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STUDY IX
THY GOD REIGNETH!
A Resume of the Prophetic Evidences Which Show the Presence of Immanuel,
and that His Kingdom is in Process of Establishment.
"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that
bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good
tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion,
Thy God reigneth!" Isa. 52:7
IN view of all the evidences presented in this and the preceding
volumes of this work, we have no hesitancy in proclaiming
to the Lord's loyal and faithful people, his beloved
Zion, this glorious intelligence: "Thy God Reigneth!" The
oft-repeated prayer of the Church has been answered: the
Kingdom of God has indeed come. In the days of the present
kings of earth, before their lease of dominion expires, it
is being set up. The dead in Christ are even now risen and
exalted with our Lord and Head. And the "feet" members
of the body of Christ, who still tarry in the flesh, catching
the inspiration of the glorified throng who have already ascended
into the mount (kingdom) of God, reflect a measure
of that transcendent glory, as did Moses when he came
down from Mount Sinai. The faces of these messengers
shine with that heavenly joy which fills their hearts and
overflows their lips as they commune together and with the
Lord, and go heralding to every nation (mountain) the
good tidings of Immanuel's reign begun. How beautiful
upon the mountains are the feet of him (the feet of the
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Christ) that bringeth good tidings of Millennial joy and
peace, assuring Zion that the reign of our Lord is begun!
Wonderful truths are these! the Kingdom of God in process
of setting up; the Lord Jesus and the risen saints already
here and engaged in the great harvest work, with whom we
also, as members of that honored body, as the "feet of him,"
though still in the flesh, are permitted to be co-workers, to
herald the good tidings among men and to apprise them of
the significance of the wonderful and troublous events
which must prepare the way for and introduce the glorious
reign of righteousness.
These are they of whom the prophets foretold, saying,
"The Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints"; "The
Lord, my God, shall come, and all the saints with thee";
"The Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy
angels [the saints, his holy messengers] with him"; "A fiery
stream [symbolic of severe judgments--a time of trouble] issued
and came forth from before him; thousand thousands
ministered unto him [not only of his saints, but of numerous
other agents and agencies], and ten thousand times ten
thousand [all mankind] stood before him: the judgment
was set, and the books were opened." Jude 14; Zech. 14:5;
Matt. 25:31; Dan. 7:10
Such is the present situation: the great Judge has come--
not as at the first advent, in a body of humiliation, for sacrifice,
but in the plenitude of his power as a spirit being,
clothed with the glory of divine authority, as the representative
of Jehovah, completely and forever to put down
evil and all unrighteousness, and to restore all who will of
the redeemed race to harmony with God, perfection of
being and lasting life. The plan of God is now made manifest:
we are made to understand it now as never before. The
opening of the books of the divine revelation will soon be
completed. The judgment of the world is already commencing
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upon the institutions of nominal Christendom,
and the great work thus begun in a manner unsuspected by
the world will progress to the grand consummation foretold
by the Lord and the apostles and prophets, until all the
world shall be led to look upon the pierced One as the
Redeemer and Deliverer sent of God, even as the saints
have long been "looking unto Jesus" as the author and finisher
of their faith.* The reckoning or judgment which begins
with the Church will quickly spread to and include all
the living nations; and in due time and order all the mighty
hosts of the dead shall be brought upon the scene.
*See Vol. II, Chapter v.
While the glorified members of the Kingdom beyond the
veil are doing a work in shaping the current of present
events and preparing for the glorious reign, those on this
side the veil have also an important work. It is their mission
to gather together the elect and to seal them in the forehead
(intellectually) with the knowledge of the truth (Rev. 7:3);
to separate the wheat from the tares with the sickle of present
truth; and to proclaim unto Zion this important message
--"Thy God reigneth!" This work, too, is going rapidly
forward, and all the faithful, sealed ones are in turn busily
engaged in sealing others; and soon the great work will be
accomplished--the elect all gathered and glorified.
