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THE KING’S BUSINESS through fighting their battles, killing their hundreds of thousands and exhausting their resources, they will agree on making ‘universal peace.’ The seal judgments, however, do not take place as long as the Church is still on earth. The first coming great event in the fulfillment of prophecy relating to the end of this age is the rapture of the saints as pre dicted and promised in 1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18. “And others think that these events in Europe are the beginning of the great tribu lation,;^This is equally wrong. The great tribulation precedes the visible coming of our Lord three and one-half years. Daniel’s unfulfilled prophetic year week (seven years) is not now nor can it be now. The Jews are not restored to their land nor do we see any thing of Antichrist. “All those wrong conceptions about present-day events spring from ignorance of the revealed details of the end of-the age. The Thessalonian Christians were patiently waiting for His Son from heaven. When false teachers disturbed them and these teachers made it appear that they were to see tribulation, wrath and the day of the Lord, the Holy Spirit sent them a message to allay their fears. It is well for us to read those assuring words in these days of confusion. ‘Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of the Lord is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means; for that day shall not come, except there come the falling away first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdi tion,’ etc. (2 Thessalonians 2:1, 12). But the falling away and the personal Antichrist cannot come as long as the One is here, whose presence holds back the complete apostacy and its appointed heading up in the Man of sin. The One who restrains it is the Holy Spirit. He dwells in true believers, who constitute the Church, the body of Christ. When, therefore, the true Church is removed from the earth, the Holy Spirit in His peculiar presence on the earth will be withdrawn. Yet He will not cease doing a work after the Church is completed and gone. He will call and fit the Jewish remnant for their great work and for their suffering during the end of the age. “We caution our beloved readers not to pay any attention to these false interpreta tions of prophecy. All kinds of literature are being circulated. We know of nothing which is more destructive to the peace of God’s people, than the theory that true believers must go through the period of tribulation in store for the unbelieving world and share the ap pointed judgments and, wrath of the ungodly and the enemies of the cross. And this nightmare, substituted for the bright and blessed hope, of seeing Him as He is, changed in the twinkling of an eye, is, from certain sides, constantly pressed upon God’s people. “ In giving this word of caution we are not alone. Our brother, Sir Robert Anderson, has also warned in the same way. We quote what he writes: ‘This terrible war will prove ai special blessing to the people of God, or else it will cause them definite harm. Blessing, if it draws them nearer to the Lord, deepening their trust in Him, and making prayer 'more real and intense; but grievous harm if they yield to the influences which tend to mar communion’ with Him. ‘In this connection I venture to raise a warning voice against what I may call the politics of prophetic interpretation. It has done vastly more to discredit Scripture than all the attacks of infidelity. In the appalling tragedy of the de struction of Jerusalem, the early fathers found the clearest proof that the Jew was exterminated, and that God has cast away His people. And the result of that error has leavened orthodox Christian theology down to the present hour; f° r the covenant people it displays ignorance of, ‘The ground plan of the Bible. Let us be warned by their example. Had we lived a century ago, when Napoleon was at the zenith of his1power, we might well have supposed that the final drama of prophecy had begun. But the battle of Waterloo led to a period (Concluded on page 730)
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