night is far spent, the day is at hand". And in 16: 20 he writes this: "And the God of

peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly." The Greek word is `quickly'. Now the

bruising of Satan under the redeemed's feet could not be by any action of theirs. Neither

they, nor you or I, can ever vanquish this great foe of the Lord, but the Lord Jesus will, at

His Second Advent. So again this great event was brought before them as being nearer.

Now let us turn to Heb. 10: 36.  These Hebrew believers were undergoing trial and

affliction, as the context makes clear. And then in verse 36 we read, "For ye have need

of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For

yet a little while, and He that shall come, will come and will not tarry", only a little while.

Friends, He hasn't come yet! Was God playing with them, was He tantalizing them

through this writer? No--He meant what He said. The possibility was that the Lord

would return in `a little while'; His coming then was near. It would have been pointless

to have held out as an encouragement to these believers under persecution the Second

Advent, yet future to us, nearly 2,000 years later!

We turn now to the next epistles, James 5: 8: "Be ye also patient; stablish your

hearts, for the coming of the Lord draws near." Again the nearness of this Coming!

"Grudge not one another brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the Judge standeth at

the door." Next to I Pet. 4: 7: "But the end of all things is at hand" (the end of

everything is near).  "Be ye, therefore, sober, and watch unto prayers."  Was he

exaggerating, do you think?

Turning now to I John 2: 18: "Little children, it is the last time"; but the Greek says

"It is the last hour". "And as you have heard that antichrist shall come, even now (the

time when John wrote) there are many antichrists, whereby we know it is the last hour."

So John adds a similar testimony to the other N.T. writers.

Let us go back to the first epistle to the Corinthians and this time to the tenth chapter.

The first part is a warning dealing with the people of Israel and the way they provoked

the Lord in the wilderness journey to Canaan and how God judged them.  The

Corinthians are warned not to murmur as their fathers did (verse 10): "Neither murmur

ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer. Now all these

things happened to them for ensamples (or types);  and they are written for our

admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come". But a more literal rendering

would be "the consummation of the ages has arrived", an astounding statement, showing

how near to the end things were. Do we want any more testimony that all these N.T.

writers looked on the coming of the Lord as being imminent, or possible, in their

lifetime? There can be no doubt about this whatsoever--or were they mistaken? Some

do not hesitate to say they were. They assert that the early church did believe that the

Second Advent was near but, of course, they were too enthusiastic, and, of course, they

were wrong, for the Lord did not come as expected. But they were not wrong if only

such people would read and ponder Acts 3:, they would have the key to the problem.

The Lord's early Coming was linked with the repentance and conversion of Israel

(Acts 3: 19, 20). Because the nation of Israel did not obey the command to repent and

turn, the Lord did not come back then. We shall find that the Epistles which are written