A Word on the Days We Live In

 •  3 min. read  •  grade level: 10
 
I fully believe that a just and divine understanding of the present state of things must be accompanied by this trial of mind—that while the great advance in all the accommodations of life, and in the general refinement and culture of all classes is acknowledged, and the public boast in such things is allowed to have apparently most full warrant; all this is known to be only in progress to a something that is to meet the most awful judgment from the hand of the Lord:— because it is to be a mocking of all that is blessed, and not really blessed—the kingdom of man, and not of “the Lord and His Christ”—the energy of the god of this world; and not of the Spirit of the living God.
This divine intelligence must bring its sorrows. For the saint possessed of it will hear that condition of things continually gloried in, which he knows is most fearful; and the more the ground of this carnal and ignorant boast is day by day unfolding itself, the more does the saint discover the ripening of human pride, and the progress is of that fair structure of the enemy’s device, which is to bring the judgment. At mid-day there is to be night in the world’s history. God will turn man’s noon-tide splendor into the shade of as touching His own, He will turn the shadow of death into the morning, and at their evening time give them light. (Zech. 14.)
Such, I doubt not, is the position which the intelligent believer takes at this moment—one of sorrow to his spirit, as he listens to man every day—one of joy to his spirit, as he listens to the promise that the great redemption is only drawing the nearer, through all this that he looks at and listens to. His security lies in “the love of the truth.” (2 Thess. 2) He is not to expect that the hand of God will interfere to stop the progress of this fair structure. He is not to commit himself to the hand, but to the word of the Lord. It is rather of the Lord to allow pride to get food, whereby to nourish and swell itself, and to let the world prosper by its own devices. The soul that looks for providential visitations on all that is, and will be a doing, is in most imminent hazard. “The love of the truth” is declared to be the soul’s security.
How fair were the deceits practiced at Jerusalem in the day of Ezekiel. Paintings on the temple walls, and exquisitely wrought, I doubt not. Ancient men, men of character and of religion, kindling clouds of incense before them, adopting the delusions! Women melted into tears while occupied with their idols, exhibiting the fine and generous flow of human affections which is so attractive to the heart! And the sun in his beauty and rising at the east worshipped (Ezek. 8.) What witchery was all this? What fascination for the religious and amiable sentiments of our nature?
What protected the heart of the prophet while surveying it all? The hand of the Lord did not interfere—rain did not come down to quench the cloud of incense. It was allowed to wreathe itself upward in lovely forms, as though He who dwelt in the house was accepting it. Another hand did not appear to write on the wall over against the paintings, their judgment. No—but the word of his divine Guide interpreted all these fascinations, and called them abominations. This was the Prophet’s safety, and it is ours in a like moment. The truth that interprets according to God all that is now going on, must preserve our souls from taking part with this “fair show in the flesh,” which is so much apparent comeliness, but real abomination.