How They Act Against God.
R. B.
1895 216 In this world are three active and potent forces, each contributing to its pretensions as it now subsists, or will shortly expand, and embracing every motive or incentive to action, that has, since the fall, marked its course.
These three forces are Power, Religion, and Commerce. And because the whole world lies in the wicked one, power has begotten oppression, religion has developed into idolatry, and commerce is energised by covetousness. By power is meant the authority, however acquired, of man over man; and by religion, not God's revelation, but the outcome of man's nature, which is essentially religious. For, even if man is a infidel, he still bows to a superior, and pays homage to a being — real or imaginary — above himself. Even Antichrist, who exalts himself above all that is called God, will pay homage to the god of forces (Dan. 11:38-39). It is commerce that now seems to have the sway of the world, not that the love of power is extinct, or commerce of recent development. There were merchant princes in Tyre nearly fifteen centuries before Christ. But the spirit of traffic is now more widely spread, and other things are for the time yielding to it.
The first expression of power among men, after the deluge, was an attempt to be independent of God — to build a tower and make themselves a name, and a gathering point lest they should be scattered. And if they could have succeeded, their power would have been limitless. God Himself declared that now nothing would be restrained from them which they imagined to do. There was mercy mingled with judgment when men were scattered into different groups and tongues. Had they been permitted to remain with one language, the world would have been, if possible, even worse than it is; for man has given proof of what he could do. When God put power into his hand (as we see in Nebuchadnezzar), he used it to establish idolatry, and to burn out the confession of the true God. Although Babel was not ostensibly built to support idolatry, the spirit that prompted its building was the same as was soon seen in the universal spread of idolatry, viz., the exclusion of God. If violence and corruption filled the earth before the flood, idolatry overspread it immediately after.
It was a fallen world before man acquired power. Magisterial authority was given to Noah by God. But man soon found what a great auxiliary to power it was to have a centre, and so the attempt at Babel; and when dominion was given to Nebuchadnezzar by God, he endeavoured to consolidate his authority by establishing idolatry. (Indeed there is no force equal to the religious element in human nature to strengthen or overthrow any power on earth.) Egypt abounded in idols; but we do not read that the king enforced their worship with penalties if disobedient. But from Babylon the threat issued, that all who worshipped not the golden image set up should be cast into the furnace. Satan had no need to oppose the stupid idolatry of Egypt by idolatries elsewhere. But against the worship of God he stirs up Nebuchadnezzar, and afterwards Darius the Mede.
It was the failure of Israel, and of the city of Jerusalem as the standing witness for God, that was the occasion of investing the Gentile with supreme authority: the wickedness of Israel was greater than that of the Gentiles, and Israel was given up to their hatred. The hatred was against the testimony of God rather than against Jerusalem, and at last the Jew joins with the Gentile against it. The chief priests and Pilate, Jew and Gentile, are together in condemning the Lord. But while Jerusalem stood a witness to the government of God, it was the object of the enmity of the surrounding nations. But God was compelled (if we may so say) to judge it; otherwise He would have appeared indifferent to sin, and to His own truth and majesty. But though the nations be His instruments for chastising, yet are they punished for their own sin, and in proportion to their enmity to Israel.
But while all show enmity, some are more expressive of the spirit that now dominates the world — the spirit of Mammon. A special phase is commerce. Commerce is influenced by covetousness, and covetousness is idolatry. For the sake of Mammon war is decried. At the same time is it not worthy of the Christian's notice that war is cultivated as a science, and standing armies are maintained in christendom where the gospel of peace is professed? What a proof of the rule and power of the prince of this world! The crust of peace spread over the civilized world is very thin. Underneath are armed millions and new warlike inventions. Nations are saying Peace, peace, and yet preparing for war, and rumours and signs of it are not wanting. How blessed that amid all the commotions and strifes of this world, believers can look beyond and say, "we, receiving a kingdom that cannot be moved!" But, whatever the dominating spirit, all men who have not the truth are hoping and seeking to maintain the present system of the world. And they dream that they will perpetuate it, and they will continue to dream, until the judgment of God awakens them. Then in their alarm they will call on the mountains and rocks to hide them from the wrath of the Lamb.
