June 1928
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
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The Prophetic Telescope B y R ev . F. L. B rooks , ( Pastor Glassel Baptist Church, Los Angeles)
hours. This telescope o f which I wish to speak, however, can pierce the future and record events and delineate characters. T he T elescope of S cripture The telescopes with which we gaze upon the stars and planets are very costly and limited necessarily to great institutions or to men of great wealth. They are also very cumbersome and consequently stationary^ to enjoy them and profit by them we must travel to their location. The telescope I have in mind, on the .¿contrary, is within the reach o f all o f us, however modest our means. _ With the smallest of our currency it can be purchased; it is so light that it may be carried about in our pockets, always available and within the reach of all. The telescope to which I refer is the Bible, blessed book. It scans the distant regions and penetrates the future with its rays, As far as I know, none of the sacred books of other religions make any claim to prognosticate future events. This claim is made only by our Bible, the Word of God. Have you ever stopped to consider the Bible as a telescope of prophecy? Are you aware that nearly two-thirds o i this blessed book is prophecy? It is to be deeply deplored that the Bible is so little known as a book of prophecy. The subject of prophecy _has fallen into great disfavor; it may be that many have given them selves to wild and extravagant theories as a result of their study of prophecy, but this is not sufficient reason for our neglect of this important, phase of the Word. W e need to hearken to God’s injunction as found in 1 Thess. 5 :20— “ Despise not prophesyings.” I know of no better tonic to faith than the study of prophecy. Your doubts will disappear and your grip upon eternal verities will become stronger if you frequently turn to the prophecies of the Bible, with your accredited history before you, and trace through time the fulfillment o f the forth-tellings of God’s Prophets. Prophecy is naturally divided into two classes: First, that which has already been fulfilled; second, that which is still future. If we can establish the fact that beyond any peradventure of a doubt the first class has been accu rately fulfilled, we shall be compelled to believe that the second class will also be carried out to the most minute detail. T he J ew ish P rophecies Take a glimpse at the Jewish portion. Frederick the Great, king of Prussia, once asked his court chaplain to give him a clear and definite reason for believing the inspiration of the Scriptures. He made reply, “ The Jews, Your Majesty.” Napoleon was seated around the camp fire with his marshals, debating the question of religion. His marshals were infidels, and they asked him if there was. a God, and did he believe in God. Napoleon pointed to Marshal Mesena, who was a Jew, and said, “ Gentlemen, there is the unanswerable argument that there is a God.” It will strengthen your faith to see what has been prophe sied o f the Jews, and then discover how exactly it has been fulfilled.
“I have from the beginning declared it to thee; before it came I shewed it thee.” Isaiah 48:5.
E will all readily admit that this is a day of marvelous progress in the field of invention. We have made most astounding strides in the past decade. The last fifty years exceed in attainment the previous five hundred years. We are ■solving all problems and compelling
nature to yield all her long-concealed secrets. It is a long way from the ox-cart and the monthly periodical of our fathers to the automobile and radio of today, but only a few years span it. A two-fold incentive has been responsible for this mar velous advance in knowledge and invention. In the first place it has been of great monetary advantage to bring forth something new. The originator of a new idea or the inventor of a new implement has often reaped great finan cial benefit, and this has been a strong incentive to achieve ment. In the second place, the peculiar inquisitiveness with which the race is equipped has been constantly urging us to break through the door of all hidden mysteries, and to rob nature of her stored-up potentialities. Not the greatest, possibly, but among the great inven tions of man may be mentioned the telescope, that power ful eye that brings the planets to our door and makes us neighbors o f the stars. There is a great fascination in reading the story of the inception, the improvement and perfecting of the telescope; or to visit the laboratories of such great pioneers as Newton, Huyghens, Cassini, Greg ory, Herschel, Lord Rosse and Dr. Blair. Were we per mitted to visit some of the larger telescopes, of the world and look through their lenses, we would marvel at the beauty and magnitude of God’s handiwork in the heavens. The largest telescope is the one presented to Chicago Uni versity by Charles F. Yerkes, the railroad magnate. It is located at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. It has a lense o f forty inches o f clear aperture. You very naturally marvel at an instrument which can bring distant planets to us-, cause us to see the surface of the moon and permit us to gaze into vast cavernous open ings o f the sun; but what would you think of a telescope that would permit you to penetrate the unknown future and behold persons and transactions many centurieg be fore they are brought into being ? What would you think were I to tell you that it has been demonstrated that men could look through a telescope and be able to see actual events, even in minute detail, as yet enveloped in the unborn ages, two hundred years ahead? Such vision has not only been made’ but a careful record of the vision has been kept as a challenge to future ages as to its reliability and authenticity. We talk of forecasting the weather conditions, You look in your daily paper for such a forecast, but there is no claim made to any ability to penetrate the veil of the future. Calculations are made, based upon observation o f certain prevalent conditions, wfiich quite accurately forecast the climatic character of the next twenty-four
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