Volume One
PUBLISHERS' FOREWORD

An occasional book will transcend its time and continue to speak with meaning to many generations and thus will become a timeless classic. The Divine Plan of the Ages has become a modern religious classic. Quietly its circulation has spiraled well past 8,000,000 and continues to rise steadily year after year. Circulation alone, however, does not convey the scope of its influence. This work contains new ideas and concepts. It presents a chain of Scriptual evidence which reveals a comprehensive view of God's majestic plan. This book enables the reader easily to distinguish the age divisions in the Bible and God's movement in each of them. Because by it so many have been helped in understanding the Bible, it is known among its enthusiastic readers today as the "key to the Scriptures."

The Divine Plan of the Ages is not a new book. It was written in 1886. Its tone and content stood in marked contrast to the preaching of that day. The churches, prepared for an enlarged witness and conquest of the world, were surprised by a massive attack from higher critics of the Bible and religion but lacked intelligent answers to these attacks. A large-scale loss of faith in the inspiration of the Bible resulted. The Divine Plan of the Ages helped earnest Christians stem the tide of infidelity and brought a basis of faith even to unbelievers.

The author defined with remarkable clarity the worldwide aspects of the "time of trouble." While others spoke of peace, he boldly forecast spasms of war, revolution and anarchy culminating in the collaspe of world governments. Just as the "trouble" was accurately depicted, so also events of today and the future were traced beyond the darkest moments of trouble into the glories of God's "Kingdom Come."

We recommend it unreservedly as a priceless treasure--the most reliable and significant religious work of the 19th and 20th centuries. Every perceptive reader of the Bible should find it a rewarding study.

THE PUBLISHERS