Sunday Morning at the Birmingham Christadelphian Ecclesia, No. 152
“Exhort one another daily.”—Paul.
p. 15We have the honour to be of one mind to do good this morning to Israel after the flesh. To some it would not seem an honour. We will not stay to discuss with them. It is a sufficient answer to say that God, who is pleased that we do good to them that hate us, and that we do good to all men as we have opportunity, cannot be displeased that we hold out the hand to Jacob in the day of his affliction. It is a long time since it was written, “Blessed is he that blesseth thee,” and “He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of Mine eye.” Ages attest the truth of these sayings. They are in dispersion because of God's displeasure at the ways of their fathers; but it is not for the friends of God to help on the affliction. It is for the enemies of God to do the evil part. Proud Babylon thought she found a warrant for her cruelties in the fact of Israel's transgression: “Their adversaries said, We offend not, because they have sinned against the Lord” (Jer. i. 7). But their argument was altogether unnacceptable on High, “I was but a little displeased,” He said, “and they helped forward the affliction” (Zech. i. 15). “Israel hath not been forsaken, nor Judah of his God . . . THOUGH their land was filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel” (Jer. li. 5). It is not for men to stand in the place of God. It is for us to bless His people, and leave the punishment to Him. He gives us no warrant to afflict.
At this time of day, it is a special honour and privilege to fulfil the better part—to help. Not only looking forward will the enlightened mind feel impelled to take part in the promoting, as well as praying for, the peace of Jerusalem, but looking backward, the effect is the same. Who are these people scattered everywhere among the nations of the earth? Here we deal with a wonderful fact, before our very eyes. It is no matter of speculation or probability. It is a reality. Here is a nation among all nations: a people dispersed in all countries, surviving in spite of opposition and persecution, and clinging to their laws and traditions of antiquity, in spite of universal contempt. What is the meaning of the strange spectacle? It was foretold it would be so. In the ancient books they revere, which they have carried with them in their dispersion, and which have become the property of the world, it is written, (and was written there 3,000 years ago, by their first leader, Moses), that, because of their disobedience, it would come to pass that “the Lord would scatter them from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth” (Deut. xxviii. 64), but, that in the scattering, He would preserve them, for the honour of His own name (Deut. xxxii. 26-27)—that, though He would make a full end of all the nations among whom He would scatter them, He would not make a full end of them, but only correct them (Jer. xxx. 11). How comes such an extraordinary spectacle—a nation scattered for weary ages, with books in their hands, foretelling the event! Oh, we know the answer. God spoke to this nation, and to none else. Their history is the history of revelation. It is the proof of inspiration. They are God's monument among men. It is as God told them: “Ye are my witnesses that I am God, and that there is none else.”
p. 16It is not merely their present position that we look at. We look back upon the centuries, and we see the Jews always there. If we were to suppose the 18 centuries that have elapsed since Christ's appearance among men, to be represented by 18 pictures, in each picture the Jew would be the steady object, all other objects in the picture changing and waning. The first picture would show us Cæsar enthroned, with sceptre swaying all the earth — the Jew also enthroned, but subject to Cæsar — Jerusalem still in her glory — Jacob having existence among the nations as a nation — The second picture would show us Cæsar in a halo of increased glory, and the Jew prostrate in the mire, and receiving Gentile blows. The third picture would be almost a repetition of the second. The fourth would show Roman glory beginning to pale before a new brightness—of Jewish origin—the brightness of Jesus' name—Paganism retiring before Constantine, who writes the name of Christ with the point of the sword on the portals of the Roman system. The fifth would show the Jew crouching in the corner before Catholic persecution. The sixth the same. The seventh, a new light on Rome's seven hills—a light of lurid evil omen—the furnace glare of Papal power, and the Jew wandering hither and thither uneasily in the fiery glow. The eighth and succeeding pictures would show us substantially the same figures with variations—the Jew always in all countries to the front. In the eighteenth, the glory of Papalism would be seen on the wane, and just at its finish the Napoleonic meteor would strike and explode on the throne of St. Peter, and involve its kingdom in darkness for a time. The nineteenth would show us the Jew in a more erect posture and a more advanced figure in the foreground and with his eye turned over his shoulder towards the desolate land of his fathers; around his head, a new and increasing light and Gentile figures showing a confused grouping and a muddy radiance like the murky, misty yellow of the setting sun on a wintry day.
