EXPERIENCE OF GOD'S PEOPLE UNDER THE PLAGUES
By B. G. WILKINSON
I HAVE a word to say to those who now profess to be the children of God. The close of probation is just before us. With great swiftness the seven last plagues are surely coming. But there is one lesson that must be learned before we are prepared to pass as victors through those closing scenes. That lesson is willingness to submit to the providences of God. We must now learn to believe that scripture which promises that “all things work together for good to them that love God.” Many are those Christians who now are leading unhappy lives because they will not submit to God's dealings. Death removes a loved one from us, and rebellion against this providence brings a blight upon the Christian experience. Perhaps disease afflicts the body; perchance an extra burden of labor has been thrown upon us. To different persons the test is different. But do you not know that submission breaks the force of the blow? The same wind can tear the rigging into shreds, or it can blow the ship safely into harbor. When we rebelliously place ourselves against the coming of trials, the storm may crush us in our rashness. But by trustfully bowing to the unexpected dealings of the Lord, our eyes will be opened to see the blessings in His visitations. Learn now to have patience until you see the end of this present perplexity. Seek God for strength to abide in Him until He has finished working. Those who will learn this great lesson of submission will pass safely through the raging hours that immediately precede the Saviour's coming. They shall triumphantly endure the last plagues, and of them it shall be said: “The redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.” It is not God's desire that any should suffer the falling of the plagues. For that reason He has given ample warning of their approach. He has pointed out the transgressions that call them down; the severity of their coming He has inescapably disclosed. He foreshadowed the end of Rome, should she mistreat the gospel; and Rome has passed away. He revealed the retribution that would overtake the papacy for her martyring the saints; and for some time the papacy has sat dispossessed and bereaved. Just as surely as these prophecies have become petrified into history, so surely will the prophecy of the Beast's enforcing his mark receive its complete fulfillment in the castigating plagues. Just now, then, is the time to study the plagues. The events that carry them in their folds are here, and the contents must soon be emptied out. This record was written to be studied, that by becoming acquainted with what the plagues will be, men might10be warned in time. What good would it do to know of them only when they were falling all around? The clearest exposition of these judgments would then seem but mockery, when we could only exclaim, “Why was not this shown us before?” If we listen to God now, He will listen to us then. “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.” It would be very difficult for an army to bombard a city with shot and shell when they have friends within its walls. But no such difficulty will hamper the Lord when He pours out the vials of His wrath. He has children on the earth during the falling of the plagues. As wheat among tares, it would seem that they too must perish. But with marvelous precision the sickles of His wrath cut down the guilty, while the godly stand securely. “A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.” Those who have held fast the truth will then behold the reward of their integrity. The position of God's people will be like a castle in a storm. The winds may beat upon it, the elements may rage around it; but when these have passed away, there the building stands, as grand as before. They will be like a rock in the billows of the ocean. Though they stand alone, they stand unharmed; for they are precious in the sight of God. They are His new creation. In this they had escaped the deception of the false prophet. Of him it is written, “He had power to give life unto the Image of the Beast;” that is, he was permitted to counterfeit creative power. All the world stood astonished at this miracle; this wonder ensnared them into disobedience to God. But not so with God's people. They were enraptured by another miracle. They were living in joyful admiration of God's transforming power in themselves; for of them it could be said, “You hath He quickened [made alive], who were dead in trespasses and sins.” From their deep distress over their sinful condition, they had risen to wonder at God's power, which had raised them from the dead. And as Adam came forth new from the hand of His Creator, so in character each of these had been made a new man. Forerunners were they of that beautiful world which shall arise from the ruins produced by the devastating plagues. While all the world, which had been deceived by the miracle counterfeiting the raising from the dead, were falling thick before the plagues. God's people, those new creations so precious, stood unharmed. Yet, their experience under the plagues will be largely measured by their experience before the plagues. These terrible judgments will afflict them in proportion as God's warnings have failed to affect them. In proportion as they have neglected to heed His instructions and passed on unprepared, just so much will they feel the surrounding plagues. If they neglect now to learn the lessons of faith, then those lessons must be learned under severer circumstances. If before, they have exercised a wise regard for the care of the body, they will be less affected by the pestilential conditions resulting from the first three plagues. But under the fiery heat of the fourth plague, how great will be their triumph! When Joel saw the withered fields, the parched crops, and the perplexed, wandering herds, he exclaimed: “Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen; howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished. The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languisheth; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field, are withered: because joy is withered away from the sons of men.” Joel 1:11, 12. Thus it was with the worldly; no joy was left to