T<span style="display:none">.</span>HE visions of God given to the seer on Patmos swing from seal to trumpet, from opening revelations of God's wondrous love and sacrifice, to man's ingratitude and its results. More is yet to be told of the results of sin. All could not be told in the direct vision of the seals. A certain phase was covered, the consequences of turning from the Gospel of God. But while these consequences have fallen upon the peoples of nations, the nations themselves do not fall within the prophetic field of the seals. War, famine, destruction by wild beasts and death, follow transgression of God's law and the rejection of His means of grace. The very earth becomes convulsed in agony for her Master's coming.
In this vision it is not the breaking of the seal, the disclosure or unfoldment of a mystery; it is the loud peal of a trumpet calling the nations to war. The number seven denotes completeness, and includes all the wars of changing empire which have ravaged the earth during the Christian era. We may expect that the symbolism will be highly wrought, trumpets, thunders, lightnings, convulsions, marching hosts, fearful devastations. "The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will." This great lesson God has ever kept before the nations.
The Answer of the Text
1. After the silence in heaven, at the time of Christ's coming at the close of the seventh seal, what did John see?
And I saw the seven angels that stand before God; and there were given unto them seven trumpets.
2. But before the great prophecy opens, what assurance is given?
And another angel came and stood over the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should add it unto the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel's hand.
3. What was the culmination of this work of the intercessors?
And the angel taketh the censer; and he filled it with the fire of the altar, and cast it upon the earth: and there followed thunders, and voices, and lightnings, and an earthquake.
4. To what was John's mind again turned?
And the seven angels that had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.
5. What occurred when the first angel sounded?
And the first sounded, and there followed hail and fire, mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of the earth was burnt up, and the third part of the trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.
6. What followed the sounding of the second angel?
And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood; and there died the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, even they that had life; and the third part of the ships was destroyed.
7. When the third trumpet sounded, what was seen?
And the third angel sounded, and there fell from heaven a great star, burning as a torch, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of the waters; and the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.
8. What occurred when the fourth trumpet was blown?
And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; that the third part of them should be darkened, and the day should not shine for the third part of it, and the night in like manner.
9. What kind of warning was then given?
And I saw, and I heard an eagle, flying in mid-heaven, saying with a great voice, Wo, wo, wo, for them that dwell on the earth, by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, who are yet to sound.
Note and Comment
1. The seven angels.—The language indicates that these angels had been waiting for their work, serving in waiting; "for they also serve who only stand and wait." The Lord had called them to an important mission. Trumpets were given them, indicative of war.
2. Angel, . . . altar, . . . incense, . . . prayers.—God will not leave His people hopeless. Sorrow may come to them, calamity may be assured them; He will not permit the coming of war till the assurance is given that their prayers are heard and God has made them effectual. The angel of incense precedes the angel of strife. The altar of incense is in the holy place in the sanctuary, just before the veil which separates from the most holy place. At this altar the ancient priests offered the perpetual incense morning and evening; and at the time of this offering, the people stood without, praying. See Ex. 30:1-8; Luke 1:8-10. That incense represents the "grace of supplication," the favor of God, which makes the imperfect prayers of supplicating mortals acceptable with God, so that the prayers themselves, clothed and shaped and refined by the Spirit of God, are as sweet incense. Compare Rom. 8:26, 27 with Rev. 5:8. These prayers are remembered before God. They may not be answered to-day or to-morrow or this year; but they are recorded before Him, and they will be remembered and answered, even if necessary to overthrow nations in order to do it.
3. The fire of the altar.—Once again the angel visits the altar in his work of symbolism. This time he offers no incense; that work is over; mercy's door is closed; the last prayers have been offered; the last divine appeal to men has been made; the earth has filled up her cup of iniquity; the fire from the altar is cast from a censer to the earth, and there follows the culmination of the just wrath of God upon a world without excuse, this wrath represented by thunder, voices, lightnings, and an earthquake, to which the seven trumpets are the prolonged prelude. Compare with chapter 16:18. The Spirit of God is poured out in regenerating, re-creating power upon His children. The wicked are baptized with fire and perish.
4. To sound.—After God's assurance to His children that they should be remembered and their prayers heard, the angels with the trumpets go forth. They do not sound contemporaneously, tho in results they sometimes overlap. The trumpets indicate great events in the breaking up of the Roman Empire. Prepared themselves would indicate that these messengers of God entered upon His work with due deliberation, reverence, and care.
