Sunday Morning at the Birmingham Christadelphian Ecclesia, No. 138
“Exhort one another daily.”—Paul.
p. 153We propose this morning to make a contribution on behalf of the Jews who have suffered so severely in various parts of the Russian empire. We do so in response to the appeal which has been addressed from high quarters to this nation. We are justified on various grounds in putting our hands to this matter. The first is the general command delivered to the house of Christ by our beloved brother Paul: “Do good unto all men as ye have opportunity.” This we are to do even without particularly enquiring whether they are deserving or not: for Christ himself has said, “Do good to the unthankful and the evil.” The only question is, are they in want: and have we the opportunity? Even our enemies we are to feed if they hunger, and we have it in our power. Here are the Jews—many, many thousands of them reduced to a worse state than beggary—huddled together in the open air without food, shelter, or safety, in the midst of a hostile population. The cry for help has come to this country. It has been organised in London. It has been addressed to every city, every community, every person. The Jews are men: we have the opportunity afforded us. This is sufficient[?], were there no other reasons to justify us in what we propose to do.
But there are other reasons. In the very place where it says, “Do good unto all men as we have opportunity,” it is added, “but especially to those who are of the household of faith.” Here is an “especially” in certain directions. We shall find there are many “especially’s” in the case of the Jews. In the first place, who are they? We cannot know the truth and be ignorant of this. We have to use Paul’s words, and say “Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came.” We have to say with him “they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes.” They are the descendants, according to the flesh of him who was called “The friend of God:” to whom the promises were made, and to whom we have become related as his seed and heirs according to the promise, if we walk in the steps of that faith which our father Abraham had while he was yet uncircumcised. They are the nation of whom Jehovah himself has said “He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of His eye,” and “cursed is he that curseth thee.” There is not a nation in the civilized world but what is cursed under this clause. True it is, that Israel has been scattered among them for their sins; and they (the Gentile nations) have been made use of as God’s instruments to punish them; but this does not alter the fact that the nations, in ill-treating Israel, have offended against Israel’s God. The truth has taught us that God may use a man or nation as a rod of chastisement, and yet may be displeased with his own instrument so far as its purposes and intents are concerned: as in the case of the Assyrian, the never-to-be forgotten illustration: he was sent against Israel for their punishment. “Howbeit,” saith Jehovah, “he meaneth not so, but it is in his heart to cut off nations . . . . wherefore it shall come to pass when the Lord of hosts hath (by His hands) accomplished His whole work upon Mount Zion, that He will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the King of Assyria and the glory of his high looks.”
It is also written “Blessed is he that blesseth thee.” It is impossible that anyone fearing God and hoping for his salvation can ever entertain other than the deepest p. 154feelings of interest and commiseration for outcast Israel. The fact that God has chosen them will be as the anointing oil of the sanctuary upon them in the eyes of all such. The attitude of David to Saul (anointed though rejected) is the attitude of David’s brethren in all ages to all things with which Jehovah has had to do. They hold them sacred by the divine use, even in the hour of divine repudiation. They will never be found lifting a foot against them so far as it is left to their voluntary action. Rather will they reverence, and pity, and pray. Israel is the holy nation in the earth. The saints have nothing but blessings for them; the curses and the punishments they leave to the uncircumcised Gentile—the vessels unto dishonour, who have their use in the divine economy, but not a use consistent with saintship.
