THE JEWS IN PROPHECY TO-DAY
Abraham and his seed were chosen from the inhabitants of the
earth for four purposes -
(a) To witness in the midst of
universal idolatry. Ye are my
witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know
and believe and understand that I am He. ... I,
even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no saviour. I have declared, and have saved, and have
showed, when there was no strange god among you: therefore ye are my witnesses,
saith the Lord, that I am God (Isaiah 43:
10-12).
(b) To illustrate the blessedness of serving the true God. Happy art thou, 0
(c) To receive, preserve, and transmit the
Scriptures.
Moses said, Behold, I have
taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord thy God commanded me, that
ye should do in the land whither ye go to possess it. Keep therefore and do them; for this is your
wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all
these statutes and say, Surely this great nation is a
wise and understanding people (Deuteronomy
4: 5-6).
(d) From this nation was to proceed the Saviour of the
world.
To Abraham the promise was given, In thy seed shall all the
nations of the earth be blessed, because
thou hast obeyed my voice. Paul explains
this promise in his letter to the Galatians (3: 16). He says, Now to
Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He (God) saith
not, and to seeds as of many, but
as of one; and to thy seed, which is Christ.
REJECTION
To Israel in the Promised Land, God says, If thou wilt
not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all His
commandments, all these curses shall come upon thee ...
Then follows a long list of judgments which are to fall upon an apostate
people. Chapter
28 of Deuteronomy concludes with a
wonderful prophetic description of the people in rejection, as they are at this
day. The Lord shall scatter thee among all
people from one end of the earth even to the other ... And among these nations
thou shalt find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest, but the
Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart and failing of eyes, and sorrow of
mind, and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee, and thou shalt fear day and
night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life.
REGATHERING (partial)
Is there any foundation in the Bible for believing that the
Jews will be partially re-gathered to
Again, As they gather silver, and brass, and iron, and lead, and
tin, into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it, to melt it, so
will I gather you in mine anger and in my fury, and I will leave you there, and
melt you. Yea, I will gather you, and
blow upon you in the fire of my wrath, and ye shall be melted in the midst
thereof (Ezek. 22: 20).
Then in Zephaniah 2: 1-2, the Lord said, Gather yourselves together,
yea, gather together, 0 nation not desired; before the decree bring forth,
before the day pass as the chaff, before the fierce anger of the Lord come upon
you, before the day of the Lords anger come upon you.
This, then, is to be a gathering of the people together in
their own strength, allowed by the Lord.
As we see in Ezekiel, it is God drawing them together for refining,
though they think, as in official Zionism, it is their own natural genius
which is doing the restoration. That it
is for refining judgment, is borne out by Zechariah
13: 8-9, And it shall come to pass, that in
all the land, two parts shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left
therein. And I will bring the third part
through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and I will try
them as gold, is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I
will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The
Lord is my God. Thus we see that there must be a
re-gathering in unbelief,
TRIBULATION
that a remnant may be saved through great
tribulation. Therefore another period of
tribulation is ahead of the Jewish people, spoken of by the prophet Jeremiah thus (30: 5-7), Thus saith the Lord: we have heard a voice of trembling, of fear,
and not of peace. Ask ye
now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? Wherefore do I see every
man with his hands upon his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are
turned into a paleness? Alas! for that day
is great, there is none like it it is even the time
of Jacobs trouble, but he shall be saved out of it. In the Book of Daniel we read, At that time (the time of the end of this [evil] age) shall Michael stand up, the
great Prince which standeth for the children of thy people, and there shall be
a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation.
CONVERSION
We know that individual Jews, in this and all countries where
they are scattered, have believed and accepted Jesus Christ as their Messiah,
but it is not easy to imagine the whole Jewish nation becoming Christian; yet
we are confronted with many prophetic Scriptures which teach, beyond doubt,
that this will be so after their time of terrible tribulation, at the Second
Coming of the Lord Jesus, their Saviour and Messiah. In Hosea we read that God says, I will go and
return unto my place, until they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face:
in their affliction they will seek me early (5: 15)
The Lord Jesus Christ speaks of this conversion of the Jewish nation
when He uttered those solemn words, - Behold, your house is left unto you
desolate, for I say unto you, ye shall not see me henceforth until ye say,
Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord, and these words will be
uttered by the Jews when in the moments of their severest trial, they will see their Messiah coming as their deliverer.
RESTORATION
Following the conversion of the Jewish nation to Christ, we
come to the prophecies concerning their wholesale return to this land. God says in Isaiah 11:
10-12, And in that day
there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people;
to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his
rest shall be glorious. And it shall
come to pass in that day, that the
Lord shall set his hand the second time to recover the remnant of his people,
which shall be left, from Assyria, and from
In Ezekiel 39: 25-29, it is written, Thus saith
the Lord God; Now will I bring again the captivity of Jacob, and have mercy upon the whole house of Israel, and
will be jealous for my holy name; after that they have borne their shame, and
all their trespasses whereby they have trespassed against me, when they dwelt
safely in the land, and none made them afraid.
When I have brought them again from the people, and gathered them out
from their enemies lands, and am
sanctified in them in the sight of many nations; then shall they know that
I am the Lord their God, which caused them to be led into captivity among the
heathen: but I have gathered them into their own land, and have left none of
them any more there. Neither will I hide my face any more from
them: for I have poured out of my Spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the
Lord God.
But in all these prophecies concerning the re-gathering of the
Jews into their land, it must first be noticed that it is the Lord himself who
gathers them, and secondly, they are a repentant remnant, and accept Jesus
Christ as their Messiah. The National movement of the present time fulfils neither of these conditions, and one can seek in vain for any blessing
upon an enterprise which ignores God, and with no repentance.
