In the eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters of Revelation is foretold a part of the war history of the nations. It is given symbolically as seven angels with seven trumpets — the trumpets indicating war. Under the sounding of each of these seven trumpets is foretold some great war cataclysm.
There is not space here to study these trumpets in detail, but the sounding of the seventh began in 1844. We know this from the following Biblical facts:
SHALL REIGN FOREVER AND EVER
When the seventh trumpet sounds, great voices in heaven say, "The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ: and He shall reign forever and ever." Rev. 11: 15. God is praised because He has taken to Him His great power and has reigned. Verse 17.
At this same time, conditions in the world among the nations are described: "And the nations were wroth, and Thy wrath came, and the time of the dead to be judged, and the time to give their reward to Thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that fear Thy name, the small and the great; and to destroy them that destroy the earth. And there was opened the sanctuary of God [margin] that is in heaven; and there was seen in His sanctuary the ark of His covenant; and there followed lightnings, and voices, and thunders, and an earthquake, and great hail." Rev. 11: 18, 19, A. R. V.
By this we learn that at the time when the nations are angry the sanctuary service will be opened, or revealed once more to this world. This intimates that so far as this world is concerned there must have been a time when apparently it was closed or unrevealed. Reference to this time is made in the eighth chapter of Daniel: "Yea, it magnified itself, even to the Prince of the host; and it took away from Him the continual burnt offering, and the place of His sanctuary was cast down. And the host was given over to it together with the continual burnt offering through transgression; and it cast down truth to the ground, and it did its pleasure and prospered." Verses 11, 12.
Regarding this time when the sanctuary work could not be clearly discerned, a voice asks: "How long shall be the vision . . . to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed," or justified. Verses 13, 14.
Then the cleansing of the sanctuary and the opening of the sanctuary in heaven are synchronous. In other words, the cleansing of the sanctuary of Dan. 8: 14 and the opening of the sanctuary of Rev. 11: 19 are prophetic descriptions of the same event. This event took place in 1844.660
SETTLING OF ALL LIFE ACCOUNTS
For example, the "justifying" or "cleansing" of the sanctuary means the settling of all life accounts as revealed in the records in the heavenly sanctuary. For nearly two thousand years, Christ received the confession of faith on the part of all who accepted Him as their Saviour; but in 1844, in addition to doing this, a new work of balancing the books, as it were, began. That is to say, the life record of each individual accepting Christ, from Adam down, was scrutinized, and his reward or punishment was determined. When disposition is made of all these cases, and the punishment meted out — at the second coming of Christ — the sanctuary is cleansed.
This work of examining records and determining the decree for each individual began in 1844. The 2,300 years dating from the going forth of the commandment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem (Dan. 9: 25), under Artaxerxes, 457 B. C., ended, as we have said, in the fall of the year 1844. At that time, the prophecy declared, the sanctuary was to be cleansed, or justified; and hence at the time when the nations of the world are angry, the time also has come that the dead should be judged and a reward given to God’s servants. Rev. 11: 18.
THE NATIONS ANGRY AT THAT TIME
All this we have said in introduction, to show that at the time when Christ begins the work of taking His kingdom, namely, in 1844, the nations are angry. We will say a few words with reference to this fact, and then we will examine into the causes underlying it.
First, the nations are angry. It is a historical fact that since 1844 most particularly, we have had the great European danger of war. In 1848 matters looked as if Europe would be dissolved in war, and they have grown no better. Every war since that time has been a war in which neither contending party was satisfied. The close of the war only called for another war to settle the questions left over from the past war. "The Eastern question" has constantly grown more complex, more threatening, more certain of a dire solution. Since 1844, particularly since 1848, it has been the Eastern question that has held the forefront
Causes of the War Spirit Among the Nations
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of attention on the part of European nations. The present war is one that is bound to affect conditions in the near East. If Austria is greatly weakened or annihilated in this present contest, it is bound to add to the might and power of Russia; and that means that Russia eventually will certainly take Constantinople, and that in turn means so much of a downfall for Turkey. And according to the prophecies, the final downfall of Turkey marks the end of earthly events.
NO COMPARISONS FROM THE PAST
Certainly the nations are angry. Since 1844 in particular, notably since the Civil War and the ironclads that developed from it, we have had the mightiest preparations of armaments the world ever heard of. In fact, it is impossible to compare the present age of war preparations with that of any other age in all the history of the world. There is nothing in the past with which to compare it. Is it possible to compare an arrow with a Mauser? Is it possible to compare a javelin or a spear with a Gatling gun or a mitrailleuse? Is there any comparison between a catapult and a 12-inch gun? Is there any comparison between a battering-ram and modern siege artillery? The former were childish toys compared with the efficient weapons of warfare to-day.
Certainly the nations are angry. Millions upon millions are spent by the nations, until the major share of the expense of the various governments is for war or preparations for war.
Surely the nations are angry; and statesmen and philosophers, writers and speakers, recognize the fact, and declare in no uncertain terms that the nations are preparing "as if for some Armageddon."
WHY ARE THE NATIONS ANGRY?
But why are the nations angry? Why are they preparing for war? Why are they entering with frenzy into strife? Superficially, the answer is, Because of distrust, because of lack of confidence in one another, because of conflicting ambitions, because of fear and dread and unrest. Never in all the history of the world were nations more aggressive, more ambitious, than they are to-day.
