Robbing the Sweetest and the Best

The post-millennial view deprives the doctrine, not only of its sweetest and brightest, but also of its most solemn and sanctifying features. If this world is calmly and surely gliding on into days of millennial blessedness, if the spread of education, civilization, scientific knowledge, and the gospel are destined to bring about and introduce the kingdom of God, on earth, then it is clear that the present state of things, like a hopeful bud tending to expand into a glorious flower, must be good in itself, and certain to become better. We may rest satisfied as to its present, and be hopeful as to its future.

There is no ground for apprehending its destruction by terrible Divine judgments, no need to warn the world and worldly Churches that ere long "the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power, when He shall come to be glorified in His saints, . . . in that day." There is no need to remind men that "the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night," and that "when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them."

If all is working on according to the plan and purpose of God, and will continue to do so until this Gentile age merges into the millennium, then there is no need to warn the wicked of impending judgment, for none is to be apprehended for at least a thousand years! If a thousand years of peace and prosperity, such as the world has never known, do indeed lie before it prior to the coming of Christ in judgment, then the siren song of peace and safety is right and reasonable, and its exceeding popularity is no cause of regret.

----H. Grattan Guinness, Light For the Last Days: A Study in Chronological Prophecy, written in 1888.