore whoever breaks 
any one of the ten commandments 
has come "under the law." Let me il-
lustrate: Suppose you violate one Of 
the laws of the state, and are sen-
tenced to life imprisonment. Let us 
say you serve twenty years of your 
sentence when the pardon board 
meets, considers your case and recom-
mends pardon. In due course of time 
you are pardoned and walk out of 
the prison a free man. You are no 
longer under the law—you are free 
from the law by reason of mercy. 
You are now under grace. Now since 
you are under grace are you at liberty 
to go out and break the law again? 
No! if you did you would immedi-
ately come under the law again, be 
re-arrested and imprisoned. 
Just so it is with the law of God. 
You are under it and sentenced to 
death until you obtain forgiveness 
and pardon through Christ—then you 
are under grace. Now being under 
grace you must not sin (break the 
law); if you do, you come under the 
18 
law again, and must again obtain for-
giveness and pardon. Romans 6:15 
settles the whole question: "What 
then? shall we sin, because we are not 
under the law, but under grace? GOD 
FORBID." 
QUESTION: Do you consider the whole 
Bible inspired? I have heard some teach-
ers say that it was inspired only in part. 
ANSWER: We have no reason to 
regard one part of the Bible as in-
spired and another part as non-in-
spired. Who shall determine what is 
inspired and what is not? The Bible 
declares this of itself: "All scripture 
is given by inspiration of God, and 
is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, 
for correction, for instruction in 
righteousness: that the man of God 
may be perfect, throughly furnished 
unto all good works." 2 Timothy 
3:16, 17. When it says, "All scripture 
is given by inspiration" it means lit-
erally that all scripture is GOD 
BREATHED. It is quite true that 
human beings, men of old, wrote the 
Bible; but they were only the pen-
men, the stenographers, as it were, 
writing what God dictated by the 
Spirit. Listen to 2 Peter 1:21 where 
we are told that "holy men of God 
spake as they were moved by the 
Holy Ghost." They did not write their 
own ideas, nor did they set down the 
heathen philosophies of their day. 
They wrote exactly what the Spirit 
told them to write. And oftentimes 
they did not understand the mean-
ing of that which they penned. Hear 
the apostle Paul exclaim: "But I 
certify you, brethren, that the gos-
pel which was preached of me is not 
after man. For I neither received it 
of man, neither was I taught it, but 
by the revelation of Jesus Christ." 
I have heard the book of Jonah 
called a "fish story," and other parts 
of the Good Book disparaged. But 
when Christ was upon earth He en-
dorsed the experience of Jonah as 
genuine, and that should suffice. Time 
after time, Jesus during His ministry 
referred to, or quoted direct portions 
of the Old Testament scriptures. He 
reproached the two disciples on the 
way to Emmaus because they did not 
believe what was written in the scrip-
tures. He began at Moses and ex-
pounded to them the things there con-
cerning Himself, showing that Christ 
must suffer and be put to death as 
it was written. Besides that, the apos-
tolic writers of the New Testament 
continually made reference to, and 
quoted from, the Old Testament. 
They accepted it as the authoritative 
Word of God. They believed it to 
be inspired. In the light of this is it 
not to he considered a dangerous 
thing to salvation to "take out," as 
it were, any part or portion of sacred 
scripture? 
QUESTION: I believe in the second 
coming of Christ, but I have heard it 
said that He is coming secretly and I have 
heard that He is coming openly. Will you 
tell us what the Bible says about it? 
ANSWER: The New Testament 
speaks more about the second com-
ing of Christ than any other subject. 
And it covers very thoroughly the 
manner of His coming. For instance, 
Revelation 1:7 says that "He cometh 
with clouds; and every eye shall see 
Him." There is nothing secret about 
that—"every eye shall see Him." The 
fact is that when the Lord's coming 
is rightly understood it is plainly 
seen how impossible it will be to be 
living here on the earth, and not see 
Jesus when He returns. Listen to 
Revelation 1:16, which is John's de-
scription of the appearance of Christ: 
"He had in His right hand seven 
stars; and out of His mouth went a 
sharp two-edged sword; and HIS 
COUNTENANCE WAS AS THE 
SUN SHINETH IN HIS 
STRENGTH." That is to say, the 
countenance or face of Jesus was as 
bright and glorious as the sun shin-
ing in his strength on an unclouded 
day. It is said that if you were to hold 
your eyes open and gaze intently 
into the sun for only thirty seconds 
you would be blinded permanently. 
