International Bible Students Association, Publishers. ।

An increasing realization of imperfection, of sin, is general. We were all “born in sin. shapen in iniquity: in sin did my mother conceive me.” A. general realization of this fact prevails amongst intelligent people. Whether the how and the why, the philosophy of the matter be discerned or not, the fact is recognized. However we may theorize that the same Creator who made the angels pure, happy, holy, sinless, also made us, we nevertheless are aware of the fact that we are not pure, holy, sinless, undefiled. Righteousness should not, however, be considered the phenomenon, but the original, proper condition of things. Sin is the phenomenon, the peculiarity, the disorder—the disarrangement of the proper ord«T which previously prevailed and oy right should everywhere prevail.

Nowhere in the world d© we find any explanation of present conditions that is satisfactory t® us, except in the Bible, which teaches that God’s Work is perfect; Shat he made man in his own image and likeness; that sinful ambition brought in rebellion against the Divine regulations and that present disorders are the result of that rebellion—human degradation, ’Pental, moral, physical—dying—death.

It is true that human philosophy has sought to solve the question of man’s condition of sin and imperfection aside from the Bible. Its claim is that the Bible record is untrue; that man was never perfect; that man never fell from perfection into sin and death; that man, consequently, needs no Savior from sin and death and no restitution to original perfection—to original Edenic perfection. Its claim is that if there is a personal God, he is not exercising any special powers, but merely allowing so-called Laws of Nature to operate.

It claims that in the surging of the salt waters of the ocean photoplasmic life was generated, and that the microscopic germ polly-wogged and evolut-ed into a thousand different forms— worms and snakes, fish and whale, beasts and birds and reptiles; and that finally one division of the pollywog family attained to monkeyhood, and gradually getting used to stand on his hind legs, became a man. It ignores, if it does not deny, sin and its downward tendencies, which we all know afflict the human family and must be struggled and fought against. It denies the need of a Savior, an Advocate, a Mediator; and it holds that each generation of humanity dying, helps onward the succeeding generation to grander development and that eventually human perfection will be attained by the evolutionary process, by man’s own exertion, regardless of whether there is a Creator or not.

We can only assume that this Evolution theory found friends and advocates because the Bible teaching has been so grossly misunderstood. It has been misrepresented as teaching that practically all of the human family were born under a Divine sentence of eternal torture and that only the few reached in the present life by the Gospel can by faith in the Savior and by a thorough-going conversion to saintship escape eternal torment and gain eternal blessing. Thinking people, not surmising that the Bible is misrepresented by its own friends, by the creeds in general, have looked about for a substitute. Evolution, although quite unsatisfactory to them, furnished the only substitute they could think of, while it ignored the Bible.

What the Bible Teaches.

Now as the electric lights supplant the tallow dip, concordances and other Bible study helps assist us to a proper understand⁵ tg of God’s Revelation. One Scripture throws light upon another; and thus gradually the errors of gross darkness and superstition which prevailed so generally in “the dark ages” flee away, and the Lamp of Divine Truth gives forth a brilliant ray which fully satisfies our heads and hearts, and glorifies our Creator.

In the light of this newly-trimmed Arc-light of Truth, God's Word, we may now see that the real penalty for sin is not a coming eternal torment at the hands of fire-proof demons, but instead the reign of sin and death. Now we may see how disobedience on the part of Father Adam brought upon him a death sentence, a dying condition, and that these, transmitted from parent to child, have increased the calamity, century by century, until today, amongst the most civilized, one out of every one hundred and fifty adults is in an insane asylum,—mentally dead to the extent that he is unable to care for himself. Millions more of our race are in prisons and penitentiaries because of moral blemishes, because “born in sin amd shapen in iniquity,” they have inherited vices which have been accentuated by association with each other. All over the world, too, we have hospitals and infirmaries and cemeteries. The reason is exactly what the Word of God teaches, namely, “The wages of sin is death.” “The soul that sinneth it shall die.” The great disease of sin, started by our first parents in Eden, has spread as a plague amongst all their children, blemishing some specially in one particular and some in another, but corrupting the whole and bringing death to all.

Sin Atonement. •

Our minds agree to the foregoing. We agree, too, that it is proper that the Almighty God should be a just God, that Justice should be “the fohn-dation of his throne,” his Government. We inquire as to what is possible in the way of sin-atonement, by which original sin might be offset and Adam and all his race, who fell through disobedience, might be brought back to Divine favor and be made again holy and happy, as the angels, and recipients of Divine favors, including eternal life. The Scriptures answer this inquiry, telling us that we are right in feeling that we are sinners; that we are right in believing that Divine Justice must be met before reconciliation can be effected. But they tell us that God has moved first in this matter— that he did not wait for man to appeal to him for mercy, but that, “while we Were vet sinners,” he sent his only begotten Son to be our Redeemer, to bring us back into harmony with God. The Old Testament is full of assurances that God’s mercy will ultimately be manifested to mankind through that Redeemer and through the nation Of Israel, upon which he would confer the special privilege and honor of bearing the Truth to every other nation. The New Testament contains the record that when our Redeemer came, the world and his own nation knew him not. It tells that, in crucifying the Redeemer, the people of Israel really fulfilled the Divine intention as foretold through the prophets; that they thus slew the great sin-offering, “The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” And as we learn how to bring the various testimonies of the Scripture into harmony with each other, they tell us that the Redeemer, before blessing Israel, will accomplish another work not generally known—the gathering of Spiritual Israel. This the Apostle styles “The mystery of God.”