Blessed was the promise to the early members of the
Church, that he whom they saw go away should indeed
come again; and blessed has been the hope of his appearing
all through the age to the tried and persecuted, faithful
ones, who anxiously looked for his coming until they fell
asleep with the prospect of awaking in his likeness; but still
more blessed are your eyes, O ye saints of today; for your
eyes see and your ears hear the signs of the presence of the
long-looked-for Hope of Israel.
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While in nominal Zion, as the Prophet Isaiah predicted,
the sinners who have forgotten or failed to keep their covenant
with the Lord are afraid of the dark clouds that obscure
the brightness of his face, and fearfulness hath
surprised the hypocrites, true Zion with eyes of faith sees
the King in his beauty, and beholds the land that is yet far
off--the land of corn and wine, the glorious inheritance into
which this mighty King and great Deliverer has come to
lead the fallen race--a land wherein the inhabitants shall
not say, I am sick; for the people that dwell therein shall be
one whose iniquity is forgiven. Isa. 33:14,17,24
That glorious land, that Paradise restored, we now
clearly discern beyond the vista of a thousand years; and
with joy and singing, under the leadership of this greater
Prophet than Moses, who is even now in our midst, shall the
triumphant hosts of the redeemed be led along the grand
highway of holiness toward that fair land of rest from sin
and death and every evil thing.
"O, sing unto the Lord, ye saints of his, and give thanks
at the remembrance of his holiness. For his anger [which
must necessarily be manifested in the great trouble that will
soon overwhelm the world] endureth but a moment. In his
favor is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy
cometh in the morning." And soon the chastened and converted
world shall catch the strain of praise and sing,
"Thou hast turned my mourning into dancing; thou has
put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness, to the
end that my glory may sing praise to thee and never be silent.
O Lord, my God, I will give thanks unto thee forever."
Psa. 30:4,5,11,12
Now call to mind the steps, well founded in the "sure
word of prophecy," by which we have come to this heart-cheering
and soul-stirring knowledge. Behind us are all the
prophetic landmarks which point to this time as the most
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wonderful period in all the history of the world. They have
shown us that since 1873 we have been living in the seventh
millennium; that the lease of Gentile dominion, "The Times
of the Gentiles," will expire with the year 1914; and that the
advent of him whose right it is to take the dominion was
due in 1874. They have shown us that in the days of these
Gentile kings, before their lease of power expires, the God of
heaven will set up a Kingdom, and that the setting up of that
Kingdom has actually been in progress since the year 1878;
that there the resurrection of all the dead in Christ was due;
and that therefore, since that date, not only is our Lord and
Head invisibly present in the world, but all these holy messengers
are also with him. And observe, further, that this
date of the resurrection of the dead in Christ parallels the
date of the resurrection of the Head of the body. Our Lord's
resurrection occurred three and a half years after his advent
as the Messiah, in A.D. 29; and the resurrection of his body,
the Church, we have seen, was due in the year 1878, three
and a half years after his second advent, in October 1874.
Prophecy has also indicated the manner of our Lord's return,
so that, though he is present, we should not expect to
see either him or the risen saints, who are now in his likeness
except by the eye of faith--faith in the "sure word of
prophecy"; though we have learned that those who now
constitute "the feet of Christ" shall also shortly be changed
to the same glorious likeness. They shall then be spirit
beings, like him, Christ, and like all the risen saints who are
now with him, and will in due time see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)
We have also seen that the coming of the foretold Elias
and of the predicted Man of Sin, which were to precede his
advent, are accomplished facts.
We have marked, too, the fixed dates to which the
Prophet Daniel calls attention. The 2,300 days point to
1846 as the time when God's sanctuary would be cleansed
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of the defiling errors and principles of Papacy; and we have
noted the cleansing there accomplished. We have noted the
fulfilment of the 1,260 days, or the time, times and half a
time, of Papacy's power to persecute, and the beginning
there, in 1799, of the Time of the End. We have seen how
the 1,290 days marked the beginning of an understanding
of the mysteries of prophecy in the year 1829, culminating
in the great movement of 1844 known as the Second Advent movement,
when, according to the Lord's prediction,
the wise virgins went forth to meet the Bridegroom, thirty
years prior to his actual coming. We have seen the fulfilment
of the predicted tarrying; and for fifteen years the
midnight cry, "Behold the Bridegroom!" has gone forth.
