Quote of the Day

The progress of Christianity has been confessedly tardy. From the places where first its light shone, the candlestick has been removed; and where now we speak of it as established, we are constrained to make the humiliating acknowledgment that nine-tenths of the profession is false. Our missions proceed also but slowly, indeed more slowly than we will allow ourselves to think; and though we hang upon the lips of the newly arrived missionary, and drink in with avidity the reports of each society, when we come in the moment of cool reflection to ask, what has been done? I say the answer is, but little. Nor is it from want of exertion: for never was there such a host of instrumentality brought to bear on the promotion of Christianity as of late years: and, without making the state of things worse than it really is, I yet say that the mind that would take for its data, on which to expect the speedy establishment of Christ's kingdom, the means now in use, and the success attending them, must be indeed must sanguine. I know how unwelcome are these observations. I know that it will be said they serve no purpose but to check Christian exertion, - to damp Christian energy. But it is not so; they may check the exertion and damp the energy which owe their existence to false stimulus; but the exertion or the energy which has for its motive the glory of God - which appreciates the value of the immortal soul, and carries with it the recollection that 'there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over ONE sinner that repenteth: will not be diverted from its purpose merely by having its expectations corrected. Indeed on the contrary; for, as it is said that "hope deferred maketh the heart sick," I fear there is more danger of the exertion relaxing which is subject to disappointment, than that which has for its measure and guide a more moderate but more certain prospect. 

The truth is, as it appears to me, that we have altogether mistaken the object of this, the Gentile dispensation. That 'the kingdoms of the world shall become the kingdoms of the Lord and his Christ," - that "the Son shall have "the Heathen for his inheritance, and the  ut-"most parts of the earth for his possession,"- that "'the kingdom and dominion UNDER the "whole heaven shall be given to the saints of "the Most High;" - all this is most true: these are the sure promises of God. But that they shall not be fulfilled during this dispensation, is also and equally sure and true. At the sounding of the "seventh trumpet" shall be the first, (Rev. xi.15.) at the destruction of the Antichristian confederacy, is the second, (Ps ii.8,9,) at the falling of the stone on the feet of the image, and the judgment on the little horn of the fourth beast, is the third; in a word all three at the SECOND COMING of Christ. Consider these passages and you will see that so far from this dispensation being appointed to convert the world it actually stands in the way of it - that the apostasy of the Gentiles denoted by "the working of the mystery of iniquity," retards (if I may so speak)  that wished for event; and that not until it is judged, in order to which it must first be consummated, will the kingdom of our God come with power. 

William De Burgh from his book Lectures on the Second Advent [With an introduction on the use of Unfulfilled Prophecy] Published in 1832

Quote of the Day

  It is certainly to be deplored that error and fanaticism have been so often mingled with prophetic studies.  God has been thereby dishonored, and his word profaned.  The lips of scoffers have been opened in taunt and derision, while timid believers have kept silence, as if unable to reply. 

  We need not keep silence.  Let us admit the fact on which the mockery is founded, and there let it rest.  It will humble us; it will inspire caution; it will teach us wisdom, but it will do no more.  It will not deter us from such studies, nor will it lead us to impeach the Word of God for consequences in which man alone is the delinquent.  It will not lead us to join in the fears of the over-prudent respecting the perilous nature of these investigations, nor to relinquish the field as either impracticable, or barren, or injurious.  Because visions of futurity, drawn professedly from Scripture, have, with unholy fire, kindled some burning fancies into the wildness of a frenzied enthusiasm……are we, therefore, to shut up the prophetic record, and turn away our eyes from pages tamped so broadly with the seal, and encircled so brightly with the blessing of God?  Are the prophets to be treated as if belonging to the kindred of the sybils, and their books to be buried out of sight? Nothing more profane has ever been uttered against Scripture, than that the study of any part of it is fitted to unhinge the mind, or raise its temperature beyond the point of calm and solemn inquiry.  No Romanist ever promulgated an idea so indefensible as that any region of Scripture is unfruitful or forbidden ground, to be employed merely as a field out of which a casual text may be culled as taste or fancy may incline; that whole chapters and books of Scripture are wrapt in such studied mystery that the very endeavor to understand them betokens rashness and folly. 

  "Secret things belong to God," says an objector.  Most certainly; and whoever insists on prying into God's secrets will only proclaim his own pride and plunge himself into profounder ignorance.  But prophecy is no secret thing; it is a thing revealed.  It is not truth over which God has drawn the veil.  It is just the opposite.  It is truth from which God has withdrawn the veil, on purpose that we may know it and profit by it.……We hear much of the difference between things essential and things non-essential; but who will undertake to draw the dividing line?  Or who will venture to affirm that the prophetic portions of the Word are its non-essentials?  Do not such truths as the advent, the resurrection, the judgment, form some of the chief scenes of prophecy; and are these non-essentials?  Strange, truly strange, that man should make such a division of the Word of God!  Stranger still, that he should make it for the purpose of excusing himself for the neglect of so large and precious a portion of revelation.  Is not the fact of its being revealed enough to show us that God thought it essential; or if not essential absolutely and with reference to salvation, at least essential relatively and as pertaining to holiness?  If a man will persist in calling it non-essential, surely he will not irreverently pronounce it unimportant?  And if it be admitted to be important, then surely all farther argument is at end.  It must be studied.  We dare not overlook or postpone the duty.

