gone before. You remember how the Lord stated that "The least in the kingdom of heaven [that is this dispensation] shall be greater than John the Baptist." So I believe, grand and blessed as our privileges are, the privileges of Israel in the dispensation to come shall be greater, higher, and more exalted than the position of the church. Wonderful as that position is, there are still more wonderful, privileges and blessings promised to Israel redeemed and restored, and these shall all be fulfilled in the dispensation to come. Some speak of these as belonging to the present time. Well and good in a certain sense. But as dear Mr. Gosset Tanner has shown you, while we find Scripture fulfilled in a certain sense, it has yet to be fulfilled in a grander, and fuller, and more literal sense.

Now, look what the new covenant contains and I begin with the last first, because governed by the preposition for. First we have, "I will forgive their sin, and remember their iniquity no more.” Did we not first of all discover that, and did we not first of all rejoice in it, when the Lord opened our eyes to behold wondrous things out of His law? There is full and perfect forgiveness. Then we have conversion of heart and life; then we have consecration of the whole man to God; and lastly, the enlightenment by which God reveals Himself Now, what is our privilege as individual saints in the present dispensation becomes the privilege in a still grander and fuller sense of Israel in the next dispensation. Take the forgiveness of sin: you find, in chapter 1., that the "iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and not found." It will be a grand thing when the whole iniquity of the nation is rolled away from the people, and their guilt remains not in the sight of the Lord.

to us.

Then, secondly, their heart has the law written upon it. His law shall be written on the fleshly table of their hearts, so that the whole nation shall know and serve the Lord. Then shall they be to Him a people of a pure language (as in Zeph. iii. 9, a passage I do hope Mr. Wilkinson will quote, for it was a great help to me when he did so): "Then shall they indeed be a saved people."

And the third thing is, this people shall be a consecrated people. "I will be their God, and they shall be My people." Look at Zech. xiii., where we find that, after they had been refined as silver, "they shall call on My name, and I will hear them; I will say, It is My people, and they shall say, The Lord is my

God." Now is that not a grand thing for the soul,—when you and I enjoy the forgiveness of sins, and intercourse with the Lord, and find that the Lord recognises us as His people, and is not ashamed of us? When we are a holy and separated people, when you and I take up our true position in the world, but not of it-holy, separated and consecrated unto God, then He is not ashamed to be called our God, and to own us as His people. There is a mutual recognition between the Shepherd and the sheep. Just as in John x. we have the Holy Ghost represented as the Porter at the door of the fold. The sheep recognise the Shepherd, and the Shepherd recognises His sheep: "I know My sheep, and am known of Mine, and to Him the porter openeth." So more fully and grandly all Israel shall be saved in that day when they shall know their God, and when God shall be known of His people, and they shall be no more cast away for ever.

And then, again, I see something very much in advance of present privilege in the fact that they shall not teach every man his neighbour to know the Lord, for all shall know Him from the least even unto the greatest. There seems to me no room for mediants of any kind, no room for teachers between the people and their God, "for the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea."

And lastly, the question comes, If there is to be a saved people, a saved remnant who shall be fully recognised by God as His people, how shall the salvation be brought about? Turn to Zech. xii., xiii., and xiv. and see how strikingly it is stated that the Lord Jesus Christ appears just when the tribulation is running to its greatest height. Jerusalem is surrounded by the enemy; when at the moment of the utmost peril the Lord shall appear, and His people shall be overcome by His very graciousness. So in Matt. xxiv. we read that at the very climax of the trouble, and "it is the day of Jacob's trouble," "then shall the sign of the Son of Man appear in the heavens." So in these three chapters of Zechariah we read of the sad state of the people just before the appearance of the Lord; and it is at that moment the Deliverer shall come to Mount Zion, and Israel shall see her enemies cut off by the sword of war, for the Lord shall come strong and mighty in battle; He shall come to deliver His people and utterly destroy the enemy; He comes as a Mighty Man of War, as the Conqueror and Deliverer. I believe Psalms cxv. and xxiv. throw light on the coming of

the Lord Jesus Christ to deliver His people: "Who is the King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty; the Lord mighty in battle. 66 "O Israel, trust in the Lord. He is their help and shield." Now, I know some connect that with the Lord's first coming, and it may have some reference, but I am quite sure it belongs more correctly to His second coming, when He comes not only to pour out His Spirit on Israel so that all Israel shall be saved, but also to appear on their behalf, "the Lord strong and mighty in battle." Compare the language of Psalm xlv., where you find the same thing: "Gird Thy sword upon Thy thigh, O Most Mighty Thy right hand shall teach Thee terrible things. Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the King's enemies, whereby the people fall under Thee." This you may accommodate to the present dispensation, and apply simply to the success of the Gospel, but it really belongs to the deliverance of Israel.

