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Signs of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 32.

Conditions of Prevailing Prayer
Earlier text: Conditions of Prevailing Prayer

Why Watch and Wait?

By Dr. Cumming

"Watch therefore; for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh." Matt. 25: 13.
THE promise of the Saviour's coming is the key-note of prophecy. "This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into Heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go." Again, "He will come in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory." Again, "Looking for that blessed hope, the glorious appearing of Jesus Christ, our God and Saviour." "We shall appear with him in glory." "The Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints." Again, said that ancient and afflicted emir, seated in the sunshine, on his Eastern plains, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth." The Psalms are full of predictions of the advent of our blessed Lord. In the fiftieth psalm: "Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence; a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people. Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice;" or in New Testament language, "Come, ye blessed of my Father." And the Saviour himself tells us, in language the most graphic, "The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works." And Peter says, "When the Chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away." And John in the Apocalypse, says, "Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him." When Jesus said, at the close of that splendid vision which irradiated with its noon-day splendor the lonely island on the bosom of the Ægean, "Surely I come quickly," the last words of John, the beloved disciple, with which he closed his vision, were these: "Amen [so let it be]. Even so, come, Lord Jesus."
Christ is the end of creation and redemption; he is the perfection to which all imperfection soars; the glory to which all the fallen creation aspires; the great model to which humanity in its noblest specimens shall be conformed; the Sun of Righteousness, in whose light we shall see light.
But what is there in the promised advent of Christ that makes his advent the desire and the aspiration of all who know him? We desire his speedy approach because we shall see him as he is, not as he was—the Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with grief, wounded and stricken for our transgressions,—but crowned with the diadems of creation, providence, redemption; angels adoring, and prostrate millions casting their crowns in flashing showers at his feet, and saying: "Not unto us, but unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood; to him be glory and dominion forever and ever." If we believe in what he has done; if we love him as the Author and the Finisher of our faith, as the friend longs for the presence of his best friend, as the family longs for the return of its parent and its head, as the bride longs for the arrival of the bridegroom, when he comes to accept her as his wife, so must we, like John, desire the advent of him who comes to right a creation that has gone wrong, and to restore a glory that has passed away like a vision. Surely, when he comes amid welcoming shouts and hosannas, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord," we too will praise and glorify and worship him.
When he comes, we shall be like him. These bodies of ours, which have been so much deteriorated by sin, shall be restored and reconsecrated. Between Eve in ancient Eden before the fall, and the fairest of her daughters upon earth, there is, I do not say an infinite, but a very great contrast. In every instance, bodily as well as morally, the gold is become dim, the fine gold is changed, the wine is mixed with water, the crown of glory and of beauty is fallen from our heads. But at that day we shall rise in resurrection robes, the cold and corruptible garments of mortality consigned to the grave. There will be left no trace of corruption, or imperfection, or aught of the ravages and taint of a great primal sin. Eye, and ear, and all our senses shall be perfect as they shall be pure. This mortal shall put on immortality; this corruptible shall put on incorruptibility. Every sense shall be an inlet to joy; every sensation shall be as blissful as it is pure.
The Bridegroom will come, and those on whom the cold shadow of death has lain for many a long and weary year, he will waken from the sleep of death and bring with him. The babes that fell from the tree of life, and the gray-haired men that withered by the wear of years by its branches, the fair, the beautiful, the holy ones that we would have kept because we loved them, will all reappear, with not one blemish left upon a single brow; not one rude mark remaining on the spirit; not one sting in any heart; all sensations, bliss; all sights, beauty; all sounds, music. The bride shall receive the Bridegroom, and she shall no more go out; "and there shall be no more tears." How beautiful the Apocalyptic passage; it is almost music to hear it. And there shall be no more tears, nor sorrows, nor crying, nor death; all things shall be made new.