The Restitution of AU Things.

The result of sin-atonement and the return of man to God’s favor would not mean a changing of men to spiritual beings, nor the giving to mankind of a heavenly home, but rather restitution. The Eden home first provided for Father Adam was Paradise, but it was lost by his disobedience. The proposition of the Scriptures is that the great Redeemer will restore Paradise and enlarge it, making it world-wide, the home for not only Adam, but his now multitudinous progeny of Twenty Thousand Millions. The Scriptures abound with promises that Israel shall be re-gathered and restored to Divine favor and be made the instrumentality of the Lord in spreading the blessings to other nations. The Scriptures tell us how the paradaisaical condition shall be brought about. They explain that the wilderness shall blossom as the rose and the solitary place be glad. St. Peter points us down to the Second Coming of Christ for the fulfillment of all these great restitution promises. He tells us that then will come to earth “times of refreshing.” He assures us that the times of restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets since the world has begun will then find accomplishment (Acts iii, 19-21).

Better Sacrifices Than Those.

But now we inquire why this dela$ in bringing in the “times of refreshing,” the “times of restitution.” Why did not the great Redeemer begin at once to accomplish the work secured by his death at Calvary? How can he bear to delay, since he loved the world so that he died for all, and since he fully admits that the whole creation is in pain, waiting for the great deliverance made possible by his sacrifice (Romans viii, 19-22)?

The Scriptures answer the question. They tell us that the gathering of the elect Church during this Gospel Age as a feature of the Divine program must precede the bringing of restitution blessings to the world. They tell us that God has imposed special crucial tests upon those now called and chosen. Their invitation is to joint-heirship with Christ in a heavenly or spiritual nature, and to a share with him in the Millennial Kingdom and glory, and in the work which these will accomplish for the world. The Scriptures tell us that those who will be accounted worthy of this exaltation to glory, honor and immortality, will first be required to prove their loyalty to the Lord to the extent of sacrifice. This does not mean a putting away of sin. for that would not be sacrifice. It does mean the laying down of earthly rights and privileges, after the manner and example of the Redeemer, who knew no sin. Believers are exhorted thus to sacrifice. The Apostle says to them, “I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, your reasonable service” (Romans xii, 1).

Many Scriptures inform us that^God has attached the glories of the future to the sufferings of the present and that “if we suffer with Christ we shall also reign with him” and “if we bo dead with him, we shall also live with him.” Thus we see this entire Gospel Age is a period of sacrificing. Our Lord began the sacrificing, and in accepting believers as his members, it is on condition that they will be sanctified, separated from the world, and present their bodies living sacrifices. Thus the saints throughout this Gospel Age have been suffering with their Lord and Head and, as St. Paul declares, “filling up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ” (Golds-, sians i, 24). The merit is in the sacrifice of their Lord, but he passes that merit through the believers of this Gospel. Age, to the intent that they may share in the glories and honors of his Millennial Kingdom, which will be established as soon as the last member of “his Body” shall have finished the sufferings of the Christ.

St. Paul, after pointing out the typical sin-offerings under the Jewish arrangement, shows us that the sacrifices of Christ and the Church are the antitypes of these sin-offerings—offered year by year under the Jewish economy. Those he styles the “better sacrifices than these” (Hebrews ix, 23).

The Day of Atonement. ©

We are at the time of the year when our Hebrew fellow-citizens are accustomed to celebrate their great Day of Atonement. They celebrate it, however, in a meaningless manner. Those of them who are acquainted with the facts know that the whole procedure is a farce. In the confusion which God has permitted to come upon them they have no Priest. Since their rejection of Messiah their priestly records are lost, so that no Jew in the. world can make claim to the position of High Priest or dare to perform the functions of High Priest in connection with the Day of Atonement sacrifices. They have no Tabernacle or Temple, nor dare they erect one; for if one were consecrated, an unauthorized priest would risk his life in attempting to pass through the Second Veil into the Most Holy.                      ¹

As a consequence our Hebrew friends deserve our sympathy. The tenth day of the seventh month was their appointed Day of Atonement. By the sacrifices of that day, properly performed, reconciliation for tbeir iniquities was made for the ensuing year, at the end of which they would again become unclean and need another Atone-

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went Day. As the Xpostle says, the arrangement God made for them for the forgiveness of sins was “year by year continually,” and the yearly repetition indicated that the sins were not really cancelled, but merely covered for the year.