SIGNS of the TIMES 
The sun is shining. 93,000,000 miles 
away, and yet it transmits its light 
and glory over that great distance. 
How great and glorious is the face 
of our Saviour? 
This is more readily understood 
when we remember that Jesus is the 
Creator of the sun. It must of neces-
sity follow that the thing created is 
less glorious than the Creator. The 
Bible assures us that when Jesus 
comes it will be in His own glory, the 
glory of all the angels, and in the 
glory of the Father. When we add all 
this glory together we can under-
stand that it will be impossible for 
Jesus to return and every eye not to 
see Him. 
Jesus' own description of His re-
turn is in harmony with what we have 
given above. It is found in Matthew 
24:27: "For as the lightning coin-
eth out of the east, and shineth even 
unto the west; SO SHALL ALSO 
THE COMING OF THE SON OF 
MAN BE." 
QUESTION: I read in 2 Corinthians 
12:2 about the "third heaven." I 
thought there was but one heaven—
please explain. 
ANSWER: There are three heavens 
—the third is the dwelling place of 
God. Paul, in 2 Corinthians 12, 
speaks of being caught up to the third 
heaven, and he says that was Para-
dise. Revelation 2:7 tells us that the 
"tree of 'life" is located in the midst 
of the paradise of God. Then in addi-
tion to that we are told that the river 
of water of life proceeds out of the 
throne of God, and that the tree of 
life grows on both sides of the river. 
kVe must gather from a comparison of 
all these texts that the third heaven 
is the place where God dwells, and 
that is Paradise. 
Bible students understand that the 
second heaven is the starry heavens 
of far distant space, and that the first 
heaven is the atmospheric heaven in 
which the birds fly. However, some 
understand the first heaven to em-
brace not only the atmosphere sur-
rounding this earth, but also the en-
tire solar system composed of the 
earth, sun, moon and the planets. • 
QUESTION: Are sanctification and re-
generation the same thing? Are they the 
same experience? 
ANSWER: No, sanctification and re-
generation are words that express dif-
ferent experiences. Regeneration 
means to be converted or to be born 
again. This is wrought by the power 
of the Holy Spirit by which man is 
made a "new creature." 
Sanctification is a setting apart of 
a person or thing to God and His 
service. We think of one who is sanc-
tified as being set apart from the 
world to God. This is a gradual proc- 
JUNE, 1947 
ess that may embrace the entire life 
period. The "setting apart" comes 
every day as the truth of God is 
learned and obeyed. As God's will 
on one particular point is learned 
and obeyed to-day, then in that point 
you are sanctified. Jesus prayed: 
"Sanctify them through Thy truth: 
Thy word is truth." Peter gives us 
the process of it when he says, "But 
grow in grace, and in the knowledge 
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
To Him be glory both now and for-
ever." 2 Peter 3:18. 
QUESTION: On what day was Christ 
crucified? 
ANSWER: The Bible is clear on that. 
Luke 23:52-54 is to the point: "This 
man went unto Pilate, and begged 
the body of Jesus. And he took it 
down, and wrapped it in linen, and 
laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn 
in stone, wherein never man before 
was laid. AND THAT DAY WAS 
THE PREPARATION, and the Sab-
bath drew on." It was the day be-
fore the Sabbath, because the "Sab-
bath DREW on." According to the 
Biblical method of marking time the 
day ends at sunset and a new day 
begins. (See Leviticus 23:32 and 
Mark 1:32.) It is believed that Jesus 
was placed on the cross in the early 
forenoon and died sometime after 
mid-afternoon. Then just before the 
setting of the sun He was taken down 
from the cross and placed in Joseph's 
new tomb. After that was accom-
plished we are told further that "the 
women also, which came with Him 
from Galilee, followed after, and be-
held the sepulchre, and how His body 
was laid. And they returned, and pre-
pared spices and ointments; and 
rested the Sabbath day according to 
the commandment." Verses 55, 56. 
