QUESTIONS by B. P.

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 29, 1858

QUESTIONS

By B. P.

A SERIES of questions has been proposed by Bro. Bishop, of Corning, N. Y., for our consideration, to which Bro. Pierce, of Vt., has replied. We present this week the two following on

QUESTIONS.

DAVID'S THRONE, AND THE DESOLATION OF THE EARTH.

Bro. Smith : I wish to submit a few questions for yourself or some of the numerous writers of the Review to answer.

1. If David's throne is in heaven, where is the passage in either the Old or the New Testament that gives us the information?

2. If the earth will be void or desolate 1000 years, from the first resurrection to the second, what nations would be deceived, should the Devil not be found, shut up, and sealed?

J. B.

Reply. 1. This information is not obtained from any one passage of Scripture alone, but from several taken together. We learn from Acts ii, 29, 30, that God had sworn with an oath to David, that of the fruit of his loins according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; i. e., David's throne. And as Jesus himself says, My kingdom is not of this world, we conclude his throne would not be where his kingdom is not. But the most reasonable conclusion is, it will be where his native, present and ultimate residence is. And as the first man Adam is the earth earthy, and as the second man Adam is the Lord from heaven, [1 Cor. xv, 47, compared with verses 21, 22.] we must reasonably conclude his kingdom will be where his residence is, and his throne in the capital of his kingdom, which will be the New Jerusalem. Rev. xxi, 1-3, compared with Zech. xiv, 8-11.

2. All the nations of the earth would doubtless be deceived by Satan if he were not bound. It has been our opinion for years that the chain with which Satan is to be bound will not be a literal one; because if the earth be desolate there will be no need of it. The circumstances of the case, if there be no living inhabitants, will be as effectant a chain to prevent Satan from deceiving the nations, as if he were bound by a real or literal chain. And that the earth will be desolate is evident from many scriptures. Isa. xiii, 9. "Behold the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate, and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it." Isa. vi, 11. "Then said I, Lord, how long ? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant; and the houses without man; and the land be utterly desolate." Isa. xxiv, 1. "Behold the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down." Verse 3. "The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled, for the Lord hath spoken this word." Verse 22. "And they shall be gathered together as prisoners are gathered in the pit; (margin, dungeon ;) and shall be shut up in the prison and after many days they shall be visited. (Margin, or found wanting.) This pit, or as the margin has it, dungeon, or prison, in which they are shut up, we have every reason to be lieve, is the grave. And the time they will be visited, or found wanting, is the second resurrection. For those who attain to the first resurrection will not be wanting, but complete and perfect, wanting nothing. And the many days are the 1000 years between the two resurrections.

As more positive, clear and explicit evidence, Zeph. i, 2, 3 is introduced. "I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the Lord; I will consume man and beast. I will consume the fowls of heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the stumbling blocks with the wicked. And I will cut off man from off the land, saith the Lord." Again, the last clause of verse 18, "But the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy; for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all that dwell in the land." The destruction of the fishes in verse 3 corresponds with the consequence of the second of the seven last plagues. "Every living soul died in the sea." Rev. xvi, 3. And as a consequence of this fact, the whole class of water-fowls must necessarily perish ; as their means of sustenance is gone.

Jeremiah xxv, 32-33, is also strong testimony on this point, though less definite. "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, behold evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth. And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; they shall not be lamented, neither gathered nor buried, they shall be dung upon the ground." We can conceive of no good reason why these are not lamented, gathered, or buried, unless it is because there are none left alive to perform these kind offices.

Again, chap. iv, 23-27, gives us a more particular description of things as they will appear after man is utterly destroyed. "I beheld the earth, and lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld, and lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger. For thus hath the Lord said, The whole land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end."

It is not claimed, that the above scriptures prove that every species of living creatures will be utterly destroyed from the whole earth; this is not necessary to our purpose. But it is claimed that they prove the utter destruction of man; and by comparing the above with Isa. xxxiv, we think it is easy to determine very nearly what species of animals at that time will remain alive. The expression, man and beast, in scripture, generally applies to man in the broadest sense, and to such beasts as are domesticated, or useful to man. For instance, as in Jer. xxxvi, 29. Why hast thou written therein, saying, The king of Babylon shall certainly come and destroy this land and cause to cease from thence man and beast. We do not expect it is possible for an invading army to cut off every species of wild beasts and reptiles, nor the fowls of heaven, but man and such beasts as are usually considered to be spoils to an army of conquest. Again, also as in Eze. xxix, 8. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will bring a sword upon thee, and cut off man and beast out of thee. We understand the same classes or kinds of beasts are cut off in this case as in the other. By an examination of Isa. xxxiv, 11-15, and chap. xiii, 21, 22, we learn there will be left alive but the most ferocious, dolosome, revolting and horrible kinds of beasts, birds and reptiles.

It is not difficult to know when earth's desolation will be brought about, as the destruction of man and beast, when applied to the whole earth, is usually in immediate connection with such expressions as the following: The day of the Lord. Isa. xiii, 9. The indignation of the Lord upon all nations. Chap. xxxiv, 2. The day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion. Verse 8. The cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger. Jer. iv, 26. The great day of the Lord. Zeph. i, 14. A day of wrath, a day of trouble, a day of wasteness and desolation. Zeph. i, 15. Although it must of necessity be a day of wrath as soon as Jesus has done pleading for man, for two reasons; first, because man has no longer an Intercessor, and, second, because all mankind will, at that time, be the most extremely wicked; all but christians being either possessed with familiar spirits, or their adherents; [Rev. xvi, 14;] still the result of man's destruction, at that time, must be a matter of distinguished benevolence on the part of God as taken in connection with the idea of succeeding generations, when we consider without this there must naturally be a race of mortals doomed forever to a hopeless fatality, without any Mediator, without any chance for successful probation, or reasonable hope of eternal life.

We learn from the above there will be a chain of events to bring about the destruction of the human race, the most of which are recorded and more definitely described in Rev. xvi, which will effectually prevent Satan from deceiving the nations till the 1000 years are fulfilled. After having the weight of the sins of all God's people put upon his devoted head, by the Son of God at the close of his ministration; and after having taken a vigorous part in exterminating the living wicked, and there being then no more that he can do to injure the fallen race, he must necessarily be not only shut up, but sealed up from any more of his former active employ, of deceiving the nations, to a continuous series of dismal reflections upon his past course and present condition; as well as the most gloomy anticipations of the fearful doom that awaits him, and also every other dreadful conclusion of which the imagination can conceive. To one so watchful in doing all the possible harm he can to the human race, as he has always done, we should suppose it would be the most irksome bondage and imprisonment, by the condition of things to be shut up for 1000 years from the possibility of doing any more harm to that race upon which he had preyed during the ages of the world with such dreadful success. But now the saints being all in heaven, and the wicked all in their graves, effectually prevents any further prosecution of this deception until the cause of this bondage and imprisonment shall be removed by the second resurrection.

B. P.