It is a part of Divine providence that ©ur Hebrew friends have no Priest and that no sin-atonement sacrifice is possible. Now when the anniversary ©f the Day of Atonement comes they bemoan their sins and fast and pray; but they have no Priest to offer the bullock of a sin-offering and then to take its blood into the Holy and Most Holy and to sprinkle the same for the cleansing of the priestly tribe. They have no Priest later on to come and take the goat’s sin-offering and do with it as he did with that of the bullock, taking its blood into the Most Holy and sprinkling the Mercy Seat for all the other eleven tribes of Israel. The Priest does not come out of the Holies to bless them, as of yore, and to tell them that their sins are forgiven through the merit of the sacrificial blood. No! After waiting the entire day, and knowing that they have no right to offer the blood, having no Priest, no Advocate, no Intercessor, no Sin-bearer, at the close of their Atonement Day they endeavor to be cheerful and happy and to suppose their sins forgiven; or, rather, they endeavor to forget all about the matter in worldliness.

The Antitype of This.

Would that all our Hebrew friends, as well as all Christians, could understand the true antitype of that great Day of Atonement, which the Jews celebrated annually in a typical manner. Its antitype is this Gospel Age. At the beginning of this antitypical Atonement Day our Lord Jesus offered up himself—the antitype of the bullock (Lev. xvi). When he ascended up on high, he applied the merit of the sacrifice to the antitypical Levitical tribe— to the household of faith of this Gospel Age, for the Royal Priesthood. Since Pentecost the second part of the Day of Atonement sacrifices has been in process. “The Lord’s goat,” antityped by the Church, has been in process of sacrifice. The great High Priost has been accepting consecrated believers as members of his Body and has been seeing to their sacrificial sufferings. “Now is the acceptable time” for such sacrificing.

This procedure has gone on for now nearly nineteen centuries and, according to our understanding of the Scriptures, is nearly complete. Soon the last “member of the Body of Christ” will have suffered with his Lord and Head. Soon the blood of this secondary sacrifice will be sprinkled in the Most Holy on the Mercy Seat—the blood of the members of Christ. Jesus’ blood passed through them. Soon the acceptance of it as the pardon price “for the sins of the whole world” will be acknowledged by the Father. Soon the great High Priest, Head and members, will come forth, clothed in the glory, honor, dignity and power represented in the garments of the typical high priest of Israel, and will bless the world. Soon will come the time for the lifting of the hands of the Priest, the display of his power. Soon as a result the blessing will fall upon all of the people—upon natural Israel first. Soon will shouts of rejoicing arise from the people as conditions of sorrow and pain shall pass away, giving place to praise, as men shall seek to glorify God and to lift up holy Tiands in his service.

The issues of life, death and a hereafter are all in the power of the Lord He took counsel of none of us, and holds himself fully responsible, declaring that all of his purposes shall be accomplished, and that his Word that has gone forth shall not return to him void, but shall accomplish that which he pleases (Isaiah Iv, 10, 11).

He owed us nothing in the beginning, and will be under no obligations to us in the end. We are his debtors for all that is profitable or enjoyable. He is a rich King and Father and is able and willing to do exceedingly abundantly for us, his creatures—more than we could have asked or thought.

But he has his own way for doing this, which, in the end, will be seen to be the best way. “His ways are in clouds and darkness,” writes the prophet; and the poet answers, yes,

“God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.”

The Gift of God.

Eternal life is “the gift of God” for all of his creatures who will take it on his terms; and for all others he declares, “The wages of sin is death” —the blotting out of life. And who cannot see that this arrangement to destroy all who will not use life in accord with the Divine will, is really a mercy? To perpetuate life opposed to his will and law of righteousness would be a disgrace to God and an injury to the holy as well as to the unholy. God gave our race life in Adam, but, as he had foreseen, they lost it by disobedience and came under the penalty—death. As he purposed before the foundation of the world, he in due time sent his Son to be “The Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” As such Jesus died, “the just for the unjust,” “tasting death for every man” (Hebrews it, 9). This glorious purpose God set forth to Father Abraham in his oathbound covenant, of which the Apostle writes in Hebrews vi, 13-20.

The context shows distinctly that the Apostles and the early Church drew comfort from the Oath-Bound Covenant, and clearly implies that this same comfort belongs to every true Christian down to the end of this age —to every member of the Body of Christ. The Apostle’s words imply that God’s promise and oath were intended more for us than for Abraham —more for our comfort than for his.

Note the Apostle’s words: “That by two immutable things (two unalterable things), in which it was impossible for God to lie, we (the Gospel Church) might have a strong consolation, (we) who have fled for refuge (to Christ), to lay hold upon the hope set before us.”

Assurance of Almighty’s Oath.

