“The End of All Things Is at Hand” -- By: William R. Newell
Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 109:435 (Jul 1952)
Article: “The End of All Things Is at Hand”
Author: William R. Newell
BSac 109:435 (Jul 52) p. 248
“The End of All Things Is at Hand”
This astounding statement from 1 Peter 4:7–11, “the end of all things is at hand,” comes to us today like a thunderclap out of the very clear sky of man’s dream of peace and prosperity. It being God’s Word, we must believe it rather than the prophecies of man’s philosophy. There is no escape from this word “end.” It is the Greek word telos. It means here the winding up, the conclusion, of “all things.” Inasmuch as we are plainly told that a new heavens and a new earth are to be created in which righteousness shall “be at home” (2 Pet 3:11, literally), we are confident that the “end of all things” means the conclusion of present, human, sinful things, leaving the righteous to enjoy with their God the things that He hath prepared for them that love Him.
Terrible are the suddenness and the sweep of this statement, “the end of all things is at hand.” No wonder the rest of the verse warns the saints, “Be ye therefore of sound mind, and be sober unto prayer.” We may well compare the ominous words of Hebrews 12:26–27: “God’s voice then [i.e., at Sinai] shook the earth; but now He hath promised, saying, Yet once more will I make to tremble not the earth only, but also the heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that those things which are not shaken may remain. Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace, whereby we may offer service well-pleasing to God with reverence and awe: for our God is a consuming fire.”
It is ever the habit of sin to forget the outcome. In Noah’s days they forgot, and the flood came. In Lot’s days also sinners were destroyed; and our Lord solemnly warned
BSac 109:435 (Jul 52) p. 249
us that, as it was in the days of Noah and of Lot, it will be again. Paul puts it: “When they are saying, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them” (1 Thess 5:3). Our Lord charged us also in Luke 21:34–36: “But take heed to yourselves, lest haply your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day come on you suddenly as a snare: for so shall it come upon all them that dwell on the face of all the earth. But watch ye at every season, making supplication, that ye may prevail to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.�...
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