The Last Terrible Forty Years
“Thrust in thy sharp sickle,
and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for the grapes are fully
ripe” — Rev. 14:18.
In this
particular subject, even more than in others, we are completely indebted to
bro. Thomas. We are truly indebted to him for all our knowledge of the Truth,
but especially so as to prophecy and the last days. Though he wrote over 100
years ago, his writings are still right to the point, and there is nothing produced since to compare with
them.
Current
speculations emphasize value of bro. Thomas’ sound teaching
The long
intervening time that has passed since he wrote has served to put
In the
preparation of these notes I have again read much from
Bro. Thomas was
successful in understanding and interpreting prophecy because he gave weight to
every word of Scripture, and
always fitted in the literal as well as the symbolic whenever possible. The
results he achieved, which time has so marvelously confirmed, are a complete
vindication of his method. No other writings outside of Scripture have the life
and warmth and power and depth of bro. Thomas’ exposition.
Vast changes in
100 years, but bro. Thomas wonderfully vindicated
Vast and
unforeseen changes have occurred in the earth since bro. Thomas’ day. Two
tremendous worldwide conflicts have torn the world’s political maps to shreds,
over and over. Most of the great nations of bro. Thomas’ day are no longer
major factors on the world scene, but the lineup of nations is more and more as
he foresaw from prophecy that it must be: Britain, US, France, Russia, Israel, Arabs,
etc., are all falling into line for the last great scene that will climax and
end the play.
Some details
are not yet worked out, and this adds deep interest and suspense. Some parts of
the puzzle do not yet fit into place, but the great sweep of events in the
century since bro. Thomas fell asleep is all in the right direction.
Some of bro.
Thomas’ applications of prophecy strike us at first as strained and
far-fetched, but if we examine the context we shall find that in most places it
greatly strengthens bro. Thomas’ exposition, for often, when he points it out,
we find the context is inescapably Millennial. And this must be all through the prophets, for Peter declares in Acts
3:21 that God has spoken of these times by the mouth of all His holy prophets
since the world began. This is the great common focus of all their prophecy,
and no one has brought this out so beautifully as bro. Thomas.
Eureka, by
tracing the 6000-year war of the Seed of the Serpent and the Seed of the Woman
right down through the ages to the great culmination in the
Bro. Thomas was
the root of the Truth’s latter-day revival
We must never
forget that bro. Thomas was, in the providence of God, the root of the current
revival of the Truth in the earth. However we may endeavor to twist or obscure
it, this is a basic, immovable fact in the development of God’s purpose in the
earth.
There is a
great host of separate prophecies on this subject of the events of the last
days. We are nowhere given a complete chronological or consecutive outline—this
has been divinely concealed for the faithful to endeavor in zeal and interest to
work out. From an examination of
Bro. Thomas,
who from much study was saturated with the spirit of prophecy, builds the
events of the last days (the setting up of the worldwide Kingdom) on the type
of
“According to
the days of thy coming out of the
“The nations
shall see and be confounded at all their might.”
Then the
“hour”—the thirty years—of the kings of the earth giving their power to the
Beast to make war with the Lamb (Rv. 17:12-14),
preceded by the necessity of a reasonable and practical period for the
proclamation of the Everlasting Gospel to all nations of earth (Rev. 14:6).
Then the fact
that so often in Scripture forty marks a period of trial, transition, testing and judgment.
The necessity
of a long time to accomplish the transition
And
then the actual fitness and necessity of things. God truly
could set up the Kingdom overnight if He chose: consider the vastness of
Creation in six days. But He is dealing with men, and adjusts Himself to their
limitations, and He has revealed a sequence of events, and purposes to be
accomplished, that will require time as far as man is concerned.
The purpose
basically is to offer salvation to all, to call for individual submission, to
present opportunity, to gradually thresh out the wicked and rebellious while
extracting the potential wheat as the human nucleus of the subjects of the
Kingdom. This, in dealing on apparently natural principles with the earth’s
enslaved and drugged and benighted billions, will take time.
The more we
consider the magnitude of the undertaking , the more we are impressed that
forty years—a generation—is a suitable and fitting time to accomplish these
things, and God’s ways are always suitable and fitting. We come, in fact, to
wonder if forty years is enough, and we conclude that only the almighty power
of God could accomplish this purpose in forty years, considering the present
state of mankind. If it were just destruction, that
would take no time, but it is not: it is transition, education, orderly
reorganization, complete renovation.
The present
corrupt, debauched, benighted population of the earth cannot be just ushered
into the Millennium just because they happen to be alive when Christ comes. We
know that character and development must be formed in childhood. We know, as
prophesied of the last days and as we see before our eyes, that the present population
of the earth is increasingly violent, self-willed, rebellious, animalistic and pleasure-seeking.