5. Hail, fire, etc.—Hail is indicative of the cold North and sweeping devastation; fire, of havoc and destruction; blood, the loss of life. All these were fitting symbols of the troubles which came upon Western Rome in a general way, the third part of the great former empire, the division made just previous to this by one of Rome's greatest emperors, Constantine. Bayley well remarks, "To enter minutely into the historical fulfilment of the first four trumpets would be very nearly to transcribe the pages of Gibbon." God uses the empires of earth. He used Babylon till every principle of truth and righteous rule was rejected, and then Medo-Persia came to the throne of the world. In the same way Grecia and Rome followed. In the midst of the latter came the manifestations of the Christ, the beginning of the7church of the Christian dispensation. The empire became more and more corrupt as men set themselves against the only religion which could purify. War and famine and plague followed. Extravagant luxury, vice, effeminateness, weakness, cruelty, grew apace, till the very church designed of God to be the salt of the earth, had lost her keeping power, and was drifting with the State to destruction.
In God's wisdom the mighty empire must be broken. Therefore from the North came the agencies of breaking it, the Goths and the Germans. Scarcely had the Emperor Theodosius died in 395 before the Gothic nation under Alaric was in arms. In 396 the tempest burst upon Thessaly, Greece, Epirus, the Peloponnesus. We are told that the land trembled in terror. "The travelers who visited Greece several years afterward could easily discover the deep and bloody traces of the march of the Goths." This, however, was a prelude to his descent at the head of the Visigoths upon Rome a little later. It is said that he told an Italian hermit that "he felt a secret preternatural impulse which directed and even compelled his march to the gates of Rome." Three times he passed the Alps to the Italian plains, marking his course with ravage, conflagration, and blood, till the gates of Rome were opened before him, and "the Gothic fires blazed around the capital." In the meantime the Germans under Rhadagasius, perhaps a Slavonian chief, with a host of Vandals, Suevi, Burgundians, and Goths, had swept down from the Far North on Italy. A part of their vast horde were fearfully defeated at Florence by Stilicho; but another division turned westward and overran Gaul and Spain, and their path was marked, as was that of Alaric and his Goths, with destruction, conflagrations, pillage, and blood. Gibbon declares, "The scene of peace and plenty was suddenly changed into a desert, and the prospect of the smoking ruins could alone distinguish the solitude of nature and the desolation of man."
Of this invasion of these combined Northern tribes, Gibbon says: "This memorable passage of the Suevi, the Vandals, the Alani, and the Burgundians, who never afterwards retreated, may be considered as the fall of the Roman Empire in the countries beyond the Alps. The barriers which had so long separated the savage and civilized nations were from that fatal moment leveled to the ground."
After the death of the brave and able Stilicho, Alaric again ravaged Italy; and the proud mistress of the world, which for more than six centuries had never submitted to a foreign foe, was humbled by the bold barbarians of the North. Yet the Gothic King was merciful compared with Charles V, for he remained in the city but six days. From Rome Alaric designed the conquest of Africa, but his death in 410 put an end to his ambition. He had wrought his work in the breaking of Rome. The next blow was to fall from a different quarter.
6. Second angel.—Following the second trumpet's sounding, a burning mountain was cast into the sea. "A burnt mountain" represents a destroyed kingdom, once a destroying mountain, or kingdom. Jer. 51:25. "A burning mountain" would fittingly symbolize a destroying kingdom, or power. This blow upon Rome comes from the sea side of the empire, the South, and is a symbol of the "terrible Genseric" with his Vandal hordes, who had established themselves in North Africa. Here, after conquering Roman Africa, he created a great naval power, and aspired to the control of the Mediterranean. He conquered Sicily and Sardinia, ravaged the coasts of Spain, Gaul, and Italy, and captured Rome; and his plunder of the imperial city lasted fourteen days. He was checked after this in his ravages for a time by Majorian; but after the death of that brave and prudent ruler his power arose till in 468 he destroyed, by treachery, fire, and fighting, an immense Roman fleet sent against him. That part of Rome to the south was effectually pillaged, devastated, and broken by Genseric the Vandal.