When our blessed Lord comes, all creation will be purified and reconsecrated. Some think that this earth has become so vile that the sooner it is extinguished the better. They think that it is unworthy of God to retain an orb so poor, so sin-stained, and that it had better be canceled and a lovelier placed in its orbit. There is no prediction of such a catastrophe in the Bible. The deeper we penetrate the arena of nature, the clearer is the proof that annihilation is not possible, and certainly is not fact. But apart from this, would it not be a grievous loss were a world of so historic antecedents as ours expunged from its orbit, and dismissed over the depths of oblivion forever? What! shall the atmosphere breathed by the incarnate God cease to exist? Shall the flowers that those eyes looked on, and the sweet sound of brooks, and waters, and winds, those ears heard, be all extinguished forever? Shall the Mount of Olives, from which he rose; the Mount Tabor, on which a transient gleam of his glory rested, be thrown down? Shall Calvary and Gethsemane be only names of things that no longer are? I cannot believe it; all the instincts of my nature revolt against the idea, and the instinctive desire in our hearts to perpetuate and preserve those historic scenes of the past, are ripples from the great tide of eternity, and in their measure they tell us God will not destroy scenes that superstition may, in its imperfect economy, pervert, which Christians treat only as they deserve, when they reverently remember them.
To destroy the earth would be to acknowledge and seal the success of Satan. What was the devil's attempt? To get the earth and us with it. What is he now? He is the prince of the power of the air. We don't see him, but he walks in our homes; he is here or there, for he goeth about seeking whom he may devour. He or his servants may now be whispering, "Oh! it is all nonsense; don't believe these things; you have your business to attend to; you must not enter into religious speculations."
Such a result would interrupt or reverse the great process that God has constantly pursued, and end the analogy that runs through all inspiration. The great law in revelation is not to destroy, and create other things instead, but to take old things and purify and restore them, so as to make them what they were or should be. All the Saviour's miracles are indications of this. When he opened the eyes of the blind, he did not take out the old orbs, and put in new ones, but he renewed the old ones. And when he unstopped the ears of the deaf, or laid the fever of the sick, or made the lame leap as the roe, or when he quickened the dead—these and indeed all his miracles were restorative and beneficent, as well as miraculous and divine. And therefore we believe the earth will not be destroyed. Indeed, Scripture expressly promises "a new heaven and a new earth." St. John does not say, I saw another heaven and another earth, as he would have said if it had been something substituted for the old. But does not "new" mean "another"? Certainly not. For instance, we read, "If any man be in Christ he is a new creature." Does not that mean that his identity disappears, and that he becomes another man? Not at all; he is changed, regenerated, transformed, and becomes new only in the noblest and intensest sense of that word. So this earth will be made a new earth; it will be disinfected and purified; the last fire will refine it as gold and silver; and Jesus, the great High Priest, will wave his priestly hand over it, and on that earth which has shared in our descent and has become corrupt, literally, not figuratively, its deserts will rejoice, its solitary places will blossom like the rose, the lion shall lie down with the lamb, and a little child shall lead them. These are not stray fancies, but assured facts and prophecies that must be accomplished. God has so written it in his holy word, and he will so arrange it in his providence.
When the Saviour comes, what will he do? He will come to prove that redemption is no failure; that his own word is no fable. Some cry, "Where is the promise of his coming? since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were." Others say, "Let us eat, drink, and be merry." But the believer says, Come, Lord Jesus, come speedily. And when he comes, he will show that not one jot has fallen under the least promise, but all has been exactly fulfilled; that Christianity, in the numbers of its converts, in the splendor of its theories, in the results and issues of its conflicts, is no failure, but has the pre-eminence in all things. That ancient servant Moses, that stern prophet Elijah, and all that believe in the Lamb, shall meet on a mountain the glory of which shall not fade, and in a day which shall have no night, and a blessedness which shall have no end. It will be seen that redemption was no mistake; that Christianity was no cunningly devised fable; that all that it predicts, but which thousands scoff at, and all that it claims, which thousands repudiate, it truthfully predicted and justly claimed,—all things made new; God in the midst of his people; the bride presented to the Bridegroom; creation restored; the earth animated by a new spirit; and all things purified, glorified, elevated, ennobled, will attest, as the voice of many waters, as the voice of a great multitude. "Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints."