them while witnessing this desolated condition of the earth. But not so with God's people. The prophet Habakkuk saw this same scene. He beheld the ruined state of the world, and amid all he saw the trusting righteous; and as if their spokesman, he thus proclaims the feelings of these who had learned the faith of Jesus: “Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” Hab. 3:17, 18. At the terrible results of the fourth plague, joy will be withered away from the wicked; but from the righteous, joyful expressions of holy trust will faith produce. To the experience of God's children gained by passing through the plagues, there can be found nothing similar in the experience of saints who have lived, up to that time. Through the conflicts of the sixth they pass, and when in the midst of the crashing scenes of the seventh, Jesus appears, to translate them to immortality. They will afterward stand unique among the redeemed hosts. In Rev. 7:9 John beheld in heaven “a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues.” But after this his attention was directed to another company. So prominent did this special company appear that one of the twenty-four elders spoke out to John the questions that were passing through the apostle's mind: “What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?” John could only reply to the elder, “Sir, thou knowest.” Then came the answer, “These are they which came out of great tribulation. . . . They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.” Who was this special company?—Even those who had passed through that trying period, the space of the seven last plagues. Then how appropriate the expression, “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more.” Though they were not called to endure what the wicked endured, yet they were not wholly free from the pangs resulting from the withered fields and the blood-flowing streams. “Neither shall the sun light on them.” The Greek word for “light” here means to “fall upon.” That is, the sun would not pursue them with its burning, fiery rays—such as could only be found in the plague of the fourth angel. But why did one of the elders describe this special company?—Ah! because he had heard them sing. They had sung a song in which he could not join—a song the like of which had never before made heaven's arches ring. In Rev. 5:8, 9, John had heard the elders sing: “And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps. . . . And they sung a new song.” This was the first new song. But afterward John was privileged to hear what this elder had heard—the second new song—a song in which the elder and none other could join but this special company, the one hundred and forty-four thousand. Rev. 14:1, 3: “And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the Mount Zion and with Him an hundred forty and four thousand, having His Father's name written in their foreheads. And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and [before] THE ELDERS: and NO MAN COULD LEARN THAT SONG but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.” Those who, faithfully holding to God, pass through the seven last plagues will secure a priceless experience. Though their faith shall be severely tried, yet the cost incurred in standing firm to principle will be immeasurably repaid; for this experience will enable them to sing as can no others of all the redeemed host. Let me illustrate: A cultivated English nobleman, accompanied by a friend, went, on one occasion, to hear a famous singer. During the performance the friend turned to the nobleman and inquired how he liked the singing. In reply the nobleman said: “That young lady has a fine voice. She has a splendid training, and her execution is perfect; but she lacks one thing: she lacks spirit. Do you know what I would do if I were a young man again? I would seek to win the affections of that young lady. I would marry her. Then after I had married her, I would mistreat her. I would insult her; I would abuse her; I would break her heart: and then I would send her out to sing. And oh, how she would sing!” So it will be with the saints of God in the last great struggle before us. They will pass through scenes the like of which man never before has undergone. But the matchless experience with God, which they will thus obtain, will qualify them to sing in heaven's courts the praise of God as no other redeemed ones can. But a further reward awaits them. To them, as to all the world, two futures have been offered. For the picture of these two futures we are indebted to two of the angels of the seven plagues. These saints had turned away their eyes from the first, with all its dazzling appearance, and had suffered privations, even unto death, that they might gain the second. The picture of the first is given in Rev. 17:1-6: “And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: . . . So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. . . . And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints.” Arrayed in all the pomp of the world, decked with gold and precious stones, this woman had offered to the saints a worldly religion sweetened with earthly honors and riches, or a grave in which to bury their faith. For a season she seemed to prosper, queenly in her pride, and selfish in her popularity. But when she had exhausted the limits of God's patience, one of the seven angels raised the veil, and showed her torn from her regal chair and laid desolate forever from the presence of God. But “there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God.” Rev. 21:9-11. From that wicked and worldly woman the saints had turned, and now God rewards them with the fellowship of the Lamb's bride, pure and white. One of the seven angels is commissioned to show that beautiful home, the everlasting abode of the saints. Executor of wrath upon the wicked, to the righteous he becomes the guide to heavenly palaces. It is now the privilege of all so to live that when that angel goes forth on the mission of wrath they may not receive the contents of his vial, but rather the approving glance of his eye. And then when the time of wrath is passed, he shall gather them to that city of their God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from God out of heaven.