That many events of the world are foreshadowed in the prophecies
of the Bible is something which perhaps the average reader does
not pause much to reflect upon. He rather inclines to regard the
prophecies as a difficult portion of the Sacred Writings, and in
consequence of their being passed by, ignorance generally prevails
concerning them. There is nothing inconsistent in the idea that
events in the world occur in accordance with prophetic utterance. It
does not necessarily give credence to the doctrine of fatalism--that
everything which happens must happen. The affairs in man's life are
largely subject to his control. He has a scope of freedom all his
own. He can make his own choices and govern his own career. He may
do an act or he may not do it. An accident occurs which may have
been avoided had more care been exercised. Nevertheless, from this
free volitionary scope which belongs to man we may not exclude God's
design; for he does exercise a controlling hand in the affairs of man.
It may be said, however, of the greater things that occur in the
world, the trend of public thought, the drift of conditions, the
great political upheavals, things which are rather beyond man's
individual control, and which involve mankind as a body and their
destiny as a race--these more particularly belong to God and are
made the subject of prophetic forecast. God did not create the world
and then abandon its processes. He created all things according to
design, and we may be assured that he has design in the progress of
things as well as in their first creation. Nor will the grand play of
the world's events reach its conclusion without the decree of him
whose prerogative it is to say, "It is enough; time shall no longer
be."
Christ's coming into the world was freely prophesied hundreds of
years in advance of that event. This is so plain that no student of
the Bible, unless he means purposely to be infidelic, will dispute
the fact. Likewise, the fulfilment of prophecies that went before
concerning the Jews and their city Jerusalem is much in evidence.
The events of the world naturally group themselves into periods, or
epochs. They are like panoramic scenes that unfold in the theater
of the universe. Thus we have the two dispensations separated by
the incarnation of Christ, the grandest event in all history. And
thus we have, as divisions of the latter dispensation, the event of
paganism giving place to the papacy and ushering in a dark day of
apostasy, known in history as the Dark Ages; and the Renaissance and
the Reformation of the sixteenth century, ushering in a period of
Protestantism, which is also an age of letters and invention.
In the interests of his church and the progress of his truth God has
shown in advance in prophetic vision the periods and epochal events
covering not only the Christian dispensation, but also a considerable
time previous to it. These are for the Bible-student, the minister of
God, and for all Christians, to know and understand.
There is a prophecy in the 7th chapter of Daniel fore-shadowing the
four successive world empires--the Babylonian, Medo Persian, Grecian,
and Roman--and the papal power, that grew out of the Roman. The book
of Revelation is but a series of panoramic displays of the events of
the entire Christian dispensation and the end of the world.
And so we may expect that, inasmuch as the prophecies served
primarily the interests of the church, or the New Testament kingdom,
any marked advance for the church, such as the deliverance of the
saints from spiritual Babylon, should have its foregleam in the
utterance of the seer. In our preceding chapter, Brother Warner has
already given quotations from the prophets relating to bringing out
a pure church through the preaching of holiness. We wish to show by
several other lines of prophecy that this state of the church, as
being free from the bondage of human ecclesiasticism and enjoying her
primitive glory, marks a distinct prophetic time or period in this
evening of the dispensation.
Referring again to the 7th chapter of Daniel, where four successive
world kingdoms are represented by the four beasts, we note that
special attention is given to the description of the fourth beast,
which is the Roman power in its pagan phase. It was a beast "dreadful
and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it
devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet
of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it;
and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and, behold, there came
up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of
the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn
were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things"
(vs. 7, 8).
Daniel wished to know the truth respecting the little horn that had
eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things. He
beheld that the "same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed
against them; until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given
to the saints of the Most High; and the time came that the saints
possessed the kingdom" (vs. 21, 22). Now this horn that came up from
among the other ten horns was nothing other than the elements of
Roman Catholicism, developing into popery. It was the "man of sin,"
the product of the substitution of man rule for the Holy Spirit rule,
the date for which change historians have fixed at about the year 270
A. D. This horn was to "speak great words against the Most High," and
to "wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times
and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and
times and the dividing of time. But the judgment shall sit, and they
shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the
end. And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom
under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints
of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all
dominions shall serve and obey him" (vs. 25-27).
