g tree, and all the trees; when they now shoot forth, ye see and know
of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand. So likewise ye, when
ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is
nigh at hand." Of the fig tree in particular the Lord remarked: "When
his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer
is nigh." This sign of events near at hand was equally applicable to the
premonitory conditions which were to herald the fall of Jerusalem and
the termination of the Jewish autonomy, and to the developments by which
the Lord's second advent shall be immediately preceded.

The next declaration in the order of the evangelical record reads:
"Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these
things be fulfilled." This may be understood as applying to the
generation in which the portentous happenings before described would be
realized. So far as the predictions related to the overthrow of
Jerusalem, they were literally fulfilled within the natural lifetime of
several of the apostles and of multitudes of their contemporaries; such
of the Lord's prophecies as pertain to the heralding of His second
coming are to brought to pass within the duration of the generation of
some who witness the inauguration of their fulfilment. The certainty of
fulfilment was emphasized by the Lord in the profound affirmation:
"Heaven and Earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass
away."[1158]

All speculation concerning the time of the Lord's appearing, whether
based on assumption, deduction, or calculation of dates, was forestalled
by Christ's averment: "But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no,
not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the
Father."[1159] That His advent in power and glory is to be sudden and
unexpected to the unobserving and sinful world, but in immediate
sequence to the signs which the vigilant and devout may read and
understand, was made plain by comparison with the prevailing social
conditions of Noah's time, when in spite of prophecy and warning the
people had continued in their feasting and merry-making, in marrying and
giving in marriage, until the very day of Noah's entrance into the ark,
"And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall
also the coming of the Son of man be."

In the last stages of the gathering of the elect, the ties of
companionship shall be quickly severed; of two men laboring in the
f