The present
population is mentally, morally and physically unfit
for the blessings and peace of the Millennium—too immoral, too high in their
own esteem, in the pride and glory of man. Surely forty years is not too long
to prepare a population fit for God’s Kingdom.
The complete
destruction of all man’s rubbishy, ungodly works
Think of what
is involved in pulling down all man’s ugly buildings, demolishing to the ground
all his crowded and vice-ridden cities, cleaning off the face of God’s earth
all man’s rubbishy edifices and constructions, and building an entirely new,
permanent, sound social fabric in harmony with nature and with the mind of God.
Even ignorant
man himself is suddenly realizing that he is approaching the dead end of
environmental disaster in all the destructively blind “progress” and
“civilization” that he has been so obsessed in and so proud of. Think of the
pollution problem—can this be taken into the Millennium?
All
the works of ignorant and foolish man must be swept away—demolished—scraped to
the foundation. The Kingdom in its transitional, millennial form is to be built
for cleanliness and health and 1000 years’ duration. How could any of man’s
flimsy, rickety, tinker-toy productions have a place in that?—for even now
man’s proudest works are so quickly obsolete and superseded.
And the earth
is full of idols—human memorials, churches, temples, mosques, synagogs—how could all these polluted things stand in God’s
glorious Kingdom of purity and wisdom and holiness? There must be a thorough
and drastic cleansing and purging of the earth itself and of the whole human
race.
The vine of the
earth is fully ripe: great impending judgments
The harvest of
the earth is ripe. The angel cried to him that had the sharp sickle (Rev.
14:18)—
“Thrust in thy
sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of
the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe.”
“Her grapes are
fully ripe!” This is very
significant as to worldly conditions at the return of Christ—
“The iniquity
of the Amorites is full.”
There must be a
universal destruction (Psa. 46:8)—
“Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations He hath made in the earth.”
The context of the whole psalm make it clear that this is in the
last days at the setting up of the Kingdom, especially the next two verses—
“He maketh wars
to cease unto the end of the earth.
“He breaketh
the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder. He burneth the chariot in the fire.
“Be still, and
know that I am God: I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in
the earth.”
The Seventh
Vial poured out in the Air is the last forty years of the kingdom of men—a
judicial period—the most important and most terrible time of all the earth’s
long dark human history. This forty years is
foreshadowed in the reign of David—preparing for Solomon, for the era of peace,
for the building of the
We are told
that at this time
“Fear God, and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment is
come” (Rev. 14:6-7).
The conflict
and destruction will largely appear natural
The forty-year
process of subduing the earth will largely appear to be natural. Truly there
will be adequate evidence for those with eyes to see, as there was when Christ
was among men the first time, but it will be all done in an apparently natural
way to the extent that those who, like the Pharisees, choose not to see, will be able to
deceive themselves. Bro. Thomas refers us to Zech. 14:6-7, which he translates
(Eur. II:319) as follows—
“Yahweh my
Elohim shall come in; all the Saints with Thee.
“And it shall
be in that day there shall be no brightness, the splendid ones drawing in.
“And it shall
be one day that shall be made known by Yahweh: not day nor night, but it shall
be in time of evening there shall be brightness (
And bro.
Thomas’ comments on this are (Eur. II:319-20)—
“From
this we learn that when the Lamb and 144,000 enter upon their work of judgment
at eventide, they will not “shine as the brightness of the firmament and as the
stars” (Dan. 12:3).
“They will not
be manifested as URIM: but, though capable of so doing, they will draw in their
brightness, and appear as men.
“But when the
judgment is over, and the Kingdom established, and the time is come for them to
rest from their labors,then they will no longer draw
in their splendor, but “shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father”
(Mt. 13:43).
Similarly he
says, speaking of the Little Open Scroll (Eur. II:543)—
“The
supernatural element is now introduced, which wonderfully quickens and
consummates the end. But the infusion of this into the situation does not
supersede the free action of the enemy, and the counteraction of him by the
symbolic angel upon seemingly ordinary principles.
“The fourth
Beast, or Nebuchadnezzar’s Image, which covers the whole area, will contend
against them, as if they were a Zinghis or Tamerlane, until defeat and destruction on every side give
mankind a practical understanding of the opening of the Seven-Sealed Scroll.”
Wicked mankind,
self-deceived, will resist Christ and the Saints
So mankind will
resist and contend against Christ and the Saints under the impression that they
are a natural human power arisen in the
1.
Christendom’s false theory that the prophesied Antichrist is a latter-day Jew
who rises up against the Pope (instead of as it really is—the Pope himself).
The essence of Christendom’s age-old traditions of
“Antichrist” are that: he is a Jew, he arises at the last day, he
appears in
2. Man’s
scientific developments. For their own destruction, God has so allowed them to
increase knowledge and develop such awesome weapons of mass murder that they
will easily believe that Christ is merely a human impostor who has developed
some new “secret weapons.” We read with increasing
frequency today of many fantastic weapons at present in vision or
development—deadly laser beams like controlled bolts of lightning, and
increasingly dehumanized electronic, computerized, push-button warfare (see
Current Events, pg. 187).