We have marked with special delight the 1,335 days, pointing,
as they do, to 1874 as the exact date of our Lord's return;
and we have since that time experienced the very
blessedness promised--through the clearer unfoldings of the
wonderful mysteries of the divine plan.
Then we have seen the great harvest work, in its appointed
time and order, beginning in the autumn of the
year 1874, gradually and silently, but rapidly, progressing.
We have marked the bundling and binding of the tares,
and the gathering of the wheat. And what blessing and joy
come to us in the assurance that since the summer of 1878,
when the King took his great power and began his reign by
the resurrection of those who slept in Jesus, it is no longer
needful that his members should "sleep" and wait for glory,
but that for each the moment of finishing his course in
death is the moment of the joyful "change" to the full perfection
of the divine nature and likeness. Indeed, "blessed
are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth" forever.
They rest from their labors, but their works continue; for the
work on the other side the veil is the same work in which all
the overcomers are engaged on this side the veil; except that
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with those who have entered into the glory of the divine nature,
the work is no longer laborious, and no longer costs
fatiguing sacrifice.
In addition to all this, we see the beginnings of the return
of divine favor to fleshly Israel already manifested in the
beginning of a turning away of their blindness and
prejudice against Christ Jesus, in the opening up of the land
of promise and their expulsion from other lands, and also in
the returning fruitfulness of Palestine itself. These outward
signs alone, aside from all prophetic dates and times, would
be strong evidences that we are living in the close of the age
appointed for the selection of the Church or Kingdom class,
because of the positive assurance of the Scriptures that their
blindness and cast-off condition would continue only until
the members of the body of Christ had been selected.
Standing thus, as we do, at this late date in the Time of
the End, and in the very midst of the harvest of the age, and
looking forward for the settlement of all the complicated
questions of these feverish times within the brief space of
the next twenty-three years, how solemn and intense are
the feelings of those who have faith in the sure word of
prophecy. The momentous and perplexing questions which
will culminate in the great trouble, of which Daniel forewarns
us, are now agitating the public mind, and are fast
approaching the terrible crisis. But this great crisis of the
"day of vengeance" and "wrath" upon the nations we must
leave for consideration in the succeeding volume, as the
subject is too large and too important for our present space.
But let us rejoice in the fact that beyond the trouble, and
even beyond the helpful discipline of the reign of Christ, we
see the glorious land of rest, the blessed and eternal inheritance
of a redeemed and restored race.
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Wonderful times indeed are these, yet few heed the sure
word of prophecy; and consequently the future is viewed by
most men only from the standpoint of present indications.
Men see the rapidly gathering clouds, but can know nothing
of their silver lining except from the Word of God.
Yes, dear Redeemer and Lord, we recognize thy beloved
presence, and rejoice in the evidences of the establishment
of thy gracious Kingdom in this our day. Our hearts overflow
with gratitude as we see the converging rays of divine
testimony--from the law, the prophets, the apostles and
thine own hitherto dark sayings, and even from the long-hidden
mysteries of Egypt's wonderful "Witness"--now
drawn to a glorious focus showing thy believing followers
that the glorious day is soon to break, although clouds and
thick darkness yet obscure thy glory from all eyes except the
eyes of faith of thy betrothed. In this radiant focal light,
gem after gem of thy precious truth now gleams with a luster
hitherto unknown, and thy majestic presence is reflected
by them all.
"Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous; and give thanks at
the remembrance of his holiness." "O, clap your hands, all
ye people: shout unto your God with the voice of triumph;
for the Lord most high is a great King over all the earth."
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