"Ye Did It Not."

In the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew is given a vivid description of the day of Judgment. This description is from the lips of Jesus himself. Of all the utterances recorded in this chapter, none are more solemn than the answer given to those on the left hand of the Judge. In astonishment they cry out, "Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?" Then comes the crushing reply, "Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, my brethren, ye did it not to me." There is a mighty and eternal truth in these words. Men are lost because of what they do not do. Religion calls for action. The sinner must respond to the Spirit's striving, and the believer must be earnest and active in the divine life."
—Messiah's Herald.

Present Possession and Future Promise.

God's best gifts to his loved ones are not always in good things of immediate possession. Some who are very dear to God have only promises to live on; they walk by faith, and not by sight, all their lives through. In the glowing record of the ancient workers of faith, in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, it is said, with reference to the earlier patriarchs: "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth;" and, again, it is said, of the later men and women of God, at the close of that roll of fame: "And these all, having had witness borne to them through their faith, received not the promise"—in its fulfillment. This same truth is brought out most touchingly by Joshua, in his closing address to assembled Israel at Shechem. In repeating the story of God's dealings with his covenant people, Joshua tells of Abraham, called out from his Mesopotamian home, and promised an inheritance in the land of Canaan. "And I took your father Abraham; . . . and led him throughout all the land of Canaan," says the Lord, speaking by Joshua, "and [I] gave him—Isaac." All that Abraham received in the present was first a promise, and then a link with the next generation, to which the promise was handed down. Abraham never had a permanent possession in Canaan, except in a burial-place, and that he had to pay full price for. "And I gave unto Isaac, Jacob and Esau," continues the Lord. "And I gave unto Esau Mount Seir to possess it; but Jacob and his children went down into Egypt." Esau was the first one to receive solid earthly possessions; and that was because he despised promises, and preferred to have in hand whatever was to be his treasure. All the others lived and died "not having received the [fulfilled] promises," and not being dissatisfied with their lot. After this, as the Lord reminds his people, the Israelites had Canaan given into their hands to possess and to enjoy. But the sequel shows that that people did not walk so surely by sight as their fathers had walked by faith. After all, the best things which God could give to his children now, are not the things which show most in, and for, the present. Esau's share is not so desirable as Jacob's, in the long run. Neither a mess of pottage nor a real estate transfer is so good a portion, for a true-hearted child of God, as an inheritance in the promises. Esau and Jacob each chose what he preferred; and the Lord gave him what he chose. And the Lord is likely to give us that which we choose. Hot pottage and real estate do look tempting at times; but the promises are worth infinitely more. When the choice comes to us, we must decide for the one portion or the other. We cannot look for both.—Sel.

The Last Call.

By R. F. Cottrell

THE prophetic word of God and its fulfillment shut us up to the conclusion that the time has come for the closing message of probation to be given. This being so, earth has never before heard a message so solemn and important. The eternal destiny of the living generation is to be decided by it.
All the great lines of prophecy declare with united voice that the end of the world's sinful career is at hand. Every sign given in the word of God declares that the perils of the last days are upon us. Wickedness, as foretold, abounds; and infidelity and lawlessness have almost reached the highest summit, or rather lowest depth, possible.
The word and works of God being infallible, if the time has come for the last message, the message is come also; and we cannot reasonably come to any other conclusion but that the work now being done, claiming to be the fulfillment of the predicted message, is genuine—that it is in truth the work of God. How solemn then the warning message now being sounded through the earth! How important the precious moments that remain of probationary time! Oh, that God would help us to realize it! May we have grace to act as though we believe the truth that pertains to this time. Never did weightier responsibilities rest upon a people than those that rest upon those who know the thrilling truth connected with the Third Angel's Message.
Brethren, it is my highest aspiration to have a humble part in this work of the Lord—to do the very work which God would have me do. And I fervently pray God to grant me this portion, and still give me a part in his work. The reward of well-doing will be sure to all who shall have done well. R. F. COTTRELL.

PSALM LXI.

By William Wye Smith

Oh, hear me, Jehovah! attend to my prayer! From ends of the earth unto thee will I cry. When my heart is o'erburdened with sorrow and care, Oh, lead to the Rock that is higher than I!
My shade and my shelter thou ever hast been! My tower of defense, that security brings! Let me dwell in the courts where thy glory is seen, And trust evermore in the shade of thy wings.
O God, thou hast heard and accepted my vow, And giv'st me a portion with those that are thine; Thou wilt lengthen the life of thy servant below, And establish his throne in Immanuel's line.
He ever doth sit before God as a king, And thy mercy and truth shall surround him for aye; For this unto thee endless praise will I sing, And daily my vows to thy name will I pay. —Rev. William Wye Smith.

Jesus Weeping.