The Jews are
the natural means used: the “battle-ax” and “war-horse”
The Jews will
provide the natural means. This is prophesied in many places (Mic. 5:8; Jer. 51:20-23; Isa.
41:15; Zec.
Both horns of
the Beast—Gog and the Papacy—are viciously
anti-Jewish. The Pope has fawned on the Arabs and has never recognized
The latter-day
development of nuclear warfare fits perfectly into the world’s fatal
self-deception about Christ when he comes. We are told that he will cause them
to use their own weapons against each other, as Zech. 14:12-13. Consider these
verses (and the whole context of the chapter) in the light of nuclear war and
the real and terrible example of
When the
judgments on the earth are exhausted and have done their work, when the earth
is fully purged and the wicked and rebellious destroyed, when the smoke of
divine wrath and retribution has at last cleared from the Temple (Rev. 15:8),
then the Saints no longer “draw in,” or withhold their glory (Matt. 13:40-43)—
“So shall it be
in the end of this world. The Son
of man shall send forth his angels (messengers) and they shall gather out of
his Kingdom all things that offend and them which do iniquity, and shall cast
them into a furnace of fire . . .
“Then shall the righteous shine forth as
the sun in the Kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear!”
And Daniel
gives the same picture (12:1:3)—
“At that time
shall Michael (Christ) stand up for the children of thy people, and there shall
be a time of trouble such as
never was.
“And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and
they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever.”
“Who is this
that cometh from
“Yahweh came
from Sinai”: Moses & Habakkuk parallel
We now begin
the detailed consideration of the subjugation of the world by Christ and the
immortalized Saints, as they set out from Sinai as “Yahweh, the Man of War.”
Bro. Thomas has written on this in Eureka II:545-554
and III:581 forward. (See the extract from bro. Thomas in this issue, pgs.
197-203. This is from Eureka III). Our attention is
called to two parallel passages by Moses and Habakkuk—
“The Lord came
from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them. He
shined forth from
“God came
(shall come:JT) from Teman, and the Holy One from Mt Paran
. . . Before Him went the pestilence . . . He stood, and measured the earth: He
beheld, and drove asunder the nations” (Hab. 3:3-6).
Two things are
to be noted: (1) This has never yet happened, and (2) the context, especially
in Habakkuk, is clearly millennial. These Mosaic and Habakkuk visions are
obviously identical with the Rainbowed Angel of Rev.
10, and the bloodstained One who comes from Edom of Isa. 63. Habakkuk
continues—
“I saw the
tents of Cushan in affliction: and the curtains of
the
Midian and Cushan subdued and blessed first
Bro. Thomas reasons
from this that Midian and Cushan
(the Arabian Desert north and east of Sinai) are among the first to feel the
sword of the King who is now setting out for world conquest, after the type of
David who executed judgments in the southern desert before obtaining the
sovereignty of Judah. The wild people of the
Bro. Thomas
believed that the blessing of the land and the removal of the curse would
immediately follow Christ’s conquest wherever he went. If we
think upon it, we realize that this is how it would have to be—both from the
point of view of reasonableness and fittingness, and also to fit the
prophecies. We know that the curse must be removed, the earth blessed,
and the people taught righteousness—that all must be changed from present
worldwide human ugliness and corruption and misuse to worldwide divine wisdom
and beauty and goodness.
Worldwide
blessing: instantaneous, or gradual?
But have we
thought how it will be done? Do
we expect it to happen suddenly all over the earth? Or will it be gradual, orderly and progressive, like the opening up of a flower to
the fulness of its beauty? Surely
the latter.
The kingdom
will begin from a small central nucleus, and then grow and grow until it fills
the whole world. This is the picture that prophecy gives us, as in the case of
the leavening of the bread, or the Little Stone that struck the Image.
We see too
that, in fittingness, wherever Christ advances he must transform. To pass
through he must conquer, for he recognizes no human authority. He must be
supreme wherever he goes. He cannot pass through and leave a land as it was,
under the old human dominion. Nor can he devastate without transforming and
restoring. This would be wholly out of harmony with his mission of filling the
earth with the glory of God.
So we realize, as
soon as we think about it, that the picture bro. Thomas gives us of a gradually
expanding Kingdom, bringing transformation and blessing as it extends, is the
only fitting one. To reach the
The
Once he has
entered an area, he has taken rulership over it as
its rightful owner, the heir of the earth. And once he has taken the rulership and responsibility for it, he must abolish human
evil and begin his reign of righteousness and justice and blessing. The Old and
the New cannot coexist in the same place.
So first the
Southern Desert—Midian and Cushan—is
possessed and glorified: BEFORE Armageddon. Then all the Covenant-Land
(from the
this will cause worldwide interest and concern
But, says bro.