7. The third angel.—This highly symbolic language refers to another series of judgments which fell upon Rome from the East under Attila the Hun, "the scourge of God," in all probability a Turk. He was considered by many of his subjects supernatural. His career in the light of the prophecy opens long before that of Genseric closes. He began his reign by laying exorbitant tribute upon and exacting humiliating conditions of the Roman Empire of the East, in 433. The first attack on the Eastern Empire came in 441, ravaging as far as Constantinople. Keeping the empire in terror of his name, and suffering sometimes himself partial defeat for nearly a decade of years, in 452 he invaded Italy. City after city was obliterated. The combined cruelty of Alaric and Genseric was surpassed by that of "the scourge of God." He boasted, says Gibbon, that "the grass never grew on the spot where his horse had trodden." He was cut off by apoplexy 453. He had made bitter the Roman Empire, symbolized by its rivers, from Italy eastward. Thousands had drunk of the waters of despoliation, famine, treachery, fear, and death. He did his work and died.
8. The fourth angel.—We need not take much space in our explanation. The sun of Western Rome was the emperor; and the moon and stars, the lesser lights, were the lesser officers. The incursions from barbarians from the North and the South and the East had utterly broken the corrupt, vicious, internally weakened fabric of the Roman government. Roman province after province had been lost. Its once invincible armies, if armies could be recruited, were everywhere defeated. Empty titles and ornate·form were all that remained. Twenty years after the death of Attila, the last Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustus, occupied the tottering throne. It has been well remarked that there is matter for reflection in the name. The first King of Rome was Romulus, the last Emperor was Romulus. The first Emperor was Augustus, the last was Augustus, nicknamed Augustulus, the little Augustus. Odoacer, chief of the Heruli, a barbarian remnant of the host of Attila, left on the frontier of Italy, interposed with his command that the name and office of the Roman emperor of the West should be abolished. The authorities bowed in submission to him. Odoacer governed Italy under the title of Patrician. Not long after the Roman Senate was dissolved, the consulship was abolished.
The third part so frequently mentioned, referring to the tripartite division of the empire made by Constantine, almost wholly referring to the Western division, was broken, humiliated, abolished. Sometimes one section was punished, sometimes another. But the first four trumpets broke the power and empire of imperial Rome forever, just as the opening of the first four seals revealed a train of fourfold influences which once introduced continued to the end.
We do not recall one instance in history of a nation becoming reformed or regenerated within and of itself. Some power from without must quicken it into life. That is what Christianity has often done when it wrought its work on the hearts of men apart from civil power; but connected with civil power the union has proved an unmitigated curse to both Church and State. Thus it was in the Roman Empire.
9. Wo, wo, wo.—Still greater, heavier calamities await. For angel the Revised Version has eagle, one of God's mighty agencies perhaps, the fourth living creature of Rev. 4:7, the mighty host which speak on the opening of the fourth seal. Rev. 6:7. Thus are we brought to the divided empire of Rome, the rulers and people of which have not yet learned the great lesson which God would teach. Still more chastisement is necessary.
2. And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets.
3. And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.
4. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand.
5. And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth; and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake.
6. And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.
7. The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.
8. And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;
9. And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.
10. And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;
11. And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood: and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.
12. And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.
13. And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Wo, wo, wo, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound!
Uplift Jesus as the Center
By Milton C. Wilcox
"Let the Revelation speak and tell what is truth. . . . Uplift Jesus as the center of all hope."
Persons, Events, and Dates in the Roman Empire at the Beginning of the Christian Era
Not all the great personages or events are named; for that we have not space. The dates are from "The Cyclopedia of Classified Dates," by Charles E. Little (Funk and Wagnalls, publishers). These events are given to refresh the memory of those who have passed over the historical ground, and to stimulate study in those who have not.
Centuries I to III Inclusive
The era opens with Julius Caesar ruler of Rome, followed by Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian, Trajan (Rome's greatest extent of territory), Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Commodus, Severus, to 211. From 211 to 284 there were 23 emperors, of whom 20 died violent deaths from their soldiers, 1 died in battle, 1 in prison, and 1 of pestilence. Some, like Caracalla and Elagabalus, were monsters of vice and cruelty. Nine of the so-called ten pagan persecutions occurred during the first three centuries, beginning in the following years: 64, 70, 95, 100, 161, 197, 235, 249, 257, 274. Jesus Christ was crucified in 31; Jerusalem destroyed 70; John banished to Patmos 96. Tertullian, Clement, Irenaeus, Origen among the "early fathers." Disputes waged over Easter, festival days, monasticism, purgatory, etc. Diocletian reigned from 284 to 305. He divides the empire into Eastern and Western 285; he rules the East from Nicomedia 286; Maximian, his colleague, rules the West from Milan.