W. G. SCHAUFFLER draws the following interesting reflections on the tenderness which Jesus manifested over human suffering:—
“Jesus wept over the woes of a single city; and do you think that he never wept over the woes of a world? He wept in public, where he certainly would have restrained his feelings as much as possible; and do you not think he wept in secret? Could we lift the sacred veil of his solitary hours, of his seasons of retirement while an obscure workman at Nazareth, of his forty days' fasting and prayer in the wilderness, of his vigils on the mountain-top and in the desert, what prayers, what intercessions, what tears, what tender and heavenly sympathies with the sorrows and woes of humanity would come to light! His affections were not limited to Judea; he did not love those merely who loved him. He wept at the grave of Lazarus, and over the distress of Martha and Mary; and why not over the great congregation of the dead of a hundred and thirty generations past; and over all the broken hearts of widows and orphans from the beginning of the world? Why not over the distresses of all the sick, the delirium of the deranged, the agonies of the dying? Do you not see why he went about with restless assiduity to console, to comfort, to bind up broken hearts, raising the dead, curing and cleansing and restoring men to the enjoyment of health, sight, hearing, and reason? How could he do otherwise, with a heart like his? He would have done so, though no man would have believed in him on that account, or returned to him a grateful word or look.”

Temptations and Christian Growth

TEMPTATIONS are among the means of Christian growth. Every time that a temptation is mastered, and we are able to say, "Get thee behind me, Satan," we add another link to our armor. When trials are courageously surmounted, when the plot which is laid for our destruction is frustrated, we feel the thrill of victory, and are stronger than before.—Sel.

The Highlander's Prayer.

By Hugh Miller

A Scotch Highlander, who served in the first disastrous war with the American colonies, was brought before the commanding officer one evening charged with the capital offense of being in communication with the enemy. The charge could not well be preferred at a more dangerous time. Only a few weeks had elapsed since Major Andre had been executed, and the indignation of the British, exasperated almost to madness by this event, had not yet cooled down. There was, however, no direct proof against the Highlander. He had been seen in the gray of the twilight stealing out from a clump of underwood that bordered on the forests which at that period covered the greater part of the United Colonies, and which, in the immediate neighborhood of the British, swarmed with the troops of Washington. All the rest was mere inference and conjecture. The poor man's defense was summed up in a very few words. He had stolen away from his fellows, he said, to spend an hour or two in secret prayer.
"Have you been in the habit of spending hours in secret prayer?" sternly asked the officer, himself a Scotchman.
The Highlander replied in the affirmative.
"Then," said the officer, drawing out his watch, "never in all your life had you more need for prayer than now; kneel down, sir, and pray aloud that we may hear you."
The Highlander, in expectation of instant death, knelt down. His prayer was that of one long acquainted with the appropriate language in which the Christian addressed his God. It breathed an imminent peril, and earnestly implored the divine interposition in the threatening danger—the help of Him who in times of extremity is strong to deliver. It exhibited, in short, a man who was thoroughly conversant with the scheme of redemption, and fully impressed with the necessity of personal interest in the advantages it secures, had made the business of salvation the work of many a solitary hour, and had in consequence acquired much fluency in expressing all his various wants as they occurred, and his thoughts and wishes as they arose.
"You may go, sir," said the officer, when he concluded; "you have, I dare say, not been in correspondence with the enemy to-night."
"His statement," he continued, addressing himself to the officers, "is undoubtedly correct. No one could have prayed so without a long apprenticeship; fellows who never attend drill always get ill at review."

Sentiments of Rome.

To GIVE the Bible to the laity, is to cast pearls before swine.—Cardinal Hosius.
There is no other remedy for the evil but to put heretics (Protestants) to death.—Belarmine.
Let the public school system go to where it came from—the devil.—Freeman's Journal.
We hate Protestantism; we detest it with our whole heart and soul.—Catholic Visitor.
We will take this country and build our institutions over the grave of Protestantism.—Priest Hecker.
Religious liberty is only endured until the opposite can be carried into effect.—Bishop O'Connor.
God's tribunal and the pope's tribunal are the same. All others are his subjects.—Muscovius.
I would as soon administer the sacraments to a dog as to Catholics who send their children to the public schools.—Priest Walker.
We are not advocates of religious freedom, and we repeat we are not.—Shepherd of the Valley.

The Sabbath-School.

By Ellet Joseph Waggoner

LESSON FOR THE PACIFIC COAST — SEPT. 13.

