The Order of Events
“TTTHEIS” the Most High divided to the V V nations their inheritance, when lie separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.” Deut. xxxii:8. Perhaps most professing Christians would hear with a smile of derision or incredulity, that, in the distribution of the earth’s surface among various nationalities. He had special reference to a people so few and despised as the Jews, and not to the great powers, like the Grecian, Ttoman, Russian, Gerirmn, and British empires, and the proud Republic of the United States. Nevertheless it is a fact, and a fact we will do well to keep in mind when we search the Scriptures of truth.
It was to the Jews He said, “Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself. ISTow therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine, and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.” Ex. xix:4-6. Alas! Scarcely had “alL the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words which the Lord hath said will we do,” ratifying the covenant wdth blood, before they sneered at Moses, and made them a molten calf to worship. Ex. xxir:3-8; xxxii:l-4. From that time and onward, their history was stained with disobedience, idolatry, unbelief and worldliness, until infinite patience could endure no longer, and they were disowned and rejected, and scattered among the nations of the earth.
In the year 722 before Christ the ten tribes, that had revolted from the house of David under Solomon’s successor, were carried away to Assyria, and the land was possessed by other people. In the year 586 before Christ Jerusalem was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, and to this day remains under the hand of its Gentile masters. Hence, for 2500 years Israel has been the nation without a home, the nation of weary foot like the Wandering Jew, the nation wdiich even professedly Christian nations have delighted to persecute and torture. For nearly eighteen hundred years after the Son of God came into the world, kings and cabinets, pretending at least to have some regard for His teachings, have inflicted upon the hated decendants of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob banishment, extortion, oppression, outrage, murder, and all manner of cruelty. Even now, at the close of the nineteenth century, with its boasted civilization and progress, Kussia, Roumania, Bulgaria, Germany, and many other peoples think it right to molest and rob, and exile, and kill a Jew.
“The wild dove hath its nest, the fox its cave, Mankind its country, Israel but the grave.”
The same inspired and infallible word, however, which plainly and frequently predicts their dispersion and ])unishment, just as plainly and
TiiK ori)p:u of events. 151
much more frequently predicts their restoration to their own land, when and where they shall looh upon Him whom they pierced, and at last accept Him as their long-promised Messiah. Zech. xii:10. No Christian who helieves that “the prophecy came not in old time [or at any time] by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,” 2 Pet. i:21, can have a shadow of doubt concerning the future gathering of the now scattered Israelites into their own country, if he also believes that the Holy Ghost said what he meant, and meant what He said.
Meanwhile “the times of the Gentiles,” set in when Israel was set aside, and Babylon was the head of the new order of thino;s described in the prophecy through Daniel. It is remarkable that from near the beginning of the second chapter to the close of the seventh, the Holy Ghost writes ’ in the Chaldee language, as if He would say to the Gentiles, read in your own venacular the characteristic features of your times and your fearful fall. Chapter ii shows us Gentile estimate of governmental power, as seen in the stately image of lebuchadnezzer’s dream. Chapter iii shows us Gentile ambition, as seen in the golden image, reared nineteen years later by the king of Babylon. Chapter iv shows us Gentile pride saying, “Is not this great Babylon that I have built?” and then degraded to the level of the beasts in the person of the boastful king. Chapter v shows us Gentile impiety and revelry and sensuality, profaning the sacred vessels of God’s house, until the fingers of a man’s hand wrote its doom over against the candlestick upon the wall of the king’s palace. Chapter vi shows iis Gentile ])lasplieniy, making man an object of worship, as in the days of the Antichrist. Chapter vii shows ns Gentile persecution of the saints, under the Antichrist, until Jesus comes.
In other words, dominion or government in the hands of Gentiles will prove as complete a failure as it did in the hands of the Israelites; and if it he said that we have in this age the word of God, and the presence of the Spirit to restrain men from evil, let us not forget what was written concerning His people in former times; “Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the Lord of hosts sent by His Spirit through the former prophets: therefore came a great wrath from the Lord of hosts.” Zech. vii:12. Men sin against more light and mercy in our day, and, therefore will be held to a stricter accountability and overtaken by a sorer punishment.
It has been previously shown by the sure testimony of God that the present age must close in universal apostasy and lawlessness. It shall be as when the flood came and destroyed them all. It shall be as when Lot was hurried out of Sodom. Antichrist shall be manifested in all his blasphemy and malignant hatred ot the true Christ. “In the last days perilous times shall come.” Perhaps no religious book printed during the present generation has received more universal approval than Bernard’s “Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament.”
Di Alvah Llovey, of the Newton Theological Institution, who introduced it to the American public, said, “The Baiiiptoii Lectures of Mr. Bernard on the Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament, deserve nnqualitied commendation, for they are as nearly perfect, both in substance and form, as any human production can well be made.”
This, no doubt, expresses the view of intelligent ministers and Christians of all denominations; for no one, so far as known, has been found to dissent from its statements. It is well, therefore, to read attentively what this remarkable expositor has to say concerning the end of our dispensation.
