But whilst the joy of the Lord is our strength, and the passing of the year only a source of gladness within view of the promised jubilee of creation, we must not forget our part in the procession of events. It is plainly described for our guidance. We are to "redeem the time," to buy it up from the possession of another, and to devote it to purposes worthy of our high calling. Let the days pass, as pass they will, but Christ's friends must not let them pass without hearty work done for Him. If we can suppose a Christian passing a day in which he neither says nor does any thing tending directly or indirectly to the honour of his Lord, that day is lost. It has not been "redeemed;" and the man who lost it lost blessing to himself. It was a blank day in the calendar of his life a useless day which will put forth no flowers in eternity, because on it no flower seeds were sown. Men who have deliberately allied themselves with the cause of Jesus Christ, as the Head of the Church and the coming King of the nations, must not trifle. Time is to them invaluable, as it gives them the opportunity of honouring Him whose service is freedom, and whose smile is glory. And how much may be done even in one brief year to disseminate truth by the living voice, or the press, or both combined! Surely this day of cheap literature is a sign and a prophecy; surely it is one of those great providential things which silently tend to the unfolding of God's purposes; and His sons, therefore, should accept the privilege as a direct call to use the press for truth and Christ. The publishers of the prince of darkness are busy at work. The streets of our great towns are infested with hawkers of pernicious matter by which vice and corruption are increased. The friends of purity and light must not slacken their efforts to beat back the foe; nor must the impossibility of destroying the forces of evil by human agency dishearten us. We must remember our exact position. It is that of witnesses for the Lord. A noble position it is a high calling! We must be faithful to the truth entrusted to us, whether men hear or not; and to present divine truth in its own purity undimmed by the traditions of men, is a privilege to be thankfully accepted, and a duty to be loyally discharged. EDITOR. GABRIEL'S OWN KEY TO HIS SEVENTY WEEKS. FROM the call of Abraham until this day Jehovah has never prophesied by any individual who had not lineally descended from Abraham, with only one exception-Balaam. Israel is the only mortal medium between Jehovah and the heathen. Jehovah sometimes communicated with heathen kings by dreams, but in each case one descended from Abraham must be raised up to interpret. Without Abrahamic blood no interpretation, no medium between the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but the Jew, or an angel commissioned from above. Jesus taught the heathen, "Salvation is of the Jews." Thus far all is incontrovertible. Study Rev. vii. 4-9, and xiv. 1-5. These one hundred and forty-four thousand, we are told, are the first fruits of the redeemed by the precious blood of the Lamb. They have been called the "Body-guard of the Lamb:" all of them Israelites, and whose song the after redeemed (the Gentiles) could not learn. At the Pentecost there was not a single heathen among the one hundred and twenty disciples. The three thousand were devout men assembled at the feast, to whom Peter addressed his first epistlethey were then known to be of the twelve tribes. The one hundred and forty-four thousand were the nucleus upon whom the Body of Christ is being formed. The object of Gabriel's visit to Daniel was to inform him what should befall his people and the holy city. Reading these plain revelations we naturally inquire, When will these things take place? Gabriel fully answers this question: In the latter dayslast days-the end-the end of the indignation; and says, the wise shall understand. When? At the time of the end; and adds, "Go thy way, Daniel for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end." Thus we see it was impossible for the old commentators to teach us the simple truth. We pity those who follow them, applying the last times to Ezra and Nehemiah, and thus confusedly mixing up the eternal true Messiah with the false Satanic "Man of Sin." In order to understand Gabriel we must entirely discard all Jewish, Christian, and heathen chronology, and follow the teaching of Gabriel in his figures, numbers, dates, divisions, and HIS GREAT PAUSE! First, we must count from the point from which Gabriel first counts (Dan. ix. 25). From the command of Cyrus to return and build progressing to Gabriel's 62nd week, or 62x7=434 years. We find this first date parallel with Isaiah liii. 8, "He was cut off." Dan. ix. 26, "After threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off." This is the first fulfilment of any part of the seventy weeks of Gabriel, and here he places his great pause! This pause is the Lo-Ammi period. The Interregnum of Judah, a blank to the Jew, no prophet, all sealed until, Rev. xi. 3. This great pause is indeed a blank to Judah, but eternal life to the wild olive, the time of the gathering together of the Body of Christ. This pause of Gabriel cannot last much longer, as nearly 1900 years have passed since the crucifixion, which was the pristine date the most important event the world's history ever recorded. We are now waiting for Gabriel to resume his history of Judah, which he will do in his sixty-third week, being the first of his last weeks. When the last political command will go forth to return and build Jerusalem, and that temple in which the Antichrist of Paul and John will sit, 2 Thess. ii. 4, "who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he sitteth in the temple of God showing himself that he is God." This cannot take place at present for two reasons. We shall examine them separately. First, the temple is not yet built, nor can the foundation be laid until the command to return and build is published. It is said, we know not with what truth, that the mortgage deeds of the Holy Land are in the hands of Judah, and the millions in the hands of the Sultan. One thing we do know, Jehovah reigneth! From the time Gabriel resumes the history of Judah in his (Gabriel's) sixty-third week to the time that Antichrist will come in his own name and be received by Judah in Jerusalem, will be from the last command forty-nine years. Thus 7x7=49 years, when only one week of Gabriel's seventy remains. Forty-nine years will be enough time to finish the temple by Gabriel's sixty-ninth week. When the false Messiah will make his covenant, the city will also be prepared to withstand the last siege, as in Zech. xiv.-the same period of unexampled trouble foretold by our blessed Redeemer in Matt. xxiv. 15, Mark xiii. 14, and Luke xvii. 20-37. All former sieges ended in tribute or slavery; the future, in the triumph of Judah over all the assembled nations. Why Antichrist cannot at present be manifested is the great hindrance. Paul tells us what this hindrance is, 2 Thess. ii. 7, "the mystery of iniquity." John, in Revelation, confirms this, and tells us how this hindrance will be removed, and at her destruction God will call His people out of her, Rev. xviii. 4, "Come out of her, my people." We know Lot must be called out of Sodom before destruction come; so with mystic Babylon, which must make way for Antichrist. God's jewels must be cared for. Then all the plagues upon Antichrist are to be poured out; the truce-breaking false Messiah, being in the midst of his Satanic career, is cut off. The Body of Christ having gone up to meet their Redeemer in the mid-air, will be for ever with the Lord. The wicked will go on and be punished. The wise understanding the command, will reckon the eight remaining weeks thus: 7x7=49 years to the manifestation of the power of Antichrist. The last remaining of Gabriel's seventy weeks will be a time of troubles, ending in everlasting righteousness. The Jewish comment in which the seven years out of Daniel's last fifty is stated to have related to the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, will not bear criticism if we believe Gabriel's object in his teaching as to what would take place in the latter days, and without Gabriel's coming eight weeks all his dates are in the old confusion, leaving us but one week to build the temple in which the Man of Sin is to be seated, and to make his week's contract, which is simply an impossibility, besides making him contradict his assertion that the Messiah would be cut off in the sixty-second week, which the Jewish teaching does by misplacement of Gabriel's Pause. TALMUD. THOU ART MY HOPE. HOU art my hope, O God, THOU For Thou art good, and gracious is Thy will. Thy power and grace surround me still; Thou art my hope, O God, For in the past I found my help in Thee- In age as well as infancy, For Thou wilt hear me when I pray. Thou art my hope, O God. On Thee I cast my cares-a heavy load! Thou art my hope, O God. Thy faithful word hath promised good to me, In His dear presence I shall be, And He my humble name will own! S. B. |