We now come to the fulfilment of that fourfold mission for
which
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[* Those days,
that is, during Messiahs days upon this earth in the Age yet to come; the time described by Bible scholars
as the age of gold
presumably an expression based upon Daniels divine prophecy:-
For
lo, the days are hastening on
By
prophet bards foretold,
When
with the ever-circling years
Comes
round the AGE of GOLD;
When
peace shall over all
the earth
Its
ancient splendours fling,
And
the whole earth send back the song
Which now the angels sing.
The Writer of
Hebrews describes it as a Sabbath-rest for the people of
God - which we are to give diligence to
enter into, (Heb. 4: 9, 11). It will commence when the
creation itself shall be delivered from
the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God
(Rom. 8: 21, R.V.): and, at the beginning of
earths birth pangs, we are now awaiting the time of the
resurrection out from the dead (Phil. 3:
11; Luke 20: 35), when the righteous dead shall arise from the
underworld of Hades / Sheol. - (Isa. 66: 8, 9. cf. Rev.
6: 9-11; 20: 4.) - and overcomers to rule and reign with
Messiah Jesus, upon and over this earth, Rev. 2: 26, 27; 3: 21. cf. Luke 14: 14; 22: 28-30.
Great King of kings, why dost Thou stay?
Why tarriest Thou upon the way?
Why lingers the expected Day?
Thy kingdom come.
Life in its fulness is with Thee,
Life in its holy liberty;
From death and chains this world set free:
Thy kingdom come.
O King of glory, King of
peace,
Bid all the storms and
tumults cease,
Bring in Thy reign of
righteousness:
Thy kingdom come.
Peace, gentle peace, is on its way,
And holy love this earth to sway;
Hasten, O Lord, that
glorious day:
Thy kingdom come.
Oh, bid Thy blessed gospel go
That all Thy wonderous grace may know:
Thy kingdom come.
H. BONAR.]
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SCRIPTURE ITS OWN EXPOSITOR
By
BISHOP
HORSLEY
It should be a rule with every one who would read the Holy
Scriptures with advantage and improvement, to compare every text which may seem
either important for the doctrine it may contain, or remarkable for the turn of
the expression, with the parallel passages in other parts of Holy Writ; that
is, with the passages in which the subject matter is the same, the sense
equivalent, or the turn of the expression similar. Particular diligence should be used in
comparing the parallel texts of the Old and the New Testaments. It is incredible to anyone, who has not in
some degree made the experiment, what a proficiency may be made in that
knowledge which maketh wise unto salvation, by studying the Scriptures in this
manner, without any other commentary or exposition than what the different
parts of the sacred volume mutually furnish for each other. I will not scruple to assert, that the most illiterate Christian, if he can but read his English Bible,
and will take the pains to read it in this manner, will not only attain all
that practical knowledge which is necessary to his salvation, but, by Gods
blessing, he will become learned in everything relating to his religion in such
a degree that he will not be liable to be misled either by the refined
arguments, or by the false assertions, of those who endeavour to engraft their
own opinion upon the oracles of God.
He may safely be ignorant of all philosophy, except what is to be
learned from the sacred books, which indeed contain the highest philosophy
adapted to the lowest apprehensions. He
may safely remain ignorant of all history, except so much of the history of the
first ages of the Jewish and of the Christian Church as is to be gathered from
the canonical books of the Old and New Testament. Let him study these in the manner I
recommend, and let him never cease to pray for the illumination
of that Spirit by which these books were dictated; and the whole compass of
abstruse philosophy and recondite history shall furnish no argument with which
the perverse will of man shall be able to shake this learned Christians faith. The Bible thus studied will indeed prove to
be what we Protestants esteem it, a certain and
sufficient rule of faith and practice, a helmet of salvation, which alone may
quench the fiery darts of the wicked.
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THE KINGDOM
If
we distort the truth, or mix it with what is false, the truth becomes - really
and rightly - incredible: so when the literal Second Advent,
with all its attendant prophecies, is denied by vast sections of the Christian
Church, the consequent doctrine - a Gospel which is to capture the
whole world for God - becomes, in the face of the facts, as incredible as it is
false. It was the challenge of Bradlaugh, the great infidel of the
nineteenth century:- God, a God of truth? Why, He promised to Abraham in the most
solemn words, He repented His promise, and He has not kept His word. The Bible which reveals the attributes of
Almighty God, tells us that God condescended to swear to a puny man that He
would establish his kingdom forever, and that his seed should be as numerous as
the sand upon the seashore. That promise
was reiterated and sworn to by God, and I ask, where is that kingdom now? Here?
Do not tell me it is meant figurative; do not tell me that it is not
literal. God swore it. By mere increase of population the world is
growing more heathen by 6,000.000 a year; and in the words of an Anglican Bishop:-
The earth in this present era is seething with
disorder. There are in
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BE YE ALSO READY
Who
at the coming of Christ will be represented by the wise virgins? Who by the foolish? Were the latter finally saved? What class of persons are the five wise
virgins intended to represent?
Christians, undoubtedly, as the name indicates and implies. Virgin signifies persons morally chaste and
pure, and is applied equally to both sexes in the Scriptures (see Rev. 14: 4), and is never applied to the
unregenerate, or enemies of Christ. All
expositors are agreed that these five virgins represent Christians.
What
class will the foolish virgins represent?
Though called foolish they were as
certainly virgins as the five wise ones.
The term virgin as certainly designates Christian as the terms elect saints, and is never applied to the morally impure,
or the unregenerate, any more than the term leaven is applied to something pure
and holy. These five and unwise virgins were not
enemies of Christ - hypocrites under the guise and profession of friends. All that is said of them implies that they represent
Christians as certainly as the wise ones.
They are called virgins by Christ.
- J. R.