The question asked in our previous post concerns our Lord and when precisely He will assume control of matters. The answer is:

When the Gospel Church, “His body,” Ecclesia, is complete. Evil now being permitted for “the trial of your faith,” the perfecting of the saints. This time is synchronous with the sounding of the seventh trumpet. Rev 11:15. Here the mystery [church] of God is finished, and “the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and His anointed” [church].

Now, we inquire, is this transfer of authority from Satan to Christ caused by the conversion of the nations to Christ through preaching the Gospel?

We answer, No. At this time the nations are not converted (Rev 11:18), “And the nations were angry; and thy wrath is come.” If converted, they would not be thus hostile, neither would God’s wrath come upon them. On the contrary, God teaches in many Scriptures that a great time of trouble will come upon the nations. “Come, behold the desolations which the Lord hath made in the earth. He makes wars to cease unto the ends of the earth.” This is the way God tells us He will make wars to cease (Through the desolations caused to come upon them). The next clause informs us that then He “will be exalted among the heathen and in all the earth.”

This chastisement of nations will be for their good, and is necessary to them as is the chastisement which God now inflicts upon His children, and it will have a good effect, for “When the judgments of the Lord are abroad in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.” It is in this new dispensation that, with evil restrained – Satan bound – the knowledge of the Lord shall fill the whole earth, as the waters do the sea.

The conversion of the world, instead of being due now while “the devil is the prince of this world,” will, David says, be “When the kingdom is the Lord’s and He is the Governor among the nations, [then] all the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord, and the kingdoms of the nations shall come and worship before Him.”

During the infancy of the human family – say from Adam to Moses – God treated his creatures like very young children. So far as we know, they had very little knowledge of their Creator’s power or character. They had scarcely any revelation, the exception being the few cases where God favored special persons, as Abraham, Lot, and etc., communicating to them by angels, giving to Abraham and Eve peculiar promises, which they could only vaguely comprehend.

The next age was to the Jewish nation a schooling season, during which God taught them to respect His promises and laws. They were yet minors, under age, therefore not treated as children, but kept under the law, their schoolmaster. Gal 4.

While the Word of God was being written and committed to the Jews for keeping, and etc., the remainder of the world seems to have been left in the darkness of heathenism. They bowed down to wood and stone, destitute of truth as they are to-day.

In Scripture the period from Adam to the flood is called “the world [age] that was.” From the flood to the second coming of the Lord, “the world [age] that now is,” and “the present evil world,” [age], and the next is called “the world to come.”

“The present evil world” contains three separate Ages.

1) The Patriarchal (age), lasting from the flood to the death of Jacob;

2) the Jewish age, lasting from the death of Jacob until the death of Christ, when He gave them up, wept over them, and said: “Your house is left unto you desolate;”

3) the Gospel age, lasting from the resurrection of Christ, when He became “the first-born from the dead, and the beginning of the new creation,” until the full company of “the Church of the First-born” is complete, and He comes. The time of the sounding of the seventh trumpet, the resurrection and reward of prophets, saints, and etc. Rev 11:16.

We know not how many ages may be in “the world to come;” but that there is more than one, we are sure, for Paul speaks of “the ages (plural) to come.” Eph 2:7. The first of these (worlds or ages to come) alone is dealt with in Scripture, the millennial age, during which we live and reign with Christ a thousand years. Rev 20:4.

Having got an outline, let us look more particularly at God’s doings and sayings, and, first, it will astonish you, doubtless, until you reflect, when I say, that according to His word, God has not exhausted His resources for the world’s salvation; that, in short, He is NOT now (presently) trying to save the world, nor has he been during past ages.

What has He been doing?

“Taking out a people – Church – for His name.”

Don’t think this something wonderful, as it is only putting in a striking form what all Calvinists believe, among whom are Baptists, Presbyterians and others, viz., That God is now electing, or choosing His Church out of the world. Yes, and all our brethren who believe in free grace must admit, that if “all His purposes shall be accomplished,” and “God’s word shall accomplish the thing whereto it was sent,” if these Scriptures are true, then it is evident that God did not purpose the conversion of the world during the past six thousand years, else it would be accomplished. Neither did He send His word to convert the world up to the present time; else it did not prosper in the thing whereto He sent it.

These two views have been a dividing point in the churches for centuries, viz.:

Election vs. Free Grace.

We will take a closer look at these two in our next post.