  1. How should we live in this world? Titus 2: 11, 12.
  2. For what are we to be looking? Verse 13.
  3. What is the blessed hope?
  4. Why is the coming of the Lord called a blessed hope? John 14: 3.
  5. By what means are the followers of Christ taken to be with him? 1 Thess. 4: 16, 17.
  6. Are we to hope for an immediate reward for our good deeds? Luke 14: 12.
  7. When are we to expect our recompense? Verses 13, 14.
  8. When does the resurrection of the dead take place? Give proof.
  9. What did Christ promise those who believe on him? John 6: 40.
  10. When did the prophet David say that he would be satisfied? Ps. 17: 15.
  11. And when will the saints be in the likeness of Christ? 1 John 3: 2.
  12. For what was Paul persecuted by the Jews? Acts 26: 6, 7.
  13. On another occasion how did he define his hope? Acts 23: 6.
  14. Then what fact do we learn from Acts 26: 6, 7?
  15. What sustained Abraham when he was commanded to offer up Isaac? Heb. 11: 17-19.
  16. What comforted Job in his affliction? Job 19: 25-27.
  17. What did the prophet Isaiah say of a resurrection? Isa. 26: 19.
  18. At what time did he locate it? Verse 21.
  19. Will any but the righteous have a resurrection? Acts 24: 14, 15.
  20. To what are the righteous raised? John 5: 28, 29.
  21. What kind of a resurrection do the wicked have? Ib.
IN the second chapter of Titus, Paul presents the proper manner for the Christian to live. "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present evil world." Verses 11, 12. Now what is the incentive which he sets forth for following such a course of life? "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." Verse 13. The apostle James makes the same point, when he exhorts us to be patient unto the coming of the Lord. James 5: 7. Then he cites the case of the husbandman who deposits seed in the ground, and then waits patiently. Why does he have patience? Because he expects in due season to reap the precious fruits of the earth. And the apostle concludes: "Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts; for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh." James 5: 8. The ground of the Christian's patience is the expectation that Christ will come to crown him with immortal glory.
AND this is why that hope is termed a blessed hope. "If I go and prepare a place for you," says Christ, "I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am there ye may be also." John 14: 3. There can be no blessedness equal to being with Christ. So the disciples thought, as they were filled with sorrow at the thought of his leaving them. But he promised to come and take them to be with him, and that coming was afterward the object of their longings. It was the one hope that brightened life. What a happy reunion that will be when the disciples once more gather around their beloved Lord. How their hearts must have thrilled at the prospect. "Happy" means "blessed," and so it was very natural to call the hope of Christ's coming a "blessed hope."
BUT how is it that the Lord will take his disciples to be with him? Not only the twelve, but hosts of other disciples just as true as they, have died. Compared with the multitude of the faithful that have lived on the earth, those who will be alive at Christ's coming will be very few in number. We have learned in Matt. 24: 31 that when the Lord comes "he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other;" but who will be gathered? Let Paul answer: "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord." 1 Thess. 4: 16, 17.
THIS tells the story. Who of Christ's followers will be taken when he comes? All; both living and dead. Do the living have any precedence? No; they "shall not prevent [go before] them which are asleep." But when the Lord descends with a shout and a trumpet sound, the graves are shaken open, and the dead in Christ rise. This is the first thing. Then the living will be taken, not one year or six thousand years later, but they shall be caught up then, together with them (the dead), to meet the Lord. And by this means, says Paul, shall we ever be with the Lord. The apostle is now concerned only to give a sure basis for comfort to those persons whose pious friends had died, hence the case of the wicked does not come into his mind; he says nothing about them. We may learn their fate from other texts. But in this text nothing is taught more clearly than that the disciples of Christ get to be with him only by translation and resurrection, and that both events take place at the same time, namely, at his coming.
THE opinions of learned and pious men always have weight on a subject of this kind, so we quote from Dr. Barnes on this text. The testimony which he gives is all the more strong because the logical conclusion from it is directly the opposite of what he himself believed. He held that the righteous go to be with Christ as soon as they die, yet he did not let his prejudices bias his mind from the plain meaning of this text. He says:—
"We have in the passage before us an interesting view of the order in which these great events will occur. There will be (1) the descent of the Judge with the attending hosts of Heaven; (2) the raising up of the righteous dead; (3) the change which the living will undergo (comp. 1 Cor. 15: 52); (4) the ascent to meet the Lord in the air; and (5) the return with him to glory. What place in this series of wonders will be assigned for the resurrection of the wicked, is not mentioned here. The object of the apostle did not lead him to advert to that, since his purpose was to comfort afflicted Christians by the assurance that their pious friends would rise again, and would suffer no disadvantage by the fact that they had died before the coming of the Redeemer."
