all grievously upon the head of
the wicked."

_Matthew 24th chapter._

In the third verse of the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew we read of the
disciples questioning the Savior concerning the end of the world. They
say, "Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of
thy coming, and of the end of the world?" In answering, the Savior in the
sixth and the following few verses speaks of political upheavals. In the
eleventh and twelfth verses he predicts the apostasy of the noonday. "Many
false prophets shall rise and shall deceive many. And because iniquity
shall abound the love of many shall wax cold." That is why a child of God
finds it so difficult to retain an experience of salvation in sectism.
Iniquity abounds, and being yoked up with such evil companions he can not
stem the tide of influence.

In the fourteenth verse the Savior says: "And this gospel of the kingdom
shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and
then shall the end come." This preaching of the gospel of the kingdom is
to be after the apostasy, and just prior to the end of the world.
Throughout sectism theology and tradition have been substituted for the
gospel, but in the evening time John beholds an angel flying in the midst
of heaven having the everlasting gospel to preach to them that dwell on
the earth. This is the same as the preaching of the gospel in the end of
the world to which the Savior refers. He has now taken the disciples once
down through the whole of the Christian dispensation to the end of the
world.

In the fifteenth verse he begins with them again at the desolation spoken
of by Daniel, which is the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70 A.D.
From the sixteenth to the twenty-second verse inclusive, he instructs them
concerning this abomination. From the twenty-third to the twenty-sixth
inclusive he again speaks of the apostasy. False Christs and false
prophets shall arise. In the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth verses he
speaks of the end of the world. He has now taken them through the
Christian era again down to the time of the end. In the twenty-ninth verse
he leads them back again to the destruction of Jerusalem. "Immediately
after the tribulation of those days [by this he refers to the destruction
of Jerusalem] shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her
light, and the stars shall fall from heaven." This is the obscuring of
Christ and the church by the beast power