I know not how any man, in closini the Epistles, ccild expect to find the subsequent history of the Church essentially ditfereut from what it is. In those writings we seem, as it were, not to witness some passing storms which clear the air, but to feel the whole atmosphere charged with the elements of future tempest and death. Every moment the forces of evil show themselves more plainly. They are encountered, but not dissipated. Or, to change the figure, we see battles fought by the leaders of our band, but no security is promised by their victories. New assaults are being prepared; new tactics will be tried; new enemies pour on; the distant hills are black with gathering multitudes, and the last exhortations of those who fall at their posts call on their successors to “endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ,” and “earnestly to contend for the faith which was once delivered to the saints.”
The fact which I observe is not merely that these indications of the future are in the Epistles, but that they increase as we approach the close, and after the doctrines of the Gospel have been fully wrought out, and the fulness of personal salvation and the ideal character of the church has been placed in the clearest light, the shadows gather and deepen on the external history. The last words of St, Paul in the second Epistle to Timothy, and those of St. Peter in his second Epistle, with the Epistles of St. John and St, Jude, breathe the language of a time in which the tendencies of that history had distinctly shown themselves; and in this respect these writings form a prelude and a passage to the Apocalypse.
Of the general meaning of the Apocalypse he writes truly as follows, the italics being his own:
Isti: TILL HE COME.
The book is a doctrine of the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, “Behold he cometh with clouds, and every eve shall see him.” That is the first voice, and the keynote of the whole. The Epistles to the Seven Churches (symbolical representatives of the whole Church in it various conditions) all take their tone from this thought, and are the voice of a Lord who will “come quickly.” The visions which follow draw to the same end, and the last voices of the book respond to the first, and attest its subject and its purpose. “He which testifieth these things saith, surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” Whatever else the Christian desires is bound up in this prospect. The deliverance of the creation from its present groans and travail, the redemption of our body, the perfection of man in a holy community, and the realization in outward things of the tendencies o+’ the renewed nature, all these hopes wait on the one hope of Hia appearing.
If this is so, and perhaps none will dispute it, how strange it seems that the hope of His appearing has no place in the thought or discourse of a vast niajority of Christians! Men speak of dyino- and going to heaven, but how few of the coming of the Lord? Such indifference is no doubt due to the artifice of Satan, who, as Calvin says, ‘’in plucking up the faith of Christ’s coming, aims directly at the throat of the church.” It is not death that is set before us, horrible death, loathsome death, with its frequent preliminary agonies and pangs and tortures, that make the suffering of a martyr by fire as nothing in comparison, but it is the coming of the Lord to destroy death. Dr. James Culross, the author of many valuable books, and one of the ablest of Eno-lish writers, has well expressed the truth on this subject
No reflecting man can think lightly of death or drive it from his contemplation. But in our religious speech we have too often placed it where the Bible does not place it, and have caused it to intercept and in a measure hide from view the coming of the Lord. Taking what we find in the New Testament, the true Christian attitude is that of wait-THE ORDER OF RENTS,
ing for the Lord from lieaveii. ... He is to return in power and great glory, having received the Kingdom. There is nothing that meets us more distinctly and largely in the New Tes.ameut than this. We cannot “spiritualize “’ it. We may as well “spiritualize” His resureftion and ascension.
It is not merely that i)rophets and apostles have told us
of His return; He has done so Himself, and that not merely by way of bare prediction or intimation of his purpose, but by way of promise. Were He not to return He would break his word. The promise meets us again and again, and in the greatest variety of form.
First, He will come in person. ‘’ This same Jesus, wliicli is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner, as ye have seen 11 im go into heaven.” Acts i:ll. “The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout.” 1 Thess. iv:16. This does not mean an angel, nor the Holy Spirit, nor death, nor any providential event whatever, but the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who summons His own believino; and saved ones to meet Him, “that every one may receive the things done through his body.” 2 Cor. v: 10; that He may “know how much every man had gained by trading.” Luk. xix:15; that He may “give every man according as his work shall be.” Rev. xxii:12. With this judgment scene the unbelieving world has nothing to do, but only the saints who are assigned their position in the kingdom according to their faithfulness, and of whom it is said, “Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world?” 1 Cor. vi:2.
Second, He may come at any day, for there is no predicted event that awaits fulfillment between this passing moment, and His coming for His people to gather them about Himself in the air. The popular view that the world is first to be converted is a most delusive dream, for which the re is not the slightest warrant in the word of God, in
15G TILL HE COME.
the history of the church, or in the present outlook. The view probably arose from the hideous lie of evolution, it being assumed that there is an inherent tendency in human nature to reach a higher development, or, as poor Beecher used to say, after he became an evolutionist and infidel, “man has been failing upward ever since his creation.” If this is true, and the evil and vulo-ar beast has made no nobler attainment than that which we see at the close of the nineteenth century, he must have had a mighty low start. His tendency is not toward a higher development in religion and morals, but he w411 gravitate towards the devil, so that the last days will be the worst days, as the Scriptures plainly teach.