Century IV
The fourth century was a crucial one; tenth and last persecution 302-312; Constantine professed conversion in 312; reigned from 306 to 337; makes great gifts to church 314; issues first Sunday law 321; Council at Nice, Nicene creed adopted, 325; pagan sacrifices forbidden 341; Apostles' Creed formulated 355; Julian the apostate fails in attempt to build temple at Jerusalem 459; invocation of saints, reverence of cross, burning incense, counting of beads, celebration of mass, in this century. Senate decides in favor of Christianity 384; Theodosius issues edict for suppression of idolatry 392. The Huns appear in Russia 350; invade Pannonia (Hungary) 376; West Goths in Roman territory 369; Goths revolt 376; Alaric, King of West Goths, first appears in history 394; desolates Macedonia and takes Athens 395; ruler of East Illyricum 398; West Goths under Alaric first invade Italy 400.
Century V
Alaric invades Italy 408, 409; Genseric, the Vandal, invades Africa 429; makes Carthage his capital 439; invades Sicily 440; takes and pillages Rome 455. Attila, "the scourge of God," with hordes of Huns, ravages the Western Empire and invades Italy and threatens Rome 451, 452; dies 453. By these awful incursions and attacks from the north and south the great empire is broken and shattered. Heresy grows apace, and error is enthroned more and more in church, creed, and practise. Profitless wranglings on the nature of Christ are waged, councils held, monasticism flourishes, penances multiply. Fourth Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon gives equal authority to the patriarch of Constantinople, but not equal honor with the pope at Rome, 451. (The Greek Emperor Justinian first acknowledges the pope's supremacy 533.) Rome taken by Odoacer, leader of the Heruli, Romulus dethroned, title of emperor extinguished, 476; Senate abolished in 553; capital at Ravenna 554.
Necessity of the Second Coming of Christ, and of the Resurrection
By George W. Rine
By George W. Rine
THERE is no Christian doctrine whose roots ramify more widely throughout the broad reaches of the Holy Scriptures than do those of the second coming of Christ. It is impossible to read the Scriptures with an unbiased mind and not be convinced of the fact that the second advent of our Lord is one of the fundamentals of the Gospel. If the Bible teaches one thing more insistently than another, it is that our Lord's coming in glory is absolutely essential to complete human salvation.
If, as so many hold, the righteous entered into endless life and glory at death, and retributive judgment were visited upon the unrighteous at death, then surely there could be no place in the Gospel scheme for a second coming of Christ or for a resurrection from death. And if the second advent is non-essential, why should that doctrine be given so conspicuous a place in the teachings of Holy Writ? If, however, as we have seen, "there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom," where the dead are, and if the "dead know not anything," then a resurrection is an absolute prerequisite to eternal life. But the uniform teaching of the Scriptures makes the resurrection of the righteous dead an event incident to the second advent of Jesus. This being true, the second coming of Christ is an event essential to complete human salvation.
When Recompensed
While on earth, Jesus, on a certain occasion, accepted an invitation to a supper at the home of one who was professedly a spiritual leader in Israel. Always alert to give needed counsel, He said to the host: "When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not . . . thy rich neighbors; . . . and a recompense be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: . . . they can not recompense thee: for thou SHALT BE RECOMPENSED AT THE RESURRECTION OF THE JUST." Luke 14:12-14. NEVER does the Master even intimate that those who live for God and humanity in this life will receive any reward at death; but always at His second coming or at the resurrection of the just—two simultaneous events. Read Matt. 16:27 and Rev. 22:12, and observe that it is at His coming in glory, with all the holy angels, that Christ will reward "every man according as his work shall be." Assuredly, then, our Lord must come again, if we, His children, shall ever receive the crowning and eternal reward so often and so emphatically set forth in the Scriptures.
Not until He comes again will He sit upon the throne of His glory. Matt. 25:31. Hence His coming and the setting up of His kingdom are synchronous events. (See also 2 Tim. 4:1.) It indisputably follows, therefore, that it will be at His coming that He will summon His "innumerable company" of redeemed children with the supernally precious words, "Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Matt. 25:34. Are you seeking the kingdom of God, dear reader? Are you hoping to enter that kingdom? Do you hope to realize the Saviour's assurance that "it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom"? Assuredly you do. Then should you not hope in, work for, and look for the glorious advent of the Redeemer?
