be ye not mockers! lest your bands be made strong: for I have heard from The Lord God of Hosts a consumption, even determined upon the whole earth. 66 Isa. viii. 12-22. Say ye not, "A confederacy!" to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy!" neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid! Sanctify The Lord of Hosts Himself; and let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread! And He shall be for a Sanctuary; but for a Stone of stumbling and for a Rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many among them shall stumble and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken. Bind up the Testimony, seal The Law among My disciples. And I will wait upon The Lord, Who hideth His Face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for Him [xlv. 15, 16]. Behold! I and the Children whom The Lord hath given Me (Heb. ii. 13) are for signs and for wonders in Israel from The Lord of Hosts, Who dwelleth. in Mount Zion. And when they shall say unto you, "Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards, that peep, and that mutter :" should not a people seek unto their God? for the Living to the dead! To The Law and to The Testimony: if they speak not according to this [part]; and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished. And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away and the Abo:nination that maketh desolate set up [to set up the Abomination], 1290 days. Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the 1335 days. ["1335 ordinary wretched days of waiting, i. e. of endurance, require to be understood, and 1335 prophetical happy days to be attained are expressed."] Rev. xi. 2, 3; xii. 6, 14; xiii. 5. But the Court which is without the Temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot 42 months (Luke xxi. 24). And I will give unto My Two Witnesses, and they shall prophesy 1260 days clothed in sackcloth. [Living personal Witnesses in the complete fulfilment of the literalday (6, Luke ix. 30, 31; John v. 45; Luke xvi. 31).] And to the Woman were given two wings of a great eagle that she might fly into the Wilderness [in Hebrew, "Wilderness" and "West" are connected by derivation:], into her place, prepared by God (6), where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time,-1260 days,- from the face of the Serpent. word, it is because there is no light [morning] in them. And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward [Rev. xvi. 21; Isa. lxv. 13]. And they shall look unto the earth; and behold! trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness. And there was given unto him [the Beast, to whom the Dragon gave his power and seat, i. 2] a mouth speaking great things (Dan. vii. 25) and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue [make war] 42 months. [The Dragon went to make war with the remnant of the Woman's seed, which keep the Commandments of God, and have the Testimony of Jesus Christ,-(" that He is The Son of God and The Saviour of the world") Rev. xii. 17, xiii. 6, 7.] [The king who shall do according to his own will (Dan. xi. 36), the Destroyer of the Gentiles (Jer. iv. 7); who is The Lord's mighty and strong one, as a tempest of hail and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand (Isa. xxviii. 2). And the saints of The Most High, whom he wears out, are the brethren of Daniel the Prophet and of John the Apostle (Dan. vii. 25; Rev. xiii. 7); yet his oppressions and destructions are directed also against the Church of Christ (Rev. xii. xiii.), and his name, or character, is given in the Gentile tongue as well as in the Hebrew,Apollyon, