3402 Christians’ Two-Way Ticket
A Christian woman was once talking to a servant of Christ about the assurance of her safety in the Saviour and said, “I have taken a single ticket to Glory, and do not intend to come back.” Whereupon the man of God replied: “You are going to miss a lot. I have taken a return ticket, for I am not only going to meet Christ in Glory, but I am coming back with him in power and great glory to the earth.”
—Sunday School Times
3403 One World In Future
The Reader’s Digest once contained this statement:
“God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the Rights of Man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its suface and say, “This is my country.””
That day is coming!
3404 Pastor Became Premillennial
Asked by Dr. George E. Guille what was his attitude on the Lord’s Second Coming, Pastor William Anderson, Jr., of Dallas, Tex., answered that he didn’t know that he had any attitude on the subject. He wasn’t interested. He had been so busy preaching the first coming that he had not had time to think about the Second Coming.
“Well,” said Mr. Guille, “I only wanted to know whether you loved His appearing.” Left alone in his study, “Dr. Bill,” as his many friends called him, sat at his desk asking himself over and over, “Do I love His appearing.”
Later, the church was as much amazed as Mrs. Anderson had been, when the pastor explained what had happened to his convictions, that he had become a premillenarian, whereas he had come to their church a postmillenarian, and thought the only fair thing was to resign. One of the elders cried out, “Why, my dear pastor, this is what we have been praying for. Resign nothing! God has answered our prayers!” From that time Dr. Bill Anderson’s ministry was transformed, and his pastorate became so fruitful as to be “spoken of throughout the whole world.”
—W. L. Pettingill
3405 Christian Inconsistency
There is a story told to the effect that a Jew, being in the company of a Christian, took up a New Testament and opened it to Luke 1:32, 33: “The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever.”
Turning to his Christian friend the Jew asked, “How do you understand that Scripture?” The Christian answered, “Oh, it’s figurative language, descriptive of Christ’s spiritual reign over the church.” “Then you do not take it literally?” asked the Jew. “Certainly not,” replied the Christian.
The Jew made this further remark, “Then why should you expect me to take literally what precedes, where the Scriptures say that this Son of David shall be born of a virgin? Do you believe that literally?” “Surely,” answered the Christian. The Jew continued, “Why do you accept verse 31 as literal, but explain verses 32 and 33 as figurative?” “Because,” answered the Christian, “verse 31 has become a fact—Jesus was so born. It is indisputable evidence.” “Ah,” said the Jew, “I see! You believe the Scriptures when you see them fulfilled. I believe them because they are the Word of God.” Who was right in principle?
—King’s Business
3406 “Thousand-Year” House
Maryville, Tennessee, boasts a house built “to last a thousand years.” The house was built of marble, stone and concrete by Mr. and Mrs. William Nichols. It took nine years to build.
There are no nails in any part of the house. Except for doors, door facings, and parts of the windows, there is no wood. Even the bathtub is concrete. Some walls are five feet thick.
The owners built the house to last through the millennium, which they believe will come through the reign of Christ.
3407 Life In The Millennium
The Millennium will be one of:
1. Peace
There will be no war. See Isaiah 11:6–9. Isaiah 2:4
2. Happiness
See Isaiah 11:6–9 and 12:3. Also Revelation 20:3
3. Long Life and Health
Read Isaiah 65:20 and Isaiah 33:24. Sickness will virtually be removed.
4. Prosperity
This will be a time of unequalled prosperity. See Isaiah 35:1, 2.
5. Joy In Work
Read Isaiah 65:21, 22
6. Mortals On Earth
Those saints who live through the Tribulation Period and enter the 1000-year Millennium in their natural bodies will be able to have children (Matt. 25:31–40). Thus Isaiah 11:6 and 8 speak of little children living during the Millennial Age.
7. Resurrected Saints Reigning With Christ
See Rev. 20:4, 6. An analogy exists in Christ’s life on earth after His resurrection.
3408 Can World Be Ruled?
John Foster Dulles once remarked: “Peace is often identified with the imposition by strong nations of their benevolent rule upon the weaker. Most of these efforts collapsed in war. The best known effort of this kind was the Pax Romana. And a Pax Britannica for a century kept relative peace and a world order which promoted worldwide economic development. But the world of today is very different from the world of past centuries. It cannot be ruled.”
The former US Secretary of State had forgotten the millennial reign of Christ.
3409 Peace On Earth
The passage, found in Isaiah 2 and in Micah 4, where “swords” will be made into “ploughshares,” is inscribed on a stone wall facing the U.N. building in New York.
Khrushchev saw a figurative fulfillment of the prophecy when he visited the John Deere factory near Des Moines, Iowa: The plant was built early in World War II for manufacture of machine-gun bullets. Today it produces farm implements.