Third, at the coming of the Lord for His saints there shall be a resurrection of all who “sleep in Jesus,” and of none others. “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power, lut they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.” Rev. xx:6. The common interpretation, that this refers to the revival of martyr principles, is a self-evident absurdity, for while we may think, in a figure of speech, of principles being kings, or reigning, it is impossible to conceive of principles as priests of God. Alford well says on’ these words, “Those who lived next to the apostles, and the whole church for 300 years, understood them in the plain, literal sense,” and he adds, that unless so accepted, “there is an end of all significance in language, and Scripture is wij:>ed out as a definite testimony to anything.”
Even if there is a simultaneous resurrection of the righteous and iiiiriDrhteous at the comingr of the Lord, there is the most marked difference between them, for only the former have bodies that are glorilied, incorruptible, and shining in the likeness of the Redeemer. This is the resurrection for which Paul panted and strove, “the outresurrection, the one from among the dead,” Phil. iii:ll; and it is unaccountable that the apostle earnestly desired, if by any means he might attain unto a resurrection common to all, and unavoidable. So our Lord tells us about “the resurrection of the just,” Lu. xiv:14; and speaks of those who ‘^t?hall be accounted woi’thy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead,” or “the resurrection which is from among the dead,” as Rotherham properly renders it, Lii. xx:36. Even the Old Testament teaches this elective resurrection, peculiar to the saints, when it says, “Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth sliaJl awake, these [that awake] to everlasting life, and those [that awake not] to shame and everlasting contempt,” Dan. xii:2. In the great New Testament chapters which treat -of the resurrection, not a word is said concerning the resurrection of the unbelievers, but only of the saints, 1 Cor. xv; 1 Thess, iv:13-18. Surely “there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust,” Actsxx:15; but only of the just at the coming of Christ. “But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.” Rev. XX :5.
Fourth, the true church, the regenerated ones, having been caught away, a foul and apostate religious system will b’^ left, associated with the Antichrist, whose rise and progress are symbolized in the Seal judgments of the Apocalypse, the first three and a half years of his reign in the Trumpet judgments, and the last three and a half years in the Yial judgments, the overthrow of Babylon, or all that exalts itself against Clod, both in its ecclesiastical and political aspect, being depicted in the seven - teenth and eighteenth chapters of that marvelous book. The Jews shall have been partially restored to their own land in unbelief, and there pass through the great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world, when the Lord Jesus Christ will suddenly appear with all His saints, to deliver His people from their distress, to cast the Antichrist and the false prophet alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone, and to establish His millennial kingdom. Zech. xiv:l- 5; Rev. xix:16-21.
Fifth, when He appears again in the midst of Israel, when He buikls again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down, Joel ii: 27-32; Acts XV. 16, 17, then shall He pour out His Spirit upon all flesh, and the knowledge of His glory shall flood the earth, as the waters cover the sea, Hab. ii. 14. In that day, and not before, “the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick; the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity,” Isa xxxiii. 24; “Thy people also shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I maybe glorified,” Isalx. 21; ‘’and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for they shall all know me, from the least of theiu unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more,” Jer. xxxi. 34. “And the Lord shall be King over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord, and His name one.” Zech. xiv. 9.
Sixth,” When the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, the bottomless abyss in which he has been bound during the Millennium, and shall go out to deceive the nations, in a last desperate effort to thwart the counsels of God. But he shall not succeed, for he shall be cast into the lake of tire and brimstone, where the Antichrist and false prophet are, his seventh and final defeat and fall. After the judgment of the great white throne, death and hades, thank God, shall be cast into the lake of fire. But what a picture does this give to us of the mind of -the flesh, that, even after the blessedness and the glory of the Millennial reign, it can be corrupted, and lift itself again in insolent defiance. of divine authority and infinite love.
Seventh, eternity begins.” And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away .... And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and the Lamb shall be in it; and His servants shall serve Him: and they shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there: and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever .... He
TILL HE ClOME.
which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” Rev. xxi. 4; xxii. 3-5, 20.
“I am waiting for the dawning
Of the bright and blessed day;
When the darksome night of sorrow
Shall have vanished far away:
When for ever with the Saviour,
Far beyond this vale of tears,
I shall swell the song of worship
Through the everlasting years.
I am looking at the brightness,
(See, it shineth from afar,)
Of the clear and joyous beaming,
Of the “Bright and Morning Star “;
Through the dark grey mist of morning
Do I see its glorious light;
Then away with every shadow
Of this sad and weary night.
I am waiting for the coming
Of the Lord who died for me:
Oh! His words have thrilled my spirit,
“I will come again for thee.”
I can almost hear His footfall
On the threshold of the door.
And my heart, my heart is longing
To be His for evermore.”