Apparently they had only enough 
time after returning home from the 
tomb to prepare the anointing spices 
and ointments—then the Sabbath 
was upon them, and they rested ac-
cording to the commandment. There-
fore the Sabbath being the seventh 
day of the week, Saturday, it must fol-
low that Christ was crucified on Fri-
day. If this needs further establish-
ment it may be had in the fact that 
all Christian churches to-day observe 
"Good Friday." 
QUESTION: What is the difference be-
tween crime and sin? 
ANSWER: There may be a vast dif-
ference, and then again there may he 
no difference at all. A crime is es-
sentially the breaking of the civil 
law; while sin is the transgression of 
the law of God, the ten command-
ments. Now a crime may be both 
the breaking of the civil law and 
the ten commandments, and such may 
be the case with sin. 
A crime on the other hand may not 
be sinful. It was a crime for the three 
young Hebrews of Daniel's time to 
refuse to bow down and worship the 
king's image, but it was not a sin. It 
was not a sin for Daniel to pray to his 
God, but it was a crime for him to do 
so (see Daniel 6) . Christ died as a 
criminal, but not as a sinner; and such 
was the case with Paul and the host of 
martyrs. 
Death from Eden 
(Continued from page 23) 
fire against the day of judgment and 
perdition of ungodly men. . . . Nev-
ertheless we, according to His prom-
ise, look for new heavens and a new 
earth, wherein dwelleth righteous-
ness," or wherein the righteous dwell. 
Then the admonition follows: 
"Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye 
look for such things, be diligent that 
ye may be found of Him in peace, 
without spot, and blameless." 2 Peter 
3:7-14. 
The interval between death and 
the resurrection is spoken of in God's 
word as a sleep, as a period of com-
plete unconsciousness. In speaking 
of Lazarus. who was dead and in his 
grave, Jesus said: "Our friend Lazarus 
sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake 
him out of sleep �
 Howbeit Jesus 
spake of His death." John 11:11-13. 
To Martha, Jesus said, "Thy brother 
shall rise again. Martha saith unto 
Him, I know that he shall rise again in 
the resurrection at the last day." Had 
not a special miracle been wrought, so 
that all might recognize Jesus as the 
resurrection and the life, Lazarus 
would have remained in that grave 
until the resurrection. 
Referring to the mental state of the 
dead, we are told, "The living know 
that they shall die: but the dead know 
not any thing," and further it is stated 
that "their love, and their hatred, and 
their envy, is now perished; neither 
have they any more a portion for ever 
in any thing that is done under the 
sun." Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6. If they know 
not anything and they have no por-
tion in anything that is done under 
the sun, there can be no foundation 
for the doctrine of spiritualism. 
Paul said: "I would not have you 
to be ignorant, brethren, concerning 
them which are asleep, that ye sorrow 
not, even as others which have no 
hope. . . . For the Lord Himself shall 
descend from heaven ... and the dead 
in Christ shall rise first. Then we 
which are alive and remain shall be 
caught up together with them in the 
clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: 
anti so shall we ever be with the 
Lord. Wherefore comfort one an-
other with these words." 1 TheSsalo-
nians 4:13-18. 
19 
T
HE SABBATH of the fourth 
commandment, the true Sabbath 
of Jesus, was the Christian Sab-
bath all through the days of the apos-
tles. Devoted women who beheld the 
burial of Jesus "returned, and pre-
pared spices and ointments; and rest-
ed the Sabbath day according to the 
commandment." Luke 23:56. Shortly 
before His death, looking forward to 
the time of the destruction of Jeru-
salem, which occurred in 70 A.D., 
Jesus told His followers not to flee on 
the Sabbath. He said, "Pray ye that 
your flight be not in the winter, 
neither on the Sabbath day." Mat-
thew 24:20. History shows how care-
fully they followed His instruction, 
for although more than a million 
people perished in the siege and 
slaughter connected with the fall of 
the city, not one Christian was 
among them. 
