Focus on Charles Taze Russell

1913::

We take this occasion to remind our readers afresh that nowhere in our writings have they found anything positively stated respecting the closing years of this Age, except that we understand that the Gentile Times will close in October 1914, and that consequently we expect, speedily following that date, the transfer of the rulership of earth to the great King of Glory, in a “time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation.” We have pointed out that prior to that date a testing work will be in progress in the Church–a time in which the question will be, not so much, who will fall? as, who shall be able to stand in this evil day? – Ephesians 6:11.

We did in discussing the Great Pyramid–STUDIES IN THE SCRIPTURES Series–suggest that possibly a certain measurement of the step at the upper end of the Grand Gallery might signify something important by the end of 1910. But we hope that we made it clear that we built nothing on that suggestion–that it was merely a suggestion, a guess only, but a pointer that the year 1911 might be looked to with interest. We may say, however, that every year now is bound to be full of interest and activity of thought, both to our readers and the entire civilized world.

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Indeed, as respects the date 1914, which we have emphasized, and respecting which we have repeatedly expressed our faith, our conviction–even respecting this date we have never knowingly spoken in infallible terms. We have always admitted that it is a matter of faith and conviction, rather than of absolute knowledge. We invite a careful re-examination of the chapter on chronology, as such a reading will prove helpful, sobering. Therein we point out that if our knowledge were wholly based upon chronology we would be far from certain of the date– that our faith in it is based largely upon the corroboration, interlacing and intermeshing of various prophecies which seem to prove the reliability of the Bible chronology and of our use of it in connection with this date.

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This is the Good Tidings of God’s grace in Christ– whether the completion of the Church shall be accomplished before 1914 or not. Let us preach the Message of God’s grace, and let our hearts be stimulated with God’s Message through the Prophets, to the effect that the blessing is nigh at hand. Let our moderation be manifest to all, and let the fact that we know only in part and understand only in part help to keep us humble and moderate in word and deed and thought. Thus we shall best serve the interests [R5250 : page 168] of our Master and His Cause, and be most in harmony with the teachings of His Word.

It is our conviction that the great time of trouble will come upon the world through the great Adversary, Satan, and his fallen host. It will not surprise us to find evidences accumulating that the work of breaking down the human will through hypnotism, etc., is all a part of the great scheme by which shortly, gradually, increasingly, power will be exercised upon the minds of mankind–to excite them to unwisdom and to passion. Such of God’s children as shall have learned the lessons of His Word along the lines of moderation of thought, rest of heart in the Lord, patient waiting for His time and way, and assisted by the Vow to careful self inspection and government daily, will be greatly blessed and by this means kept from the snare of the Adversary–the hour of temptation is coming upon all that dwell upon the face of the whole earth.–Revelation 3:10.

“Let Your Moderation Be Known”, ZWT, June 1, 1913, page 167, Reprints 5249

http://www.agsconsulting.com/htdbnon/r5249.htm

1914:

This vision is to be made clear at the appointed time. We may not read the time features with the same absolute certainty as doctrinal features; for time is not so definitely stated in the Scriptures as are the basic doctrines. We are still walking by faith and not by sight. We are, however, not faithless and unbelieving, but faithful and waiting. If later it should be demonstrated that the Church is not glorified by October, 1914, we shall try to feel content with whatever the Lord’s will may be. We believe that very many who are running the race for the prize will be able to thank God for the chronology, even if it should prove not accurate to the year, or even out of the way several years. We believe that the chronology is a blessing. If it should wake us a few minutes earlier or a few hours earlier in the Morning than we would otherwise have waked, well and good! It is those who are awake who get the blessing.

If 1915 should go by without the passage of the Church, without the Time of Trouble, etc., it would seem to some to be a great calamity. It would not be so with ourself. We shall be as glad as any one if we shall all experience our change from earthly to spirit conditions before 1915, and THIS IS OUR EXPECTATION; but if this should not be the Lord’s will, then it would not be our will. If in the Lord’s providence the time should come twenty-five years later, then that would be our will. This would not change the fact that the Son of God was sent by the Father, and that the Son is the Redeemer of our race; that He died for our sins; that He is selecting the Church for His Bride; and that the next thing now in order is the establishment of the glorious Kingdom at the hands of this great Mediator, who during His Mediatorial Reign will bless all the families of the earth. These facts remain the same. The difference would be merely that of a few years in the time of the establishment of the Kingdom.

If October, 1915, should pass, and we should find ourselves still here and matters going on very much as they are at present, and the world apparently making progress in the way of settling disputes, and there were no time of trouble in sight, and the nominal Church were not yet [R5374 : page 5] federated, etc., we would say that evidently we have been out somewhere in our reckoning. In that event we would look over the prophecies further, to see if we could find an error. And then we would think, Have we been expecting the wrong thing at the right time? The Lord’s will might permit this. Our expectation as a Church is that our change is near. Nothing of Restitution blessings can come to the world until after the Church has been glorified.

Another thing to be considered, should our hopes not be so soon realized as we expect, would be as to whether we were surely of the elect class. But we are not worrying ourself at all. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” There are no people in the world so blessed as those who have the Truth and are serving the Truth. There is plenty of work to do.

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So far as we have been able to see up to the present time, the failure of a full development of matters in 1915, or before, would imply that all the chronological arrangements, as we have them, are wrong–our view of the Harvest and all. And we have no reason to believe that these are wrong. We remember that we are not infallible, and that our judgment is not infallible; but the wonderful inventions of today, and the light that is dawning in every direction, as well as the universal unrest, seem in corroboration of the chronology–that we are in the dawning of the New Age. But just how far along we are we do not positively know. We are waiting for the Sun of Righteousness to appear.

“The Days are at Hand”, ZWT, January 1, 1914, page 4, Reprints 5374.

http://www.agsconsulting.com/htdbnon/r5374.htm

1914:

CHRONOLOGY–Sealing Saints Re 1914. Q79:1:: QUESTION (1914)–1–Do you think the saints will all be sealed by October, 1914, whether they are here or not?

ANSWER–Our supposition has been–and we, of course, supposed that we were looking at it from the Bible standpoint–our supposition has been that during the period that we call the Gentile Times the whole work of God in the selection of the Church would be completed. Perhaps it would be just as well for me to give you a brief summary of why we think that 1914 is the particular date, and what has been accomplished and should be expected to be accomplished during that interim or period. I remind you, then, that God once had in the world a typical people, and that these people He organized into a typical kingdom, the Kingdom of Israel, and on the throne of the typical kingdom He placed a typical king. David being the representative of that kingly line, the Lord promised him, “There shall not fail thee a man in My sight to sit on the throne of Israel,” of his seed; and so we read of David’s son, Solomon, and how Solomon sat upon the throne of the Kingdom of the Lord–not upon David’s throne–upon the throne of the Kingdom of the Lord. It was God’s throne, it was God’s Kingdom, only in a typical way. Solomon followed David, and Solomon’s son followed him, and so there was a continuation of the Davidic line for a certain time. Then there came a time when God stopped that order of things. The last king of David’s line who reigned over the people of Israel was King Zedekiah, and to him and of him God said at that time, “O, thou profane and wicked prince, whose time is come for iniquity to have an end. This shall not be the same (I will discontinue this order of things), this shall not be the same. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it until He come whose right it is, and I will give it unto him.” Now, then, you see, there was David’s line. “There shall not fail thee a man to sit upon thy throne forever.” And so for all these years God kept the tribe of Judah in a prominent place, and David’s posterity sat upon the throne as long as it continued. But in Zedekiah God discontinued that earthly kingdom, and there has been no earthly Kingdom of God from that time on. He was the last of the order of David. The people of Israel, you remember, were carried into Babylonian captivity. They came back afterward from the Babylonian captivity, but they never had any kings of David’s line, and they never had any kings of their own at all. The Maccabees did endeavor to have a kingdom, you remember, but unsuccessfully; but they were not of the promised line of David; and then down to the time of the first advent there were certain kings of the Herodian line but Herod’s line was not David’s line. Indeed the kingdom of Herod was not of a Jewish line at all. They were of Esau and not Jews at all. So then, according {Page Q80} to history and according to prophecy, Zedekiah was the last king of David’s line that sat upon the throne of the Kingdom of the Lord. What happened then? Well, God has had no typical kingdom, from the time of Zedekiah down to when? Down to now. In all that time He has had no kingdom in the earth. Well, but, you say, Brother Russell, there have been some who claimed to be the Kingdom of God. Oh, yes, my brethren, and so the Bible tells us about the kingdoms of this world, but they are not the Kingdom of God. We are still praying, “Thy kingdom come.” And it will be Messiah’s kingdom that will come then. There will be no inferior substitution in the mean time. On the contrary, when God took away the kingdom from His own nation, the seed of Abraham, He gave the dominion of the world, by a kind of leasehold, to the Gentiles. And Jesus referred to that, you remember, in speaking of the “times of the Gentiles.” And He says that the times, or years, of the Gentiles would continue until the times of the Gentiles should be fulfilled. When He used these words He was thinking about the fact that Jerusalem would be completely overwhelmed and destroyed, as it was destroyed in the year 70, and Jesus said it would continue to be destroyed until the completion of the Gentile Times.

Well, when did the Gentile times begin? We answer that they began where God’s typical kingdom ended when the crown was removed from Zedekiah. Well, what happened at that time to indicate that Gentile times began then? Oh, something very important occurred. At that time there were various nations in the world larger than the people of Israel. There was Egypt, and the Babylonians, and other nations, but these were two of the other nations near to Israel. And Babylonia became very great, and the greatness of Babylonia dates especially from the time of the overthrow of Israel. At that time God recognized Babylonia as being the first of the Gentile kingdoms that would have control of the world, and it became the Universal Empire. You remember it was about that time that Nebuchadnezzar had that very peculiar dream, a dream that impressed him so much in his sleep, that when he awakened he simply remembered that it was a very important dream, but he could not think what it was. Then he called his wise men and said, “I have had a dream, and I cannot tell you now what it was. Tell me the dream and the interpretation of it.” And they said, O, king, this is a difficult matter. Tell us the dream and we will interpret it. But we can’t tell what the dream was. No king has ever asked his wise men to tell a dream and the interpretation as well. But the king said, O, well, if you can’t tell me the dream you don’t know what the proper interpretation is. It would be easy for you to fix up an interpretation if I were to tell you the dream. Anybody could do that. If you were able to tell the dream and the interpretation, well and good. If you had any real wisdom from the gods you could tell just as easily what the dream is. Go ahead now. If you can’t tell what the dream is, I will know you are fraudulent, and I will put every one of you to death. And so there was great fear, you remember, and finally, amongst those wise men was Daniel, who had been carried captive to Babylon as a young man at a previous time of the war, about eighteen year {Page Q81} before Zedekiah lost his crown. And Daniel, the prophet, came forward and said to King Nebuchadnezzar, “O, king, live forever. Let not the king be hasty in this matter. Let time be given, and the God of Heaven will answer the king’s question and we will tell the king what the dream was.” And the king was very anxious to have his dream explained and to know what it was, and so he said, “Very well, we’ll give you time.” At the appointed time Daniel appeared before the king and said, “O, king, this was the dream, for the God of Heaven has revealed it unto me: Thou sawest in thy vision of thy head upon thy bed, and behold a great and mighty image; the height was tremendous; and the head was of gold, and the breast and arms were of silver and the belly and thighs of brass and the legs were of iron, and the feet were of iron and miry clay; and thou beheld, O king, until a stone was cut out of the mountains without hands and it smote the image in the feet thereof, and then the iron and clay and brass and silver and gold all became as the chaff of the summer’s threshing floor and the wind carried them all away, and the stone that smote the image on the feet, it grew and became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.” And the king said, That’s exactly my dream. You’ve got it exactly. Now I know you have some way of telling about that dream. Come on, now, and tell me the interpretation. So Daniel proceeded to give the interpretation, and he said, “Thou, O king, art the head of gold. Thy kingdom is the first one in that image.” Why? Were there not others before? Because, previous to that time God had had His own kingdom in the world, and there couldn’t be any other universal empire as long as God’s kingdom was in the world. So now is the start, you see. Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom was the head. It was recognized from that moment, from the time that God through the prophet had said, “Remove the diadem (from Zedekiah), take off the crown; I will overturn it,” and meantime, while it is overturned, God gave the rulership to these nations represented in the image. The head was Babylon, the silver breast and arms Medo-Persia, the belly and thighs were the government of Grecia, when Greece was the universal empire, and then came the legs of iron, representing the Roman Empire in its days of greatness and power. Then came the feet, representing what is called the Holy Roman Empire, that is to say, a mixture of religious and civil power, and in these feet the miry clay mixed with the iron represented an imitation of the stone. Now, imagine the feet there, a certain part of iron, and miry clay all smeared over those feet, would look very much like the stone which hit the feet, wouldn’t they? And that is what the Lord represented, you see. The miry clay represented the religious institutions of the present time, commingling with the civil power of the present time. On the one part it is claimed, for instance, that Great Britain is a civil power. On the other hand it is claimed that Great Britain is an ecclesiastical power, and the bishop of the church of England sits in the Parliaments of England in the House of Lords, with the civil lords, and thus they are mixing the miry clay, represented in human, earthly church systems, and secular power, that claim to be God’s kingdom, combining it with the strength that there really is {Page Q82} in the civil power. The same thing is true of Catholicism. The same thing is true of the Greek Catholic Church in Russia, etc., as they all claim, they use the civil power and they have the ecclesiastical system in outward appearance–it appears religious, but the strength of all is in the civil power. It is merely an imitation of God’s kingdom, and not the real thing. It belongs to the kingdoms of this world. And so the kingdoms of earth today calling themselves God’s kingdoms are just as much civil governments as they ever were, only they are not as honest; not that the people are necessarily dishonest, but that they have got the wrong ideas in their minds, and they are fully convinced along the lines of error. Now, then, the great image was a picture, of what? The Gentile governments that should bear rule over all the earth. How long? The whole period of that image, from the head, Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar’s time, down to the feet and toes of the kingdom of the present time. That whole image represents the Gentile governments, and the times of the Gentiles is the period between the time that image was set up or came into power, and the time that that stone is to smite the image upon the feet and crush its power.