But let us see how these forces are represented in Scripture, and what places or cities are used as illustrative of the world's sin and judgment. And there in the forefront of all we find Babel with its tower and defiance of God. It was the first place after the flood where the exercise of the world's power brought down judgment from God. Though all joined to build the tower, yet the race of Ham, in the person of Nimrod, was the first to acquire power, which is continued in different characters throughout the old history of the world — through Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and, we may add, the seven-hilled city Rome. This also will be the last force in exercise when Gog and Magog are led against God after the millennium. It would seem that the power of the world had been restrained by God till Israel had falsified His testimony to it. Then, as we may see in Babylon, power was joined to idolatry, and the saints were subjected to persecution. Tyre is presented where the world's religion succumbs apparently to commerce, as the love of gain becomes paramount. But if the phases of wickedness in Babylon and Tyre be different, they are both in opposition to God. Egypt early rose to prominence but did not enforce idolatry as did Babylon; though the Lord declares that He will judge the idols of Egypt. And in the plagues of Egypt the Lord's judgment was as much upon their gods as upon the people themselves.
But, as we have seen, the first place was Babel; and there was a wilful ignoring of the power and judgment of God. The height of the tower was to reach heaven, as if man could make a refuge for himself should any succeeding deluge overtake him. This same defiance of God was brought out in Egypt too; for it was Egypt's king that said, "Who is Jehovah that I should obey Him"? He learnt who He was at the Red Sea — then too late: and when Egypt lost her place as a leading power in the world, it passed to Assyria, and Nineveh became next prominent, and the object of the Lord's judgment (see Nahum). Assyria, which was noted from the beginning, has its name carried on to the end, and given to the last earthly power in opposition to God. So that the power of the world, seen at the first in Babel and Nimrod, and for a time diverted to Egypt that the purpose of God in and for Israel might be accomplished, is found again at the close wielded by the Assyrian. But all through it is antagonism to God; and as His purpose for the earth was wrapped up in Israel, it is against them that the hatred of Satan is chiefly directed. He knew that the truth and testimony for God was somehow connected with Israel, and that the Bruiser of his head must come through them. He well understood the import of the sentence in Eden. He instigated Pharaoh to command that all the male children should be cast into the river. It was he who led Amalek and the inhabitants of Canaan to dispute Israel's passage into the land He stirred up all evil amongst themselves, as well as their enemies against them. And when he found the line narrowed to David and his house, he roused Saul to destroy him. Failing in this he apparently succeeds in destroying the kingdom, and the king of Assyria carries ten tribes into captivity. To David's house only two tribes remain, which could not be a true picture of God's kingdom. But these also he seeks to destroy, or expatriate. For the purpose of God in David's house was in some measure seen by Satan, although Israel was blind.
Thus Nimrod, Pharaoh, Saul, Sennacherib, and the future Beast are all found arrayed against God. The same unseen foe guides them all in the same opposition. And when he leads the Assyrian in his last phase before the millennium, a greater destruction awaits him than befell Pharaoh at the Red Sea, or Sennacherib's army when destroyed by the angel of the Lord. And even after he has been bound for a thousand years, and then loosed for a brief space, he gathers again Gog and Magog to the battle, "and they" in the vision (Rev. 20:9) "went up on the breadth of the earth and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city; and fire came down out of heaven and devoured them." All the unconverted whose number is as the sand of the sea are led against the saints then on the I earth. This is his last effort — the immediate prelude to their eternal blessedness.
Yet not Satan's efforts, but Israel's sin seems to delay the fulfilment of God's purpose (Ps. 11). Nevertheless, God overrules all to subserve His counsels, and in due time will establish His decree. Meanwhile Satan, as it were, takes advantage of Israel's sin to include the whole world in idolatry. And the religious nature of fallen man affords a force when supported by authority which is almost irresistible. It would be quite so only for the grace of God overcoming nature.