Many think that by keeping Sun-
day, the first day of the week, they are 
honouring their Lord and Saviour 
because of His resurrection on that 
day. The Scriptures plainly show, 
however, that His resurrection was a 
work accomplished by God Himself. 
Over and over this fact is plainly 
stated in the New Testament. The 
following passages make this clear: 
"Jesus of Nazareth, . . . whom God 
hath raised up." Acts 2:22, 24. "This 
Jesus hath God raised up, whereof 
we all are witnesses." Verse 32. "Ye 
denied the Holy One . . . and killed 
the Prince of life, whom God hath 
raised from the dead." Acts 3:14, 15. 
"God, having raised up His Son 
Jesus, sent Him to bless you." Verse 
26. And Paul shows that the glory or 
honour of Christ's resurrection be-
longs to God, for he declares, "Christ 
was raised up from the dead by the 
glory of the Father." Romans 6:4. 
How clearly these scriptures prove 
that the honour and glory of the 
resurrection of Christ belong to the 
Father, for whose glory and honour 
His commandment Sabbath has been 
appointed! 
The Saviour Himself honoured 
His Father for all the mighty works 
wrought through Him, saying, "The 
Father that dwelleth in Me, He 
doeth the works." John 14:10. He 
said again, "I honour My Father, and 
ye do dishonour Me. And I seek not 
Mine own glory." "I receive not hon-
our from men." John 8:49, 50; 5:41. 
How well He knew that it would be 
His Father who would raise Him 
from the dead is seen from His pro-
phecy, "The Son of man must suf-
fer many things, and be rejected of 
the elders and chief priests and 
scribes, and be slain, and be raised 
the third day." Luke 9:22.. He even 
foresaid to the Father in prophecy 
through David, "Thou wilt not leave 
My soul in hell; neither wilt Thou 
suffer Thine Holy One to see corrup-
tion." Psalm 16:10. Apostolic believ-
ers therefore rejoicingly honoured 
and glorified God the Father on His 
sacred Sabbath, the true Sabbath of 
Jesus, for His wonderful sacrifice of 
His beloved Son and His raising of 
Him from the dead. 
The Sabbath in the Life and 
Teaching of Paul 
Paul was the apostle to the Gen-
tiles, and was called to this special 
service in a miraculous way by Jesus 
from heaven. (Acts 9:1-15.) When on 
his first missionary journey in a Gen-
tile land, after reaching Antioch in 
Pisidia, he "went into the synagogue 
on the Sabbath day." Acts 13:14. 
After the close of the meeting, "when 
the Jews were gone out of the syna-
gogue, the Gentiles besought that 
these words might be preached to 
them the next Sabbath. ' Verse 42. 
What a splendid opportunity Paul 
had to explain any change of the day 
of rest or worship, and to tell them to 
come on the morrow, the first day of 
the week. But he did not do so be-
cause no change had been made. So 
"the next Sabbath day came almost 
the whole city together to hear the 
word of God." Verse 44. Another ex-
ample of Paul's observance of the Sab-
bath is the following, which took 
place at Philippi, and is thus re-
corded: "On the Sabbath we went 
out of the city by a river side, where 
prayer was wont to be made; and we 
sat down, and spake unto the women 
which resorted thither." Acts 16:13. 
Paul's manner, or custom, concern-
ing the Sabbath is pointed out in con-
nection with his labours at Thessa-
lonica: "Paul, as his manner was, 
went in unto them, and three Sabbath 
days reasoned with them out of the 
Scriptures." Acts 17:2. This incident 
is of special importance, as it reveals 
the custom of Paul, like that of Jesus, 
of attending worship on the Sabbath 
in the synagogue. Yet another in-
stance of Paul's custom occurred at 
Corinth, where for a time "he rea-
soned in the synagogue every Sab-
bath, and persuaded the Jews and 
the Greeks." Acts 18:4. Opposers and 
blasphemers arose, and Paul left the 
synagogue and met with the new be-
lievers. Just how long he laboured 
in the synagogue is not stated, al-
though he remained in Corinth "a 
year and six months." Verse 11. 
