iquities." Now let a man read the Book of Amos and see how little attention is given to the nations compared with that which is bestowed upon the house and people of Israel and their doings. The Gentile nations of the earth are too proud and too full of self-conceit and self-importance. God knew them, only incidentally as they have in times past, and as they will in the future,. come in contact with his people Israel.

After God has judged his people in the latter days and consumed their dross out of the midst of them, when he blows upon them in the fire of his wrath, and when the wicked are plucked away, and the scorner is consumed out of the land, and none left but a remnant, then they will be erected into a new and righteous nation in the land, of whom the Lord says by the hand of the Prophet Isaiah, “Thy people shall all be righteous, they shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands that I may be glorified. A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation; I the Lord will hasten it in his time" (Isa. 60: 21-22). It is this small but strong nation to whom all the mighty nations of the earth will be compelled to bow down and submit themselves for a thousand years, or be exterminated, for it is written in this same chapter (5-12), "For the nation and kingdom. that will not serve thee, shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted."

The comparative insignificance of the nations should be realized by what their own Creator says of them, as follows, “Behold the nations are as nothing, as a drop in the bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance. Behold he taketh up the isles as a very little thing” (Isa. 40: 15); and again (verse 17), "All nations before him are as nothing, and they are counted to him less than nothing and vanity." This valuable lesson all proud peoples and nations should learn.

A SHARP SWORD

The appearance of the Son of man who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks is continued in verse 16, saying, "And in his right hand seven stars, and out of his mouth went a sharp sword and his countenance was as the sun shining in his strength." The word of God is compared to a sharp sword with two edges that cuts both ways; it is quick and powerful, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow; and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. It is with this sword that the stem of Jesse will slay the wicked, as it is written of him (Isa. 11:4), saying, "He shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked." This sword will first be used upon the sinful nation of Israel, and afterwards upon the nations that are assembled in Israel's land like clouds; and when they fall by this sword upon the mountains of Israel, it will be further stretched out upon the nations.

HIS COUNTENANCE

The countenance of the Son of man in that day is described as being like the sun in his strength. Therefore as the sun by his powerful heat at noonday, when shining in his strength, withers and burns up the green grass, so

will the sun of righteousness consume the wicked. John was overpowered when he saw the Son of man who appeared in such glory and majesty, and fell at his feet as dead, but he adds, " And he laid his right hand upon me, saying, Fear not, I am the first and the last. I am he that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive forever more, Amen, and have the keys of hell (the grave) and death. Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter."

The things which John had seen up to this point of time consist (Rev. 1: 17-19) of the first part of this vision which he has described. "The things which are," consist of the things which obtained among the churches in his day, as they are portrayed in the seven letters to the seven churches, which have their first application to the churches that then were, and their second and principal application to the churches in Israel in the latter days, as they will actually exist when Christ comes like a thief, suddenly at midnight, when the foolish virgins which have not given heed to the warnings contained in these letters will hear the cry, "Behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him," when they that are ready will go in with him to the marriage and the door will be shut. "The things which shall be hereafter," we have already briefly referred to, and will more fully treat of them in the interpretation of the fourth chapter and what comes after, to the end of the prophecy.

THE MYSTERY OF THE SEVEN STARS AND THE SEVEN GOLDEN CANDLESTICKS (REV. 1:20)

The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven candlesticks, which thou sawest, are the seven churches." Seven is a complete Scripture number and is intended to comprehend the whole of that to which it is applied, though it may be many more than seven. The seven churches of Asia comprehend, first, all the churches in Christ Jesus in the days of John, and second, all the churches in the house of Israel in the latter days. This is evident from the words of the preface to this book, "The Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto him, to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass." The Lord's servants were by no means confined to the churches located exclusively in the seven cities named in these letters, but as Peter says in the preface to his first letter," Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia." There were many large churches established in the cities of the Gentiles besides those located in the cities of Asia, as named in those letters. Corinth was a large city concerning which the Lord said to Paul, " I have much people in this city." At Rome, Philippi, Colosse, Antioch, Thessalonica, and in a multitude of other places were churches of Christ established, so that the seven churches of Asia represent the whole, insomuch that the things contained in these letters will find in the whole body something that will answer to the warnings and exhortations contained therein, and we can see the wisdom of God in grouping them under seven heads as seven churches, instead of writing to them as one church, as it affords more scope for warnings against the many evils that were rising in the church than if there were but one letter addressed to all.

The Oaths of the Tribes

So also in regard to the hope set before us, the many different features of the saints' inheritance are amplified and wisely delineated in the oaths of the tribes of Israel, as Habakkuk calls the blessings of Moses and the blessings of Jacob upon the twelve tribes from the fact that they contained in these twelve divisions the things that were contained in the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and as that covenant was guaranteed by the oath of God, so when the things contained in that covenant were divided into twelve parts and distributed among the twelve tribes, they are spoken of as "the oaths of the tribes" in the plural number, since each of the twelve parts would have the assurance of the oath to Abraham which covered the whole. These twelve blessings, therefore, afford more scope to speak of the many things which grow out of the covenant made with Abraham than if there were but one blessing bestowed upon the whole house of Israel.

THE SEVEN STARS

The stars in the creation were set in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth, as it is said, "Gód made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also, and set them in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth. And he said let them be for signs and for seasons, for days and for years." As signs, the sun is a symbol of Christ and the moon a symbol of the apostles, and the stars a symbol of the lesser lights set up in the churches to guide and instruct them under the direction of the apostles. And the members of the body of Christ constitute the earth, upon which these lights set in the firmament of heaven were intended to shine and divide the light from the darkness, that is, to discriminate between truth, which is light, and error which is darkness.