Doubtless Abraham and all of his family, Israel after the flesh, drew a certain amount of blessing and encouragement from this Covenant or promise and the oath of the Almighty, which doubly sealed it, which gave double assurance of its certainty of accomplishment; but the Apostle intimates in the words quoted, that God’s special design in giving that Covenant and in binding it solemnly with an oath, was to encourage Spiritual Israel—to give us a firm foundation for faith.

God well knew that, although 3,000 years from his own standpoint would be but a brief space, “as a watch in the night,” nevertheless to us the time would appear long, and the strain upon faith would be severe; hence the positive statement and the still more deliberate oath that bound it. We cannot but wonder at such condescension upon the part of the great Creator— that he would stoop to his fallen creatures and, above all, that he should condescend to give his oath on the subject.

Our Lord Jesus was the great heir of the Abrahamic promise, and the faithful of his consecrated people of this Gospel Age are declared to be his joint-heirs in that promise, which is not yet fulfilled. For its fulfillment, not only the Church is waiting, as the Bride or fellow-members of the Body of Christ, to be participants with the Lord in the glories implied in the promise, but additionally, the whole creation (the entire human family) is groaning and travailing in pain together waiting for the great fulfillment of that oath-bound promise or covenant (Romans viii, 19-23).

Those who follow the Apostle’s argument and, realize that we as Christians are still waiting for the fulfillment of this promise, will be anxious to know what are the terms of this Covenant which is the hope of the world, the hope of the Church, and the object of so much solicitude and care on the part of God, in that he would promise and then back his word with an oath. We answer that every Christian should know what this promise is, since it lies at the very foundation of every Christian hope.

How can this hope be an anchor to our soul in all the storms and trials and difficulties of life, in all the opposition of the world, the flesh and the Adversary, if we do not know what the hope is, if we have not even recognized the promise upon which this hope is based?

God Foresaw the Present.

This is the pitiable condition of many of God’s true children; for they are merely babes in Christ, using the milk of the Word. Thev have need of the strong meat of Goers promises, as the Apostle speaks of it, that they may be “strong in the Lord and the power of his might;” that they might have on the whole armour of God—helmet, breastplate, sandals, sword and shield —and be able to quench the fiery darts of the Wicked One; able also to help the weaker ones in this day when the Adversary is assaulting the Word of God, the citadel of the truth, with various infidel arguments in the hands and mouths of those who profess to be ministers of the Word.

Need I quote the promise, the one so repeatedly referred to in the apostolic writings, the one which is the basis or anchorage for our souls?

The Apostle Paul referred to this very promise, declaring that the Seed of Abraham mentioned therein is Christ. All Christians agree to this, although they have not distinctively and properly associated it with the declarations of the promise. But the Apostle makes clear to us that in saying that Christ is the Seed of Abra-Sham, he had in mind not only the Lord jlesus as the Head of the Body, the Head of the Christ, but also the overcoming saints of this Gospel Age as the Body of Christ. This he distinctly states in many places, for instance Galatians iii, 16-29. Here he declares the matter expressly, saying: “If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s Seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

“The Seed of Abraham” is the Gospel Church, with her Head, the Lord Jesus; as the Apostle states again saying: “We, brethren, as Isaac was (typified by Isaac), are the children of promise” (Galatians iv, 28). It follows that the Seed of Abraham mentioned in the promise is not complete and will not be until the full close of this Gospel Age—the harvest time of which we believe we are now in.

But what a wonderful thought is involved in this plain interpretation of the Divine Word! It is big with hope for Spiritual Israel, the Spiritual Seed, and no less, it means a blessing for the natural seed, fleshly Israel, and ultimately the millennial bessings to all the families of the earth. Let us examine these three hopes: The hopes for these three classes center in this great Oath-Bound Covenant. Let us thus obtain what the Apostle tells us was the Lord’s intention for us, namely, strong consolation—strong encouragement.

All through the prophecies the Lord foretold the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow; nevertheless the glories to follow have been granted much more space in the Divine Revelation than the sufferings of the present time. The implication suggested by the Apostle is that when the glories of the future shall be realized, the trials and sufferings and difficulties of the present time will be found not worthy to be compared; but those glories and blessings have been veiled from our mental vision, and instead a great pall hangs over the future in the minds of many'of the Lord’s people.

Distort Simple Language.

Many of us. have learned to distort) the simple language of God’s Word in such a manner to cause us anguish and distress. For instance, “destroy,” “perish,” “die,” “second death,” “everlasting destruction,” etc., terms used by the Lord to represent the ultimate, complete annihilation of those who will not come into harmony with him after a full opportunity is granted them, are interpreted to mean the reverse of what they say—life, preservation in torture, etc.