No wonder Paul was thus faithful 
in the observance of the Sabbath, 
the seventh day of the week, for he 
states very positively that Christian 
believers establish God's law by their 
faith: "Do we then make void the 
law through faith? God forbid: yea, 
we establish the law." Romans 3:31. 
JESUS 
and the 
CREATION 
SABBATH 
By John A. Halliday 
20 �
SIGNS of the TIMES 
Amidst the glories of sinless Eden Jesus established the Sabbath as a memorial 
of the wonderful work of creation. 
And Paul remained firmly established 
in keeping the Sabbath according to 
the commandment, for he wrote 
shortly before his death, "I have 
fought a good fight, I have finished 
my course, I have kept the faith." 
2 Timothy 4:7. 
The Seventh Day the Sabbath 
at the First General Council 
The first general council of Chris-
tian believers was held in 52 A.D., 
and James, who presided, said, "Moses 
of old time hath in every city them 
that preach him, being read in the 
synagogues every Sabbath day." Acts 
15:21. The only Sabbath day on 
which Moses was read regularly 
every week was the seventh day of 
the week. James says that Moses was 
read "every Sabbath day." Then, 
"every Sabbath day" was every sev-
enth day. There was, therefore, no 
other Sabbath day known to the gen-
eral body of Christian believers about 
twenty years after the resurrection 
of Christ, than the seventh-day 
Sabbath: 
Some have thought that Revelation 
1:10 refers to the first day of the week, 
but the very opposite is the truth. 
The verse reads as follows: "I was 
in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and 
heard behind me a great voice, as of 
a trumpet." John heard the words, 
"I am Alpha and Omega." When he 
JUNE, 1947 
turned to see the speaker he saw 
"One like unto the Son of man." 
Verses 11, 13. Jesus thus honoured 
by His presence the day John calls 
"the Lord's day." In Mark 2:28 the 
Saviour says, "The Son of man is 
Lord also of the Sabbath." So the 
Sabbath, the seventh day, is the 
Lord's day, according to Jesus, and 
is the day of which He also is the 
Lord. 
We read in the Sabbath command-
ment very plainly, "But the seventh 
day is the Sabbath of the Lord . . . : 
for in six days the Lord made heaven 
and earth, the sea, and all that in 
them is, and rested the seventh day: 
wherefore the Lord blessed the Sab-
bath day, and hallowed it." Exodus 
20:10, 11. Again we read: "If thou 
turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, 
from doing thy pleasure on My holy 
day; and call the Sabbath a delight, 
the holy of the Lord, . . . then shalt 
thou delight thyself in the Lord." 
Isaiah 58:13, 14. We see from these 
scriptures that "the Sabbath," "the 
seventh day," is "the holy of the 
Lord," the day that He, "the Lord," 
calls "My holy day." In all truth, 
therefore, the seventh-day Sabbath is 
the true Lord's day. 
It was thus on the Sabbath, the 
seventh day of the week, God's holy 
day, that the Saviour so mindfully 
began unfolding to the beloved John, 
then exiled on the rocky Isle of Pat-
mos, the sublime book of Revela-
tion, with its Warnings to the wicked 
and its wonders of the world to come. 
What an assurance of the rich bless-
ing of Jesus rests on those who keep 
the seventh day, the Bible Sabbath, 
the true Sabbath of Jesus! 
Doing the Will of God with Jesus 
in the Heart 
How vast is the importance of the 
Sabbath, as God commands, "Re-
member the Sabbath day, to keep 
it holy." Exodus 20:8. The Sabbath 
day is holy. We can keep only it holy. 
To keep it holy we must be holy. Thus 
the keeping of the Sabbath is a mat-
ter of holiness, of worship, and of 
eternal life or death. To the fol-
lowers of Christ who have not known 
before of the Sabbath, its keeping 
brings greater nearness to God and 
to Christ. It is only a step for them. 
Who will take it? To unbelievers 
also the keeping of the Sabbath is a 
matter of holiness and true worship, 
and in accepting Jesus as their Sav-
iour by faith they accept His holi-
ness of life, with the keeping of His 
true Sabbath, the Sabbath according 
to the commandment. 
We can do the will of God with 
Jesus dwelling in our hearts by faith. 
