Evacuation Route'

‘EVACUATION ROUTE’

On all major highways leading from our American cities today, there can be seen a sign—a blue shield with white lettering—“Evacuation Route.”

Where highways divide it is indicated that the evacuation route is in either direction, away from the city.

But as one travels on, one never comes to a sign which says “Safety,” or “You Have Arrived.”

These signs are indicative of the times in which we live. The Civil Defense Office is doing its best to prepare our citizens for possible danger. Air raid centers are designated, procedures in case of attack are outlined, and evacuation routes are mapped out and identified.

That all such planning has a symbolic significance few people appear to realize. The Bible foretells cataclysmic events with amazing integrity, and it should lead men and women to stop and evaluate the state of the world and the divinely prepared “Evacuation Route” by which we may pass from dire jeopardy to the safety of God’s assured salvation.

The evacuation routes indicated on our highways are a cold, realistic provision for a contingency.

We hope and pray that a sudden catastrophic atomic attack will not happen. We doubt if it will. But the possibility of such an attack leads our defense authorities to make the best provision they can under the circumstances; and, rather than deride them, we should accept these protective measures with understanding appreciation.

Why then do we view with unbelief, antagonism, or complete indifference the prophetic references to climactic events when God rolls down the curtain of history as we know it?

Why do we seem to resent the clear statements of Scripture with reference to the cataclysm in which the world will some day be engulfed?

If God in his mercy has warned men to flee from the wrath to come, who is man that he should say there will be no wrath from which to flee?

To say that the Old Testament prophets spoke of a tribal god of war, while we affirm faith in the “God of the New Testament” who is an image of Love and Compassion, is a little ridiculous when we find Christ himself foretelling the doom of the world, the wrath and judgment of God, and his own sudden appearance in power and in glory.

The simple fact is that in both Old and New Testaments we are told of the end of the age, warned to prepare for the awesome event, and told of the safe and sure “Evacuation Route” which leads not aimlessly to an uncertain destination but surely to that haven of safety from which not even the demons of hell can snatch the child of God.

Eschatology (the doctrine of last things) has been discredited by those who do not accept the Christ of the Scriptures, by unwarranted “date setters,” and by many Christians who neglect the doctrine and ought to know better.

Strange as it seems, nothing is surer to evoke a scornful cry of “crackpot” than a mentioning of the Second Coming of Christ. Yet no one doctrine in all of the New Testament receives so much space. One reads the clear and repeated statements of Christ that he is to return to this earth.

There are many tortured “explanations” of our Lord’s return, none of which can stand the clear light of Scriptural statement. Among them are:

1. That his coming was at Pentecost—despite the fact that Paul and others wrote of the Second Coming of Christ as a certain and longed-for event years after Pentecost.

2. That the Second Coming of Christ occurs at the death of believers—despite the fact that not one passage of Scriptures can be interpreted thus.

3. That the spread of Christianity is the Second Coming of Christ. The trouble with this concept is that the spread of Christianity is a process while the return of the Lord is an event described in the Bible as the cataclysmic and final denouement of this age.

One reason many good people have neglected the teaching of Scripture with reference to Christ’s return has been the unwarranted, opinionated statements of enthusiasts. This is not a valid excuse, however, for we are not responsible to any man for his interpretation of the Scriptures, but we are responsible to God who has in his mercy told us not only of the certainty of the last days but many of the things to take place.

Christ affirmed his return many times. In Matthew 26:64 we read: “Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.”

On the Mount of Ascension, awestruck disciples gazed at his receding form in the heavens, and two men suddenly stood by their side and said: “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.”

The manner of our Lord’s return is described in these words: “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout.” And again: “Behold he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail, because of him. Even so, Amen.”

Peter describes the event in these words: “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with a fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”

Paul speaks of the same event in these sobering words: “And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and obey not the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

When we pass the sign “Evacuation Route,” we ought to be reminded afresh of our redemption in Jesus Christ.

We should also be reminded of Isaiah’s warning: “And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled, and the pride of men shall be brought low; and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.… And men shall enter the caves of the rocks, and the holes of the ground, from before the terror of the Lord, and from the glory of his majesty, when he rises to terrify the earth” (Isa. 2:17, 19, 20, 21).

We in America might possibly have to take advantage of an “Evacuation Route” in our area someday. But one thing is certain: all men outside of Christ will someday be looking for a place to hide from his glorious presence, and they will be unable to find one.

The divinely ordained place of safety—for now and for eternity—is at the Cross of Calvary. It is our sure evacuation route from the judgment of sin.

God grant that the Church may not fail in pointing men to safety.

L. NELSON BELL

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