It is high time, dear friends, that we should learn that God’s Book is not the foundation of these horrible nightmares which have afflicted us, and which in the past hindered many of us from a proper love and reverence of our Creator. It is high time that we should take the explanation which the Apostle gives us of thia matter and of all the errors which assail poor humanity respecting the future. He says: “The god of this world has blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the glorious light of the goodness of God, as it shines in the face of Jesus Christ our Lord, should shine into their hearts’’ (H Corinthians iv, 4). We cannot here and now discuss this subject, but have provided in the hands of the ushers, some free pamphlets on “What Say the Scriptures about Hell?” Should the supply prove insufficient drop me a postal-card and I will cheerfully send from Brooklyn what will satisfy both your head and your heart.

Now what hope and interest has the Church of Christ in this promise made to Abraham? To us belongs the very cream of the promise, “the riches of God’s grace.” The promise implies the greatness of the Seed of Abraham, which Seed is Christ and the overcoming Church. This greatness is so wonderful as to be almost beyond human! comprehension. The overcomers ofi this Gospel Age who “make their call-Ing and election sure” in Christ, are td be joint-heirs with him in the glorious* Millennial Kingdom which is to bq God’s agency or channel for bringing] about the promised blessings—tha blessings of all the families of tha earth.

The great blessing of forgiveness of sins which are past, and even th© blessing of being awakened from the sleep of death, would profit mankind but little, if the arrangements of that future time—the Millennial Age—wera pot on such a scale as to permit a thorough recovery from present mental, moral and physical weaknesses. Hence we are rejoiced to learn that in that time Satan will be bound, every evil influence and every unfavorable condition will be brought under restraint, and the favor of God through the knowledge of God will be turned upon the people—“The knowledge of the Lord shall fill the whole earth as the waters cover the great deep.” Blessing, aye, favor upon favor, blessing upon blessing, is the Lord’s arrangement and provision! All shall know him from the least unto the greatest, and none shall need to say to his neighbor or his brother, “Know thou the Lord?” (Isaiah xi, 9; Jeremiah xxxi, 34.)

The prophets spoke repeatedly of these blessings due to the world in the future. Mark how Joel tells that, as during this Gospel Age, the Lord pours out his spirit upon his servants and hand-maidens, so after these days, in the Millennial Age. he will pour out his spirit upon all flesh. There will be world-wide blessing through the knowledge of the Truth. Mark how Moses, the prophet, spoke of these coming blessings, and told how God would raise up a greater Lawgiver than himself, a greater Teacher, a better Mediator, and, under the better Covenant of the Lord, would bring blessings world-wide! Mark again how he represents the atonement for the sins of the whole world in the Atonement Day sacrificial arrangements'. Mark how again he typifically foretold the blessings of the Millennial Age, representing it in Israel’s “Year of Jubilee,” in which every man went free and every possession was returned to its original ownership, thus representing the blessings of the future, Jaan's release from the servitude of jin and Satan, and the return to him if all that was lost through Adam. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Micah, have spoken of these coming times, so that jhe Apostle Peter, pointing to the fu-:ure, could truthfully declare that the doming times of restitution of all things have been spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets since the world'began (Acts iii, 19-21).

Hope For Jews and Others.

The second class to be blessed under this Abrahamic Covenant is fleshly Israel. We are not forgetting that the Jews were a stiff-necked and rebellious people; that they slew the prophets and stoned the Lord’s ministers and caused the crucifixion of our Redeemer. Nevertheless, the Scriptures clearly hold forth that after they have had a period of chastisement, which they have been undergoing as a nation since our Lord’s crucifixion, and after Spiritual Israel shall have been glorified in the Kingdom, then a blessing from the Lord will come upon natural Israel; they shall be saved or recovered from their blindness, and, as the Prophet declares, they shall look upon him whom they have pierced and shall mourn for him—because the eyes of their understanding shall be opened. We rejoice, too, that the promise is clear and distinct that the Lord will pour upon them the “spirit of prayer and of supplication” (Zechariah xli, 10). See also Romans xi, 25-23.

But if God is to have mercy upon the natural Israelite, whom he declares to have been stiff-necked and hard-hearted and rebellious, would it surprise us that the Divine, benevolent Intention should be to bless others than the Jews—others who had not in the past the favors and privileges of this favored nation, and whose course, therefore, -was less in opposition to the light? It should not surprise us. And so we find in this great Oath-Bound Covenant a blessing for all nations—■ all peoples.

Poor, Imperfect Creatures.

“We make God’s love too narrow By false standards of our own.”

Do not misapprehend uS. We are not teaching that heathen and imbeciles and the unregenerate in general Shall be taken to heaven, where they would be utterly out of harmony with their surroundings and require to be converted and to be taught. Such an inconsistent view we leave to those who are now claiming that the heathen will be saved in their ignorance. We stand by the Word of God that there is no present salvation without faith in Christ Jesus, and that the heathen and the imbeciles have neither part nor lot in the salvation of the present time. We stand by the Scriptures which say that salvation at the present time is only for the little flock, who, through much tribulation, shall enter the Kingdom. We stand by the Scriptures which say that this Kingdom class now being developed is the Seed of Abraham under the Lord, their Head, their Elder Brother, the Bridegroom,.

