to start a mighty figure of sin and wicked- Thus a divine hand underscores this fifteenth verse of the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, and marks as the first certain sign of the end The Sign of the Anti-Christ and Tribulation. For under him shall come the World's great crisis time, her hour of gloom and darkness: a time of tribulation such as she has never seen since her creation. It is the lips of the Master Himself which speak this word with simple and searching admonition. "For then shall be great tribulation such Daniel, Christ on the Mount of Olives, and Its Scope. Paul, in the passages cited, all make the Man of Sin to be manifested in the "holy place," evidently the temple at Jerusadem. The fury of the tribulation tempest bursts forth there, and it is "them that dwell in Judea” whom Christ warns to flee at once to the mountains. But the storm is clearly not localized there. It is world-wide, as the thirteenth chapter of Revelation plainly shows. For there we are told (verses 7 and 8) that "it was given unto him to make war with the saints and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations." Mark too the urgency of flight as Christ warns them of the coming of trial. The appearance of the Its Urgency. Abomination of Desolation in the temple becomes to the inhabitants of Judea the signal for instant, undelaying flight. Life is in instant jeopardy. They are to let nothing deter them from speedy escape. Christ multiplies figures to show the necessity of this. The man who is on the house-top is not to come down to take anything from his home within. He is to rush to the outside stairway which leads to the ground from the roof of the oriental house, and thus make his escape by the shortest way. Here is a ploughman who has laid aside his garment while he ploughs his field. He is not to return to the end of his furrow to don his garment but is to hasten at once to take flight. The tender infirmities of motherhood will make the escape more difficult and tardy. They are to pray that they may not have to flee in winter, with the added suffering of climatic exposure. And also that their flight may not be on the Sabbath Day. For the limit of its journey was less than a mile, and they dare not let religious scruples stay their journey to a Sabbath Day limit, when every necessity of the hour of peril was calling them not to stop short of the most remote and sequestered fastness of the towering, gloomy mountains toward which they were fleeing. Then follows a brief, graphic word as to the sharpness of this time of test. Great tribulation," says the Master (v. 21) "such as was not Its Intensity, since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be." Mark's simple narrative is still more striking: "Such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be." The world shall reel and stagger in the throes of such a trial-time as it never has known since it came from the creative hand of God. Against all this is quickly brought the charge of pessimism. It is a cheap and easy one. But it hardly meets the issue. For these words are not the forecast of an alarmist steeped in the gloom of his own temperament, dark with the hopelessness of his own despair. They are the words of the Son of God Himself, pointing down the vista of the centuries to coming events. Thoughtful men see today such problems in social, moral, industrial and political life as the world has never faced in all its history. Underneath them all lie powers volcanic in their possibilities of destructiveness. Rose-hued prophets of the world say they will all be solved. Jesus Christ says they are heading up in an appalling crisis. Men would better give heed to His warning than some day to awake in the very vortex of the tempest which they have been too blind to see, too unbelieving to heed. Notice also that Christ says the time of this tribulation shall be curtailed. "And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened." Its Shortness. So fierce will be the time of affliction that all flesh would perish if it ran on indefinitely. But for the sake of His own who may be in it God shortens the duration of it. Queen Victoria reigned above sixty years. One of Europe's monarchs has even passed that extreme. Twenty or thirty years is quite a common period for kings to reign. But if we turn to Rev. 13, we see how strikingly this word is true about the Man of Sin, the tribulation king. There (v. 5) we are told that "power was given unto him to continue forty and two months." There is every reason to believe that this is a literal fact, and that three years and a half are the actual duration of his reign. This strikingly conforms and illumines Christ's statement as to the shortening of the tribulation time. So As these dark days drag along men will under them begin to long as never before for the coming of the true Christ who shall terminate the Its False Christs. power of the false one. Satan, ever ready deceiver, will endeavor to befool men by the appearance of counterfeit Christs. The Lord Jesus gives warning against these. Then He gives the test by which they may unerringly be unmasked. "As the lightning cometh... ...and shineth...... so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.” Men shall cry out that the Christ has come and that He is in the "desert" or the "secret chambers." But Jesus says that His coming will not be behind the walls of any secret chamber, nor in the loneliness of some sequestered desert. He is to come with all the visible and open splendor of the lightning which flashes forth its white glory before the wondering eyes of all the world. Hence the call to go out to meet an alleged Christ in the desert or the secret chambers is in its very self proof of imposture. Secrecy here is the manifest stamp of spuriousness. And now when the tribulation is ended what is the sign which follows? The Word of God is very clear here "Immediately after the tribulation of those |