Thomas, can such a Power begin to be developed in the area, and the rejected
from the judgment seat be sent back into the world, and the wilderness and
desert be transformed, and the wild Arabians be tamed and enlightened—without
being a topic of burning and primary interest throughout the whole world?
It was bro.
Thomas' conviction, from various prophecies, that the Tarshish Power, the
friend and defender of
He wrote long
before
However, with
the passage of time, both
But as Britain
has receded from the area, the activity of one of the "young lions" (Eze. 38:13) has grown there, and today both Britain and US
have close ties with the basic areas involved—Jordan and Saudi Arabia:
sufficiently so that bro. Thomas' expectation of a secret alliance with the New
Mideast Kingdom of Christ in the transformed deserts
of Arabia are quite reasonable.
But the
reaction of the enemies of
there must be a Tarshish power protecting the land
Bro. Thomas,
writing over fifty years before
"Dwelling Safely” without walls, bars, or gates."
He expected
that Britain, under the instigation and protection of Christ, would cleanse
Jerusalem of all the Greek, Roman and Moslem idols and shrines, and that this
would arouse the Beast, False Prophet and Dragon to great fury.
Though
Papacy will cry Antichrist.....look up the
rest
To the Papacy,
the New Arabian Power will have all the expected characteristics of the
long-anticipated Antichrist of their perverted theology, and this will be their
rallying cry against him.
It is clear
from both prophecy and the present world picture before our eyes that
"Art thou come to take a spoil?" (Eze. 38:13)
—but is
overwhelmed and driven back across the
Christ brings a remnant of
It is at this
point that bro. Thomas believes the requirements of various prophecies
necessitate the fitting in of a descent into Egypt by Christ, to deliver and
bring out the Jews that are there—to bring them, as an earnest of the whole
nation, again through the Red Sea and into the Covenant.
In the
meantime,
Jacob’s last and worst “Time of Trouble”
Today Russia
and the Arabs and the Papacy denounce the nation of Israel as usurpers of Arab
lands, and it is clear their first step as soon as they were able would be to
destroy or deport them, so Zec. 14: 2 and 13: 8 are
right in line with the present picture and probabilities.
This last
"time of Jacob's trouble" is clearly the worst and most terrible of
all its bloodstained history—worse than the ,Assyrians, Babylonians, Romans and
Hitler. For years the Arabs, egged on by
"Then shall My
fury come up in My face"(Eze. 30:18).
This is the
"eyes as a flame of fire" and "countenance as lightning" of
the Multitudinous Man, the Rainbowed Angel (Zc.14:3)—
"Then shall Yahweh go forth and fight
against those nations,”…with whirlwinds of TEMAN" (Zc.
bozrah: the first confrontation of yahweh and the image
From Isa.
63:1-6, it is obvious that Bozrah is a very
important, key battle—the first encounter with the Gogian
forces. It is at Bozrah that the garments of the Rainbowed Angel, of Yahweh the Man of War, are stained with
the blood of Gog.
There is an added
significance to this in the fact that Teman and Bozrah are in
Yahweh, the Man
of War, confronts Gog at Bozrah,
in the northern part of
Though
From the
slaughter of Gog at Bozrah,
the Multitudinous Christ advances toward
The Gogian enemy in the land meanwhile is destroyed and reduced
to 1/6 of his forces by his own mutual self-slaughter and by the pestilence and
judgment of the elements brought on him by God. The sixth retreats into
In the judgment
on Gog there is a—
"Great
shaking in the midst of the land, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and
every wall shall fall to the ground" (Eze.
38:19-20).
"And the
—and leave a
great east-west valley, as the halves of the mount move to the north and the
south (Zec. 14:4). And through this newly formed
valley Christ and the Saints come, fulfilling Eze.
43: 2—
"And
behold the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east. And His
voice was like the noise of many waters. And the earth shined with His
glory."
Jesus had said
to them as he closed his first ministry among them—
"Behold,
your house is left unto you desolate.
"Ye shall
not see me henceforth, till ye shall say: Blessed be he that cometh in the Name
of the Lord" (Matt.
“lift up your heads, o ye gates, for the king of glory!"
Approaching the
gates of Jerusalem, now suddenly relieved from the occupying and desolating
forces of Gog, they cry (Ps. 24:7-10)—
"Lift up
your heads, O ye gates: and be ye lift up, ye
everlasting doors: and the King of Glory shall come in."
And the enquiry
comes from within—
"Who is
this 'King of Glory'?"
They know that
their destroyer has been destroyed, and that they have been saved at the very
last moment of imminent extinction, but they do not know who the Savior is. The
strange answer comes— "Yahweh of Hosts, He is the King of Glory. Lift up
your heads, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in."
