HOUR? That hour with which the dreadful morning of the JUDGMENT DAY shall dawn? Surely this is not a matter for delay. "Now is the accepted time." To-morrow may not be. Oh then suffer the plain question, ARE YOU NOW IN CHRIST? Have you yet gone to Him, as a poor, helpless, worthless sinner, and cast all your burden on His love and power to save? WHERE ARE YOUR SINS? Have you realised the fact that JESUS CHRIST has borne the utmost sins of every believer in His own body on the tree-has suffered their full penalty-has washed their guilt away with infinitely precious blood—has made atonement for them, full, perfect, and eternal? Have you trusted His completed work for pardon and salvation? Surely it is written in the unchanging records of His tender mercy," WHO SOEVER LIVETH AND BELIEVETH IN ME SHALL NEVER DIE." LECTURE VI. THE REIGN OF PEACE. "Behold a King shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment."-Isa. xxxii. 1. We have now to look upon the tribulation of the latter days as past-the dominance of Iniquity, Bloodshed, and Perplexity at an end— Antichrist consigned to the eternal flamesthe wicked of the earth destroyed-the Remnant brought to the acknowledgment of Christ as Lord and Saviour-Satan no longer able to deceive—and, visibly among mankind and angels, the self-same JESUS who was crucified, standing on the Mount of Olives, unopposed by any voice throughout the earth, and there establishing His right to reign as King of kings and Lord of lords. So will the Almighty God fulfil His ancient word, which said—“And thou profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end, Thus saith the Lord God, Remove the diadem, and take off the crown; this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it; and it shall be no more, until He come, whose right it is; and I will give it him. And thus the kingdom of the Lord of hosts will come,wherein His holy will shall be performed in earth as it is done in heaven. This REIGN OF CHRIST-the reign of RIGHTEOUSNESS and PEACE-will form the subject of this lecture. Among the remnant of Israel-some inhabiting the Holy Land, and some dispersed among the nations-will no doubt be found a company from EVERY TRIBE: for God has promised that "He will be the God of all the families of Israel." And so not only will MOUNT ZION rejoice, but MOUNT EPHRAIM also, as the Lord graciously declared by JEREMIAH in the thirty-first chapter of his prophecy"Behold I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth, . . . a great company shall return thither. They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in * Ezek. xxi. 25-27. † Jer. xxxi. 1. a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble; for I am a Father to ISRAEL, and EPHRAIM is my first-born. Hear ye the Word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered ISRAEL will gather him, and keep him as a shepherd doth his flock. ... Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a New Covenant with the house of ISRAEL and with the house of JUDAH." So, too, did EZEKIEL prophesy in the thirtyseventh chapter. God had told him to take two sticks, and to "join them one to another into one stick," and when the people should ask him what this meant, he was to answer them,-"Thus saith the Lord God, Behold I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: and I will make them ONE NATION in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and ONE KING shall be king to them all; and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all." Thus, then, shall ALL THE TRIBES OF ISRAEL be gathered from among the countries, and brought safely to the land of their inheritance. And, as ISAIAH prophesied,-the "ROOT OF JESSE shall stand for an ensign of the people,. . . . and . . . . the Lord shall set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the Islands of the Sea. And He shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of ISRAEL, and gather together the dispersed of JUDAH from the four corners of the earth. The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim."* The "ROOT OF JESSE" shall stand up to gather Israel His people,-not like the wicked Antichrist had partly gathered them in unbelief,— but in the full assurance of a holy faith, and yet bewailing their rejection of the great Messiah. Let me add a word of explanation of this. Antichrist will be, as we have seen, professedly the friend of Israel, and under his protection many will be brought again to the * Isa. xi. 10-13. |