But in all the eighteen, the Jew visible and prominent—this is the point. Ah, and we may go back before the first century and say the same for an equal score of ages preceding. Whatever we may read of Egypt, and Babylon, and Persia, and Greece, and Rome; the Jew is always side by side. At no point in the historic age is the Jew invisible. He is coeval with civilisation; he is concurrent with all human records of the past; and he is with us to-day—the only permanent figure in the changeful scene. We look back upon the Egyptians, a powerful military nation at Israel's beginning; where are their power and glory now? Let the crumbling pyramids and rotting mummies, and chaotic ruins on the banks of the Nile, answer. Where is Babylon, the destroyer of Jerusalem? Go to the banks of the Euphrates, and read, in the silent wastes and mounds, the fulfilment of the same word which not only foretold Israel's dispersion and preservation, but Babylon's inhabitantless desolation, from generation to generation (Isaiah xiii. 20). And Greece and Rome too, who fill so large a place in the literature of the polite, where are they? Their imperial power a history for the school, their nationality and language a study for bookworms, their race extinct, or represented only by the mongrel peoples of Italy and the Pyrrheus. But the Jew, here he is to day, as pronounced a people, as separate a race, with as fixed a language, as in the palmiest days of Judah's power. The Jew is God's work, God's people, God's witness. He tells us “This people have I formed for myself, and they shall shew forth all my praise.” This is the meaning of their preservation, and the purpose of the preservation we shall yet see realised in the setting up of the kingdom of God in all the earth, to the praise of Jehovah's name in every land.
p. 17In the merely historic point of view, divinely considered, therefore, we find great encouragement to comply with the appeal that has been made to us to help Jacob in the time of his trouble. But this is only half the subject. There is a future as we know. Of this future, God spoke to a Jew in captivity at Babylon, “a man greatly beloved,” to whom it was said “From the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words.” The angel of Yahweh's presence thus addressed Daniel. To what purpose did Gabriel thus come to Daniel, greatly beloved in Babylon? “I am come,” said he, “to make thee understand what shall befall thy people IN THE LATTER DAYS.” And Daniel “understood the thing and had understanding of the vision” (x. 1). And the vision is in our hands for us to understand also. What the vision reveals is this, that after a protracted period of down-treading and chaos, there would come a time “in the latter days,” when Yahweh would deliver His people; when the land would be “cleansed;” and when the dispersed of Israel would be gathered again from the four winds of heaven, the glorious sequel of which would be the establishment of a kingdom under the long-promised Anointed One, which should govern all mankind for the blessing of man and the glory of God. A rough indication is given of the length of the time of down-treading—a length sufficiently great to justify Daniel's introductory statement (x. 1) that “the time appointed was long.” It is not necessary on this occasion to go into any technical demonstration on the subject of the times and seasons. Suffice it to remember that “the time appointed” expires in the age in which we live, and that we have reached the time when the preliminary symptoms of Israelitish emancipation ought to be visible, both as regards land and people. If it be asked why we should look for preliminary symptoms—why the thing may not come with the suddenness of a thunderclap—the answer is, it is revealed that the work will be gradual and at first natural. And the nature of the thing, considered in the light of God's past dealings with Israel, requires a gradual work in the first stage. It is not in harmony with God's orderly and progressive ways in the past, that a scattered and despised nation and a desolate land should, in a single day, arise from the down-treading of centuries, though in its later stage (when the hour arrives for the manifestation of the Lord with his brethren), there will be quick and startling work. It is according to nature and analogy that the thing should begin slowly. The question is, is the work begun? Who can shut his eyes to the fact who takes a survey of the whole position for years past? We have first the emancipation of the Jew from civil disabilities in all lands except one (Russia, the great latter-day enemy of Israel). There has been a great outburst of persecution in various countries, but this is contrary to the law of the land, and is being put down with the arm of authority. The opposition to the Jew is now social. Men are his enemy privately, and they would like to alter the law, and are forming associations to try and bring about an alteration. But the law is in favour of the Jew as it has not been during the ages of downtreading. And this change is a latter-day change. It is change about 30 years old or so, coinciding substantially with the termination of the 2,400 period of Dan. viii. The Jew is now eligible to hold landed property, to follow any profession, to vote in municipal and parliamentary elections, to fill any office of authority in the realm. Witness Sir George Jessel, the Master of the Rolls, recently deceased. This is a great change when looked at against the background of the dark centuries that are past. Another fact to be noted is the wonderful wealth of the Jews. This has become quite p. 18proverbial. It is a comparatively modern development. However men may explain it; by whatever combination of circumstances it has come about, there is the fact patent to all the world that the strings of the money bags of the world are held by Jewish hands. Kings and governments have to use Rothschild when any great performance of finance has to be compassed. This is doubtless a preparation for events further on. Then, we behold a work of organisation going on among the Jewish race which is quite a novel thing in their history. Until the present generation, since their dispersion, Israel has been a race of units, having no connection one part with another. But now, they are becoming organised. The establishment of a universal Israelite alliance, with head quarters at Paris, has laid the foundation of a corporate existence unknown to Jewish life for ages. It has given the Jews a rudimentary nationality which cannot fail to be of the utmost importance in all future movements for their national resuscitation. It is “bone coming to his bone,” the broken people coming together. Under the auspices of the Alliance, there is an annual meeting of Jewish delegates from all parts of the world, at which matters affecting Jewish interests are debated, and from the officials of which, there is correspondence with the Jews throughout the world.