- Horatius Bonar 

From his book: Prophetic Landmarks

Quote of the Day

The plea that the prophetic portions of the Bible present problems over which men disagree is not a worthy release from its claims.  There are no more problems in Eschatology than in Soteriology.  It happens that, owing to the central place accorded Soteriology by the Reformers and in subsequent theological writings, that it has had a measure of consideration not given to prophetic truth.  Disagreements as divergent as Calvinism and Arminianism have never been urged as a reason for the neglect of Soteriology, but disunity of the slightest degree among teachers respecting Eschatology has been seized on as a reason for its neglect.

- L. S. Chafer

Quote of the Day

Of them(the Jews) God thus spake hundreds of years before the destruction of Jerusalem: "I will scatter you among the heathen:" "Thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among the all nations, whither the Lord shall lead thee:" "Among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest." 

Jerusalem has been "trodden under foot," literally and terribly, till now, by the iron heels of western Christians, who deluged it with blood, by the hoofs of Arab and Moslem horsemen, and by the bare feet of Greek, and Roman, and Armenian monks.  Each sect spared its rival in order to crush the Jew.  To plunder and maltreat the Jew was regarded as the expression of a piety singularly acceptable to God.  No experience of man can explain this.  The Jew is a living mystery, which prophecy alone clears up.

Many other predictions, intimate the destinies of this mysterious race till Christ come.  All nations have homes in Jerusalem, - the Jew has none.  They have been sifted through all nations, and have taken root in none.  They  are the subjects of every dynasty - the victims of every tyranny - the scoff of the infidel - the scorn of the great.  From the Thames to the Tiber, and from the Tiber to the Ganges, and from the Ganges to the Missouri - from "Greenland's icy mountains to India's coral strand" - they are found insulated from the sympathies of all men, indicating affinities with something above and before, but with nothing around.  That once great nation has been poured down upon the earth like quicksilver - it has split into innumerable scattered and disintegrated globules, which the Great Proprietor will yet collect, and form into a mighty mass that shall glow with imperishable splendor and reflect his glory.  Many thousand years ago, God in prophecy pronounced the future dispersion and doom of the Jews, and God in history has kept them like the bush on Horeb - burning and not consumed - till that day come when the glory shall return from between the cherubim, and the dry bones rush together from a thousand lands, and the groans of creation, and the oppression of the Jew, and the travail of the Christian, cease together.  Do we not hear every morning a deep-toned voice in our streets? It is the echo of the voice of God in prophecy - evidence to a skeptic world that God's word is truth.  No man can read the history of the Jews, and the prophecy of which that history is the shadow projected into many years and lands, and not conclude that the prescience of God pronounced the prediction, and that the presence of God in history superintends its fulfillment.

John Cumming

Quote of the Day

Here God has written out His glorious name. In this Jewish people we see every divine perfection in act and operation. Omnipotence raised them up at first….Wisdom watched over, led, and guided them unerringly. Faithfulness fulfilled every promise uttered by the lip of Truth. Goodness established them in a noble land, gave them holy laws, divine and instructive institutions, sent among them prophets to teach and priests to minister. Holiness warned, cautioned, and exhorted them, and when they rebelliously spurned the gentle tones of love, how long did Patience bear with them; how often did God return and have mercy on them! When they had sinned "till there was no more remedy" [2 Chr 36:16], when they had consummated the rebellions of fifteen hundred years by that unparalleled deed of blood, the murder of the Son of God, then, after some yet further lingerings and invitations of insulted Mercy, did awful Justice arise, bare his arm for the battle, and strike down the terrible and crushing blows. Now, in what state do we behold them? Even as they have been for the last eighteen hundred years, like a burnt mountain on the plains of Time, scorched and splintered by the lightnings of diving wrath.

Yes! Still preserved in all their woe, still unconsumed by all these penal fires! Preserved! And for what? Let a thousand glorious prophecies answer! That burnt mountain shall yet be clothed with lovely foliage; down its sides shall streams of living water gush; and the nation that now witnesses to the truth, justice and power of God, shall sing till the ends of the earth shall hear and echo back the song, "Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity, and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in unchanging love"(Mic 7:18). Then shall the Lord be glorified in Israel, and all His attributes displayed in full-orbed glory, when He shall "call her Hephzibah, and her land Beulah" [Isa 62:4]. What a glorious Jehovah is the LORD God of Israel! With what awe, what love, what fear, what hope, should this character, as exhibited towards Israel, Inspire us!

Horatius Bonar