When The World Is On Fire # 2

When The World Is On Fire # 2

Anti-millennialism

The second contention of these scoffers is anti-millennialism. When it comes to a showdown, there are just two classes of people in this world on the millennium question. Do not let them fool you. It is pre-millennialism or non-millennialism. The post-millennialists do not preach very much about the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. An anti-millennialism here is what you have. Instead of preaching the gospel as the panacea for the needs, for the cure, for the salvation of a lost world; instead of preaching the Blood for the remission of sins, too dreadfully many of our churches have gone astray on a social kind of gospel, and are giving their time to social service and activities. Talk to them about it and they will glibly deny it. Nevertheless it is true. They are spending their thousands to promote the welfare of their communities or to build impressive buildings, forgetting the lost on their way to hell around about them.

Those of us who believe that this world is getting worse and worse, that the only One who can straighten it out is the Lord Jesus Christ, that there is not much in it, after all, worth saving aside from the souls of men, will major on the gospel, on preaching, on soul winning, will sacrifice all that we are and have to bring souls to the Redeemer. But these others will spend their time in P.T.A.'s in lodges, in civic organizations, in running here, there, and yonder. They have no time to pray, no time for religious visitation, no time for witnessing, no time for the tarrying for the infilling of the Holy Spirit. The tragedy is that so many follow these blind leaders. They do seem to realize that the thing God expects us to do is to call out the Bride of the Lord Jesus Christ. I would to God that all of us had the same attitude toward these things as did the great D. L. Moody when he said: "This world is a sea. Men are lost on the waves of it. God has given me a rowboat. It is my business to see how many of them I can save from the destroying waves before they are engulfed in the pit of hell."

Scoffers Contend Against Evangelism

The third thing that scoffers contend may be found in the word. "Anti-evangelism". But why anti-evangelism? Because of  anti-Godism. Because of anti-millennialism. The three things go together. They are intertwined. These scoffers say, "We don't need any evangelism. What we need is better communities, better laws, better peace-treaties, better organizations, more education. What we need is to solve the racial problem, anti-Semitism. What we need is to see that communism and capitalism get along, that labor and management do not fight with each other."

You would be surprised how many books are written by preachers, how many sermons are preached Sunday mornings and Sunday nights in some of the mightiest churches of our land, churches that at one time were blazing lighthouses of soul-winning impact, to patch up the crazy quilt that we have in labor disputations, in race difficulties. These are the three contentions of the scoffers that we have to face as we try to advance the interests of the kingdom of God, to carry out the commission of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is again anti-Godism.

The Gideons are here. Thank God for them. The very first Gentile Bible (if you understand my meaning - perhaps I ought to say, the very first Christian Bible) I ever touched, I ever looked into, which started me on the road to becoming a Christian, was a Gideon Bible in the Y.M.C.A in Kansas City, Missouri. If it had not been in that room that night I might not be a Christian now. But if some of these beloved Gideons have an idea, or if any of the rest of us have thought that because we have given out and sold more Bibles than we have ever given out and ever sold before in any generation, that therefore there are more Bibles being read, studied, practiced, we are desperately wrong. It is not so. The ignorance of the Bible is appalling. D. L. Moody said, and every evangelist echoes it to this day, that at the end of his life it was hard to get people interested in the Word of God. Holding up his Bible in the last meeting he ever conducted, in Kansas City, he cried out, "There used to be a time when if I appealed to the Bible, the majority of the congregation knew what I was talking about. But now if I say something is in the Bible, many of you do not even understand that I am quoting the Word of God!"

My heart broke as I read those words, as I thought of the anguish in the soul of that mighty man of God, who in a lifetime had seen the Bible relegated to the shelf instead of to the most prominent place in the heart of the home. What about this situation? Are the scoffers right? Are they right in their anti-Godism? Are they right in their anti-millennialism? Are they right in their anti-evangelism?

II. The Coming of the Lord

The second point in this message is the coming of the Lord. The coming of the Lord is imminent. I believe with all my soul, He is coming very, very soon. I can almost hear the jingle of the spurs as the angels burnish them up, ready for His use. He is coming soon. You have heard this said, and it is increasingly true. There is no promise, no prophecy of any importance of any weight in the Bible, which was to have been fulfilled before the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ that has not been fulfilled already, or that is not being fulfilled right now. Sooner than most people expect, the blessed Son of God is coming.

~Hyman Appleman~

(continued with # 3)