The Signs of the Times, vol. 13

November 3, 1887

“Who Shall Be Able to Stand?” The Signs of the Times 13, 42, pp. 663, 664.

THE prophet Joel in speaking of the day of the Lord says, “The day of the Lord is great and very terrible;” and then inquires, “Who can abide it?” Joel 2:11. Balaam, away in his distant day, speaking of the time when “Out of Jacob shall come he that shall have dominion, and shall destroy him that remaineth of the city,” exclaims, “Alas, who shall live when God doeth this?” Numbers 24:23. Malachi also wonderingly asks, “Who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth?” Malachi 3:2. And when at last that terrible day shall have come, the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, the bondmen and the free, hide themselves in the dens, and the rocks of the mountains, and cry to the mountains and rocks to fall on them, and hide from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, because the great day of his wrath is come; and in terror they too inquire, “Who shall be able to stand”? Revelation 6:15-17. SITI November 3, 1887, page 663.1

The connection in which these questions are asked shows that they are questions of no slight importance. Who can abide the day of the coming of the Lord? Who shall stand when he appeareth? Job in viewing that dreadful time exclaimed, “O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past.” Job 14:13. And Habakkuk, beholding it in vision, said, “When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice: rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble.” Habakkuk 3:16. This is the time of which Daniel said “There shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time.” Daniel 12:1. Yet for all this there will be those who may abide the day of his coming; there will be those who shall stand when he appeareth. Jesus speaks of them, and to them, and exhorts them, saying, “Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.” Luke 21:36. SITI November 3, 1887, page 663.2

John also speaks to these, saying, “And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.”1 John 2:28. Isaiah speaks of the same company, and says, “It shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us; this is the Lord; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” Isaiah 25:9. And Paul gives a point more in regard to the same ones: “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17. SITI November 3, 1887, page 663.3

But, although it is certain that there will be a company who will abide the day of his coming, and although from other texts we know that the number will be one hundred and forty-four thousand, the question still remains, “Who shall abide the day of his coming?” “Who shall stand, when he appeareth?” More than this, the time of trouble, and of the wrath of God, is a longer period than just the short time in which the blaze of Christ’s glory shall burst upon the earth, and his people shall be delivered. The wrath of God, the pouring out of which creates the time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation, and which culminates in the personal coming of Christ to take vengeance on the wicked,—this wrath of God will be poured out in the seven last plagues. SITI November 3, 1887, page 663.4

The first manifestation of this wrath will be a dreadful pestilence,—a noisome and grievous sore,—which falls upon them that have the mark of the beast, and upon them which worship his image. The second will be seen in the waters of the sea being turned to a pestilential mass, as the blood of a dead man. The third will be seen in the rivers and fountains of water becoming blood. The fourth will be manifested in the increased heat of the sun, to such a degree that even men will be scorched with it. The fifth will be a dreadful pall of darkness overhanging the greater part of the earth. The sixth will be such a manifestation of Spiritualism as will deceive everybody but the very elect. And with the seventh there comes the great voice out of the temple of Heaven from the throne, saying, “It is done.” And then there are voices and thunderings and lightnings and a great earthquake such as was not since men were upon the earth so mighty an earthquake and so great; the cities of the nations fall; every island flees away, and the mountains will not be found; and there will fall upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent. And these plagues are cumulative—the terrors of each one being added to those which have gone before. (See Revelation 16.) Well indeed may all the prophets lament the dreadful day. Well indeed may all men anxiously inquire, Who shall be able to stand? SITI November 3, 1887, page 663.5

God spake by Ezekiel of this time of trouble, saying: “If I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my fury upon it in blood, to cut off from it man and beast; though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness.” Ezekiel 14:19, 20. Noah, the one man only whom the Lord found righteous in the generation before the flood; Daniel, whom God twice called “greatly beloved;” and Job, the one chief example of suffering affliction and of patience—though these three God-chosen men were in this land in this fast-hastening day, no man could be supported by their righteousness or their faithfulness; no man can then be delivered but by the righteousness which he himself possesses, nor be sustained in the time of trial, of trouble, of temptation, and of opposition, except by the connection which he himself sustains with God, and by the confidence which is begotten of personal and thorough conviction of the truth of God fixed in the very soul, and witnessed, as it will ever be, by the Spirit of God through an abiding faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. SITI November 3, 1887, page 663.6

We know not how we can better illustrate this than by giving two instances from the Bible—one from the Old Testament and one from the New. Jeremiah had spoken to all the people in Jerusalem the message of the Lord, that they should be carried captive to Babylon and there remain seventy years. Many of them had already been taken to Babylon, Jeconiah the king among them, and Jeremiah had said that Jeconiah should see his native land no more, but should die in Babylonia. One day there was a great assembly of all the people and the priests at the house of the Lord. Jeremiah was there among them, and he had on his neck a wooden yoke which he had been wearing for some time as a sign to the peolpe of their doomed servitude to Babylon. A false prophet, Hananiah by name, spoke to Jeremiah directly, “in the presence of the priests and of all the people, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, saying, I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. Within two full years will I bring again into this place all the vessels of the Lord’s house, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place, and carried them to Babylon; and I will bring again to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, with all the captives of Judah, that went into Babylon, saith the Lord; for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.” SITI November 3, 1887, page 663.7

Jeremiah answered in substance that he would be glad if it could be so, and that he would be glad if the Lord would but do it, “Nevertheless, hear thou now this word that I speak in thine ears, and in the ears of all the people.... The prophet which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known, that the Lord hath truly sent him.” This only roused up Hananiah to greater boldness, and he deliberately walked up to Jeremiah and “took the yoke from off the prophet Jeremiah’s neck, and brake it. And Hananiah spake in the presence of all the people, saying, Thus saith the Lord: Even so will I break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from the neck of all nations within the space of two full years.” And then the record is, “And the prophet Jeremiah went his way.” He had nothing more to say just then, and so silently walked away. SITI November 3, 1887, page 664.1

Now when it is understood that all the people were already dead set against Jeremiah, it may be imagined what effect this public and palpable defeat, as they regarded it, of him whom they already hated would have upon the populace. We can fairly hear the scoffs, and hoots, and jeers, and groans, that followed Jeremiah as he edged his way through the crowd. Cries of, “Ah-h-h, you’re beat, you’re beat, you’re beat,” “Prophesy again, won’t you?” “Put another yoke on him,” etc., etc., would fairly split the air. But what did it all amount to, to Jeremiah? Just nothing at all. He was right, and they were all wrong, the whole crowd of them, and though not a person in the whole nation should believe him made not a particle of difference to him so far as the truth or his conviction of it was concerned. SITI November 3, 1887, page 664.2

Paul stood before the embodiment of worldly power, the Emperor Nero, to answer for his life and especially for his faith. There also, to oppose him and to blind and confuse men’s minds to the truth, stood an apostate from the faith, Alexander the coppersmith; and his opposition was so successful that Paul himself tells us, “At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me.” 2 Timothy 4:16. Added to this all his brethren in Asia were turned away from him—those at Antioch for whom he had labored so earnestly; those at Iconium, and Lystra, and Derbe for whom he had labored and suffered; those at Troas from whom he was so loth to take his farewell; those of Ephesus for whose good he had labored three long years, whom he had not ceased to warn night and day with tears, with whom he had talked, and prayed, and wept so tenderly at their final parting; those of Galatia, Phrygia, Pisidia, and Pamphylia, all—“all they which be in Asia are turned away from me.” And then, as though that could not tell all the greatness of his cause for sorrow, he adds, “of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.” And yet more, added to all this there was his own fellow-laborer, of whom he was compelled to write, “Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world.” SITI November 3, 1887, page 664.3

For all this, though his life was in the balance, and though no man stood with him, yet he never faltered, but calmly stood forth alone, saying, “Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me.” There was the source of his strength. It depended not upon any influence of the world, of men, or of the church—not even upon the moral influence and support of his own intimate brethren—it sprung solely from his own personal, living connection with the Lord Jesus Christ. That alone it was which sustained him in all his trials and afflictions; in all his contradiction and opposition of unbelievers and apostates; and in all the desertions of brethren and fellow-laborers in the faith. And that alone it is which will sustain any man in the time of trouble, and in the day of the coming of Christ; that alone it is which will enable anyone to stand when he appears. Paul was able to stand unmoved amidst all earth’s vicissitudes because he was able to say from the heart, “I know whom I have believed.” Not as is too often misquoted, I know in whom I have believed, but, “I know whom I have believed;” and he used the word “know” in its real, proper sense too. The following from a late number of the Sunday School Times will give an idea of what Paul meant by this use of the word “know:”— SITI November 3, 1887, page 664.4

“‘To know’ primarily means to have the ability to create or produce; hence it properly includes the idea of a perfect understanding of the innermost nature, or the most intricate parts, of the subject of knowledge.” SITI November 3, 1887, page 664.5

This is the sense in which Paul used the word “know.” It was a living experience with him. As he expressed it in other words, “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Such as these shall abide the day of Christ’s coming; they shall stand when he appeareth. And none others can. Are you looking and waiting for that day? Do you know whom you believe? It was written in the prophecy, of those upon whom should come the great tribulation, that “the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.” Daniel 11:32. Only the people who do know God and the Lord Jesus Christ shall be able to stand in the day of his wrath; only these may abide the day of his coming; only these shall stand when he appeareth. SITI November 3, 1887, page 664.6

J.