So they realize
that here at last is their long-promised and long-awaited Messiah, delivering
them when all hope seemed gone, and they cry—
"Hosanna to the Son of David!”
And there is
great rejoicing throughout
But when their
glorious King comes into the city, and they present themselves before him, the
question is soon asked, doubtless with great fear and foreboding (Zec. 13:6)—
“What are these wounds
in thine hands?" (Zc. 13:6).
And the
terrible answer—
"Those with which I was wounded in the
house of my friends. "
joy turned into deep national remorse and mourning
And so, like
Joseph, he is made known to his brethren, and they are filled with fear, and
joy is turned to national mourning—
"And they
shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they
shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son.
"In that
day shall there be a great mourning in
And so, first
by great oppression and tribulation, and then by great national humiliation and
repentance, is the remnant of
"It shall
come to pass that in all the land, saith
the Lord, 2 parts therein shall be
cut off and die
but the third shall be left therein.
'“I will bring
the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried:
"And they shall call on My Name, and I will hear them. I will say, It is My
people; and they shall say, Yahweh is my God.
"In that
day there shall be a fountain opened to the inhabitants of
This is very
beautiful and very fitting. It is
the beauty of god’s way:
Surely no
imaginable experience could be more traumatic and transforming. Nothing could
so thoroughly and deeply shake and purge and humble and enlighten them—break
the hardness of their blind self-sufficiency and prepare them for the
ministration of redemption and love. Human nature must be crushed and broken
and shaken to its foundations before it can begin to learn divine holiness and
wisdom.
In the
marvelous contrivance of His love and wisdom, God shall—
“Pour upon the inhabitants of
And the New
Covenant will be made with the House of Judah—
"Written
in their inward parts and in their heart” (Jr. 31:33).
For seven
months thereafter (Eze. 39:11-16) they are cleaning
up the land from the wreckage of the invader, and burying the multitude of dead
he has left behind in his flight.
As elsewhere in
the extension of Christ's power, the curse is lifted and the land beautified,
and the people blessed in wisdom and love and firm, righteous rule. The Little
Stone Power now encompasses all the territory from Sinai to the north limits of
"Kingdom
has come to the daughter of
"No Strangers shall pass through her any more"
(Joel
But she still
has the joyful and glorious task before her, under Christ, of establishing
herself as the "first dominion" of the world (Mic.
4:8).
''I will send those that escape of them—sounders
of the Truth—to
Tarshish, Pul, Lud, Tubal Javan,
the Isles afar off . . and
they shall declare My glory among the Gentiles"
Following the destruction of Gog's host,
and the deliverance of Jerusalem, and the revelation of Jesus to Israel as the
Messiah, and the setting up of his throne in Jerusalem—comes the 7 months it
takes to bury Gog's dead and cleanse the land (Eze. 39:9-16).
In the meantime
the remnant of the enemy that remains is pursued back into Assyria ( modern
Iraq), which is judicially laid waste by the sword (Mic.
5:6) Iraq is among the most vicious of Israel's present enemies, and closely
allied with Russia. As the original
The next step
is the completion of the conquering of all the lands promised to Abraham, from
the
"In that day shall there be a highway out of
"In that day shall
”Whom the Lord of Hosts shall bless, saying,
Blessed be Egypt, My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and lsrael
Mine inheritance" (Isa. 19:23-25).
The whole
original
This, in the
main, completes the subjugation of the first 3 Beasts—Lion, Bear and
Leopard—the Babylonian, Persian and Greek dominions, bringing them under the
rule of Christ. These are not destroyed as nations, but completely subjugated
(Dan.
But there still
remains the worst and greatest—the Roman Beast—which not only is to be
conquered, but utterly destroyed from the earth, his body given to the burning
flame (Dan 7:11). Every vestige of Roman Catholic influence is to be completely
annihilated from the earth. Today that influence is universal—
"All nations drunk with the wine of her
fornication. "
Not only in all
the Harlot Daughter Churches of the world, which are today flowing back to
Mother Rome, but everywhere we turn, in every department of life, Romanism is
stamped on every facet of society and civilization, and unless we are eternally
alert and vigilant, we are inevitably and unconsciously contaminated by it in
the simplest, commonest and most unsuspected ways.
This is the
great climax and crisis of the whole book of Revelation—the final settlement of
the age-old enmity between
But before the Rainbowed Angel (Christ and the Saints) advances against
the demon-worshipers of
"Cries
with a loud voice, as when a lion
roars" (Rev. 10:3).
This is the
proclamation of the Everlasting Gospel (Rev. 14 :7)—
"Fear God and give glory to Him, for the Hour
of His judgment is come
Isa. 66:19
refers to the same event. V. 18 tells us God will—
"Gather the nations, and they shall come,
and see His
glory. "
This is
accomplished in the attack by Gog and his European
hosts, and their destruction (Eze. 39:21). Then v. 19
continues—
"I will set a sign among them.”