As the city of Babylon represented the Empire of Babylon, so the city of Jerusalem represented the Jewish nation. The Scriptures refer to the fact that centuries before our Lord’s day the Jewish Kingdom had been overthrown—had passed to the control of the Gentiles—and in our text our Lord declares that this subserviency would continue until certain times of the Gentiles, certain years or periods of their control, would pass away. When we read that certain times will be ■fulfilled, we are justified in thinking that these times have been foretold. And in looking for the statement of the matter in Holy Writ, we notice the facts of the case as follows:

God established the Jewish nation as his representative nation, or Kingdom, in the world, with the understanding that in some manner and at some time that nation would be the channel of divine blessings to all the families of the earth, in harmony with the original Oath-Bound Promise made to Abraham. After a precarious existence of nearly six hundred years, the star of Jewish Empire set, and it has not re-arisen since. The particular date at which the Typical Kingdom passed away is clearly marked in the Scriptures. The solidarity of the Empire in the hands of King David, and his son, King Solomon, was lost in its division in the days of Solomon’s successor. Nevertheless, in harmony with the Divine prediction, the royal line continued in the tribe of Judah; as it is written, “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a law-giver from between his feet, until Shiloh come” (Genesis xlix, 10).

Of the last king of Judah, Zedekiah, the Divine declaration was, “And thou, profane and wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come when iniquity shall have an end, Thus saith the Lord God, Remove the diadem, and take off the crown; this shall not be the same. * * * I will overturn, overturn, overturn it; and it shall be no more until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him” (Ezekiel xxi, 25-27)- That statement was made just prior to Israel’s captivity to Babylon, B. C. 606. And the crown and sceptre have been overturned since then, and will continue so to be until Messiah himself, at his second advent, shall take tne throne as the Antitypical Soh of David.

The Interim cf Time.

The interim of time between the overthrow of the crown in the days of Zedekiah and the establishment again of the crown in Messiah's Kingdom at his second advent is Scripturally termed the “Times of the Gentiles”— that is to say, the years of the Gentiles; the years in which the Gentiles would bear rule over Israel and all the earth; the period in which God would have no representative nation in the world. Some may inquire, Were not the Israelites restored from the Babylonian captivity? Yes, we answer, but they did not receive back the Kingdom; they "were thereafter subject to t!%&

The period in which opportunity will be granted to man is in the Scriptures termed the Day of Judgment—a thousand-year day, the Millennial Day. It will be a day of trial, a day of testing, a day of proving the world to see whether, with a full knowledge of God and of righteousness, which he requires, they will choose righteousness in preference to sin, choose life in preference to the Second Death.

Thank God for that wonderful judgment, the trial day for the world, secured for all through the precious blood of Christ. “When the judgments of the Lord are abroad in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.”—Isa. 26:9.

great dominant kingdoms of the world. First, they were subject to the Medo-Persian Empire, whose Emperor, Cyrus, restored them to their own land as a subject-nation. Subsequently they were subject to the Grecian nation. And in the time of our Lord they W’ere still a subject-nation to Rome. Pilate represented the Roman government, and so did Herod, the King of Galilee. Anyway, the Herods were not Israelites, but Edomites.

While it is true that an outward form of Jewish Kingdom was maintained subject to the Roman Emperors for a time, the last vestige of this authority passed away witjj, the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman army in A. D. 70, and the Jew’s have never been able to re-establish themselves in their own land up to the present time. Now, in harmony with the Scriptures which foretell Israel’s restoration to Palestine, and their re-establishment as the earthly representatives of God’s Kingdom, the Zionist movement is coming forth with good hopes of soon effecting a Jewish sub-Kingdom. We may be sure, however, that the declaration of our text wall come true to the very letter—“Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled”—or, filled full..

ALL THINGS NEW

There is something in the sunlight Which I never saw before;

There’s a note within the robin’s song

I did not hear of yore;

There’s something—ah! I know not what! But something everywhere

That makes the world this morning seem Most marvelously fair!

I awakened very early

And I watched the sun arise,

And it seemed to me that heaven Must be dawning in the skies;

For a glory and a gladness, Passing words of mine to show, Flashed from out the eastern portals On the waking world below.

All the water gleamed with gladness; Every streamer in the sky

Seemed the arms of little children Flung in joyousness on high;

All the birds on all the bushes

Joined their melody to pour-w

Surely never was a morning Ushered in like this before!

Is it fact or is it fancy?

Does the secret in my heart

Unto everything it shines on Spurious joyousness impart? , Or has all the world grown gladder, H As it seems to me to-day?

Is it true or is it seeming? Who shall tell? I cannot say.

Ah! I care not! Does it matter?

’Tis enough for me to know

That die world to me is gladder Than it was a year ago.

That on earth and sky and water Lies a radiance, false or true. That shall never fade or falter, Never be less strange or new!

If my heart thus g’lds creat'on Well it may, for it is glad, Past the power of shade or shining Any more to make it sad.