His Personal Presence
Every Christian must cherish a supreme longing to dwell in the visible, personal presence of Christ. The object of his longing must sometime be realized. But when? and how? At death? Not if the Scriptures are true. If the Redeemer's children went into His presence at death, He would not need to "come again" in order to receive them to Himself, that where He is, there they might be also. You will remember that when our Lord told His disciples that He was about to leave them in person and return to His Father, their hearts were wrung with sorrow. They could not endure the thought of being separated from their beloved Master's visible presence. How did He proceed to reassure and console them? Ah, He assured them that He was going away to prepare a place (a kingdom) for them, and that He would "come again" to receive them to Himself, and thus they should dwell with Him eternally in His coming kingdom. John 14:1-3. Of the same import is the inspired apostle's declaration, "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, THEN shall ye also appear WITH HIM IN GLORY." Col. 3:4.
We see, then, that the Spirit of inspiration has, in the clearest possible language, set forth the fact that the saints will not enter into their eternal inheritance, into the ageless kingdom which the Father has prepared for them, until the Redeemer shall come again in the plenitude of heavenly glory.
The Hope of the Ages
Through the apostle Paul, the Spirit of God utters this sublime prophetic truth: "Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep [the sleep of death], but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. . . . Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory." 1 Cor. 15:51-54. In 1 Thess. 4:16-18 we are expressly told that the "trumpet shall sound" as an incident of the second coming of the Lord, and that "the dead in Christ shall rise" then. We now see that the CHANGE from MORTALITY TO IMMORTALITY will be effected when the "dead shall be raised incorruptible," at the glorious appearing of our Lord. Does man now possess immortality? If he did, how could he put it on "at the last trump"? "This mortal" is the designation given to man in his present state, by the divine Spirit. Read Job 19:25, 26, and note the certainty with which he knew that his Redeemer should stand in the latter day upon the earth; and tho he knew that his body would be dissolved in the grave, "yet," he affirms, "in my flesh shall I see God." Not as a disembodied spirit, at his death, did Job hope to see God; but in his flesh, that is, in his risen and glorified body, would he see God, and enter into life eternal. For it is when our Lord shall come again that our vile bodies shall be changed, and "fashioned like unto His glorious body," as expressly declared in Phil. 3:20, 21.
King David, the sweet singer of Israel, prophesied regarding his own future hope in this poetic fashion: "As for me, I will behold Thy [God's] face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness." Ps. 17:15. Unquestionably David refers to his awakening from death, which is so often referred to in the Scriptures as a "sleep." To awake from death is to be raised from death. It was, then, in a resurrection that the psalmist hoped for the satisfaction and the joy which entrance into everlasting life would confer. He did not hope for the realization of eternal life at death, but at the glad time when death should be "swallowed up in victory"—at the resurrection of the "dead in Christ." More than a thousand years later, Peter, under Pentecostal inspiration, testified that David was dead and buried,9and had not yet—in Peter's day—"ascended into the heavens." Acts 2:29, 34.
Our Only Hope
Reverting to the testimony of the Holy Spirit, given through the apostle Paul, we learn, first, that "if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins." 1 Cor. 15:16, 17. In this inspired argument the premise is the proposition, "If the dead rise not." If the dead do not rise, what inevitably follows? Answer: Christ is not raised, and the faith of His followers is vain. But there is a second conclusion drawn from the apostle's premise, "If the dead rise not;" namely, that "they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." Paul here leaves no room for debate or for difference of opinion. He unmistakably declares that not only the unrighteous dead, but even the dead in Christ "are perished," if there is no resurrection from the dead. Paul's conclusion could not possibly be true if the dead are not actually dead, but live as disembodied, rational spirits in purgatory or in Paradise or in heaven. But scores of times the inspired writers of the Bible affirm that the dead WILL rise; and hence "the dead in Christ" will not perish.
As recorded in Phil. 3:8-11, Paul was willing, in order to realize a certain end, to suffer the loss of all things temporal. Why? Here is his own answer: "If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." Why was Paul willing to suffer the loss of anything conceivable which would insure his being raised from the dead? Simply because he knew that there is no other possible avenue to eternal life except by a resurrection from death.
