Testament makes it very clear that that coming will be in like manner as the disciples saw Him ascend into heaven. How that could be inconsistent with the morality, the righteousness, or spirituality of God is more than I can understand. A modern writer contends that such a consummation would be a contradiction of established scientific knowledge; for example, the evolutionary theory. As His coming is the consummation of activities, instead of its being a break with the real progress of history, it is the consummation of this progress. We are not opposed to a real evolution; that is, a progress that is carrying out the intelligent plan that is moving to a definite consummation. We are against an evolutionary theory that would limit God in His own universe, and that would contradict what God has revealed in His Son Jesus Christ.

The thing that is clear from a study of the world that we are now in, and from the study of prophecy, is that things are not as they were, and that things are not going to continue as they are, but there is change on every hand, and the only thing that is unchangeable is the will and the purpose of God, which are being carried out through all change and moving toward a consummation.

Jesus says that the consummation of this particular age is going to be precipitated by His coming again, and until that time comes He tells us that there will be wars and rumors of war; nation rising against nation, and kingdom against king

dom, and that wheat and tares shall grow together until the great day of adjustment. Men said that there could never be a war like this again, but the fact is that there is a war like this. Men said that if a war like this ever came, it could never last very long, but the fact is that it has lasted over three years; and the strange and interesting thing about it is that it has lasted because man took the simplest instruments known to him and brought the great machines of destruction to confusion by digging himself into the earth and defying the genius of the twentieth century.

So these inferences of men have been defeated because our world is a world of active beings who have the power of choice, and consequently we cannot know just exactly what they are going to do, excepting as it may be revealed to us by someone who knows the future. We may come to general conclusions, but no one can speak emphatically regarding these conclusions. What happens depends not on a closed machine but on the choice made by intelligence.

Christ, who has lived the only perfect life that has been lived, and who alone can speak as knowing the mind of God perfectly, says that He is coming again, and that God is going to consummate this age in that way. Whose word shall we accept? Christ's word or the critics' word?

One more word in conclusion. We ought to study prophecy in these days, not only in order to get the exact mind of God regarding these things, but that they may become great convictions

with us through experiencing them, so that we may be prophets to our day. I do not say prophets in the sense that we shall do the exact kind of work that Isaiah and Jeremiah did when they wrote down their messages, but prophets in the sense that we speak for God and from God to our day as they spoke to their day. You remember that Jesus said that "as the Father sent Me into the world, so I send you into the world." Unquestionably the thing that He had in mind was that, as He was here to speak for the Father and from the Father, so His disciples are in the world to speak for Him and from Him.

We are living in a day when men speculate about God, and tell us what they think about God, and what He ought to do, and the way in which He ought to accomplish the tasks undertaken. In this crisis men are not looking for our opinions; they are asking as to whether God has spoken or not. If God has spoken, they want to hear what He has said. If we have a word from God, this is the word to utter. In order to speak the message of this Book, we must first experience it, for it is not God's message for us until first of all we have accepted it as such and experienced it in our own lives; but, having experienced it, God asks us to go out to the world and speak it for Him and from Him. This is the thing that will bring back the note of authority into preaching and will make our messages living and vital. But we should be very careful that we do not elevate our own interpretation into the place of God's Word. The

facts of God's Word are one thing; our interpretations of these facts are quite another thing. The supreme need in this moment is men and women who have the courage to respond to the challenge of the divine truth as revealed by the prophets, and who speak it as a living reality to the bleeding heart of a perishing world.

I believe that a careful, intelligent, serious study of prophecy under the guidance of the Holy Spirit will make it possible for men to thus speak for God and from God. It will also enable them to brace their minds as Peter literally says, giving them a clear, comprehensive outlook on history that will enable them to be calm and confident in the midst of falling and crumbling nations, and in the throes of all human conflicts as the shadows deepen and the darkness gathers, and men's hearts fail them because of fear. They who are true students of the prophets will stand confident and strong, knowing that God is in all these things moving toward the great consummation in which Jesus shall come, fulfilling the dream of prophets and realizing the hope of all true prophecy.

Charles L. Huston, Chairman, in introducing Dr. Matthews, said:

The next on our program will be an address by Dr. Mark A. Matthews, D.D., Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Seattle, Washington, and former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A. Dr.

Matthews, has, I think it is said, the largest Presbyterian congregation in the United States in that far Western city. He has come on here from his attendance at the General Assembly in Columbus, in order to help us in this program, and we shall be glad to hear from him. He is affectionately known in the West as the "Tall Pine of the Sierras," and we are glad to welcome Dr. Matthews with us. His subject will be "The Doctrine of Our Lord's Return-Is It Safe and Sane, Does It Appeal to Scholars or Only to the Uninformed?"