The retrospect would justify an “especially” in the case of helping the Jews in the hour of their need. But there is a stronger “especially” than even that. The Jews have had a distinguished history—such as no nation upon earth can lay claim to; but what is that to their futurity? What a nation must that be which, when the hope of the Gospel is defined, is found to be their hope, “the hope of Israel?” Aye, it is here where the matter comes home to us. We assemble here this morning because of a hope—a hope of salvation: that hope the hope of Israel (Acts xxviii. 20), that salvation a salvation which is “of the Jews” (John iv. 22), for to them pertain the adoption, and the glory, and the giving of the law and the promises (Rom. ix. 4). Do we not desire the realization of that hope? Are we not here “looking for that blessed hope?” holding it fast in the confidence and rejoicing thereof? Yes, if we are saints at all, we stand ardently in the one hope of securing God’s promises fulfilled in the bestowal of that everlasting life in the kingdom of God, which has been covenanted to the fathers from the beginning. Now, here is where the emphasis of the present subject comes in: we shall never realise the glorious hope of the gospel while Israel continues in dispersion and their land in desolation. Our individual hope is bound up with the building up of Zion. We had that beautiful Psalm—the 104th Psalm—a week ago. What did we read there? “When the Lord shall build up Zion, HE SHALL APPEAR IN HIS GLORY.” We are looking for His appearing; and if it is when He builds up Zion that he appears in his glory, do we not naturally look with strong desire for every token of the approach of the building up of Zion? Is it not natural with us, having such a hope, to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem?” It is written in that same Psalm, “Thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof.” How entirely does the truth enable us to respond to this, and say, “Yes, Lord; her very dust to us is dear.” Was it so in the days of our darkness? Were we as Episcopalians, as Independents, as Baptists, as Methodists, or any class of orthodox religionists, so affectionately interested in the Holy Land and people? We can all answer. There is nothing that comes from the pulpits of the denominations to make people interested in the stones of Zion. A faint historical interest is all; and this in very few cases. When we know the promises—the glorious gospel of the kingdom and age to come—all this is altered. We behold in the present desolation of Israel’s land and people but an appointed and foretold interregnum of Jehovah’s purpose with them, the down-treading[?] of the times of the Gentiles—at the close of which—now at the door, Jehovah will fulfil His gracious words to Zion: “For a small moment have I forsaken thee: but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment: but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer” (Is. liv. 7-8). “Thy waste, and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away” (Is. xlix. 19). “Whereas thou hast been forsaken and p. 155hated, so that no man went through thee, I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations” (Is. lx. 15). “I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame” (Zeph. iii. 19).
But, it may be asked, what has the persecution of the Jews in Russia to do with this? What has a collection on behalf of their distress to do with the return of God’s long-absent favour to them, and the realization of the hope of the Gospel? Well, this, also, has its cogent answer. To all things there is a beginning: for all great works of God, there is a preparation. It has been so in all past cases, and Jehovah changes not. The education of Moses, and the affliction of Israel, prepared the way for their deliverance from Egypt. Their return from Babylon was a gradual development facilitated by the faithfulness of faithful men operating naturally. The appearance of Christ in the flesh was preceded by the preparatory work of John the Baptist. His appearance in power and great glory is to be preceded by a preparation suitable to the nature and objects of his coming. He comes to conquer the kingdoms of the Gentiles, and to reign (Rev. xvii. 14; xi. 15). He comes to occupy the throne of David (Is. ix. 7; xvi. 5; Luke i. 32). He comes to use Israel as a battle-axe in war, to hew down the tree of Gentile greatness (Jer. li. 20-22). Because this is the purpose of his coming, there must be preparatory circumstances and events tending in the direction of the building up of Zion—the restoring of Israel from their dispersion. It would be out of harmony with the fitness of things that the Lord should come to an empty land and a scattered people. It is reasonable that, against the day of his arrival, there should be developed a nucleus of Israelitish nationality for him to work on, as a basis in the work of raising up the fallen tabernacle of David, and making war on the kingdoms of the Gentiles. As a matter of fact, it is revealed that such will be the case. When Gog comes into the land before the Lord’s manifestation to Israel, he finds the land brought back from the sword; the mountains of Israel, which had been always waste, brought forth out of the nations: the desolate places now inhabited by the people gathered out of the nations, dwelling in unwalled villages, having neither bars nor gates, in possession of cattle and goods, dwelling in the midst of the land (Ezek. xxxviii. 8-12). These recently-arrived settlers on Israel’s long-desolate mountains are under the protection of a power holding dominion in the south (verse 13). These events belong to “the latter days:” “the latter years” (verses 8, 16): “t h e time of the end” (Dan. xi. 40). That we have reached these latter days is made certain by a variety of considerations which it would be out of place to rehearse on the present occasion. They are well known to you all. We have but to put things together, and see how wonderfully the purpose of God is fulfilling before our eyes.
For many years, there have been indications in the direction of Israel’s return. First, the barrier to their settlement was removed, as the result of the Crimean war, in the abrogation of the Turkish law that forbad a foreigner to hold property in land subject to the Turkish Government. Secondly, as the result of that alteration of law, Jews began at once—the cases were not numerous, but still they were symptomatic of the situation—privately and individually to acquire and cultivate land in Palestine. Thirdly, various schemes, in various places, have been formed for collective settlements on a small scale. Fourthly, there has been the Montefiori scheme, under which Jerusalem is being improved and renovated in a way not to be despised; and fifthly, there has been the recent formation of a society to promote Jewish colonization of Palestine on a large scale.
