Detroit, Mich., Dec. 27 Speaking at the Detroit Opera House, Pastor Russell took for his text St. Peter's words, "A day with the Lord is as a thousand years," and the Prophet's statement, "A thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday." (2 Pet. 3:8; Psa. 90:4) He said in part:
All resolutions against sin and in favor of righteous thinking and living are commendable and helpful. But I recommend a comprehensive resolution; namely, to get right with God through His appointed Channel, the Lord Jesus Christ, and through the instructions of His Word, the Bible. While progressing in the knowledge of the Truth and in its spirit, the individual will be abiding in God's Love- "under the shadow of the Almighty."
But this implies faith in God, faith in Christ, faith in the Bible and the study of it so as to get fully into alignment with the Divine pur poses and away from the perverting influences of the creeds. While every creed may be said to contain some elements of Truth, nevertheless these creeds are so horribly mixed with errors in such poisonous combinations that it is a wonder we did not all follow blind leaders into the ditch of infidelity long ago.
From the Divine standpoint we see that the six thousand years of earth's history, from Adam's day until now, are merely the work-day portion of a great Week whose Seventh Day, or sabbath, of a thousand years is "the day of Christ," "the last Day," "the Day of Judgment," or trial for the world'the Day in which "every knee shall bow and every tongue confess, to the glory of God;" The Day in which "the righteous shall flourish, and evil doers shall be cut off" in the Second Death; the Day during which God will "pour out His Spirit upon all flesh," as He now grants it to His servants and handmaidens.
In the Divinely arranged custom of the Jews the new day began at sunset. Thus we are in the evening, or beginning, [HGL643] of the great Seventh Day of the Divine Week the Day which means so much of blessing, uplifting, privilege, opportunity of Divine favor to our race through Messiah's glorious Kingdom, which throughout this Seventh Day will reign "from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth," putting down everything contrary to the Divine standards, and uplifting the world of mankind (bought with the precious blood at Calvary) from sin, degradation and the tomb up, up, up, step by step, the human perfection in a world-wide Eden. The unwilling, resisting Divine favors and privileges, shall be destroyed in the Second Death. Acts 3:19-21, 23
"Six Days shalt thou labor and do all thy work; but the Seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work." Whoever reads carefully, intelligently, the pages of history must be struck with the energy which has been manifested by our race. The pyramids and the ruins of ancient
cities and civilizations all tell us of humanity's ceaseless struggle against the adverse conditions prevailing in the earth, including the strife against sickness and death and, by a few, a noble fight against further degradation.
Well does the Prophet express the truth of our observation, saying, "We have not wrought any deliverance in the earth." (Isa. 26:18) a few have gained fabulous riches, name of fame, place or power; but during all this period the majority have gone down to the tomb, slain by the great asso ciated monarchs whom the Bible declares are reigning Sin and Death.
Even the comparatively few who have gained eminence and whose victories are most loudly extolled in human history have fallen also many of them in the very prime of life all of them in comparative childhood. Why should not a man live for a hundred years when we have the Divine assur ance that even under the Divine sentence Father Adam resisted death for 930 years so vigorous was his constitution?
From the Divine standpoint the children of Adam, all born in sin, shapen in iniquity, of few days and full of trouble, fall asleep in death, like children wearied in their play; albeit that it is a play grim with tragedy, in which each actor performs his part most realistically.
From the Divine standpoint human ambition, strife and energy are accom plishing a useful purpose, even though the efforts are usually selfish and often brutish. The lessons now being learned by Adam's children will not all be lost. The greater mellowness of heart and the broader views of the majority of those who have thus battled selfishly for even fifty years suggest that our race as a whole might do better work in a second century than in the first. Moreover, the Scriptures indicate that the great drama of sin, selfishness and passion being enacted by humanity is furnishing a lesson to angelic hosts respecting the exceeding sinfulness of sin its downward tendency, its bitter fruit, and the hopelessness of any escape therefrom except by Divine assistance.
