Vel. 35 Neo. 1
Sydney, Monday, January 5, 1931
Reglatered at the Sonsval Pars
@Biee, Sydney, for irsncmaissdon
by Pal ws a Now
VRRPETs
Why Has the Seventh-day Adventist Movement
Appeared ?---No. |
OVER eighteen centuries ago the apostle John was
! banished to Patmos, a small island about thirty
miles in circumierence, off the west coast of Asia Minor.
Victorinus, Bishop of Pettau, in Pannonia, who suffered
martyrdom under Diocletian in 303 A.D., and who wrote
a commentary on the Apocalypse, tells us that while
John was imprigoned in Patmos, he had to work in the
mines. Doubtless the pagan authorities at Rome then
considered that they had effectually silenced the witness
of the apostle by compelling him to labour in the mines
of Patmos ; but they were ignorant of the fact that God
could communicate just as effectively with His servant
in that lonely little island as He could in the great city
of Ephesus; and that through His apostle He could
make known His purposes notwithstanding all that
might be done by human effort to thwart the proclama-
fion of the gospel.
Separated as he was from the companionship of his
brethren, Jesus Christ came to him in his lonely exile,
and as he gazed upon the Son of man and His heavenly
majesty, with His “ countenance as the sun shineth in
his strength,” John tells us that he ‘fell at His feet
as dead.” Then the Son of God laid His hand upon
him and said, “ Fear not; I am the first and the last: I
am He that liveth, and was dead ; and, behold, I am alive
forever more. . . . Write the things which thou hast
seen, and the things which are, and the things which
shall be hereafter.” Rev. 1:16-19.
How strange it is that men imagine such vain
things! In all ages men have ‘set themselves . . .
against the Lord, and against His anoinfed, saying, Leb
us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords
from us. [But] He that sitteth in the heavens,” says
the psalmist, *‘ shall laugh : the Lord shall have them in
derision.” Ps. 2:1-4. Hence the efforts of the pagan
rulers of the first century of the Christian era t6 stop the
work of God in the earth, by imprisoning the last of the
apostles, came to naught; and God used the occasion of
John’s imprisonment to reveal to the world the ultimate
triumph of His church over all its foes, and the final
overthrow of the kingdoms of this world, all of which are
to become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.
Chain after chain of prophetical revelations of the
future were outlined by Jesus Christ fo His apostle, in
order that these divine revelations might be given to His
servants for their encouragement to hold fast, and to en-
dure unto the end, in spite of the tribulations and perse-
cutions which they would be called upon to bear. The
prophetic outlines of the seven churches, the seven seals,
and the seven trumpets in the Apocalypse, all indicate
that we are now living in the time just preceding the
second advent. The prophecy concerning the war
between the church and the dragon as told in fhe
twelfth and thirteenth chapters has also nearly reached
its complete fulfilment. In the fourteenth chapter a
mighty world-wide movement is described, in which a
warning proclamation is being made to every nation,
kindred, tongue, and people. This proclamation makes
known to the world the awful fact that *“ the hour of God’s
judgment is come.” It is self-evident that no such
message was carried to every nation, kindred, tongue,
and people during the Middle Ages, nor by the reformers
of the sixteenth century, for at that time it was a physi-
cal impossibility to carry the great judgment message to
every part of the world. But the all-wise God, whose
purposes none can thwart, caused circumstances to be-
come so shaped through His overruling providence that
when the message of the judgment was due, great
shipping lines would be prepared to sail giant vessels to
all the seaports of the world ; and access to all portions
of the great continents would be made possible by the
construction of railways and roads. The organisation
of Bible societies to print the Word of God in all the
languages of earth; and of missionary societies to
carry the gospel to all pars of the world; and the
creating of the facilities to enable men to travel to every
country on the planet during the nineteenth century, are
not mere accidental happenings, but are due to the
providential, overruling power of God, whose purposes
never fail fo carry at the divinely appointed time.
Nobody attempted to carry the proclamation of
God’s judgment hour until the nineteenth century,