ELDER A. T. ROBINSON by A. T. Robinson

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 28, 1902

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 79, No. 4.

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ELDER A. T. ROBINSON

By A. T. Robinson

GOD'S KINGDOM IN THIS WORLD.—NO. 3.

From the Rejection of Samuel to the End of the Babylonian Captivity.

ELDER A. T. ROBINSON

(Dunedin, New Zealand.)

“And it came to pass, when Samuel was old, that he made his sons judges over Israel. . . . And his sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment. Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah, and said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord. And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, BUT THEY HAVE REJECTED ME, THAT I SHOULD NOT REIGN OVER THEM. . . . Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and show them the manner of the king that shall reign over them. And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king, . . . Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us; that we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.” 1 Sam. 8: 1–20.

This was Israel's first formal rejection of their King. Instead of aspiring to the high and exalted position to which God had called them, they became groveling in their desires, and the highest ideal which they could fix their hearts upon was to be “like all the nations.” As we have already seen, the Lord did not want them to be like other nations, but to be high, above all other nations.

The Lord did not, however, reject His people, even when they formally rejected Him as their king. He gave them a king, according to their heart's desire. He chose for them Saul, “a choice young man, and a goodly: and there was not among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he: from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people.” 1 Sam. 9: 2. The Lord not only chose their king for them, but He placed His Holy Spirit upon Saul and converted him, changing him into another man. Although it was contrary to God's purpose that they should have a king, yet He promised to be with their king and to be with them, and still to accomplish His purpose, in establishing them a holy nation unto himself, on condition that they would obey Him and keep His commandments.

ISRAEL BECOMES THE DESPISED OF ALL NATIONS.

Instead of being high above, and shedding the light of God's kingdom upon, all other nations, in their aspirations to become like the others, they sank far below them, and became the hated and despised of every other nation.

In losing their position of world-wide influence, they lost their God-given opportunity of being His chosen “light to lighten the Gentiles.” The Lord did all that He could do to reinstate them in the position to which He had called them. He sent message after message of reproof and warning, by the mouth of His prophets, entreating them to come back to their high calling of God. “But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised His words, and misused His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people, TILL THERE WAS NO REMEDY.” 2 Chron. 36: 15, 16.

NEBUCHADNEZZAR, MY SERVANT.

When “there was no remedy”—no other remedy—for the people whom God had chosen to extend the knowledge of His truth to all the world, He sent them down to Babylon to spend seventy years in captivity. This was the Lord's only means of teaching them the lessons which they must learn, and which they refused to learn in their own land or in any other way. Jer. 25: 4–11.

He had also to choose a heathen man, place him upon the throne of universal earthly dominion,—a position of world-wide influence,—and accomplish through him the work which He could not accomplish through His chosen people. He placed Nebuchadnezzar in a position from which he could arrest and command the respect and fear of every other nation in the world. Dan. 2: 37, 38. He commanded all other nations, including the nation of Israel, to submit themselves to Nebuchadnezzar, and threatened to punish every nation which would not do so. Jer. 27: 6–8.

In order that Nebuchadnezzar, a heathen king, should extend the knowledge of the true God to all the world, he must first have the opportunity of knowing God for himself. Among the Hebrew captives taken to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar were Daniel and his companions,—faithful young men whom the Lord could trust to do His work. These young men belonged to a nation which had lost its influence to arrest and command the attention of other nations, but the Lord used them to enlighten Nebuchadnezzar, whom He had placed in a position to extend this light to the world.

Every one who is familiar with the history of Babylon during the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar and Darius, knows that the providence of God caused those mighty kings, who bore sway over the whole earth, to publish royal proclamations to all peoples, nations, and languages, directing their attention to the true God.

THE LORD STILL REMEMBERED HIS PEOPLE.

When, as the only remedy left, the Lord sent His people into Babylonian captivity, He made them the promise that at the expiration of seventy years, He would visit them, and would cause them to return to their own land again. Jer. 29: 10.

The ten tribes had gone into captivity more than a hundred years before that time, but the kingdom of Judah, through whom this promise of the return was made, was carried captive by Nebuchadnezzar in the year B. C. 606. The seventy years therefore would expire in the year B. C. 536. God's great clock of time never errs. In the year B. C. 538 the Babylonian kingdom was overthrown by the united power of Darius the Median and Cyrus the Persian. Darius reigned two years, and in B. C. 536 was succeeded by Cyrus. Over a hundred years before Cyrus was born, the Lord had spoken of him as “His anointed”—His chosen servant, who was to perform His pleasure. Cyrus was a heathen, and

did not know the Lord, and in order for him to make known the true God, the light must be brought to him.

In the last verse of the first chapter of Daniel, the record states that “Daniel continued even unto the first year of King Cyrus.” Daniel's mission was not fulfilled until he had revealed the knowledge of his God to King Cyrus. The Lord had a special mission for Cyrus to perform, “even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built.” The seventy years were about to expire. God's people were held in the strong grasp of the mightiest king who had ever sat upon the throne of empire. It was wholly in the interests of that monarch still to hold that people in slavery. But the Lord had said He would cause them to return to their own land at the end of the seventy years. “The Scripture cannot be broken.” Cyrus must in some way be influenced in behalf of the return of God's people.

Two or three years before this time, Daniel had a vision of a long period of time, twenty-three hundred years, under the symbol of that number of days. Dan. 8: 14. In his intense eagerness to understand when this long period of prophetic time began, he says, “I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolation of Jerusalem.” Dan. 9: 2. While Daniel found nothing in the book of Jeremiah concerning the twenty-three hundred years, he there found just the information needed at that time. In the light of these facts, the first two verses of the book of Ezra is a wonderful statement. They read as follows: “Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and He hath charged me to build Him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.” Then follows the remainder of that royal decree, providing for the complete restoration of the Jews to their own land.

How did the Lord stir up the spirit of Cyrus to make this proclamation, which was directly against all his own interests? How had he come to know that the Lord God of heaven had charged him to cause His people to return to Jerusalem? If we could read between the lines, we should doubtless see Daniel, the aged servant of God, conducting Bible studies with King Cyrus, and pointing out to him that the time was at hand for the work of God to be accomplished in the restoration of His people to their own land, and that he was the chosen servant of God who was to make provision for that work to be done. We might discern the unseen Watcher standing by the side of Daniel to impress the words upon the heart of the king, and to turn his mind in favor of the work to be accomplished.

(To be continued.)