The forbidden fruit of Eden was from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Doubtless the Creator would eventually have given our first parents a full knowledge of both good and evil, and merely forbade them an immediate plunge into knowledge to their own disadvantage. Craving knowledge before its due time, Mother Eve disobeyed her Maker, and enticed her husband also into disobedience. The result has been that instead of learning the philosophy of good at first and of evil later, they and their race have been precipitated into lessons respecting evil first, with the knowledge of good to come later.
The holy angels, who have never transgressed the Divine Law, have contin ually the lesson of good an appreciation of the Divine character, the principles of righteousness, etc. Their lesson in respect to evil they are gaining by observation instead of by experience the way recommended to our first parents by the Creator, but in their ignorance rejected. But God foreknew the course which His human children would take under the influence of temptation; He foreknew that they would fall into sin and would therefore experience its penalty of sin, sorrow and death. While for six thousand years His eye has pitied His poor creatures, nevertheless He has allowed His great original Plan of the Ages to move along slowly to a grand climax the Plan which He had purposed in Himself from before the foundation of the world.
That climax in human affairs, we believe, is at hand. It marks a great change of dispensation. The six thousand years of the reign of Sin and Death are ending with a terrible Time of Trouble which not improperly might be termed the natural result of human selfishness (sin) operating under the influence of the great principles of the New Dispensation, now being ushered in. Selfishness, as represented in the accumulated financial power and energy called trusts and combines, is about to come into conflict with selfishness (sin) represented in the combining forces of humanity, labor unions, etc.
The "head-on collision" which thinking people foresee, and which the Scriptures graphically portray, will give society an earthquake shock. More than this, the graphic picture is that of a world-wide conflagration which will involve the heavens, or ecclesiastical powers, as well as the earth, or social system, and the mountains, or kingdoms, of the world. The picture would be too terrible to paint, and useless as well, were it not for the silver lining of the cloud.
The awful shock, which God's people are warned to avoid, so far as possible, by following peace and benevolence, will merely prepare the way for the glorious blessings of the great Seventh Day, in which man will rest from his own schemes and endeavors, and will come fully under the control of the great Messiah, whose Rule of Righteousness for human uplift has been prophetically pictured for centuries.
Still looking from the Divine standpoint at the Six great thousand-year Days in which Sin and Death have reigned, we perceive that one effect has been just as foretold to [HGL644] Mother Eve- "I will greatly multiply they sor rows and thy conceptions." We perceive that our race has multiplied much more rapidly than it would have done had it remained perfect, as at first; for the first children, in the days following the Fall, were frequently born when the fathers were one hundred years old.
We have already referred to the lesson respecting the sinfulness of sin which comes to all mankind most fully, most consciously, to those favored by contact with the people of God, who have received the Divine Revelation. The enlightened ones have been but a small proportion of the whole. After two thousand years of the reign of Sin and Death, God fore told in an obscure manner the blessing which He purposed to bring subsequently to the race. To Abraham He said, "In thy Seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed."
That Message, followed in Israel by the giving of the Law Covenant, has been the light of the world. For eighteen centuries it was the only light of hope, of prospect. Then, in partial fulfillment of that Promise, came Jesus, the first practical expression of Divine Love for our race. No longer would God content Himself merely with promises. He would now begin the
But if any hoped that world-wide blessings would immediately spring up as a result of Jesus' work, he was mistaken. On the contrary, Jesus Himself was combated by the Prince of Darkness and his deluded subjects. For nearly two thousand years the same principle has obtained all followers of Jesus have been obliged to take up their cross and suffer for righteousness, for godliness, in the midst of a perverse people, amongst whom they have shone as lights and whom to some extent they have assisted in enlightening, civilizing, etc.
Thus for Six Days of the Week, so far as light, truth, knowledge of God, is concerned, have all been dark Days. The lights which God provided in His people have been as candles set upon candlesticks. They have indeed reproved the darkness, but they have been powerless to scatter it. Nor did God so design. His declaration through the Prophet is, "Weeping may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning." (Psa. 30:5) Again, "darkness covers the earth, gross darkness the people;" but "the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His beams." Isa. 60:2; Mal. 4:2
This promised Sun of Righteousness which is to scatter the darkness of earth consists, we are distinctly told, of Jesus and those who have walked in His footsteps throughout the Gospel Age. These, approved by the Father, will be glorified beyond the Veil by a resurrection to glory, honor and immortality. Then speedily will these "shine forth as the Sun in the Kingdom of their Father." (Matt. 13:43) This will mean the usher ing in of the great Seventh Day Messiah's Day.