Do not think, dear friends, that I am saying for a minute that you and I are to strike the image. Oh, no! God has given us no such commission. It is the heavenly Father that will do the smiting, and you and I have nothing to do with that; but so long as these various civil governments have the power, you and I are to recognize that God gave this power to these Gentile governments, and we are not to seek to disrupt that power; we are not to fight against these governments: we are to recognize these governments, because, as St. Paul tells us, “The powers that be are ordained of God.” He authorized them to be. He did not say they were His kingdoms, and when any of these kingdoms claim to be God’s kingdom they are telling that which is fraudulent and wrong. They are Gentile kingdoms, outside of God’s kingdom. The word Gentile in the Scriptures stands for outsiders, those who are not God’s people. This word Gentile, that is also translated “heathen,” is the same word that is translated “Gentiles”, interchangeably. So that all these kingdoms represent the Gentile image, that Gentile, or heathen kingdom–not God’s kingdom.

Where had God’s kingdom been? Oh, not prominent, but subject. The Jews, after their return from Babylon never were a free people. They were always subject to one or another of the civil powers. One or another of the great nations ruled over the world, and ruled over them. They were under the Medo-Persian and under the Grecians and under the Romans; and now they are more or less subject to the “Holy Roman Empire”: as they have suffered as much, perhaps, at the hands of the Holy Roman Empire as they have suffered from any of the others.

So then it is during this time that God has permitted the Gentiles to rule the world, we understand He has been doing another work, namely, the gathering out of the world a people, a Kingdom class, and the Apostle Peter speaks of this, saying to the Church, you remember, “Ye are a holy nation, {Page Q83} a peculiar people, a royal priesthood.” You and I belong to that–not that we are the finished priesthood yet. The real royal priesthood will be that priesthood, or that portion of us that will attain unto the first resurrection and will be joint heirs with our Lord in the heavenly glory, having made our calling and election sure, having been fully baptized into Christ’s death, and we shall also be risen with Him in that day of glory. But while that is the hope of the Church, we are not in that Kingdom yet, in its fullest sense. We are not yet brought into the Kingdom proper. We are the ones who are to be the Kingdom class, if we are found to be faithful to the Lord. Faithful is He who hath called us into that Kingdom honor, and who will also do it and, as Jesus said, “Fear not, little flock, it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.” But He has not given it to you yet. He is going to give it to you at the end of this age. He is going to give it to you when the Master himself comes into the great place of power to be the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Then we also shall reign with Him and be like Him and share His glory.

