Nearly two thousand years ago the Lord Jesus spoke a parable which should be all the more heeded at this time. He told of a rich man (Luke 12), whose fields brought forth with such abundance that he had no room to house his harvest. Then said he, "This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater." He meant to live many years longer, for no man begins to build without desiring to finish and enjoy. He said, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry."
"But God said." Ah! he had not thought of Him, the Potter who has power over the clay He molds. "God said, Thou fool! this night thy soul shall be required of thee." Have we heeded this parable, recorded for us by the pen of inspiration so long ago?
In November 1893, one man forgot it. Great numbers were gathered together in the now world-famed city of Chicago. Not an "innumerable multitude of people," as on the hill-sides of Galilee, when the foregoing parable was spoken, but a worldly, thoughtless company celebrating the glories of the World's Fair. They had all that day been exalting the Mayor of the city that the world wondered after. He addressed the assembly.—Listen to his words:—
"I believe that I will live to see the day when Chicago will be the biggest city in America. I don't count the past. I have taken a new lease of life, and I intend to live more than half a century longer. At the end of that half-century London will be trembling lest Chicago should surpass her!" Himself and his city are exalted—yea, his own, life he would prolong. He has taken into his own hands the keeping together of body, soul, and spirit. To half a century ahead, in his daring presumption, he looks forward.
But God still sits in heaven; "and among the inhabitants of the earth... none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest Thou?" (Dan. 4:3535And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou? (Daniel 4:35).) Within nine hours the speaker of those impious words met a violent death, and his spirit returned to God who gave it. "If He cut off... then who can hinder Him?" (Job 11:1010If he cut off, and shut up, or gather together, then who can hinder him? (Job 11:10).) He was like Herod who sat on his throne in all the pomp of regal display. He spoke, presumably he boasted, and the people applauded, saying, "It is the voice of a god, and not of a man. And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory: and he... gave up the ghost." (Acts 12.) "Vain man would be wise," but he likes to be so without God.
Great Babylon of the future will do the same. She will glorify herself as she has ever done. She, the empty shell of Christendom, the personification of religion without Christ, will say, "I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow." Wherefore, to her in whom is found the blood of all the saints, "shall come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her" (Rev. 18).