It may be that men clothed with power wishing to consolidate their authority by religion used symbols of Godhead to aid the people in general. But men had sufficient evidence of the Godhead in the things that are seen. They did not wish to retain the remembrance of God (Rom. 1:20). Therefore it was easy for Satan to convert the symbol into an idol; and to it the idolaters bowed. When Joseph is carried into Egypt, we find idolatry systematised, having its high priest (Potipherah), in a man of note. Not that this is its first appearance.
It was in Laban's family; nor does Jacob appear to have been shocked when Laban accused him of stealing his gods (Gen. 31). And the ancestors of Abraham served other gods (Joshua 24). Idolatry seems to have spread rapidly. Yet years must have elapsed before Egypt, and the idolatry which marked it, could have attained to the position she had among the nations; for she had traffic with other countries, and even slave-markets. But in the midst of all her prosperity she sunk in the depths of a debasing idolatry. How the great foe must have derided the wisdom of the Egyptian to see it accompanied with such folly!
2.
1895 235 Two of the places which mark the career of power are also representatives of the world's idolatry, viz., Egypt and Babylon. The former shows its folly and debasement; the latter its enmity. For in Babylon the persecuting power is developed, and is first noticed in Scripture as such. The Israelite in Egypt beyond doubt was persecuted by the idolatrous king, and this may have been part of the cry which God heard (Ex. 13:9). But Babylon enforced idolatry by law; hence persecution. This gives to that city an awful pre-eminence in sin, so that its very name is given to the worst iniquity that ever defiled the world.
In Babylon the world's religion and power are combined against the confession of God; and Satan appears to rely for success in the terrors of a fiery furnace, besides making idolatry attractive with the world's music (the music continues to this day, if the furnace be gone). When the Gentile king set up his idol at Babylon, the world's religion was supreme. Doubtless he thought to strengthen the bonds between the various parts of his many-tongued and discordant empire. And he was wise in his generation.
But Satan's aim was not merely to bind the empire into one homogeneous whole, but to unite all in idolatry, and persecution of those who confessed God. And though the fiery furnace became a scene and triumph for the witnesses of God, yet he so far succeeded that the worshippers of the image afterwards drank wine in praise of their false gods from the vessels taken out of the temple of the Lord. Nor is that the sum of the iniquity of the guilty city: for the Mede dares to take the place of God and forbids worship to any but himself. Idolatry, sacrilege, and pride are united in Babylon. But neither had the den of lions greater terror for the witnesses for the truth than had the fiery furnace in the days of Nebuchadnezzar. If in his day idolatry was rampant, it is pride that is prominent in the degree of Darius. This may not be so degrading as worshipping an image, but it is equally iniquitous. Darius may have been persuaded unthinkingly to make his decree but there were Satan's cunning and device behind it. The embodiment of all the sin and evil in the world is found in Babylon, and it leads on to the end: the deification of man as developed in Darius is of the world, or of Christendom as part of and supported by the world. When the name of Christ is altogether rejected, the climax of this deification will appear in Antichrist. Great Babylon follows in the wake of the first Babylon, and enforces its idolatries by the same means. There is this difference between them: in the first the secular power seems paramount; in the second it will be the religious corruption and persecution.
The deification of man appears to have begun with Nimrod. He was a mighty hunter — a giant among men. He went to Assyria and built Nineveh, and several other cities. The modern Arabs ascribe all the ancient great works to him, and suppose him to have been worshipped at Babylon after death by the name of Bel. The exaltation of human nature has ever been a part of the world's religion. Paganism had its gods among the heavenly orbs, powers of nature, etc., and soon learned to put men among them — its heroes became deities. And Christendom follows in its track, and has its heroes (according to man's estimate and heroism) and in a sense deifies them. The worship of idols, of images, may have sunk into deserved contempt (though still bowed down to in the dark places of the earth) men attributing to their intellect the light shed by the Bible. But the exaltation of man goes on now, and if altars are not erected, monuments are, and names of a past age are dug up to satisfy man's craving for hero-worship, all paving the way for the advent of him who will sit in the temple of God and say that he is God.