In view of what we have learned, it is not in the least surprising to find that the Spirit of inspiration should characterize the glorious appearing of our Saviour as "that BLESSED HOPE" to all who at the time of His appearing shall be found LOOKING for Him. Titus 2:11-13. Every one of the exceeding great and precious promises of God is for the Christian a distinct hope; but the promise that Jesus will come again, God Himself marks off as the distinctively "blessed hope." How appropriate! For upon the realization of "that blessed hope" is contingent the realization of every other possible hope.
Are you and I, dear reader, "by patient continuance in well-doing," seeking "for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life"? If so, all this shall be ours at His "glorious appearing." Shall we not watch, and work, and pray for His coming? If Jesus is the joy and rejoicing of our hearts, will we not, with the beloved apostle, yearningly pray, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus"?
GOING home, going home to that bright land forever,
Never-more to travel upon earth's weary way;
Free from pain and sorrow and sin and sickness ever,
In the glad light to dwell, of God's eternal day.
Going home, going home, with parted friends and loved ones.
O, the joy of being with them, never-more to roam!
All clad in robes of beauty and shining as the suns,
What happiness to see them in that blessed home!
Going home, going home, with hosts of shining angels,
Through the starry regions and blazing suns on high,
Singing of redemption, the song of earth and heaven,
The song of future ages, which will never die.
Going home, going home, to be with Jesus ever
Where He's King of Kings. He'll wipe away our tears.
O, the joy of knowing that there is naught can sever
Us from our dear Saviour throughout eternal years!
Going home, going home! That happy time is nearing.
How it does inspire us to always faithful be!
No words are so comforting, no words are so cheering,
To think of going home to spend eternity!
Burlington, Iowa.
Christ’s Righteousness and Sabbath Obedience
THE imputed righteousness of God in Christ avails for the repentant sinner. But Christ wrought out that righteousness in implicit, perfect obedience to God's law. The only righteousness Jesus has for Sabbath-breaking is His perfect observance of the seventh day.
The Kingdom of Satan
By H. A. St. John
III. Third Phase of Satan's Kingdom
We come now to consider the third and last phase of Satan's experience, in his herculean efforts to govern a world. In this trinity of mighty struggles to build up and reign over a world kingdom, we shall see the legitimate and inevitable outcome of every effort of rebellion against our holy, just, and loving heavenly Father above.
After one thousand years in the bottomless pit, with the whole world to roam over without molestation, Satan's period in that dismal void will terminate. Into that gloom will suddenly break Jesus in all His glory, with all His holy angels, and the hosts of redeemed saints. Christ, with His mighty key—the voice of the Archangel, and the trump of God—calls forth to life the hosts of Satan's subjects. The rest of the dead then live again. They instinctively flee from the presence of all the shining ones. No sooner do the feet of Jesus touch the Mount of Olives, than the mountain cleaves asunder, and, together with Mount Zion, Mount Moriah, Mount Calvary, and several other mountains of note in Christian history, will be leveled into a beautiful plain, ever to be remembered because of the sacred events in the history of its mountain soil. On this beautiful plain the New Jerusalem in all its glory will be located.
Satan begins at once his work of deception upon the resurrected wicked. He inspires them with the purpose to besiege and capture the holy city, then he will have light, glory, and a magnificent capital. Then Jesus and the redeemed appear in dazzling glory above the city. With one voice the wicked hosts exclaim, "Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord." No language, either spoken or written, can portray the power and majesty of Christ. As the wicked behold the saints in glory, and themselves cast out, they have a sense of what they have lost, and acknowledge the justice of their doom. Then Satan will be fully unmasked, and will confess the justice of his sentence.
After the final coronation of Christ, the heavens are overcast, and there begins a rain of brimstone, followed by a rain of fire, which envelops the whole earth. But the holy city is unharmed amid the everlasting burning. All the wicked, like stubble, are burned up, root and branch. It is the day of judgment and perdition of all the ungodly. The works of sin and the curse are all burned up, and burned out of the whole earth. Then the devouring flame will gradually subside. The last flickering blaze will mark the spot where Satan himself expires. Then will end forever Satan and his kingdom. And God will have a clean universe.
H. A. ST. JOHN.
A Work and a Man for Every Task
“If God has a work for every man, He has a man for every work.”
Conversation Becoming the Gospel
"LET your conversation be as it becometh the Gospel of Christ." Phil. 1: 27.