From this Divine standpoint God is not slack concerning His promises. Only Six Days of the Week have yet passed. The glorious Seventh Day, in which the Great Mediator between God and men will assume His Kingdom powers, is just at hand. Instead of thinking that God is neglecting us and forgetting to fulfill the Messianic promises, we should with the eyes of faith realize that He is working all thinks according to the counsel of His own will. We should consider the matter from the standpoint that God has exercised great patience with humanity in not blotting out the race. He has been long-suffering; and this fact assures us that the Unchangeable One would prefer that none of His creatures should perish in death, but rather that all, if they would, might turn unto Him and live. Eze. 33:11
The great opportunity for the masses of our race to turn to the Lord and attain life everlasting will be after the darkness shall have passed, and the Sun of Righteousness shall be shining forth; after the Highway of Holiness shall have taken the place of the Broad Road to destruction; after Messiah, the great King, shall have dethroned Satan, the Prince of Darkness, from the control of the world; after the Prince of Peace shall have established lasting peace upon a proper basis. We can sing heartily with the poet:
"A thousand years! earth's coming glory! 'Tis the glad Day so long foretold; 'Tis the bright morn of Zion's glory Prophets foresaw in times of old!"
Our race was generated by Father Adam as well as condemned to death through his disobedience. What the race needs is another father, or life-giver, and this is exactly what the word Savior signifies Life-Giver. At the cost of His own life the Redeemer became the purchaser of Adam and his race, with a view of their resuscitation, their resurrection from sin and death. Is it not one of the Redeemer's titles "The Everlasting Father" the Father who gives everlasting life? (Isa. 9:6) Unquestionably He has not yet fulfilled this glorious office of Life-Giver to Adam's race. He will fulfill it, however- "in His Day."
Speaking to His faithful disciples, His followers in the Narrow Way, Jesus promised them, "In the regeneration ye shall sit upon twelve thrones." (Matt. 19:28) That regeneration period corresponds exactly to St. Peter's "Times of Restitution," or years of restoration (Acts 3:19-21): and both of these statements agree to the general teachings of Scripture respecting a resurrection, at the last Day Messiah's Day the Thousand years of regeneration, resurrection, restitution, which will afford Adam and his race fullest opportunities for attaining perfection of human nature in an Edenic world-wide Paradise.
The Lord through the Prophet assures us of the wonderful success which will attend the establishment of the New Empire of earth, the Dominion of the Prince of Light, which will supersede the dominion of the Prince of Darkness, when Satan shall be bound for a thousand years, that he may deceive the people no more. Thus it is written, "Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet; and the hail (Truth) shall sweep away the refuge of lies." Isa. 28:17
But why the delay, do you ask? Ah, we answer, God did not permit Adam to begin the establishment of his race until first He gave him Eve as his bride, his wife. The world needed not merely a life-giver, but a mother, a care-taker, a helpmate. [HGL645] Similarly, in the Divine arrangement God has provided that the Restitution Time, the world's uplifting period, the regeneration Epoch for man kind, shall not begin until first the true Church, the Little Flock, the Bride of Christ, shall have been completed and united to the Heavenly Bridegroom beyond the Veil made partaker with Him of glory, honor and immortality.
Thus the great Plan of the Ages, timed by Infinite Wisdom, has delayed long enough to permit all of God's spirit-begotten children to make their calling and election sure to a share with our Redeemer in His glorious work. How glad we are that the Heavenly Father and the Kingly Redeemer are beckoning us to share the things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, but which are reserved for all who love God sincerely more than they love houses or lands, parents or children or self! The Divine Plan of the Ages rolls onward toward completion, and at every stage its progress makes for new blessings and revelations of the glorious things which God purposed in Himself from before the foundation of the world.