So much for the people. Are there any symptoms of revived life for the land? People not interested or attentive to the matter would be astonished at all the facts that could be placed together in support of an affirmative answer to this question. Ever since the Crimean war, when, by the treaty of Paris, Turkey was compelled to allow foreigners to hold land in any part of her empire, there has been a steady advance in the direction of new life in the Holy Land. Jerusalem has become a changed city within the period that has elapsed since then. Building is going on in all directions outside the walls, and so it is also at several other centres. This revival of activity has also taken the form of agricultural settlements in various parts of the land; and the movement as a whole is chiefly Jewish, though Germans and others have taken part. The movement has received a great stimulus from various circumstances well within the memory of the brethren. First, there is the Montefiori memorial, consisting of a fund of about £30,000, the interest of which is being administered by an agent in Jerusalem, in the encouragement of Jewish house-building, and agricultural enterprise; and lastly, most recently and most important of all, the persecution that has sprung up with such vigour against the Jews, in the principal European countries, has given a great impetus to matters and movements affecting the Holy Land, in a very direct and remarkable manner. It is not only that colonies have been actually formed, but movements have been set on foot, and taken in hand by various classes of persons, which have for their object the Jewish settlement of the land on a large scale, and a situation has been created that only requires the ripening of imminent political changes in the East, to open the flood-gates of Jewish immigration.
Egypt has been occupied by England. She is already in Cyprus, from which the mountains of the Holy Land are remotely visible. An Arabian revolt against the Sultan has been fermenting for two years past, and now receives a powerful support (which the Sultan feels to be alarming) from the victories of the False Prophet of the Soudan, who gives himself out as the true latter-day head of Islamism, and the fore-runner of Jesus Christ. The success of this revolt would probably draw England into Syria, as she has been drawn into Egypt. Her ships are already ordered to the Red Sea, to prevent a crossing to Mecca, but what if a crossing is not necessary for the spread of the flame? What if the myriad Arab sympathisers of p. 19the Mahdi unfurl his flag for him in the Arabian peninsula, and are joined by the tribes of Syria, who were nearly in open rebellion while Arabi made a stand? British soldiers only would then be equal to the task of beating back the fanatical hordes from Syria, and once there, she must needs stay: and with England there, Turkish obstacles would disappear. We should soon see the Jewish movement expand and develop into that pre-adventual form of things described in Ezekiel xxxviii. 8-16.
All these things taken separately may each appear small, and without significance to the eye that only looks at them from the newspaper point of view, which is a very limited point of view. But, taken together, and looked at in the mass in connection with the long dark past of Israel's experience, and in the light of what has been revealed, they have but one message to the ear of intelligence. They tell us that we are in the era of the Lord's return. He comes, not only to raise and glorify his saints: he comes to deliver Israel from all distress; and in what more fitting attitude could his brethren be found than in the act of contributing to the preliminary form of this deliverance? It is not as if this were proposed to us as a hobby. It is not as if we took it in hand in any organic or administrative form. We are only asked to assist in supplying the means for others to do the work; and in doing this, we are only doing one among many good works for the Lord's sake. We are called upon to be ready to every good work. It is a mistake to make some other good work a reason for not doing this. It will be found true that those who are heartiest in this are not the most shortcoming in other directions. It is not those who love the Jews most that attend to the poor least; it is not those who contribute most liberally to Jacob's need that are the most niggardly in their provision for the comfort of the brethren or the needs of the truth. To cry out about the poor when some other good deed is being performed is what Judas did, and we know how the Lord estimated the cry, and the place he gave to the loving extravagance which Judas so sourly condemned.
Brethren, the day is breaking. If it takes a long time to break and is slow in coming, we must remember the day is long that is coming, and that the night has been long from which it is emerging. “Long hath the night of sorrow reigned; the dawn shall give us light.” The darkness is not so deep as it was fifty years ago. The pitchy blackness has given way to something like a twilight in which the forms of the mountains are dimly visible against the sky. The eastern horizon slowly lightens and suffuses with the blush of coming dawn. Soon the actual light will brighten all the air and gild the mountain tops. Soon a glorious shaft will strike athwart the sombreness and tell the awaking world that the sun at last has risen and ascends the morning sky. Soon amid the turmoils and complications and gladsome tokens of this latter day, will Christ announce his presence.
What this will mean we know—at first, trouble, dire and prolonged, for the uncircumcised populations of the earth, but at last peace, and righteousness, and rest, and joy, and blessing. All mankind will share in the promised blessedness. Just as in the natural sunrise, all darkness flees before the glorious orb of day; just as all countries and all conditions receive the gladdening flood of light—the dens of barbarism alike with the homes of civilisation, so all nations, all ranks of men, all conditions of life, will be embraced in the heavenly beams of the Sun of Righteousness. We are here as the children of this coming day to hail its gladdening approach, by doing something towards the very work which God Himself has indicated as the preface of its advent, and the means by which it is germinally introduced.
EDITOR.