We find three pictures of the world's religion in the three kings of Babylon which Scripture presents: Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, and Darius. The first is pagan and persecuting. The second mingles the vessels of the Lord's house with his idolatrous orgies; as now the fables of paganism are mixed with some of the truths of Christianity, thus producing the amalgam which makes Christendom. The third is blasphemous; it does not yet fully appear, but will be in full bloom when Anti-christ claims also to be true God.
Satan could not burn out the truth, so he mixes fable with it, and here he has a measure of success so far as public profession goes. Christendom presents Belshazzar's feast on a large scale. For as he caused the vessels of the temple to be mingled with the vessels of his gods, so the old leaders in Christendom mixed revealed truth with fable on the one hand, and on the other persecution. For persecution did not vanish when the world became nominally christian. Rather it became more hitter than its pagan ancestor, the Pharisees and Sadducees were like the Ritualists and Rationalists of the present. Superstition and infidelity mark both the ancient and the modern, they make void the word of God by their tradition and the commandments of men.
But the last or the Darius-phase of man's pride and unbelief is yet to come, though the seed is being scattered now, and the soil is well adapted to receive it. A man will take the place of God and say, "I am God and not a man." But this the worst form of human wickedness will not be till after the church of God is gone, caught up to meet the Lord in the air, yea, even after the false anti-christian church. Great Babylon is destroyed as it will be by the beast and the ten kings (Rev. 17). At this present time it is not the Nebuchadnezzar phase of gross idolatry which may yet cover Christendom; nor the Darius phase which is atheistic, though that too is spreading; but the Belshazzar phase where the truths of Christianity are mixed up with, and made to convey, the traditions of men. This is a transition from idolatry to atheism, from the worship of idols to the denial of God. This is the religious aspect of the world, although another force seems to have equal, if not greater, sway in this our time. Power was not sufficient for Satan's purpose, he brought in idolatry. But this too was not enough. For man's religion works on his fears; never on his love, and so he engages man in commerce. And all his hopes and fears, and all the love and hatred which engross his heart and fill it with care, are governed by the spirit of mammon.
Commerce which is presented in Tyre exercises a deeper and more engrossing influence than the abominations of idolatry, and may be as much opposed to truth in spirit. For he who directs the world's power and its religion also guides its traffic. The world and all its affairs are yet a little longer under Satan's control (within certain limits) though men will not believe it. But God has fixed a time which the prince of this world cannot pass. Commerce may not be iniquitous in itself (though it opens a wide door for the indulgence of unrighteous ways, and needs more grace to resist than the open sins of the world), and the arch-foe may have brought it in, not so much to excite or qualify the covetousness of man, as in opposition to God who had pronounced a curse on the earth. Satan tries if possible to make it a pleasant abode, notwithstanding its sin and rebellion — a pleasant place at least for some, even if others find more sorrow and toil. Ambition and hatred may be actively stirred by power and religion, but the secret and sometimes unsuspected covetousness of the heart is nourished by traffic. Commerce in its aspect now is the innate covetousness of the heart of man systematised with the science of buying in the cheapest, and selling in the dearest markets. the maxim that guided traffickers in Solomon's day is still the rule in the commercial world. "It is nought, it is nought, saith the buyer, but when he is gone his way, then he boasteth" (Prov. 20:14). Riches are the great object of man's pursuit, and all his energies are employed for their attainment — not thinking of his irreparable loss even if he gained the whole world.
Tyre gathered wealth. Her merchants were princes and kings; they were enriched by her merchandise. She does not show that bitter hatred that we see in others. Still she rejoiced at the fall of Jerusalem and imagined that her own riches would be increased by it (Ezek. 32:2). Was Jerusalem a commercial city? Certainly Solomon raised it to such a height of splendour that silver was accounted as nothing. Solomon traded with Hiram, king of Tyre, and had many ships with Tyrian sailors. He traded with Egypt also (1 Kings 9). It may be that Tyre was envious of the wealth of Jerusalem under Solomon, and would emulate her in riches; and hence the joy of Tyre at her fall. We know that Hiram was not pleased with the cities that Solomon gave him in reward for his services. But however the form of Tyre's sin may differ from that of Egypt and Babylon, they unite in hatred to the city and the testimony of God, and in arrogance.