Now then, when will Christ’s Kingdom come? Well, we answer, not until these great kingdoms have reached their culmination. What will that be? That will be the end of the Gentile Times. So, then, when God said to Zedekiah, “I will overturn this crown and this kingdom until He comes whose right it is,” it means that there will be an interval, without God’s Kingdom, from the days of Zedekiah down to the day of the establishment of the real Kingdom of God, in which Christ is the great King over all the earth, and He tells us that when He shall appear in His glory, we shall appear with Him in glory. But that isn’t yet.

Now, dear friends, our expectation has been that these Gentile times would finish with the present year, 1914, and that with the finishing of the Gentile times, forthwith, immediately, God’s kingdom would begin to manifest itself. I do not know yet that this is not true. It will have to be shown. Perhaps somebody can prove that it is not true, but I do not think anyone yet can prove that it is not true. If we come to the full end of 1914 and nothing transpires following that time to indicate the establishment of Christ’s Kingdom amongst mankind, then perhaps we will have to reconsider matters; but not until then will it be necessary for us to reconsider. It is for the other party to prove that it will not be so.

Why do you think it will be in October, 1914 (we are making a good deal out of this question, but I infer that this is just as interesting to you as some other part of the questions would be)? Why do we think that 1914 should be the consummation of Gentile times? What reason have you for thinking that it will come in 1914 any more than in 1910 or 1920? This reason: We endeavored to find the date on which the kingdom was taken away from Israel, the date on which the crown was taken from Zedekiah, the date on which the kingdom of Israel there ceased, the kingdom of Judah there ceased and went into absolute captivity and the city of Jerusalem went into destruction. Now what year was that? We understand, as nearly as we are able to calculate: we do not claim infallibility, but as nearly as we are able to know, from all the history there is to be known, we believe that to {Page Q84} be the year 606 B. C. We will not go into all the proofs. That would take us all afternoon, and you have it in print, you have read it for yourselves and you know whether you believe it or whether you do not believe it and you were not urged to believe it. I simply set before you what I found there, what seemed to be, to me, the most reasonable answer to this matter, and you believed as much of it or as little of it as appealed to your heart.

Now then, suppose it were the year 606, what would that have to do with 1914? Why, this, my dear friends: We found that there were two things stated in the Bible, one in respect to natural Israel and the other in respect to these Gentile Times. In respect to natural Israel it seems to be quite clearly pointed out that they would have “seven times” of very severe, trying experiences and punishments from God, discipline, disciplinary punishments. And these seven times of Israel’s chastisement, as God foretold in the book of Leviticus, were not seven literal years, because they had many more chastisements than seven literal years. We believe, therefore, that they were seven symbolical years, and a symbolical year in Bible usage is three hundred and sixty years, corresponding, you see, to the lunar month, the lunar year–three hundred and sixty days, and so, three hundred and sixty years, a day for a year. And so seven years, or seven times, is seven times three hundred and sixty, which would be twenty-five hundred and twenty. And similarly, therefore, twenty-five hundred and twenty years would seem to be the measure of Israel’s subjection to the Gentile governments, 2,520 years. Well, were they subject to the first? Yes. To whom? To Nebuchadnezzar. Were they subject to Medo-Persia? Yes. Were they subject to the Grecians, represented by the brass? Yes. And the Romans, represented by the iron? Yes. They have been subject since then? You know they have been subject. Twenty-five hundred and twenty years, come this fall, as nearly as we are able to reckon. What does that mean? Why, that means that the time for Israel’s deliverance from Gentile dominion should be the end of this year. Well, what will that mean? Well, we do not know yet what it will mean, but we rather think there will be something or other, either in the way of the downfall of these kingdoms represented in the image, or in some other way it will be shown that God’s favor is returning or has returned in special form to Israel. Are there any signs along that line? Yes, some signs; for instance, we have the Zionistic movement, which began only quite recently, and this Zionism is looking just in that direction, hoping for the restoration of national power to the Jewish people–hoping for it, desiring it, laboring for it. And where did the Jews get that idea? Ah, we are not wise enough to say. We should not wonder at all if the Spirit of the Lord stirred them up at the appropriate time to look for and wait for and strive for the restoration of their national entity at the right time. We believe so.