But all these things have been more or less private. As regards the world in general, they have bee obscure and almost invisible; they have only been known and p. 156noted by those who have had their eyes in that direction on the outlook for the signs of God’s returning favour to Zion. But now we are face to face with a matter which is of world-wide notoriety and influentiality. It is a thing not in a corner, but proclaimed from the housetops, and to which the attention of all the world is directed by the loudest voice in the world. The mass of the Jewish population in central Europe (comprising, in fact, the great body of the Jewish nation) has become the object of an organised persecution on the most formidable scale, which has for its object neither more nor less than the expulsion of the Jews from the midst of the population, on whom, doubtless, they have laid a heavy hand by reason of their superior acuteness in the manipulation of the laws of usury. The question has been forced upon the attention of both Jew and Gentile. What is to be done with this Jewish population whose existence in the Southern and Western provinces of Russia has become impossible? Emigration was faintly thought of at first on the ground of Russia’s well-known objection to any part of her population leaving the country; but, wonderful to relate, the Russian Government has consented to the emigration of the Jews, and to the formation of committees to carry it out. The question where to, is exercising the persons who have the matter in hand. Many say America; but the Hebrew community in America can only do with a few, and are imploring the authorities not to send more than they can do with. A number of others say, Palestine. Among these is one of the most influential members of the committee which has been formed in London, under the Lord Mayor, to collect and administer funds in relief of the Jews. Mr. Lawrence Oliphant, who, within the last two weeks (spoken March 5), has not only been made a member of the committee, but has been appointed the committee’s agent and commissioner, and, in conjunction with a leading Jew, despatched in that capacity to the district where the persecuted Jews are congregated, to consider what is best to be done, and to recommend the requisite arrangements to the Central Committee. Mr. Oliphant’s sentiments are very strong on the subject of diverting a large portion of the Jewish emigration stream to the Holy Land. On this point, he has expressed himself freely and strongly in letters which have appeared in the Times. He says that, whatever may be the callousness of the Western Jew, the feeling of those in Central and Eastern Europe is in favour of going to the Holy Land. In proof of this, he quotes from letters he has received from Jewish bodies in various parts—letters not only expressing a wish to emigrate to Palestine, but declaring a determination to do so, and, in some cases, stating the completion of their arrangements to depart, and only asking that when they get to their destination, Mr. Oliphant may use his influence to obtain assistance for them from the fund being raised, to help them to provide agricultural implements, &c. Mr. Oliphant has declared himself in favour of sending the poor portion of the refugees to America, and sending those who have means, to Palestine. That such a man as he, and a man holding such sentiments, should be appointed the executive of the committee in organizing the emigration movement, is one of the most interesting and hopeful facts of the whole situation.
This is the work we are called upon to help—to help men in dire distress—not only to help men, but to help men of Israel—not only to help men of Israel, but to help them at a time in their history, when to help them is to lay the foundation of that building up of Zion which the Lord will perform when he appears in his glory. Shall we respond to the call? On what ground can we hesitate? Shall it be said we have other work to do? What other work have we that is not a branch of this same work? What assemble we for—what labour we for, whether in private or in public, if it is not for the building up of p. 157Zion? Every act of obedience to the truth we may perform—every dark mind we may be instrumental in enlightening and filling with the comfort of the hope of Israel—every human will we may influence into submission to the gospel and the law of Christ, the King of Zion—what is it but a stone placed in the glorious edifice that God is slowly rearing in the earth for praise and blessing before all the nations? The Lord hath chosen Zion: and Zion will be found at the bottom of all we are called upon to do as the servants of Christ. It is only Zion in another shape this morning. The time is come for Zion to rise from the dust, and she looks around for pity and help. Shall we refuse her appeal because we have other work? Shall we shut our ears while others —and the alien, too—listen? Shall we be false to the command which tells us to be ready to every good work, and to always abound in the work of the Lord? We cannot do much; we are a feeble flock; but what we cannot do in the amount contributed to help the emigration of Israel’s sons from the land of the enemy, we make up for in that earnestness of solicitude for the peace of Jerusalem, which only the gospel in the understanding and affectionate obedience thereof, can impart. Our diminutive mites represent an ardour of desire for the welfare of Jehovah’s land, and people, which is unknown among the crowds who are filling up long and liberal subscription lists. Let us give according to our possibility, in the recollection that it is accepted according to what a man hath, and not according to what a man hath not.
EDITOR.