3.
1895 251 When Jerusalem fell, the testimony to God's government was extinguished, and the prince of this world thought to put Babylon at the head of the religious system to take the place, as it were, of Jerusalem. Thus Babylon is first in the iniquity of the world, and in pride and persecution in its representative. Hence Jehovah says in the burden of Babylon (Isa. 13), "I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity, and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and the haughtiness of the terrible." But enmity is shown by Tyre as by other Gentiles, and she rejoiced when Jerusalem fell. Her immense traffic may have increased her enmity. Many, perhaps, at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem sought refuge in the city of Tyre. But hope of gain caused Tyre to forget the brotherly covenant, and the fugitives were given up to the cruel Edomite. Tyre remembered not the brotherly covenant. This is the charge of the prophet against her (Amos 1:9). David and Hiram, king of Tyre, made a covenant; and it was confirmed by Solomon, whom Hiram called "my brother" (see 2 Sam. 5 and 1 Kings 5 — 9).
The opposition that Tyre manifested has been perpetuated in modern times. The commerce so famous in that city has spread its wing over the cities of our day, which, following in the steps of Tyre, await with the same unrighteousness the same doom. The present age may not show the same arrogancy that the prince of Tyre and the king of Babylon showed, but the world's commerce in the hands of Satan leads to it. The spirit of Mammon rules the age, and under its influence the truth is perverted, and becomes the profession of covetous men, supposing that gain is godliness. From such we turn away. We look to the testimony of our Lord, and find that the cares and riches of this world, which commerce increases, are weeds which choke the good seed.
Power, religion, and commerce are controlled by the prince and god of this world, and all will be found against the testimony of God. The evil of the old Babylon is intensified in great Babylon; and this last, besides inheriting all the wickedness of the past — what an inheritance! — adds yet to it that she covers all with the name of Christianity. Even now idolatry and persecution, as far as Christendom extends, have their source in the seven-hilled city; and the system of which that city is the centre is extending its influence and ramifications over all. In the cup of the scarlet woman is found the power that began at Babel, the idolatry of Egypt, the persecution of Babylon, and the merchandise of Tyre. The pride that prompted Pharaoh to say at the beginning "Who is Jehovah"? leads man at the end to say, "I am God." It began in independence and defiance of God, and ends in blasphemy and worse.
The beginning of Nimrod's kingdom was Babel; and this commencement of man's power is marked by God's judgment (judgment being met in grace, but not removed at Pentecost). We next see the power of the world in Egypt, and there it becomes oppression (its natural effect in man's hand) and accompanied with degrading idolatry. But as the civilized world emerged from the slough of image-worship, it was caught in the net of traffic, and it became conscious of the riches that would accumulate by commerce. Tyre (envious at first, afterwards the rival, of Jerusalem) is used by Satan to show the glory and riches of the world, and thus becomes an instrument against God. By means of commerce Satan tries to make the curse ineffective. Thorns and thistles the earth was to bring forth, and man to eat bread in the sweat of his brow. Satan would obviate that sentence by bringing together the different products of the earth, filling the eye and mind with them; and would seek to hide the thorns by spreading a carpet of Tyrian merchandise over them. It is only carrying out the same plan that he began among the antediluvians when he taught them to handle the harp and pipe, with other things the world calls useful. So Tyre has a prominence which her merchandise might not otherwise have had. Not that in itself it was sin; for we read that her merchandise in the coming day is to be used for the Lord (Isa. 23:17-18). Nor was her hatred of Jerusalem greater than that of Edom or of any of the Gentile cities; but the principle of her opposition was more subtle, and had a stronger hold on the covetous proclivities of fallen nature.