Never yet on earth or heaven, Never yet on land or sea,

Shone the light of that great gladness Which my God has given me.

Let us look#backward and note what the Scriptures declare respecting earthly empires and the period @f their domination. If possible, let us ascertain when the Gentile times began, and when they will end, giving place to the Kingdom of Messiah, the spiritual Kingdom, the Church glorified, whose work will be the ruling of the earth, the blessing of all nations, and the uplifting of the human family out of sin and death conditions to all that was lost through Adam’s disobedience, to all that was redeemed through the obedience of Christ Jesus.

The Scriptures very particularly draw to our attention King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Very carefully does the Prophet explain that Nebuchadnezzar Lad a vision of deep interest to him, but the particulars of which he could not recall. He demanded of the wise men of the Empire a statement of the dream, as well as an explanation, arguing that if they had any supernatural power by which, they could explain a dream, the same power could rehearse it. Then it was that Daniel, the Prophet, was brought to the notice of the King, and by Divine power not only rehearsed the dream but explained it—a dream of much more interest to all Christians than it possibly could have been to Nebuchadnezzar himself.

Many of this audience doubtless recall the dream and its interpretation, yet we will briefly rehearse it. In his dream Nebuchadnezzar saw a great image of wonderful height and grandeur; its head was of gold, its breast and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of brass, its legs of iron, and its feet of iron mixed with clay. While it stood erect, a stone was taken from the mountain and hurled at the impge, striking it on the feet. Forthwith the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver and the gold were crushed to powder and became as the chaff of a summer’s threshing floor, and the wind carried them away. By Divine illumination, Daniel, the Prophet, explained the vision thus: The head represented Nebuchadnezzar’s own universal Empire, Babylon. The breast and arms of silver represented the kingdom which would succeed his as a universal empire; namely, the kingdom of the Medes and Persians. Upon the fall of Medo-Persia, the Grecian Empire would become universal, to be succeeded in turn by the Roman Empire, whose great strength was symbolized by the iron. This is the Empire which ruled the world in the days of our Lord. Thus we read that our Lord was born at Bethlehem, whither Joseph and Mary had gone at the command of Caesar-Augustus, the Roman Emperor, who sent forth a decree that all the world should be taxed. The civil Roman Empire lasted for several centuries after Christ, and was fallowed by the ecclesiastical Roman Empire, of which the popes at Rome were the representative heads. This Empire, partly civil and partly ecclesiastical, was represented by the mixture of the iron, representing civil power, and the clay, representing papal religious power; and this phase of Daniel’s image still exists in the kingdoms of Europe as represented in the ten toes of the image which stand for the divisions of the territory of the old Itoman Empire in Europe.

Daniel’s View of the Matter.

When God subsequently gave his servant, the Prophet Daniel, a vision of these same Gentile governments that would bear universal sway over f—.....

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Lazarus in Abraham's Bosom

This greatly misunderstood parable made plain in Vol. I, No. 4, of Peoples Pulpit. Send for free sample copy.

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Eke earth from the time of the removal of the diadem from Zedekiah until the establishment of Messiah’s Millennial Kingdom, the picture was a different one. Instead of a glorious image of towering height and splendor, Daniel saw four great, terrible wild beasts. The first, like a lion, corresponded to the head of gold of the image—representing Babylon. The second, like a bear, corresponded to the breast and arms of silver in the image, and represented Medo-Persia. The third, like a leopard, corresponded to the brass of the image, and represented Grecia. The fourth beast, great and terrible, found nothing in the animal kingdom to represent it. It corresponded to the legs of iron, which represented the Roman Empire; while the ten horns of the latter beast corresponded to the ten toes of the image, representing papal Rome and the present subdivisions of imperial Europe. The difference between these two visions represents how differently present institutions, the kingdoms of this world, are viewed from the human standpoint and firom the divine standpoint. From the worldly standpoint and estimation, the kingdoms of the past have been majestic, grand; from the Standpoint of God, and those who have his Spirit, they have been beastly.

The sequel to both of these dreams showed the overthrow of the earthly governments by the heavenly government. As it is written, “In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a Kingdom, and it shall break in pieces and consume all of these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.” The Kingdom of God was pictured in the stone which smote the image on its feet. That stone prefigured Christ and the Church, and shows that it will be the power of God through the Church that will ultimately work the wreck of all earthly governments. Do not misunderstand me; nothing in the Word of God teaches anarchy, or authorizes God’s people to fight with carnal wmapons; rather they are exhorted to seek first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness, and to leave all else to the Lord, assured of his willingness to make all things work together for their good.

