GOD'S PROMISE TO HIS PEOPLE.
By s.
IN the midst of wars and rumors of wars, God would have His people remember that there is coming a time of peace and safety. The world is looking toward a golden age when international courts of arbitration will take the place of international contests under the canopy of the war-clouds. Many there are who are heralding the approach of a time when the "dove of peace" will turn all the cannons of the world into nesting-places for her brood. They are looking for a time of "peace and safety" which the Word declares they will not see. Nevertheless, a time of the most blessed peace and of the surest safety God is planning for His children. The world has been afflicted since the time when it was inoculated with the virus of sin. The curse of God has been upon it since the disobedient pair were driven from the Garden of peace and safety. They sacrificed their peace and safety when they chose the thralldom of sin for the liberty of righteousness. The unwisdom of that course God has allowed to be made manifest to all the universe. But a time is coming when the active demonstrations of that unwise and disloyal course will nevermore be seen. With the whole course of sin before him, the prophet of God declares: "He will make a full end; affliction shall not rise up the second time. For entangled like thorns, and drunken as with their drink, they [the wicked] are consumed utterly as dry stubble. . . . Tho I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more. And now will I break his [Satan's] yoke from off thee, and will burst thy bonds in sunder. . . . Behold, upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace! Keep thy feasts, O Judah, perform thy vows; for the wicked one [Satan] shall no more pass through thee; he is utterly cut off." The end of this history of sin is not the end of God's purpose concerning the earth or concerning man who forfeited his inheritance in it. Tho God has waited long for Satan to demonstrate to the universe the falsity of his charges against God, and the wickedness of his purposes throughout, the time is approaching when the last of the harvest of that wicked sowing will be gathered for the flames of final justice. The end of the reign of sin is not to be the end for those who have sworn fealty to the God of heaven and stood faithful to their vows. God has something better for them; and wars and rumors of wars will trouble them no more when He has made an end of sin. The Lord has told us of that permanent, peaceful habitation, in which He will place that eternal tabernacle that shall not be moved nor taken down. Of that place He says: "But there the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby." Isa. 33:20. Those ships were ships of war. They will not be seen in that land. Those galleys carried slaves chained to their oar-locks. There will be no slaves in that country. "The former things are passed away," and it can truly be said then that the people "shall learn war no more." The words of the prophet are, "They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain." As the nations of this earth have sown the seeds of war, they will reap the harvest of their sowing. They will come to their end in the greatest war the world has ever seen. They are straining every nerve to prepare themselves for the final struggle. How good it is to know that we can look beyond this sad prospect; that we have the promise of a peaceful, quiet home from which all selfishness and sin, all misery and hunger, all strife, contention, and war, will be forever banished and not even come into the thoughts any more! This will be only after God has renovated this sin-dominated earth and allowed sin to burn itself out in the fires of the last days. Concerning that time John says: "I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth are passed away; and the sea is no more. . . . And I heard a great voice out of the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He shall dwell with them, and they shall be His peoples, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God; and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor5crying, nor pain, any more; the first things are passed away." Rev. 21:1-4. That blessed time of peace and safety is nearer—much nearer—than when we first believed. It is much nearer than many believe now; and God's invitation, sounding through all the world, is "Come, COME." s.