These places are selected by the Holy Spirit as showing prominently the condition and sin of the world, and by whom led (see Ezek. 30 – 32). In the judgment, which is special to the countries and places named in Jeremiah 25, the whole world and its leader is included. There is a judgment common to all, "the wine cup of His fury." All are found together, the sources of all nationalities, in short, the whole earth; the kings in this scripture are the representatives of the different places. But Egypt, Babylon, and Tyre have each a prominent place in iniquity. Idolatry and commerce, though their path may be different, have each the same end, viz., blasphemy; and this is the climax of all sin, and may be the reason why the Holy Ghost had selected these places as the representatives of the great sin of the world — its enmity and defiance of God. Not that they are worse than others; for in Jerusalem itself was worse sin to be found than in the world beside: the name of God was blasphemed through its idolatry worse than Egypt's. And the truth of God afterwards given for man's salvation is perverted, by what bears the same name as the persecutor of old, to found and support the most horrible system of iniquity that the arch-foe could invent. And to show the connexion of this system with idolatry and persecution, it retains the same name; and we find the source of Tyre's wealth to be the same as of Egypt's and Babylon's idolatry.
Tyre, the prince of Tyre, and the king of Tyre, in Ezekiel's prophecy are distinct. The city is judged in common with other cities. But the prince and the king have each a lamentation apart from the city. So has the king of Babylon, so also has Pharaoh king of Egypt. In each the direct energy of Satan is seen, but in Egypt and Babylon Satan is not so distinguished from human agents as in Tyre. The language of Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar show the same power over them as was over the prince of Tyre; and they are not merely the representatives of their countries as the kings in Jeremiah 25, but exhibit the complete control Satan had over the world. How true that it lay in him! The word to the prince of Tyre is what he has become in his pride after he is prince; to the king, what he was before he is king — before iniquity was found in him. The prince's wisdom exceeded Daniel's; there was no secret hid from him. Who was Daniel? Chief of the wise men in Babylon. "No secret" is evidently an allusion to his revealing the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, and the writing on the wall at Belshazzar's feast. The prince of Tyre, inspired by Satan, equalled and surpassed (in the world's estimation) Daniel in wisdom. Here is another mark of the power of the prince of this world, who would not only have Tyre to rival Jerusalem in wealth, but would also raise up a man to outrival Daniel; that he might persuade men that true wisdom was not the gift of God. By his wisdom the prince gained riches, and increased the wealth of Tyre; but because of it he set his heart as the heart of God. This is the charge against him: — "Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a god, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God." "Wilt thou yet say before Him that slayeth thee, I am God"? Although a prince, he was only a man; and the "terrible of the nations" — the Chaldeans — would be the executors of God's wrath.
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1895 268 In the lamentation of the king we have not the display of riches, but their source, or the means by which they were acquired. The king seals up the sum: all angelic, all created, glory was in him; and he is called the covering cherub, the anointed cherub, full of wisdom, perfect in beauty, and God set (created) him so. "Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth, and have set thee so; thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created till iniquity was found in thee." Fulness of wisdom in the king, delegated wisdom in the prince. The lamentation for the king contains a description of Satan before he fell. And the power and wisdom which he retained after his fall are used against God and His truth, and to this end work in the prince of Tyre to accumulate riches so that this earth may not appear smitten with a curse. Satan is really the king, and the source of the wisdom and riches of Tyre. The prince is the human agent for the king to show his power, who, from his titles here, may have been the highest among the angels, before iniquity was found in him.
In like manner the king of Babylon is but Satan's instrument, only the human agent is not so distinguished from the source of his power as in Tyre. In the judgment on Babylon we have not the destruction between the city and the judgment on its king: "the golden city is ceased"; and the king who said, "I will ascend above the heights of the clouds" yet to be "brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit." He is also called Lucifer (daystar) or son of the morning. And when he is laid low, the earth is at rest. Does not this look onward to millennial rest when Satan will he bound for a thousand years? (Isa. 14:4-20.)