As Christ in the flesh lifted neither hand nor tongue to smite the earthlyi Empire, nor opposed Caesar and his Representative, Pilate, so his follower are to raise no opposition to the powers that be, but are strictly enjoined to “be subject to them,” and to recognize that they are ordained of God. It will be after the glorification of the Church with her Lord that, invisibly to man kind, this power will be exercised. Gentile governments will be overthrown, and the whole world will be brought into submission to the reign of the Kingdom of Righteousness and its earthly representatives. Thus our Lord taught in his last message that in due time he would take unto himself his great power and reign, and that then the nations would be angry, and Divine wrath would come upon them for their destruction. Thus also our Lord said respecting his followers, who in due time will be glorified with him, “To him that overcometh will I give power over the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers” (Revelation ii, 26, 27).

We should not be deterred from investigating whatever we may find written in the Bible on this subject because of our Lord’s words to his disciples—“Of that day and hour know-eth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but my Father only.” This passage does not tell us that no man would ever know, but that none knew at that time. It does not tell us that our Lord Jesus would never know the time of his own second coming, nor that the angels would never know. As we surely believe that the Lord and the angels will know at about the time of the second advent, so we may well believe that the Lord’s faithful saints will not be left in darkness on the same subject. Indeed this is what the Apostle distinctly tells us, “Ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day.” The Apostle intimates that those who do not have the light in its due season would thereby justify the inference that they belonged, not to the Church, but to the world, upon whom that day shall come “as a thief and as a snare” (I Thessalonians v, 1-8).

Gentile Times 2520 Years.

What we would like to know, if it has pleased the Lord to reveal it, is just how long a period is meant by the expression* “Times of the Gentries”—or, years of the Gentiles—in which the Gentile nations will bear rule or sway over the land of Israel. If God has been pleased to reveal the matter, let us enjoy it; if he has not been pleased to give any clue to the matter, we cannot find it. We are to remember, however, that this, like other features of the Divine revelation, was intended to be kept secret from the world, and to be made known only to those who are in heart harmony with the Lord—interested—and very desirous of knowing the mind of the Lord on this and on every subject. Hence, we may not look for a plain statement to the effect that in so many years from such an event the Gentile lease of power will terminate and God’s Kingdom be transferred to Israel again. Rather we should expect that the matter would be stated in a more or less obscure form, in which it might be read over and over again without attracting special attention except from those especially interested ones led by the Lord’s holy Spirit.

We believe that the period is what the Scriptures term “seven times”— seven years. Not seven literal years, but seven symbolic years. A “time” or “year” in symbol represents 360 literal years. In other words, each day of a symbolic year is a year, and hence the seven times, or seven years, would represent 7 times 360, or 2520 years. I give it to you as my conviction, dear friends, based strictly upon the Scriptures, but corroborated, it seems to me, by the events of our day, that this 2520 years, beginning in 606 B. C., will end in October 1914 A. D.

That a “time” or “year” has been Scripturally used to represent 360 may be very easily and very quickly demonstrated. For instance, in Revelation a period of time is mentioned in three different ways; namely, 1260 days, 42 months, and 3% times. The Sy₂ times of Revelation are exactly one-half of the “seven times” of the Gentiles. The 1260 years of Revelation are exactly one-half of the 2520 years of the Times of the Gentiles. And these 2520 years we believe -will expire with October 1914; at that time we believe the Gentile lease of power will expire, and that the God of heaven will set up his Kingdom in Israel.

We do not expect universal peace to immediately ensue because Christ is styled the Prince of Peace. On the contrary, to our understanding, the col

lapse of the nations will be through 8 fierce strife, “a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation.” in which “there shall be no peace to him that goeth out, nor to him that cometh in,” because God will set every man’s hand against his neighbor. Our belief is ^{hat the warfare between capital and labor, emperors and peoples, will be short, sharp, decisive, and bring untold calamity upon all concerned. Ii people could only discern it, they would avoid it, but their eyes are holden; they see not, neither do they understand.                              ’

The Seven Times.

These seven times were foreshadowed in the experiences of Nebuchadnezzar, who was irrational for teven years, and at the end of that time recovered his reason and acknowledged the Lord as the ruler of the Universe. So history seems tc show that during this period of Gentile domination the poor world has been in a measure insane, putting light for darkness and darkness for light. Our trust is that at the close of the Gentile Times, and following the short, sharp, decisive time of great trouble in 1915, humanity will regain its sanity and praise the God of heaven and acknowledge that all authority comes from Him and pertains to Him.

TILL WE SHALL SEE THY FACE

“Come with hearts united,

Ye who know God’s love,

To a feast invited, Sent us from above.

“Joyfully we gather;

Fellowship is sweet, And we know our Father Meets us as we meet.

“If our faces lighten, Let it clearly prove That we seek to brighten Those ’mongst whom we move.

“So our joy will double As his Word we keep, And in peace or trouble Feed our Savior’s sheep.

“Though the path before us

Narrow is and rough,

Yet his wings are o’er us—• Is not this enough?

“Now we have communion

With our risen Lord;

Soon more perfect union Will be our reward.

“Loving Father guide us

As we run our race;

Journey thou beside us       ^w

Till we see thy face.” _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ •........■