Well now, what about the other things? What about the Church? What about these Gentiles? Well, we answer, that similarly there are seven times marked out for the Gentiles; and their times began at the same period, at the same time, we believe, the year 606 B.C., and the seven times of the Gentiles is just as long–2,520 years, and measure down, we {Page Q85} believe, to the end of the year 1914 and the beginning of the year 1915. What should we expect then? Why, we should expect that by the end of 1914 the lease of power, this great lease that God gave to the Gentiles, the times of the Gentiles, would expire. And what would this mean? Why, you have lived in a house, and perhaps your lease has expired, and with the expiration of the lease the landlord sends you a notice to quit and get out. So I presume that the Gentiles will be served with a notice to quit. And just what that will mean to the Gentiles I am not wise enough to know. And if you do not quit and give possession of the house according to your lease, if you do not do so peaceably and quietly, in all probability the officer would come ’round and put you out on to the street. And so I am not expecting that the Gentiles know anything about this notice to quit, and they are not thinking of quitting at all. King Edward has no thought of saying, “Here, Lord, here is my crown, take it, please, and begin your reign.” And the czar of Russia, his cousin, has no thought of doing that, and the other great kings of the world know nothing about the Messiah and His Kingdom. They do not realize the facts in the case. We are not blaming them at all, but we see that they are not prepared to quit. But we believe they are going to have a notice to quit, and they are quite unprepared for it. What do you think it will mean? Why, I think it will be about time. Well, how will it be done? Now, that takes more wisdom than I have. Well, you might say, it would necessarily mean, of course, that God would use some good people to put them out. Oh, not necessarily, my dear brother. Not necessarily. The officer who comes to put you out of the house might not be a good man at all. He might be a very rough and tumble sort of fellow that would come to set your stuff out. And so God sometimes uses the wrath of man, and the wrath of the devil, to praise Him, and He may use some other power. For aught I know, He may use anarchy to put these kingdoms out. It is not for me to say. I do not know. I merely know that you and I are commissioned to follow peace toward all men. We are not the ones to put them out. Therefore we can sit still, with great equanimity of mind, and say, When God’s time comes, whenever it is, the Gentile lease will terminate and He will oust them from their positions, no matter how strong they may seem to be, and the Kingdom will be given to the people of the saints of the Most High God, the Kingdom and the greatness of the Kingdom under the whole heavens, as Daniel describes it, and the people of the saints of the Most High God will take the Kingdom and possess the Kingdom forever, even forever and ever. That means a long while. We don’t believe that the Gentiles will be given another lease. We believe they were merely given this lease in the interim, because God’s time had not yet come for the establishment of His Kingdom.

Now, then, about the Church. That is the essence of this question, and the rest has been marginal. About the Church: We have understood that the Church is all to be gathered out before that time, because Jesus seemed to imply that in some of His statements. He said, for instance, speaking of the kingdom of the world: “Watch ye, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things coming upon the world,” and so we think it is not unreasonable that we should {Page Q86} say, if these things are coming upon the world as it is declared, when the times of the Gentiles have expired, if these things are to be a great time of trouble as the Bible says, a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation, we say, if we are going to escape them, why, we suppose that we will be translated, or changed or something, having our resurrection change, before tha time. So now that wasn’t bad reasoning, was it? Even if it should be found to be wrong in the end, it doesn’t seem to be illogical to my head, and I am not ashamed of it at all. Other people may be if they like, I am not. Well, now, is there any possibility that we might not be there? Yes, there is a possibility. There are two ways of escaping trouble. You might escape the trouble and be right in it. Is not that so? Yes, it is. A good many people think I have been in a peck of trouble for several years past. I have been escaping it all, my dear friends. If I look very much troubled, why I belie my feelings; I am not troubled a bit. I only wish that my enemies could have just as good a time, and especially all my friends (laughter and hand clapping). Well, now, the Lord may have something of that character for us, and for all I know the Church may be here during that time of trouble or during a portion of that time of trouble. There is nothing in the Bible that says just as soon as the Gentile times are ended all the Church will be glorified. The Church may be here after the trouble is begun, perhaps. Perhaps. It is possible. We’ll see. And we’ll be content whatever we see, won’t we! That is the situation, dear friends! “Content, whatever lot I see, since ’tis my God that leadeth me.” Could we be otherwise than content with God’s leading? We may be sure that all the leadings of our Heavenly Father and of our Heavenly Lord will all be for good, that we will have every reason to enjoy His leadings. He doeth all things well.