3410 Bring Back The King!
On September 4, 1970, France celebrated the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Third Republic, the one that installed parliamentary democracy in France. But one group of people was not able to join in the celebrations. These were the royalists, who want to restore the monarchy to France. Their newspaper carried the headline, “One hundred years of the republic, one hundred years of calamity.” An editorial in Aspects de la France said: “Today more than ever, every thinking patriot, every intelligent man can only want to put an end to the long interregnum, where the king’s absence has been so cruelly felt.”
—Prairie Overcomer
3411 Wonders Of 21st-Century Life
Glimpses of millennial scenes may be gleaned from the following newsreport:
The man who foretold radio and TV sees more wonders coming in the twenty-first century. General David Sarnoff, builder of the mighty Radio Corporation of America predicts:
(1) Homes run by fingertouch, with twenty years of power buried in a suitcase-sized battery in the basement.
(2) Planes racing 5,000 an hour overhead; freight zipped across the continent by missile.
(3) Food lifted from the sea. Pushbutton weather that makes the deserts bloom and turns hurricanes back to the sea.
(4) Reduced work to ten hours per week.
(5) Lengthened life with electronic substitutes for worn-out hearts, lungs, and kidneys.
3412 Fertility Will Be Restored
Various Old Testament references affirm that the desert and wilderness of Palestine will someday be transformed. This transformation will require vast quantities of water.
A newspaper item said, “Vast quantities of sweet water buried deep beneath the Sinai and the Negev deserts have been discovered by Israel geologists. Isotope examination of the water showed that it is ancient, thus proving that the present desert area was once subject to rainfall and was inhabited.”
3413 Dead Sea To Come Alive
In today’s Jerusalem there is no river! But at the ushering in of the Millennial 1000-year age not only will there be a river in Jerusalem, but also then the death-giving Salt Sea—the Dead Sea—will come ALIVE. lt will be alive with its banks lined with all kinds of trees for food, always fruit-bearing, and fishermen on its shores (Ezekiel 47:8, 9, 10, 12).
3414 Changing Their Diets
Professor Drummond shows how a change in the surroundings of an animal will even change the structure of its body. A hunter changed the environment of a sea-gull by keeping it in captivity, so that it could only secure a grain diet. The effect was to modify the stomach of a bird normally adapted to a fish diet, until a time when it came to resemble in structure the gizzard of an ordinary grainfeeder, such as the pigeon. Holmgren, again, reversed this experiment by feeding pigeons for a lengthened period on a meat diet, with the result that the gizzard became transformed with a carnivorous stomach.
Isaiah 11:7 predicts that “the lion shall eat straw like the ox.”
3415 Replenishing The Lamb Daily
P. T. Barnum, the showman, delighted in showing to visiting clergymen an exhibit he called “The Happy Family,” in which lions, tigers and panthers squatted around a lamb, without a predatory smack of the lips. Dexter Fellows, the Barnum press agent, declared that when a minister asked Barnum if the group ever gave any trouble, the showman replied:
“Apart from replenishing the lamb now and then, they get along very well together.”
Isaiah 11:6 has it that “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.”
3416 Mohammedan Worship Place Told Of Christ’s Reign
On the door of the mosque in Damascus, which was once a Christian church—but for twelve centuries has ranked among the holiest of the Mohammedan sanctuaries—are inscribed these words: “Thy kingdom, O Christ! is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endureth throughout all generations.” Though the name of Christ has been regularly blasphemed, and the disciples of Christ regularly cursed, for twelve hundred years the inscription within it has remained unimpaired by time, and undisturbed by man.
The inscription was not discovered during the long reign of Mohammedan intolerance and oppression; but when religious liberty was partially restored, and the missionaries were enabled to establish a Christian church in that city, it was brought to light.
—Bate
3417 Rabbis Said World To Last
6000 Years
According to rabbinical mythology, the world is to last six thousand years. The reasons assigned are (1) the name Jehovah contains six letters; (2) the Hebrew letter “m” occurs six times in the book of Genesis; (3) the patriach Enoch, who was taken to heaven without dying, was the sixth generation from Adam; (4) God created the world in six days; (5) six contains three binaries—the first 2,000 years were for the law of nature, the next 2,000 years the written law, and the last 2,000 the law of grace.
—E. Cobham Brewer
3418 Persian Mythology On
Millennium
According to Persian mythology, the ages of the world are divided into periods of 1,000 years. When the cycle of “chiliasms” (1,000-year periods) is complete, the reign of Ormuzd will begin, and men will be all good and all happy, but this event will be preceded by the loosing of Dahak, who will break his chain and fall upon the world, and bring on man the most dreadful calamities. Two prophets will appear to cheer the oppressed, and announce the advent of Marmuzd.
—Selected