The theocrat. [volume] (Zion City [i.e. Zion], Ill.) 1914-1949, 1918-11-23
Great World Signs Preceding Christs
Second Coming
&C. B. W.

lowing the Rapture, is to be seven years long,
and during that time all the dire judgments out
lined in Matthew "a and Revelation, chapters 8
to 19 inclusive, are to come upon the earth, one
after another beside which the awful catas-
trophies which have befalen Europe within the
last four and one-half years will be mere fore
taste, and during which people will die OF plague
famine and pestilence by the multiplied Millions
until the earth will be cleansed of the Devils
spawn
The signs Of the Second Coming are great and
marvellous covering years of invention and pro-
gress.
In the "Day of His Preparation" there are to
be automobiles, arshlps and other wonderful
methods of swift travel, as shown in Nahum
|2:3,
| The shield of his mighty men is made red, the
valiant men are in scarlet: the chariots shall be
with flaming torches in the day of His preparation,
and the fir trees shall be terribly shaken.
The charots shall rage in the streets, they shall
jostle against another in the broad ways: they
shall seem like torches they shall run like the
lghtnings.
The signs of the Second Coming will affect
and involve the entire World-not merely one
country or continent-and include the events of
the last seven years after the true saints OF God
have been caught up in the Rapture, thus escap-
ing the Great Tribulaton, and during which the
earth will travail as woman with child, culmin-
His Milennial reign.
The great world signs of His Second Coming,
which all may see and all of which are foretold
in the Bible, are as follows:
In Daniel IL A we have what may be called the
Literature sign.
But thou, Daniel shut up the words, and seal
the book, even to the time of the end; many shall
run to and fro and knowledge shall be increased.
In the last fifty or one hundred years the dis
semnation of knowledge has been greater than
in all the ffty-fve hundred years since the
worlds creation Never before were there so
many books, magazines, newspapers and so much
reading matter of all kinds as at the present time;
never so many schools, colleges and other insti-
tutions of learning as now. Why did we not
have wireless telegraphy and all the other marvel
Gus discoveries before, which have come to light
in the past century? Because we are coming up
to the "Time of the End"
And with all the increase of knowledge, there
is more teaching about the Second Coming of the
Lord than at any time since the days of the first
apostles so that the world will have the oppor-
tunty to the pointing Of the hands on the face
of Gods dial God is revealing these things to
give humanity chance to be ready for Christs
Coming and to escape the last seven years.
The second sign, also, is found in Daniel 12:4
MANY shall to and fro" We shall call
it the Locomotiom sign.
These are the days of universal travel in all
lands under the sur-travel by sea and travel
under the sea; travel by land and travel in the
air. Why are autos, airships, the lightning ex-
press and the submarine reserved for this time
it is the "Day of His Preparation" In spite
of greatly increased cost Of travel, the mad rush
goes on as never before. Truly the chariots
rage in the streets; they run hither and thither
like lightning and their lamps geam like torches.
In Matthew "a Z we have the sign of Earth
quakes and Tidal Waves.
For nation shall rise against nation, and king
dom against kingdom: and there shall be famines,
and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places
There have been earthquakes in the last
fifty years than ever before in the worlds history
and scarcely a month passes BY but that we read
in the papers of trenors or upheavels in some
part of the EARTH Great tidal waves form in the
sea and roll in upon the inhabitants of the land.
Scientists say that the seat of earthquakes and
storm troubles is in the ocean bed, thus indicating
that all nature groans in sympathy with the cal
antilles that are coming upon the earth in the
birth-pangs of the new age.
The fourth sign is the Plague or Pestiential
sign, also found in Matthew 24:7.
Some intmation of the world wide sweep of
the plaques coming upon the earth in the first
half of the sevenyear period is seen in the effects
of the Spanish influenza which has reaped
tremendous death toll in every land In Bonn
bay, India, $4,000 people died of it. In johann
nesburg South Africa, the epidemic ragged like
prairie fire and vast numbers of people were
stricken down. In Bogota, South America, there
were 10000 cases at one time while in Paris the
death rate of the city more than doubled. All
over our own land the death rate has been enor~
nous, and now we read that the Esquimaux in
the remote northern regions of Alaska have not