Or, “Pitch it Within and Without with Pitch.”
A CONVICTION grows, and spreads increasingly among believers, that the coming of Christ is at hand. Unconverted persons, nay, even infidels, confess that “something of great importance to the human race is about to happen.” They know not what it is, nor do they perhaps care to inquire of those who could tell them; proud of the vain supremacy of reason, they prefer its vague conjectures and inferences to the solemn declarations of God’s word.
It was so eighteen hundred years ago. History tells us — history written by heathen hands, and therefore deriving no bias from the word of God — that just before the first coming of Christ, a very general impression prevailed in the world that some remarkable event was about to take place.
Without doubt, these convictions are traceable originally to that word of prophecy, which, however much men may despise, abuse, and mistake its teachings, is, like the preaching of Noah, meant, in grace, to warn men of what is coming, if haply they will listen and repent. Much mischief has been done by some professed writers on prophecy, in seizing upon every important event in the current history of the world, especially of late years, and endeavoring to give it a place in prophecy, and even to is periods and foretell results, which, failing, as a matter of course, have given occasion to men to despise the whole subject, and to lay upon prophecy itself the onus of the mistakes into which its would-be interpreters have fallen. That Satan should take advantage of these mistakes, to divert the attention of serious minds, nay, even of believers themselves, from the entire subject, is only what was to be expected, however much it is to be deplored. Nevertheless the conviction deepens, and spreads abroad, that the coming of the Lord is at hand; and since this conviction is found to be strongest in those who, by grace, are walking nearest to the Lord, habitually studying his word, and most deeply taught in truth generally, and in prophetic truth especially, it is a fact which, without fear of the charge of enthusiasm, we may well take for granted. To faith, indeed, the coming of the Lord is always nigh, and always has been. But when we find the very world itself declaring that something is about to happen;” when we who do “take heed to the sure word of prophecy, as to a light that shineth in a dark place,” see around us (without presuming to declare as to details) broad and palpable evidences of a state of things foretold as indicating the approach of the end of the age, we may well take up the cry, “Behold the Bridegroom cometh.” No sign, indeed, is given in the word, as preceding or ushering in the coming of Christ. He could have come at any time these 1800 years without breaking the chain of prophetic events; for the coming of the Lord is taken out of the “stream of time” altogether; yet that “stream” has surely both a beginning and an end. But before the end, how long before we know not, the Lord will come. If, then, there be abundant reasons for believing that the end is rapidly approaching, that it is near, how much nearer must be that most blessed moment when those who love the Lord shall see him face to face!
One indication of the approach of the end will be the overturning of the existing grouping of the nations comprehended within the limits of the ancient Roman empire, in order to give place to another, long ago foretold in Daniel 2, 7., &c., and Revelation 13, 17., &c. Whether the disturbed state of the Continent, the fierce and sanguinary battles recently fought, in which armies of half a million strong have been hurled against each other, have any immediate connection with the prophecies above quoted, we do not say. To pronounce positively respecting it, would be to imitate those who have already done irreparable mischief to the souls of men. That some such convulsion of the nations has long been foreseen by statesmen (though not in its relation to prophecy); by the man who now rules France; by persons utterly regardless of God’s word — a convulsion which even they declare is to terminate in “a new arrangement of the balance of power,” is well known. Has that convulsion begun to shake the nations of Europe? Is there any indication of a movement which threatens the speedy absorption of the minor states by the greater, and thus a rapid reduction of the number in excess of the required TEN? Does “the balance of power” appear to incline all on one side? That the ten kings must and will arise, because God has said so, the reader need not be told. No sooner is the circle of kingdoms now comprehended within, the bounds of the Roman empire reduced to that number, than one arises to take the headship over all, as foretold in the Scriptures referred to above. But when he, the “MAN OF THE AGE,” for whom infidel writers declare they are looking, is manifested, the Day of Judgment — that day which is as a thousand years (2 Peter 3) —is present. Let the reader consider the inevitable conclusion to which this would bring us. First, if the movement referred to has really begun — and the bare possibility of it only is suggested here — we are on the very threshold of the DAY OF JUDGMENT. Secondly, before that day over-takes a Christ-rejecting world, the Lord descends into the air (not on to the earth), the saints, living and raised, are caught away, and — solemn thought for those left behind! — “the door is shut.” How startlingly near this brings the sinner, the mere religious professor, the conscious hypocrite, the utterly careless, the avowed infidel, to that tremendous hour! When Noah was building the Ark, some might mock, others perhaps “suspended their judgment,” and waited. There was time yet; the flood could not come till the ark was finished. But when he began to “pitch it within and without with pitch,” the hour of judgment grew so near, that it was madness to delay.
O sinner, be persuaded! Again do we say the Lord may come at any moment. You cannot with safety wait till you see some sign, some unmistakable proof that his coming is at hand. None is given. He may come now, while you read; he may come tight, while you sleep; tomorrow, while you are busy in your office or your shop. These startling events on the Continent have nothing whatever to do with his coming, they neither hasten nor retard it. If they be not what they seem to be, the Lord may come, the door be shut, and you — LOST forever. But if they be that which, at the least, seems probable, we do not say the Lord may come, but that he must come, and therefore, to speak figuratively, the ark is being “pitched within and without with pitch,” and to delay is willful self-destruction, eternal misery, intensified a thousand fold by the never-dying reflection that you were warned in time, and would not hear.