p. 9 | OUR BIBLE BAND

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · May 31, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 21.

OUR BIBLE BAND

Schedule for Week Ending June 11

Day	Date	Reading
Sunday	June 5	Hosea 8-14
Monday	“ 6	Isaiah 1-4
Tuesday	“ 7	“ 5-8
Wednesday	“ 8	“ 9-12
Thursday	“ 9	“ 13-17
Friday	“ 10	“ 18-22
Sabbath	“ 11	“ 23-27

Our last lesson closed with Hosea 7. There are wonderful lessons in the fourteen short chapters of Hosea. Mighty appeals God makes to His backslidden children who had mixed themselves among the people; who by their shallow, unconsecrated work had begotten to themselves “strange children,” that fell before the temptations as the dew passes before the morning sun; who instead of feeding upon God, fed on wind; to whom God had multiplied prophets and visions, and prophets were unheeded, and visions disregarded. Yet He pleads with them to come. “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely.” Their roots should again strike deep down into the earth, and they would grow as the cedars of Lebanon, and blossom as the lily. The last verse should be memorized. It contains wonderful truth. “The ways of Jehovah are right, and the just shall walk in them; but the transgressors shall fall therein.”

We begin the second day of the week with Isaiah, closing with the 27th chapter. The beginning of these prophecies were spoken about 760 B. C. Isaiah’s time of prophesying is clearly shown in the first verse of his prophecy: “The vision of Isaiah the son of Amos, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.”

Those were stormy times in which the prophet lived. The condition of God’s people is shown in the first chapter, in which also is God’s wonderful plea to them to return and find mercy and cleansing. We also have visions of the last days set forth in these prophecies. The times then would be like the times of the last days. The false prophets then would be like the false prophets of the last days. Sins then would be similar to sins of the last times; consequently the warnings needed then are warnings needed now, and the same One mighty to save then is the same One mighty to save now.

How clearly we have predicted in the second chapter of Isaiah the false peace cry which sounds throughout the world. Note that it is not the Lord who raises the cry of peace; He tells us the “many nations” will do that. But we have already learned in Joel just what the truth will be concerning that very time; instead of men beating their swords into plowshares, they will beat plowshares into swords, and all nations shall prepare for war.

It is utterly impossible to give anything like an explanation or extended suggestion even in the study of these wonderful chapters. With remarkable vividness the prophet points out the signs of the times in which he lives, and warns against the sure destruction which awaits; and yet he also points forward to the Gospel days when similar conditions would exist. He constantly holds before His readers the great fact that God will surely punish sin. A remarkable vision is given, in chapter 6, of the one whom God will send on His missions,—those who are consecrated, and whose lives have been cleansed by Him. Prophecies of Babylon are used as a type of the prophecies of the last days, and the originator of sin is presented before us as the fallen Lucifer, son of the morning.

From Israel the prophet turns at times to the nations who were proud and arrogant before God, and rejoiced in the oppression of Israel. The desolation of the earth is presented in chapter 24, and the wonderful deliverance of God’s people in that same connection.