Well, how might it be? Well, it might be that we would remain through this time of trouble.

And do you think, Brother Russell, that all the saints will be sealed? Well, now, the sealing, we understand, dear friends, is a work that begins with the Holy Spirit operating upon our hearts at the very time that we begin to do the will of God. The Apostle speaks of this sealing of the Holy Spirit. The sealing, you know, as it was done in olden times, was done with a seal–an instrument of hard metal or stone, usually a stone, impressing upon soft wax and giving a certain impress there that can be distinguished afterward. And so God, accepting us as His people, our hearts becoming verv tender, and we as New Creatures giving ourselves fully to Him, has begun the work of impressing His character and likeness upon us, and we are in the process of being sealed with the Holy Spirit; and that sealing work has been going on, hasn’t it? Yes, you know something about it. Yes, thank God you do! Well, there is a further sealing mentioned in the book of Revelation, you remember. There is a sealing in their foreheads; and something mentioned in Revelation as not having been common to the people of God, but as being opportune, and transpiring, in the end of the age; and we read, you remember, that the four angels are holding back the four winds; that the great time of trouble (I am not giving you the exact words), that the time of trouble should not break loose upon the world until the servants of God had been {Page Q87} sealed in their foreheads. Now that is a different sealing, you see. As Christians, we have always had, from the beginning of our experiences, the sealing process in our hearts, the character likeness of our Lord made more and more prominent, and so had our fathers and our grandfathers and all the Church of Christ had that sealing work going on in the heart. But now this sealing in the forehead signifies the giving, or impressing, intellectually. Has that been going on for a while? Yes, my dear brother, and you know it. Just as surely as you have had any of that sealing in the forehead you are aware that your intellect is sharper and brighter and clearer. You understand God’s character, you understand God’s plan, you understand God’s Word as you never did before. And this sealing process is to continue until what? Until all the number that belong to the Elect Church shall have been sealed in their foreheads. Will there not be many of the saintly ones of God’s people left in ignorance? Not one! Not one! All of the one hundred and forty-four thousand that shall stand with the Lamb on Mount Zion will all of them be sealed in their foreheads; not necessarily all of the 144,000 in the flesh, because they have been selected throughout the whole age, you know; but all who belong to that class who will be living in the end of this age will have the sealing in this way; and the others that belong to that class, by experiencing the resurrection they get their sealing in still a more thorough manner, if you please; but the entire 144,000 receive this sealing in their foreheads, this intellectual knowledge of which this is a picture. So we believe it must be. So it has been in process. A part of the work that you and I rejoice in having the privilege of having a part in is this work of helping to bring to others the knowledge of God’s character and plan. The pilgrim work and the scattering of tracts and the Photo Drama of Creation and the colporteur work and every other part of the work is with a view to helping our fellow Christians to have this sealing in their foreheads, to get a clear, intellectual understanding of God’s plan.