So, again, in Isa. lxii., you see Israel saved not by the preaching of the Word, but by the manifestation, the blessed revelation of Him who is Himself the Word. It is by the visible manifestation of the personal Messiah that Israel shall be saved: "Behold thy salvation cometh, and His reward is with Him." You and I are saved by the manifestation of Christ to our hearts by the work of the Holy Spirit, but the nation shall be saved by the manifestation of the Lord Jesus Christ in glory and power on behalf of His people. "They shall look on Him whom they have pierced.'

Thus, I believe, the conversion of the great Apostle of the Gentiles is indeed a type of Israel in the days of her salvation. The Lord Jesus, whom he had persecuted, appeared unto Him, and Paul was converted by the sight and by the gracious words of Him he had so hated. Thus Israel will, in that blessed day, be converted by the sight of the Messiah whom they have rejected, by the sight of the glorious person and majesty of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, in connection with this, you have Him standing on. the Mount of Olives. "His feet shall stand in that day on the Mount of Olives" (Zechariah xiv.). It is in that day "there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness." There shall He stand to bring about those remarkable convulsions of which we have just heard, and which are clearly foretold, and which are to issue in the restoration and recovery

of the land from its present barren and desolate condition to the fruitfulness and blessedness of the coming day, and reintroduction of the people to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

How deeply interesting all this is to you and me! One of the last acts the Lord Jesus Christ performed with regard to Israel was to stand on the brow of that very Mount Olivet; and as He wept over the city, He proclaimed its terrible doom: “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate and verily I say unto you, ye shall not see Me until (the time come when) ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord." On that very spot where He then stood unnoticed, unknown and unrecognised, and rejected by Israel-on that spot where He wept over the doomed city, on that very spot shall He stand to reveal Him to save the nation. So do we not recall how, after His resurrection, the Lord led forth His disciples to that place, and gathering His little church about Him spoke His farewell words, and then ascended from them, and a cloud received Him out of their sight; then turning round and seeing the amazement and sorrow of His followers, He sent two bright messengers, who addressed them: "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven." Does not the very language bring more clearly to my mind and yours the great and glorious literal fact that on the very spot where His holy feet touched when He ascended, shall He again stand when He comes in triumph to turn away unrighteousness from Jacob?

Now, it is a very interesting and remarkable fact that immediately after this we have (Zech. xiv. 16) the Feast of the Tabernacles; and that feast, remember, is the only one of the feasts that has never yet had its fulfilment in the history of the nation. The Passover had, of course, its fulfilment in Calvary, when Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us; and the Feast of Pentecost had its fulfilment when the Holy Ghost came down on the fortieth day; but the Feast of Tabernacles has not been fulfilled. It is also interesting to notice the connection with the seventieth week of Dan. ix. I may differ from many of you; but I cannot help it the older I become, the longer I live, the more convinced am I that the seventieth week has never yet had its fulfilment. It corresponds to the consummation and closing scene of Israel's history when their Messiah shall roll away all iniquity and make an end of transgression, bringing in ever

lasting righteousness by making an end of sin. And that last week of the seventieth is divided in the closing verse of chapter ix., as also in other Scriptures, into two periods of three and a half years, and you find Antichrist appearing towards the close, and making a covenant with Israel, which he breaks in the midst of the week. Israel chose that king: We have no king but Cæsar:" and so they shall suffer under him until He whom they rejected and cruciñed shall come to deliver them in their day of trouble. Then shall they say, “ This is our King; we have waited for Him." So at the close of that seventieth week they shall welcome their Messiah. There are two great political events that mark the period. There is the covenant with the adversary, and there is the anointing of the Most Holy Place. The full restoration of the people, and the overthrow of their enemies, takes place when the Messiah brings in an atonement for sin. Many say that was fulfilled when Christ was on earth. It was for you and I, but it was not fulfilled in reference to Israel as a nation; and it shall not be so fulfilled until they acknowledge Him as King, and recognise Him as their true Messiah. Then shall the deliverance you and I enjoy become the deliverance of Israel; and all Israel shall be saved when the Redeemer shall come to Zion to turn away unrighteousness from Jacob.

BY THE REV. JOHN WILKINSON.

My subject is, "Israel-a blessing to the nations"; in other words, Israel—a blessing to the Gentiles.

I would first of all make brief reference to that passage in Zephaniah to which Mr. Skrine has referred. Turn to Zeph. iii. 8: "Therefore wait ye upon Me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for My determination is to gather the nations, . . . to pour upon them Mine anger, even all My fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of My jealousy. For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, and serve Him with one consent." Then we have judgments taken away, Israel's enemy cast out, and the King of Israel, even JehovahJesus in the midst of restored Israel, and then they shall not see evil any more. There shall be no more national calamity to restored Israel. Then in the last two verses of the chapter we have the wonderful judgments on the nations that afflict