He said, "My meat is to do the will 
of Him that sent Me." John 4:34. 
He accepted His cross in awful Geth-
semane for our sake with the words, 
"Thy will be done." Matthew 26:42. 
He tells us also to pray the very same 
words, "Thy will be done." Matthew 
6:10. He says also, "Whosoever doth 
not bear his cross, and come after 
Me, cannot be My disciple." Luke 
14:27. So with what depth of un-
speakably compassionate love He 
most tenderly entreats, "Come, take 
up the cross, and follow Me." Mark 
10:21. Jesus is our Pattern and Help-
er. As He bore His cross in doing His 
Father's will, we also can bear ours 
with Him dwelling in us. Let us fix 
our eyes on Him for He said, "I, if I 
he lifted up from the earth, will draw 
all men unto Me." John 12:32. Then 
behold your dying Saviour as you 
say from your inmost heart: 
"On a hill far away stood an old rugged 
cross, 
The emblem of suffering and shame, 
And I love that old cross where the dear-
est and best 
For a world of lost sinners was slain." 
"Who is on the Lord's side?" cried 
Moses in a crisis. Exodus 32:26. Can 
you, dear reader, say these words that 
follow? "I am on the Lord's side. 
With Jesus as my Helper, I will be 
faithful in doing God's will and in 
keeping His true Sabbath day. Cling-
ing to Jesus, I will cherish His old 
rugged cross and the victory He won 
for me there." 
21 
naa #00, Ed/ea 
I
N SOME respects, a pleasing and 
yet a most deceptive and danger-
ous doctrine, is the one received 
by Eve in the garden of Eden, and 
now almost universally believed by 
Christian people;—that man, by na-
ture, is immortal and cannot die; that 
he must live on forever whether he 
chooses to or not. Out of it, in an ef-
fort to reconcile and harmonize some 
of the complications it presents, has 
come the belief in eternal torment in 
a burning hell, purgatory, a second 
probation after death, transmigration 
of the soul, and that most fascinating 
of all beliefs—spiritualism, and com-
munion with departed spirits. 
If man possesses a nature which is 
immortal, and must live on forever, it 
follows that if he fails to avail him-
self, while here on earth, of the plan 
of salvation, and there is no second 
probation, his punishment must con-
tinue forever. And if a burning hell 
is the abode of the wicked, it means 
eternal torture in a burning hell. 
Since it is impossible to- reconcile this 
with the thought of a God of love, 
the conclusion is reached that there 
must be a probationary period here-
after, and that eventually all will be 
saved, or that there exists an interme-
diate place somewhere, where the souls 
of men are temporarily detained and 
made fit for Paradise—through mass 
by the priest when aided by the aims 
and prayers of the living. 
The most alluring of all the doc-
trines that have grown out of the be-
lief in natural immortality is that of 
spiritualism. It is held that all, both 
good and bad, go to heaven at death. 
The conclusion follows, if our de-
parted friends are alive and conscious, 
and are still interested in their friends, 
and the events taking place on earth, 
surely they must be able to communi-
cate with the living. This is spiritual-
ism, and the one who really believes 
in natural immortality cannot well 
avoid being led away by this way of 
thinking. 
The belief in natural immortality 
dates back through heathenism to the 
father of lies—the devil. God said to 
the happy pair in their Eden home, If 
you disobey and sin, "ye shall surely 
die." Satan said, "Ye shall not surely 
die; ye shall be as gods." What was 
termed death by God, Satan affirmed 
By 
Upton R. Pearce 
was really the entrance into a larger, 
a more exalted, and a more desirable 
existence. He intimated that there 
was no such thing as death. This was 
the first lesson given to the human fam-
ily on the immortality of the soul, 
which is now being voiced from Chris-
tian pulpits and especially at funeral 
services everywhere. 
Immortality and eternal life are not 
possessed naturally. God only has im-
mortality. 1 Timothy 6:15, 16. We 
are admonished to seek for immortal-
ity, in the following words: God 
"will render to every man according to 
Only by careful seeking 
may man win back the 
lost heritage. 
his deeds: to them who by patient 
continuance in well doing seek for . . . 
immortality, eternal life." Romans 2:6, 
7. Why should we be admonished to 
seek for immortality if we already 
possess it? Here it is clearly stated that 
eternal life is a gift conferred only 
upon those who seek for immortality. 
