FOR twenty years last past the earth has been full of preparation for that time prayed for when Christ's will shall be done on earth as in heaven. For twenty years to come those preparations will continue and will culminate in the Kingdom. We are nearly in the middle of the harvest now—the time of trouble—"the end of the age."
The time of the end simply means the end of the failures and fallacies of man rule; the leveling of present forms of government; the blotting out of present forms of sectarianism; the radical annulment of present forms of business and social usurpation; the destruction of caste and wealth differences; the overthrow of pride, arrogance and sordid ambitions; and the iron—golden rule of King Christ.
But, says one, twenty years is a short time in which to close up all the kingdoms and other governments; all the denominational isms and religious oligarchies and all the other evils of 6,000 years. I reply, it is long enough. The last twenty years have been peaceful but full of preparation—material, mental, spiritual. The stone is rolling; the hill is steepening; the impetus becomes terrible very soon, and twenty years will amply suffice to destroy old things [R1705 : page 297] and fit the earth for the new.—Dan. 2:34.
Most of people in Christendom are conservative to-day—all were conservative twenty years ago. There will be no conservatives twenty years from now.
Most of the distant nations are peaceful to-day. None of them have had war (practically none) for twenty years; all will have war within the next twenty years. The last twenty years have consolidated, but at the same time greatly weakened, sectarianism. Within the next twenty years dogmatism will seek to become despotism in the interest of harmonious settlement and will utterly fail and fall to pieces.
Twenty years ago labor and capital began to organize. To-day they are ready to give each other trouble; within twenty years they will weary each other and the public of the world with incessant strife until labor will droop exhausted with excesses and wealth will be eager to throw away its last dollar and faint in the arms of peace.
A helpless earth twenty years from now will invite the kingdom of God.
Will Christ reign in visible form on earth twenty years from now? Certainly not; Christ on earth eighteen hundred and eighty years ago, was a human being, Christ risen and ascended to his Father is made a divine being far more exalted than spiritual beings and infinitely above the human plane; and yet his elect of the Gospel age are to be so grandly exalted with him as to be "seated with him on his throne, even as he is seated with his Father on his Father's throne"—these partake with him of the divine nature (far above angels) and are to be [R1706 : page 297] with Christ the divine (but invisible) agencies in ruling the world—and in bringing all the nations of the earth, living and resurrected, into acquaintance and spiritual relationship with God during the Millennium of 1000 years.
Who will be the earthly agents of the rule of Christ? Devout men—not any supernatural agencies, except as resurrected men may be regarded as supernatural—for many of these coming rulers will be men who have lived and learned to rule in this world hundreds of years ago.
But the resurrection will be found to be a natural awakening, as death is the natural going into a long breathless sleep. Moses will "stand in his lot in the latter days." So will David, so will Elijah, so will Isaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel—their reproduction will come about naturally, as the power of electricity always existed although not discovered until recently. The power of reproducing life (God's power in the same sense that all others are God's powers) will be a natural revelation (possibly a natural discovery) within the next twenty years.
Some one asks now: "Are you a prophet?" No, only a student and a watchman. I am taught these things, first, from the Word of God. The five books of Moses are a source of wonderful types, shadows and chronologies. David was a far-seeing prophet as well as a poet and king. Isaiah and all the prophets saw the world's restoration in the Millennial time, but it is Christ and his apostles that convey to me the words that designate the signs in the earth most completely. Then I look round me and see those signs as they have indicated them. The fields are ripe, and the harvesters are at work, and possibly I may live to see the change. In these conclusions I have been assisted by a series of books, called Millennial Dawn, and a periodical called Zion's Watch Tower, which carefully read and mentally prove and compare with the Scriptures. I am not advertising those works, but candor demands their mention when such tremendous predictions are made as I have ventured in this reverie.