That these symbols were to be so understood is clear from Paul's application of the nineteenth Psalm, where it is said, "The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handywork; day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge; there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard, their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world." These are the apostolic heavens which declared the glory of God when they made known the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. There was no speech or language where the apostles, by the gifts of the Spirit did not declare the glory of God, for they preached the immortality of Christ by resurrection from the dead, as the hope of man in all countries and in all the languages of the earth. Christ is the sun of those heavens. Paul in his letter to the Romans (10: 18) shows concerning the preaching of the Gospel by the hand of those whom the Lord sent, that is, by the hand of the apostles,- that through these means men had heard the Gospel throughout all countries, which he proves by quoting the words of the Psalmist (19: 4) saying, "Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth and their words unto the ends of the world." Therefore the guiding stars in the churches were the lesser lights held in Christ's right hand, and were placed over the churches by the laying on of the apostles' hands, to give light upon the earth; that is, they were intended to shine like the stars into the minds of the

servants and disciples of Christ, to instruct them in the way of righteousness and in the knowledge of God.

As the seven churches were comprehensive of all the churches, so each of the churches would comprehend and refer to more than the individual members of said church; so too, the angels of the churches would include more than one individual in each church,- rather all the persons who should be placed over the church to feed the flock of God, as Paul spake to the elders of the church at Ephesus (Acts 20: 28) saying, "Take heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock over which the Holy Spirit hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood." This body of men that the Holy Spirit had made overseers of the different churches throughout the world in the apostles' days are what in these letters to the churches are called angels. Now the names angel and angels in the Scriptures are applied to mortal, as well as to immortal men; the antediluvian sons of God are called "the angels that sinned." It is to these presiding officers in the churches that the seven letters to the churches are addressed, for it was their duty to correct errors and any evil practices that might arise in the flock, to strengthen the weak, encourage the faithful, and warn the evil-doers.

What the Spirit saith to the churches as contained in these seven letters consisting of warnings and admonitions to evil-doers, encouragement to the weak, and the exceeding great and precious promises to them that overcame, and the special warning that he would suddenly come as a thief to the unprepared, as we have already proved, are to be regarded in a twofold sense; that is, as applying first to the churches as they existed in John's day, and secondly and especially to them as they will again exist in the latter days at the judgment, and at the time when Christ will actually come.

TWOFOLD APPLICATION OF PROPHECY

Now these seven letters are from Jesus Christ after he had ascended into heaven to sit down on the right hand of God, but we will now show from his teaching and doctrine in the days of his flesh, before he was glorified, that the same features obtain that we have pointed out in the above statement. When Jesus was drawing near the end of his ministry, as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, "Tell us, when shall these things be, and what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world?" Now when it is understood that that world has two ends, her first end, and afterwards, her last end (the first end being when Titus destroyed Judah, the Temple, and Jerusalem, and the second and last end which is yet to be, in the distant future, by the hand of the Assyrian), the matter is then simplified.

The law was given in two parts. The Book of Deuteronomy contains what is called "the second law," and it is under this second law that the whole house of Israel, the twelve tribes, will be marshalled and have their second manifestation in the future, and although the children of Israel pass through two periods of existence as a nation, which are separated from each other by that long, long period of dispersion now current, which has already run for about twenty-six centuries with the house of Israel, and about eighteen centuries with the house of Judah,— yet they are always spoken of as one people

and one nation, and their long dispersion, while they are politically dead and buried among the nations, is, as it were, struck out of their history as though it had never been, and the two ages of that nation brought together. For Israel from the day they came up out of the land of Egypt and were organized as a nation and a kingdom under the law, called "a world," the foundations of which were laid in the law at Mount Sinai whose heavens consisted of the priesthood and rulers that God placed in these heavens to enlighten the people, the earth consisting of the people of Israel upon whom these luminaries were ordained to shine; - I say this nation from the day they came out of the land of Egypt, down to the time when this system of heavens and earth shall pass away, and when the law shall be fulfilled and be no more, is as a nation, regarded and spoken of as a man who has his youth and his old age, as the Lord speaks of them, saying (Jer. 2: 2), “Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem saying, I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown." Again, the Lord says to Israel by the hand of Isaiah (46:3-4), “And even to your old age, I am he, and even to hoar hairs will I carry you. I have made and I will bear, and even I will carry, and will deliver you." This the Lord says to the remnant of Israel. And again he says to the rebellious house (Hos. 7:9), "Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not; yea gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not."

These Scriptures show that Israel has his youth in his former days, and his old age in the latter days, and therefore Moses also speaks to the people of Israel in his day, and through them to their descendants who should live in the latter days, even as though they were then born and standing before him and in his presence at the time he was speaking to his people in the land of Moab. This is also the manner of the prophets, and Jesus follows the same example, as we shall show in his discourse as recorded by Matthew (24) in reply to the questions that the apostles asked him touching the end of the world, saying, "Take heed that no man deceive you, for many shall come in my name saying, I am Christ and shall deceive many; and ye shall hear of wars, and rumors of wars; see that ye be not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places. All these things are the beginning of sorrows; then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you, and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another, and many false prophets shall arise, and shall deceive many, and because iniquity shall abound the love of many shall wax cold, but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations and then shall the end come.

"When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet stand in the holy place (that is, in the temple) (whoso readeth let him understand) then let them which be in Judea flee unto the mountains; let him which is on the house-top not come down to take anything out of his house, neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes, and woe to them that are with child and to them that give suck in