Expressed in another way, "The gift 
of God is eternal life through Jesus 
Christ our Lord." This gift comes 
through Jesus Christ to believers only. 
"God so loved the world, that He gave 
His only begotten Son, that whoso-
ever believeth in Him should not per-
ish, but have everlasting life." John 
3:16. 
Disobedience at the beginning shut 
mankind away from the only tree that 
was capable of perpetuating life. Death 
was therefore inevitable and unavoid-
able. "In Adam all die." "As by one 
man sin entered into the world, and 
death by sin; and so death passed upon 
all men, for that all have sinned." This 
death would have been eternal, had 
not a plan been instituted to release 
man from it. Christ came to seek and 
to save that which was lost through 
the sin of Adam.The assurance comes, 
"As in Adam all die, even so in Christ 
shall all be made alive." 
It was impossible for death, or the 
grave, to hold a sinless being, hence 
Christ came forth from the grave a 
conqueror. By so doing, He, as man's 
representative, unlocked man's prison 
house, and declares, "I am He that 
liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I 
am alive for evermore, .. . and have the 
keys of hell [the grave] and of death." 
Revelation 1:18. Through the resur-
rection of Christ, the grave has been 
unlocked for every human being. The 
hope of living again is dependent up-
on, and centres in, Christ's resurrec-
tion. Paul said, "Now is Christ risen 
from the dead, and become the first-
fruits of them that slept. For since by 
man came death, by Man came also 
the resurrection of the dead." He 
added: "If Christ be not raised, . . . 
then they also which are fallen asleep 
in Christ are perished." 
The resurrection is the only hope 
of a future existence. Paul preached 
the resurrection of Christ as the only 
hope of the resurrection of mankind. 
He said: "Of the hope and resur-
rection of the dead I am called in ques-
tion." Acts 23:6. When brought be-
fore Agrippa, he said, "Now I stand 
and am judged for the hope of the 
promise made of God unto our fathers. 
. . .Why should it be thought a thing 
incredible with you, that God should 
raise the dead?" Acts 26:6-8. 
While through the resurrection of 
Christ all are released from the death 
for which they are not responsible, 
only the dead in Christ, whose lives 
are worthy of perpetuation, will be 
granted the gift of eternal life. While 
Adam's sin shut the human family 
away from the tree of life, through 
Christ the righteous will again be 
permitted to have access to the tree 
which is capable of perpetuating life. 
So we read: "Blessed are they that do 
His commandments, that they may 
have right to the tree of life." To the 
rich young ruler who came to Jesus 
and said: "Good Master, what good 
thing shall I do, that I may have eter-
nal life?" Jesus replied: "If thou wilt 
enter into life, keep the command-
ments." 
22 �
SIGNS of the TIMES 
In Gethsemane and on the cross Jesus gained for believers the immortality 
Adam and Eve lost in Eden. 
While all will be released from the 
grave, there will be two separate and 
distinct resurrections. Paul said: 
"There shall be a resurrection ... both 
of the just and unjust," and Jesus 
said, "Marvel not at this: for the hour 
is coming, in the which all that are in 
the graves shall hear His voice, and 
shall come forth; they that have done 
good, unto the resurrection of life; and 
they that have done evil, unto the 
resurrection of damnation." "Every 
man in his own order: Christ the first-
fruits; afterward they that are Christ's 
at His coming." Referring to the res-
urrection of those who are Christ's at 
His coming, Paul said: "The dead in 
Christ shall rise first." This is the first 
resurrection. John said: "Blessed and 
holy is he that hath part in the first res-
urrection: on such the second death 
hath no power." The righteous alone 
are raised at the second advent of 
Christ, and of the others it is said, "the 
rest of the dead lived not again until 
the thousand years were finished." 
Revelation 2o:5. 
It is stated very clearly here that 
there is an interval of one thousand 
years between the resurrection of the 
just and the resurrection of the unjust. 