And some can’t see it at all. Why not? Because they are not drawn by God to receive it. And others do receive it. Yes, because to them it is given to receive it. Just as Jesus said in the end of His age, to some, “To you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, but to all outsiders these things are spoken in parables and dark sayings, that hearing they might hear and not understand.” It is not for them to understand. In other words, God does not wish His plan known to everybody. He does wish it known to His consecrated people. “The secret of the Lord is with them that reverence Him. He will show them His covenant.” And now in the end of the age is the time, we believe, that light and knowledge is especially due to this class. “Light is sown for the righteous.” St. Paul, speaking on this very subject, says, after telling about that great time of trouble that is coming upon the world, says it shall come upon them as a thief and as a snare and they shall not know, “but ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are the children of the light and the children of the day,” and God will show you enough on the subject that you will not be like the world, overtaken unawares, and not knowing what to expect. So it is coming over the whole world. The Gentiles do not know what is coming. {Page Q88}

They see the difficulties and they wonder about different things, but they do not know what is coming. Now then, though it isn’t in the question, I think it is a part of the question and perhaps as much of interest as the others here, therefore I will go on: Suppose that we should remain here! I am fully convinced that I would rather stay here if the Lord wants me to stay here. I couldn’t go if He did not want me, anyway, but I am pleased to stay if it is the Lord’s will. If the Lord were to say, “You can have your choice of going or staying,” I think I should say, “Dear Lord, if you want me to stay, I’ll stay.” Wouldn’t you? Of course you would. Now there is a scripture to which we called attention in the WATCH TOWER recently, that is, two or three months ago, that leaves a little room for question whether or not the Church might be completed and somehow or other accepted in the Lord right here in the flesh, right here amongst men, and yet their destiny, so to speak, be settled, and yet we would not die–or attain to the resurrection just yet. That scripture says : “Let the saints be joyful in glory, let them sing aloud upon their beds, let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand, to execute the judgments written. This honor have all His saints.” Now you see there’s room there for the thought. Why? How? Notice the glory that these saints shall have. Some of God’s people are at rest, while others are in short beds–trundle beds, so to speak, and those that are of full size are represented as having full-sized beds, etc. And the two-edged sword, what is that? Why, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Now, we won’t need the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, in our hands after we get into the glory beyond the veil, will we? We do not think so. I doubt very much that we will use the Word of God as the sword of the Spirit after we are changed. I think we will have more powerful weapons, more spiritual weapons even than the spiritual Word of God. What more? “The high sounding praises of God upon our lips.” That can just as well be on this side of the veil. So the bed seems to indicate this side of the veil, and the sword, and then the text says, “To execute the judgments written.” Why, are we to execute the judgments in the flesh? I do not know. I have no idea. I am not trying to execute judgment, my dear brethren, and I will not do so until the Lord makes it very positive to me that I should. He will have to push me out and make it very plain if I am to do that. I am not going to assume that I am to use any force with anybody until he makes it positively plain. If that is it, if the time should come, He will know how to make it plain to us, and then we will do our duty, we trust, every one; but we will wait until we see. I am simply suggesting these thoughts, because we are nearing the end of 1914, and I wish to leave this thought in your mind: that there is a possibility of our not being changed this year, and that there is a possibility that the Church may be completed and yet we will not be changed. It is possible that the Gentile Times will end on time as expected, and yet the Church not be changed.

Another question I will anticipate: Suppose that the Gentile Times should end in October, 1914, what would be the logical thing to expect? Well, I am not sure what to expect. {Page Q89} We could not be sure, we would not know, whether it would take the Lord fifteen minutes or fifteen days or fifteen years to put out the kingdoms of this world. It is merely a guess, but one guess that we might give with a little bit of scriptural basis is this: We have seen parallelisms between the Jewish Age and the Gospel Age. We have seen that the forty years of the harvest in the end of the Jewish Age corresponds with the forty years’ harvest in the end of the Christian Age. We have seen that at the end of the forty years of Israel’s harvest, the nation of Israel was destroyed within approximately six or seven months after the end of their harvest–a little more than six months. And so, following the same parallel, if it is a parallel (I am not sure that it is), if it is a parallel, it would seem to imply that the great trouble should be expected to come upon the world in the six months following October, 1914. Well, now, if you will wait until this time next year and see how it is, and we have another convention, then we will perhaps be wiser; but I hope we will not be any the less loyal to the Lord and His Word, whatever may be the circumstances or conditions. We did not consecrate until the end of the Gentile Times, nor dlid we consecrate until the end of 1914 not until the end of 1915, but we consecrated, if we consecrated properly, until death.

What Pastor Russell Said, Question 79:1

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