—the setting up
of the throne at
'“ I will send those that escape of them, to Tarshish, Pul and Lud, that draw the bow (bro. Thomas: 'Sounders of the
Truth') . .
''To Tubal and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard My fame;and they shall declare My glory among the
Gentiles."
A certain
period is involved in carrying this proclamation to all the earth and allowing
time for its effect throughout all the benighted millions of the world. This
period is referred to in Isa. 18:4. There, in v. 3, is the call to all
inhabitants of the world to see when God lifts up an ensign on the mountain,
and to listen when He blows the warning trumpet. Then v. 4, which bro.Thomas renders—
"I will be
still, yet in My dwelling place I will be without fear—as dry heat impending lightning, as
a cloud of dew in heat of harvest."
And then v. 5
goes on with the breaking of a storm—the terrible divine "harvest" of
the "sour grapes of the earth." Compare this
with Rev. 14:19—the harvest of the "Vine of the Earth" that follows
the preaching of the Everlasting Gospel in vs. 6-7.
How long is
this period of proclamation, and waiting for it to take effect? We know in the
very nature of things it cannot be instantaneous: the proclamation one day, the
destruction the next. That is not how God gives fresh invitations and
opportunities. There must be some
period of time for the message to reach all mankind, for them to hear, and learn
what it is all about, and perceive the evidence, and decide. How long a time?
We are dealing with the whole world: a world to which divine things are
universally foreign.
In the present
utterly corrupt, animalized and benighted condition of the earth's population,
how long would it take to get the message through in any kind of an
understanding way to all the earth's teeming and ignorant millions—most of them
either steeped in idolatry and witchcraft, as in Catholicism and pagan Africa,
or completely brain-washed and robotized, as in China and Russia, or immersed
in lust, greed, immorality and pleasure-seeking, as in the gentle and
"enlightened" Anglo-Saxon lands?
The length of
time required will be measured by God's mercy in giving opportunity, and by man's
present depravity and ignorance in relation to divine things. Both the mercy of
God and the ignorance of man are very great.
Bro. Thomas
suggested it would be a ten-year period, on the combined evidence and
indications of several scriptures. It was 10 days from the great blowing of
trumpets that inaugurated the Feast of Tabernacles, to the Day of Atonement
itself, which was a great climactic day of affliction and purging and cleansing
and beginning again of the whole Jewish year or cycle. And certainly the
judgments of God upon the earth are to be a Day of Atonement and purging in
every sense.
Ten years for
the trumpet-proclamation of the Everlasting Gospel would leave (of the overall
forty years) an "hour"—a month of years— 1/12 of 360—30 years—the"Hour of Judgment" for the actual war between
the Lamb and the kings of the earth (Rev. 17: 12-14), for we are told (and we
know from history and experience) that the arrogant rulership
of the earth will not submit peacefully.
Man will not
without a terrible struggle give up his power and privilege and fleshly
wickedness and wilfulness, to submit to the galling
divine demand of humility and purity and holiness.
Christ will
demand the total and abject surrender of all wealth and power and privilege,
that all positions of rulership and authority may be
bestowed on those who are worthy—Christ’s friends—for the just and divine
administration of the earth. Clearly the greater the power and the more
entrenched the privilege, the fiercer and more tenacious will be the
resistance.
Doubtless, as
in the days of his first appearance on earth, the "common people"
will "hear him gladly," though they too will resent the divine
restrictions on their fleshly lusts, and the abolition from the earth of their
godless, corrupt, infantile worldly sports and pleasures. They will resent the
summons to grow up and put away childish things, and act like mature
adults—divinely mature.
It will be the
time of which Hannah sang (1 Sm. 2:310)—
''Talk no more so exceeding proudly: let not arrogancy come out of your mouth. For the Lord is a God of Knowledge, and by Him actions are
weighed. "
“The bows of the mighty men are broken, and they
that stumbled are girded with strength.
"They that were full have hired out
themselves for bread: and they that were hungry ceased.
"The adversaries of the Lord shall be
broken to pieces: out of heaven shall He thunder upon them. The lord shall
judge the ends of the earth, and He shall give strength unto His King, and
exalt the horn of His Anointed."
Note the
expressions "His King" and "His Anointed."
This is the first time the term "King" is applied to Christ, except
in Balaam's remarkable prophecy (Nm. 24:7), and the first time
"Anointed" (Messiah) is applied to him at all. In fact, the word
Messiah does not occur before, except four times (Leviticus) applied to the
High Priest.
Mary spoke on a
similar occasion with remarkable similarity
"He hath shown strength with His arm: He
hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down
the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.
"He hath filled the hungry with good
things: and the rich He hath sent empty away. He hath helped His servant
When we
consider all the circumstances, and what is to be accomplished, and put it into
the perspective of the long sweep of all human history which has deeply
ingrained a way of thinking into all mankind, we shall realize that ten short
years is in no way too long a period for this great final preaching of the
Truth to the world before the final war of worldwide destruction and
purification.