There never has been anything in this world that would give confidence, honesty, integrity, moral guarantees, except the gospel of Jesus Christ; and it is because the world is rejecting the gospel of the Son of God and refusing the Bible as the solemn word of Jehovah, that we have, as it were, every man becoming a law unto himself and doing those things which are right in his own eyes. Old standards are torn down, new standards erected in their places; and with the downfall of the old standards and the erection of the new goes the old morality and enters a new immorality.
Prophecy declared that in the last days perilous times would come, for men would be lovers of their own selves, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; and the prophecy also declared that the time would come when they would not endure sound doctrine, but would heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and would turn away from the truth, and be turned to fables. And the prediction of the divine Word also is that because they loved not the truth, God would give them over to strong delusion to believe a lie. This, however, is but one of the causes for the war spirit among the nations.
SATAN'S WRATH IN THIS TIME
All that is taking place in the government of heaven is known more or less definitely by Satan. When Christ began the work in the heavenly sanctuary of reviewing the
candidates for His heavenly kingdom, Satan knew it; and he came down to mankind having great wrath because he knew that he had but a short time. Rev. 12: 12. And the end of the drama is the wrathful dragon making war on the remnant — the last of the church. Verse 17.
In harmony with this we find the Scripture declaring just before Christ comes, that the spirits of devils working miracles go forth to the kings of the earth and the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Rev. 16: 14. These devils are successful, for they gather the nations to a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. Verse 16. Furthermore, this gathering of the nations is to make war against Christ in the person of His children. Rev. 19: 19 with 11.
THE POWER STIRRING THE NATIONS
According to this, the wrath of the nations is but their manifestation of the wrath of Satan, who is stirring them up. And why is he stirring them up? — Because he knows that he has but a short time. In other words, as the prophecy in Rev. 11: 17-19 declares, when Christ begins the work of taking His kingdom, of cleansing the heavenly sanctuary, the nations are angry. And they are angry because Satan sees in this cleansing of the sanctuary the beginning of the taking of Christ's kingdom and the ending of his own kingdom. The struggle becomes intense, and every earthly element partakes of the intensity. Satan realizes that his house is about to fall; and he begins, by every means in his power, to strengthen it and prop it and brace it to hold it from the final crash. But it will certainly go down, for it is founded upon the shifting sand of apostasy and rebellion.
But there is still another cause for the wrath of the nations. God is opposing sin, fighting it wherever it lifts its opposing661
power; and in the prophecies, He pictures this final struggle as a shaking of the kingdom of evil. Remember what Christ foretold with reference to conditions just before His second appearing. He said, "Upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth; for the powers of heaven shall be shaken." Luke 21: 25, 26.
In other words, men grow apprehensive as they see all things earthly shaking as if to fall. And well they may, because even the powers of heaven are to shake, or as it is stated in Heb. 12: 26, 27, God promises to shake not only the earth but heaven, and this shaking means the removing of those things that are shaken, that that which can not be shaken may remain. God will remove sin. If necessary, He will destroy the sinner rather than continue the sin. His way is that we shall each one voluntarily get rid of sin through the means He provides, and thus be saved from our sin; but if we refuse, and cling to sin, we shall be destroyed in the destruction of sin. "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof;
but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever." 1 John 2: 16, 17.
By these things, we see that God is actually at work breaking down the power of evil, shaking every earthly element opposed to right, shaking the kingdoms of this world, shaking this earth itself; and in storms and earthquakes and tidal waves, He disturbs the earth, and shakes it, warning men of the coming doom, when the earth shall utterly fall, and as it now is, shall not rise again. Isa. 24: 19, 20.
CHRIST FINALLY TAKES POSSESSION
In the strife of nations, in their distress, and their fear of one another, and in their actual wars, the angry nations are shaken. This foretokens that the time is rapidly advancing when Christ will take complete possession of this earth, when He will be King of kings, and Lord of lords; when every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that He is Lord, to the glory of God. So we may say that the shaking of earthly kingdoms is but a sign of the firm establishment of Christ's kingdom, now rapidly going on.
Not far hence, the shaking of the earth and the shaking of the nations will culminate, when the voice of God, speaking from the throne, will cause the mightiest earthquake
this world has ever had since men were upon it, and when confederacy against God will be dissolved, shaken apart, and when all the cities of the nations will fall, and every island flee away, and the mountains not be found. Rev. 16: 17-21.
God is shaking and will shake to the very foundation the whole citadel of evil. He is shaking the very castle of the devil. He will shake it until at last it tumbles in an irretrievable ruin; and then will be found that He who has shaken down the kingdom of sin has upreared the kingdom of righteousness.
SHINES ABOVE THE WRECK
The city of God resplendent shall shine above the wreck and the ruin of sin. It stands upon immovable foundations, built by God's own hand. It is the capital of a kingdom that shall not be given to other people; it shall stand forever. Dan. 2: 44; Revelation 21; and Rev. 22: 1-7.
In the light of these tremendous truths, let us receive the admonition of one of those scriptures that foretell them: "Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which can not be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire." Heb. 12: 28, 29.