The righteous are raised at Christ's 
coming, and reign in heaven with Him 
during this interval of a thousand 
years. At the end of the thousand years 
the wicked are raised. To the entire 
universe and to themselves, it will be 
clear that their lives are not worthy of 
perpetuation. They will then reap the 
wages of their own sins, which is 
death. This death is eternal. For this 
death they alone will be responsible. 
From this death, known as the second 
death, there is held out no hope of a 
resurrection. Those who die in their 
sins, will die for their sins. He that 
"committeth iniquity, and dieth in 
them; for his iniquity that he hath 
done shall he die." Ezekiel 18:26. "Sin, 
when it is finished, bringeth forth 
death." While "the wages of sin is 
death," "the gift of God is eternal life 
through Jesus Christ our Lord." 
The time is coming when all tra-
ces of sin and its results will be for-
ever removed from the universe of 
God. The world itself—the lost 
sheep—will be restored and inhab-
ited by the redeemed. God's original 
purpose in the creation of this world 
will be carried out. Man, made at the 
beginning in God's own image and 
after His likeness, will with the re-
stored image dwell upon this earth 
forever. 
The psalmist said: "Evildoers shall 
be cut off: but those that wait upon 
the Lord, they shall inherit the 
earth." Referring to the wicked, he 
JUNE, 1947 
says, "The wicked shall not be: yea, 
thou shalt diligently consider his 
place, and it shall not be. But the meek 
shall inherit the earth." Again he says, 
"The wicked shall perish, and the 
enemies of the Lord shall . . . con-
sume; into smoke shall they consume 
away." Psalm 37:20. Stronger lang-
uage could not be employed than 
this to show the end of the wicked. 
"Behold, the day cometh, that shall 
burn as an oven; and all the proud, 
yea, and all that do wickedly, shall 
be stubble: and the day that cometh 
shall burn them up, saith the Lord 
of hosts, that it shall leave them nei-
ther root nor branch." Malachi 4: 
1. If there is left neither root nor 
branch, it will be impossible for sin 
with its misery and suffering to rise 
the second time. Again we read, 
"The seed of the wicked shall be cut 
off." No root, no branch, no seed will 
be left to perpetuate sin. "The right-
eous shall inherit the land, and dwell 
therein forever." Psalm 37:28, 29. 
Referring to this same time, Peter 
said: "The heavens and the earth, 
which are now ... are ... reserved unto 
(Continued on page 19) 
23 
/1 Videda OF THE KING 
TWENTY-ODD years ago, with the Holy 
Spirit as my Guide, I entered at the portico of Genesis and 
walked down the art gallery of the Old Testament, where on 
the wall hung the pictures of Enoch, Noah, Jacob, Abraham, 
Elijah, David, Daniel and other famous prophets of old. 
"Then I passed into the music room of the Psalms, where 
the Spirit swept the keyboard of my nature and brought forth 
melody from the dirge-like wail of the Weeping Prophet, 
Jeremiah, to the grand exultant strains of the Twenty-fourth 
Psalm; and where every reed and pipe in God's great organ 
of 'Nature seemed to respond to the tuneful harp of David, 
the sweet singer of Israel who played for King Saul in his 
melancholy moods. 
"Next I passed into the business office of Proverbs, then 
into the chapel of Ecclesiastes where the voice of the preacher 
was heard; then over into the conservatory of the Song of 
Songs where the Lily of the Valley and the Rose of Sharon 
with their sweet-scented spices filled and perfumed my life. 
"Then I stepped into the prophetic room and saw the tele-
scopes of various sizes, some pointing to far-off stars, but all 
concentrated upon the bright and Morning Star, which was 
to rise above the moonlit hills of Judea for our salvation, 
while the shepherds guarded their flocks by night. 
"From there I passed into the audience room and caught 
a vision of the King's glory, from the standpoints of Matthew, 
Mark, Luke and John; then into the Acts where the Holy 
Spirit was doing His work in the formation of the infant 
church. 
"And last I stepped into the Throne room of the Revela-
tion. There all towered into glittering peaks, and I got a 
vision of the King sitting upon His throne in all His glory. 
Then I bowed my head and said, 'All hail the power of 
Jesus' name.' "