It could well
be divided, by its nature, into sub-periods of three and seven years each—both
of which are deeply significant numbers: of resurrection and perfection.
Ten was the
number of commandments proclaimed by the voice of God to
Mainly, the
time is required for gradual, worldwide education, so that the world's people
can be in a position to decide intelligently. The world is deeply sunk in
ignorance of any true spiritual things, and rapidly sinking deeper and deeper.
Education must have some basic foundation of understanding to begin with, or it
is a terribly slow process.
There will
inevitably be a tremendous propaganda campaign by all the entrenched political
and ecclesiastical and editorial forces of the world against the claims of
Christ and the Saints. These forces control all the facilities of communication
and opinion-forming, which God will doubtless permit them to continue to use so
all the world will be faced with a choice.
This is a time
when all the inhabitants of the earth will be forced to turn their animal minds
away from fleshly excitements and amusements and awake to face eternal reality,
and—
"Choose ye this
day whom
ye will serve."
Mankind have
always largely "thought" and moved in blind, stumbling masses, like
sheep. What the mass does, the individual does unthinkingly, in most things.
Most people are frightened to death to be different from their group. Even
present protest movements, pretending to be thoughtful and individual, are
mostly blind, mass, group movements, following the fads.
Then, too, time
must be given for the confidence of the hierarchy of the wicked to be restored
after Armageddon, that they have a chance to fight Christ successfully, and for
them to
It took several
years for the
And many will
remember, in the same connection, the so-called "phony" war of
propaganda and eerie, misleading, lulling, disarming quiet and inactivity that
preceded Hitler's terrible blitz-krieg, the
"lightning-war" by which he came perilously close to accomplishing
his avowed purpose of "settling the course of
And there must
be ample time for the picture to develop in the eyes of the world's peoples, so
the right people may be called out on right basis, for right reasons.
''Sing and rejoice, daughter of
midst of thee . . . And many people shall be joined
to the
Lord in that day, and shall be My people"—Zc.
This
proclamation period comes after the smiting of the Gog
Image on its feet, and before grinding it to powder (Dn.
The
"Air" is the ruling elements of the earth. It is upon them primarily
that the wrath is poured, and it is these that will blindly and stubbornly
resist unto the end—like evil, arrogant, power-mad, judicially-hardened
Pharaoh, though his servants cried to him—"Knowest
thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed?"
The messengers
sent throughout the earth have a three-fold message—
1. To declare the power and glory of the Lord
(Is. 66:19).
Z. To proclaim the Everlasting Gospel—the Good
News of the Kingdom (Rev. 14:6).
3. To demand total
submission, on pain of death (Rev. 14:7).
Before
"Come out of her, My
people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and
that ye receive not of her plagues."
These "My
people" are not the Saints. The Saints (the faithful of the present
dispensation) have already been assembled and judged and glorified. These
"people" are those being called to become God's people by believing
the Everlasting Gospel then being preached, and by obeying its call to come
out. We remember Christ said to Paul regarding
I have much people in this city"
(Acts
They were still
at that time in heathen darkness, but they were his people in prospect, for
they would come out and take their places as his people by the instrumentality
of the preaching of Paul. This is the period of which the Spirit said in Zech. 2 :10-11—
"Sing and rejoice, O daughter of
And many nations shall be joined to the
Lord in that day, and shall be My people"
(Zec.
In ch. 18, where the judgment and destruction of
The
proclamation of the Everlasting Gospel is in ''Midheaven”
(Rev. 14:6). This is the political aerial of the world upon which the impending
judgments of the seventh Vial—the final, culminating, completing Vial—are to be
poured out (Rev. 16:17). Long have the Sin-Powers of the earth—the present
"heavens"— ruled the world in wickedness according to the mind of the
flesh. Now a door has been "opened in heaven" (Rv.
4:1), and a new heavenly power has burst in on their dominions, and is about to
sweep them all out into oblivion—to "cast them out of heaven."
It is "Midheaven
because it has now ceased to be the supreme political heavens, now that Christ
has begun to set up his Kingdom and has been established in
Bro. Thomas
interestingly and instructively draws a parallel between the "Angel in Midheaven" and the incident in 1 Chr.
21 where David sees an angel "standing between the earth and heaven"
with a drawn sword of impending judgment over
The
introduction into this picture of Ornan, a Gentile,
and his four sons (who hid themselves at this time of judgment) adds to the
significance of the parallel. The Gentiles at this epoch of judgment submit and
give their wealth to the Lord. (The ones who do not submit—though they appear
to be the majority—cease to exist and cease therefore to be of any account in
the picture.)
