The end of the god-killing people, the partial and local ending, had
taken place. According to the sentence of Christ, the statues of the
Temple were scattered among the ruined walls and the faithful of the
Temple had met their death by torture or were scattered among other
nations.
The second prophecy is left. When shall the Son of Man come on the
clouds of Heaven, preceded by darkness, announced by angels’ trumpets?
Jesus says that no one can be sure of the day of His coming. The Son of
Man is likened to lightning which flashes suddenly in the east, to a
thief who comes by stealth in the night, to a master who has gone far
away and returns suddenly to take his servants by surprise. We must be
vigilant and ready. Purify your hearts, because you do not know when He
may come; and woe to him who is not ready to appear before Him. Take
heed to yourselves lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with
surfeiting, and drunkenness, and the cares of this life; and so that day
come upon you unawares, for as a snare shall it come upon all them that
dwell on the face of the whole earth.
But if Jesus does not announce the day, He tells us what things must be
fulfilled before that day. These things are two: the Gospel of the
Kingdom shall be preached to all the nations and the Gentiles shall no
longer tread down Jerusalem. These two conditions are fulfilled in our
own time and perhaps the great day approaches. There are no longer in
the world any civilized nations or barbarous tribes where the
descendants of the Apostles have not preached the Gospel: since 1918 the
Moslems have no longer trodden down Jerusalem and there is talk of a
reëstablishment of the Jewish State. According to the words of Hosea,
the end of the time shall be near when the sons of Israel, left so long
without altar and without King, shall be converted to the Son of David
and shall turn, trembling, towards God’s goodness.
If the words of the second prophecy are true, as the words of the first
prophecy were shown to be true, the Second Coming cannot be far distant.
Once again in these years nations have risen against nations, the earth
has quaked, destroying many lives, and pestilences, famines and
seditions have decimated nations. For more than a century the words of
Christ have been translated and preached in all languages. Soldiers who
believe in Christ, although they are not all faithful to the heirs of
Peter, are in command over that city, which after its downfall was in
the power of the Romans, the Persians, the Egyptians and the Turks. And
still men do not think of Jesus and His promise. They live as if the
world were always going to continue as it has been, and they work and
mortify themselves only for their earthly and carnal interests.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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