The king of Babylon and the prince of Tyre use similar language. The king of Babylon said, "I will be like the Most High," and the prince of Tyre said, "I am God." But why the distinction between the king and the prince in the judgment on Tyre? and blending Satan with his human agent in the judgment on Babylon? Perhaps because idolatry and persecution which were developed at Babylon are more Satanic, and the human instrument more completely in his hand. Perhaps also another reason is that the riches of Tyre will one day be used for the Lord, whereas the judgment on idolatrous Babylon is that it will never be restored.
The words addressed to the king of Tyre are inapplicable to a mere man, however clothed he might be with power. Some of the qualities here enumerated may be said of Adam; but there is a glory here which cannot all apply to Adam innocent. The king was full of wisdom and perfect in beauty; and the gems, which adorned the high priest's breast-plate and which men prize, are used figuratively to express his covering. He walked in the midst of the stones of fire; he had been on the mountain of God. But his he t was corrupted on account of his beauty: iniquity was found in him, and he was cast to the ground. This is not oriental exaggeration, but the Holy Spirit describing by means of human things and words the past glories and magnificence of him that now seeks to use his wisdom and power in leading the world against Him Who created it. But he was perfect once. He was adorned with every precious gem; as the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God is, in figure, similarly adorned. So, neither could Satan's primeval beauty, as beyond earthly conception, be described but by joining together incongruous imagery borrowed from the earth; though only a shadowy sense of glory may rest on the mind from his walking in the midst of the stones of fire.
Thus we see Satan using all the forces of this world — its rule and order, its religion and its commerce — to blind the eyes of the lost to its ruin. Only the grace that came by Jesus Christ can open the eyes of the blind. Infidelity and the absorbing power of Mammon are leading men on to destruction. But the worst form of idolatry is yet to be developed. The world is preparing for the man of sin. By means of commerce evil spreads, and the great manipulator of this world's forces brings all together and mixes or crystallizes them in the golden cup of great Babylon.
But while Satan is heading all up that may conjointly oppose the manifestation of the Son, is there to be no divine testimony to the truth? was the prince and god of this world to have his Babel, his Egypt and Assyria, his Babylon and his Tyre in time past, and no place or city to be for God? Nay, not so. God had His city, His Jerusalem, which, though now under judgment for her sins, will rise again when all that expresses the power and malice of Satan will be judged and no more seen. From the root of Jesse comes forth a Branch Who vindicates the righteousness and judgment of God — the faithful and true Witness, for Whose sake God retains and watches over Jerusalem, and will yet make her the witness of His truth and glory.
But before the earth rejoices in that bright day, a fearful manifestation of the pride and opposition of man will be seen; and God will send a strong delusion on the inhabitants of the earth which will bind them as with fetters — a judgment on the earth before the eternal judgment. All that springs from the world as a system is in opposition to God. Power (which was given of God) was strengthened by idolatry, and idolatry enforced by power. But the clay mixes not with the iron. Democracy and all the evil passions of men are rising: rule, and order, and men are like a troubled sea; and the rulers, fearing what may be, and hoping to stave it off, bow to them. Power is spreading among the masses, and all are becoming not less antagonistic, but more indifferent, to the truth. This, in its turn opens the door for infidelity; and then is the last phase of man — worship of man as God — the end of that pride and independence first seen at Babel.
Meanwhile to draw away man's attention from eternal things, the open instrument is commerce, and the lust of gain dominates the vast majority; and the denial of God, in various ways, like a black cloud, is settling down thick and fast on Christendom.
Yet, is there no testimony at this present time, in the increasing darkness? Yes, God has a city, a city which has the foundations. The past Jerusalem had not. Abraham saw one which had. Believers know Him Who is the foundation, and they are the living stones, and the city is from above, called the holy city, the new Jerusalem. There are faithful now, as there were righteous in the times of the prophets. The testimony is not without witnesses, feeble though they are. But he that overcomes shall be clothed in white raiment, and reign with Christ. R. B.