The "time and times and the dividing of time," marking the period
during which the elements of the papacy should have full sway and
should wear out the saints of the Most High, etc., are interpreted
as three and one half years; a time in prophetic reckoning being one
year, times two years, and the dividing of time one half year. Three
and one half years would be forty-two months, or, if reduced to days
according to the Jewish reckoning of thirty days to the month, twelve
hundred and sixty days. Taking each day for a year, which is proper
prophetic counting, we have twelve hundred and sixty years, and this
added to the year 270 brings us to the year 1530, the date of the
beginning of organized Protestantism, and the end of the universal
sway of the papacy. Following this, "the judgment shall sit, and
they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto
the end" (v. 26). Since her universal spiritual supremacy ended,
the judgment against Roman Catholicism has gradually proceeded and
her political power has waned. "And the time came when the saints
possessed the kingdom" (v. 22). The saints' possessing the kingdom
is the culminating point in this line of prophecy, and means nothing
other than the victory over human ecclesiasticism which the saints
now possess.
In the 11th chapter of Revelation we have the wearing out of
the saints expressed as treading under foot the holy city, and
the time-period of "a time and times and the dividing of time"
expressed as forty-two months (v. 2). In v. 3 the same time-period
is expressed as twelve hundred and sixty days. During this time the
two witnesses--the Word and the Spirit--prophesy in sackcloth, which
represents the low estate to which they were relegated during the
dark age of popery. It will be remembered that the twelve hundred and
sixty days (years) end with the year 1530. Following this comes three
days and a half (three centuries and a half) of Protestantism during
which the two witnesses (Word and Spirit) are, in the governmental
sense, operatively dead, the organized systems of man rule having
usurped the place of divine government and authority which these
witnesses originally held. At the end of the three days and a half,
three hundred and fifty years (which, added to 1530, brings us to the
year 1880) "the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they
stood upon their feet" (v. 11). They ascended to their place in the
ecclesiastical heaven, to the true church, and were thus victorious.
This brings us to the present reformation. This is soon followed by
the sounding of the seventh angel, which represents the end of time
when the 'kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our
Lord and his Christ; and he shall reign forever and ever' (v. 15).
The curtain drops.
Another scene is presented in the 13th chapter, where the rise of
the papacy, or Roman Catholic power, is represented by a leopard
beast having the same "mouth speaking great things" that appeared in
the "little horn" of Daniel seven. "And power was given unto him to
continue forty and two months" (v. 5), which is the same time-period,
again, of twelve hundred and sixty years. Following this the period
of Protestantism is represented by a beast "coming up out of the
earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon"
(v. 11). The length of the time-period of this second beast is here
omitted, but the sphere of its activity is succeeded (in chap. 14) by
a victorious church, the fall of Babylon, and the present reformation
work in which the everlasting gospel, the gospel that really saves,
is once more preached "unto them that dwell on the earth." In
connection with this also is the judgment which Daniel says is "given
to the saints of the Most High;" that is, the judgment against the
false religions of spiritual Babylon.
In the 18th chapter, in connection with Babylon's fall, we have God's
people called out of her. "And I heard another voice from heaven,
saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her
sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have
reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. Reward
her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to
her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double" (vs.
4-6). Thus the time is come that 'judgment is given to the saints'
and the 'saints possess the kingdom.'
Spiritual Babylon represents Rome first, and Protestantism second.
In the Critical Commentary by Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown, in the
comments on Rev. 18:4, we have the following quoted from Hahn in
Auberlen: "The harlot is not Rome alone (though she is preeminently
so), but every Church that has not Christ's mind and spirit. False
Christendom, divided into very many sects, is truly Babylon, i.
e., confusion." The literal Babylon was an ancient city situated on
the Euphrates River. In it God's people Israel were held captive
for seventy years, or until liberated by the Persian king Cyrus.
This is used as a figure of the captivity of God's spiritual Israel
in spiritual Babylon. The word Babylon means confusion, and it is
fittingly applied to the confused religion as represented by the
whole picture of Roman Catholicism and the Protestant sects.
In the 34th chapter of Ezekiel the gathering of God's people and
their deliverance from false relations is represented by a shepherd
seeking out his flock and delivering them. "As a shepherd seeketh out
his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered;
so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places
where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. And I will
bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries,
and will bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the
mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of
the country. I will feed them in a good pasture, and upon the high
mountains of Israel shall their fold be: there shall they lie in a
good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of
Israel" (vs. 12-14).
The cloudy and dark day of Protestantism, when the light of truth
shines, not in its entire brightness, nor yet as entirely obscured,
is also referred to in the 14th chapter of Zechariah. "And it shall
come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor
dark: but it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not
day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it
shall be light" (vs. 6, 7). Thank God, the day of mingled light is
past, and we are in the full light of the evening, when the whole
truth is once more preached in its fullness, without hypocrisy and
without reserve.
Thus we see that the present movement among God's people toward
holiness and unity, out of denominationalism, is prophetically
represented as a new epoch for the church.
[Music: Louder, Louder.