The Gentiles at
Christ's coming, like Ornan ("as a king"—2
Sm. 24:23—a strange expression), offer their riches freely, though their gift
is not accepted without recompense, for the temporal and spiritual blessings
they receive infinitely outweigh the wealth they relinquish to the new and
greater David, who in turn dedicates it to God and His Temple.
The four sons
of Ornan who hide themselves at this time of judgment
are clearly the four-fold Sin-Powers of the world, the four Beasts—
“Every island
fled, and the mountains were not found" (Rv.16:20).
''And the kings of the earth, and the rich men,
and the mighty men, hid themselves . . and said to the rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face
of Him
that sitteth on
the throne" (Rev. 6:15-16).
"And they shall go into the holes of the
rocks . . for fear of the
Lord when He ariseth to shake terribly the earth
" (Isa.
The nations of
the Gentiles are separated into two classes on the basis of their reaction to
the proclamation—the Goat-nations and the Sheep-nations. The Goat-nations are
all of Europe—all the Catholic nations—all the nations of the ten Horns, Beast,
False Prophet and Dragon—including
Russia which is historically Orthodox Catholic (like Greece) and which will
have been reunited under the papal banner in that day. All these we know are
Goats, for they are represented in actual warfare with the Lamb), and are
destroyed by him.
The
Sheep-nations are those who are allies of the Shepherd of Israel. They are
primarily the Tarshish nation—Sin-Powers, truly, like all the rest—but rewarded
at this time with lesser punishment and quicker reconciliation because of their
historic better treatment of God's people, both natural and spiritual. This
will be the Tarshish nations and those few if any who have the wisdom to stand
with them.
Bro. Thomas in
his day, viewing the boastful arrogance and wickedness of the
Zech. 6 gives
us a similar picture of distinction of treatment between the Goat and Sheep
nations, in the vision of the two Mountains of Brass. These two mountains are
the two great fleshly powers of the last day—King of the North and King of the
South—Gog and Tarshish.
From between them issue forth four chariots.
Here is the Bozrah picture of Christ stepping in
between them. These are the Chariot of the Cherubim—the Elect of God in
judicial war-chariot manifestation for the subduing of the earth, and the
leveling of the two great Flesh-Brass Sin-Mountains.
The four
Chariots are drawn by horses of four different colors—red, black, white, and grisled (grey or spotted). The horses are the
"goodly"
It is the
different colors of the horses which gives indication of different
treatment—different degrees of punishment and destruction—visited upon the
different areas to which each goes. To the north (Gog)
first go the black horses, and then the white follow them. Here appears to be
indicated a double operation, or an operation of double intensity, which is at
first all black—complete woe and destruction; then all white—complete victory
and purging.
To the South
(Tarshish) go the "grisled" horses, an indication
of mixed and milder treatment. The red do not go anywhere specifically. They,
listed first, appear to be a general type of the warlikeness
of the whole operation, in contrast to Christ's first mission on earth. The bay
(or "strong," or "swift") horses
go through all the earth, after the operations of the black, white and grisled in the North and South.
Again, the same
Sheep-Goat distinction appears in Zech. 10, in the very context in which the
"goodly horse" symbol appears—
"The idols have spoken vanity, the diviners
have seen a lie. Mine anger was kindled
against the shepherds, and I punished the
goats "For the Lord of hosts hath visited His flock the house of
The False
Prophet—the Papacy—is the "Idol Shepherd" (Zec.
The Sheep and
Goat concept has many degrees of application: the Saints,
Another
indication of the separation of the nations into Sheep and Goat powers in
relation to Christ appears in the various references to the actions of some
nations as voluntarily bringing gifts. One group of nations—the Beast
nations—we know unite to fight Christ, and their defeat and destruction is
given in terms that appear to eliminate any possibility of rulers bringing
gifts of peace—
"And I saw
the Beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that
sat on the horse, and against his army.
"And the Beast was taken, and with him the
False Prophet . . these were
both cast alive into a lake of fire. And the
remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat on the horse" (Rev.
19:19-21).
This is one
picture. Then we have such prophecies as—
"The kings
of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of
"The
daughter of
"
With all the
foregoing, the warning and promise of Psa. 2 would also seem to give a strong
indication that there is expected, and will be, different degrees of wisdom and
submission manifested by the world's rulers—
"Be wise
now, therefore, O ye kings . . serve the Lord with fear lest ye perish from the way.
Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.”
Similarly Isa.
60 seems to carry the same implication that nations as such will react
differently, and will consequently be treated differently. Addressing
"The nation and kingdom that will not serve
thee shall perish: yea, those
nations shall be utterly wasted'' (v. 12).
This would
surely imply that some will submit and some will fight. Just previously, in v.
9, we are told—
“The isles shall wait for Me,
and the ships of Tarshish first,
to bring thy sons from afar.”
"First"
here again points to different degrees of order and alacrity in recognizing and
submitting to the power of Christ.
by G. V. Growcott