OUR Saviour set before his disciples no other prospect of reward but at his coming. "When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind; and thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee; for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just." Luke 14: 12-14. When does the resurrection take place? Paul, in 1 Thess. 4: 16, 17, above quoted, says that it is when the Lord himself comes from heaven, and the trump of God sounds. Now Christ knew that those to whom he was talking would not live till his coming; why then did he not tell them to look to the time of their death for their reward? Why did he direct their attention to some point far beyond? Simply because death is not the time when rewards are distributed. If it were, the Lord would have said so. Instead of promising to reward the faithful ones at death, he said: "And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day." John 6: 40.
WHEN Paul was brought before Agrippa (see Acts 26: 1, 6, 7) he said: "And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers; unto which promise our twelve tribes instantly serving God day and night hope to come; for which hope's sake, King Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews." From the following verse: "Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?" we would naturally infer that the resurrection was the thing promised to the fathers, and the "hope" for which Paul was accused. That this inference is correct we learn from Acts 23: 6, where it is recorded that on a similar occasion, but a short time before, and while under the same accusation, Paul said: "Of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question."
THE interesting question now arises, How could Paul say that he was called in question for holding the hope of the resurrection of the dead, when none of his accusers had said one word about the resurrection? The answer is, that he was brought to trial on account of his belief in Christ. It was because of his teaching that Christ is the Son of God, and for the vigorous advocacy of his doctrines, and especially for teaching that Christ had risen from the dead, that Paul was apprehended. Now the resurrection of the dead depends upon the resurrection of Christ. His resurrection is the pledge of the general resurrection. Christ says: "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold I am alive forevermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death." Rev. 1: 18. He gained the keys of the grave when he went into it and came out a conqueror. Having gained them, he will use them to unlock the prison doors and liberate the captives that death has made. In support of this we have his own words: "Because I live, ye shall live also." John 14: 19. And this statement, it will be noticed, was made immediately after his promise to come and take his disciples to himself. So then to deny the resurrection of Christ, as the Jews were doing, was equivalent to denying the general resurrection. And conversely, Paul says in 1 Cor. 15: 13-16, that to deny the general resurrection is to deny the resurrection of Christ.
AGAIN; if the Jews were persecuting Paul for his belief in the resurrection, how could he say that the twelve tribes were longing for the hope of the promise? The promise made to the fathers was the inheritance of the world. Rom. 4: 13. This was made to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. But we learn that "these all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." Heb. 11: 13. This proves that they did not expect to have the promises fulfilled in this life; that the promise of God included the resurrection, and that they so understood it. If it were not so, they would have died in disappointment, and not in faith. Now the Jews looked for this inheritance that was promised to the fathers, and looked for it, but in their short-sighted rejection of Christ, they were turning away from the only thing that could give them a share in it. THAT Abraham believed in the resurrection of the dead, we have positive proof. Paul says: "By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten Son, of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called; accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure." Heb. 11: 17-19. That which made it possible for the patriarch to offer up his only son, through whom alone the promise could be fulfilled, was his belief that God would raise him from the dead in order to perform his promise to make of him a great nation. But how did Abraham get such an idea? From God himself. He knew that the promise contemplated a resurrection in order that the multitude of his faithful descendants might be partakers in it; and he accounted that if God would raise all the faithful at the last day, he was able to raise the single individual upon whom the existence of those faithful ones depended. And if Abraham, to whom the promises were made, understood that the resurrection was necessary to their accomplishment, we would naturally expect that all the "fathers" would have correct ideas on the subject.
THE fate of the wicked does not come within the scope of this lesson, yet the simple fact is told that they also will be raised. That is what we would be led to expect from the fact that the rewards are not given at death. Every man must receive according to the things he has done, but if the wicked have no resurrection, this cannot be. Paul's hope included this as well as the resurrection of the righteous. We quote his words: "But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets; and have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust." Acts 24: 14, 15. Add to this our Saviour's words in John 5: 28, 29: "Marvel not at this; for the hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, to the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, to the resurrection of damnation," and we have all the testimony that reasonable beings can desire. There are some who affect to believe that none but the righteous will have a resurrection; but to hold such a theory is to deny and throw contempt upon the positive statements of both Christ and Paul.
E. J. W.
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