August, 1935
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
294
“wear out the saints of the Most High” (Dan. 7 :25; cf. Rev. 12:17; 13:7). The most fateful hour of human story, save the hour of Calvary, is at hand! The Jews refuse to worship “the image of the beast” (Rev. 13:14, 15). Nebuchadnezzar repeats. The furnace of Jewish tribulation is again heated—this time hotter than “since the beginning of the world to this time”—hotter than it will ever be again (cf. Matt. 24:21). I srael ’ s G reat D eliverance F rom t h e M aw of t h e B east But, thanks be to God, again “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego” “shall be saved out of it” (Jer. 30:7). When Israel goes into the furnace, a hitherto unanswered cry reaches the ears of Israel’s God: “Cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Jehovah" (Joel 3:11, R.V.). Suddenly, the heavens open above an astonished godless world, the “King of Kings, and Lord o f Lords” rides forth, and the nations of the earth, assembled beneath their Satan- incarnated leader, bite the dust to rise no more (cf. Rev. 19). When the winds of God sweep the dust of the foes of our God and His Christ into the seas of oblivion, then, and not before, “the voice of weeping shall be no more heard” (Isa. 65 :19). Glory to His name forever! A W onderful H our in W h ic h to L ive Meanwhile, in the present hour and in the light of the revelation of our God, it is interesting to note that a Roman dictator, scorning to recognize any power save “the god of fortresses,” heeding not the growling of the British lion, is mobilizing his legions, the vanguard already march ing, and that Ethiopia is the prize. The present hour is filled with wonderful potenti alities. How the prophets of old would rejoice to see this hour! Awful as are the prospects to an unregenerate world, for the child of God it is glorious to be alive—and to watch and wait! chemistry, or philosophy. Finally, we know nothing about the future, the future for this earth, the future of our own souls, a future of glory, bliss, new life, a new body, a home in heaven, except we know it from the Word of God. Our hope is in what God has here revealed, or we have no hope that is worthy of the name. This is what has been commit ted to us as gospel preachers. To allow secular literature, the discoveries of man, the theories of scholars, even the exploration of the natural world, to take the place of the Scriptures, in our thinking and our reading, is to be false to the high calling which we have in Christ Jesus as heralds of His gospel. A minister whose reading hours are disproportionately occupied with secular reading is bound, sooner or later, to have a secular viewpoint, and, instead of seeing things as God sees them, and as God has revealed them in His Word, he is tempted to see things as man sees them, and, worse than that, as unredeemed man sees them. What an awful thing for any believer to take his moral standards today from our contemporary fiction in all of its rottenness! To go into the pulpit on Sunday morning and face hun dreds of eternal souls created for divine truth—and only reaching their greatest capacities for joy,- power, and love in the contemplation of divine truth—with long quotations from standard magazines, newspapers, and the latest ver dicts from the laboratory or the archaeologist’s camp, is to starve those who cry out for the Bread that cometh down from heaven. [To be concluded next month ] THE MINISTER’S SECULAR READING [Continued from page 291]
“ T h e K in g of th e S o u t h ” F alls B efore t h e W il l fu l K ing
On rides the great Fascist, on Allenby’s footprints, re versing, however, the direction of the march, until he comes face to face with his foe in Ethiopia and Egypt. Armaged don begins in Egypt. The issue of the battle between the Roman “prince that shall come” and “the king of the south” has been predetermined by God -8 “the land of Egypt shall not escape" out of the hand of the conqueror; “but he shall have power . . . over all the precious things o f Egypt.” Let Britain read! “And the Libyans [Africans] and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps”! Read that again! Now read your newspaper! Behold, what pawns in the hands of Israel’s God are the nations that lift their fists to His face! How He moves the Nebuchadnezzars, Alex anders, and Caesars at His will! They march to do their wills! Behold, they do the will of Him whom they hate! G og , “T h e K in g of t h e N orth ,” F alls B efore t h e W il l fu l K ing Conquering “the king of the south,” and with Egypt, Ethiopia, and the Libyans in his grasp, divine judgment now having fallen upon the Socialistic nations that put their trust in “brains” instead of the Christ of God, this un conscious “sword” of God, the Roman Fascist, is suddenly the recipient of distressing tidings. “Tidings out of the east and out o f the north shall trouble him ." What may these “tidings” be? Does not the prophet Ezekiel give us light? Is it not at this strategic moment for Gog, hating the Fascist as he does, with an exceedingly bitter hate, to “think an evil thought”-;—to take advantage of the fact that his Roman foe is heavily engaged in battle against “the king of the south”—and to say: “I will go up to the land of unwalled villages . . . against the people that are gathered out of the nations . . . to take a spoil” (Ezek. 38: 8-12) ? Is not the Fascist in Ethiopia “to take a spoil” ? Why, then, should not the Communist go and do likewise ? Thus the great Communistic “king of the north” mobilizes and marches to the slaughter! Meantime, the Fascist, with a mighty blow, prostrates “the king of the south.” Then, with an anger that knows no bounds, he whirls about his conquering legions and goes “forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly . . . make away many” (Dan. 11:44)— even Gog and all his ill-advised hordes. After his great victory in Egypt, no earthly power except Gog stands in the way of the new Caesar’s dream of absolute world dominion. Gog and Roman, Communist and Fascist, meet “upon the mountains of Israel” (Ezek. 39 :2-4). The Fascist becomes the “sword” (Ezek. 38 :21) of God for the awful judgment of Gog and his anti-God allies. When that battle is over, Gog occupies a cemetery in “the valley of Hamon-gog” (Ezek. 39:11), and the Communistic dream of a godless world is over. T h e F ascist B east W ars w it h t h e S a in ts The Fascist alone remains—bloody but still unbowed! The shout reverberates through all the ea rth : “Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?” (Rev. 13:4). The sword-worshiping Alexander again weeps for worlds to conquer! Finding no more political foes that can match swords with him, this “man of sin” now turns his attention to religious foes—to any and all who may oppose his pretentious claims to deityship. He it is “who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God” (2 Thess. 2 :4). The church has been “caught up” (1 Thess. 4:16, 17) beyond his persecuting power. The Jews remain. Always and always—the Jew remains. Against this rock of agesl the Roman beast now hurls himself. He goes forth to
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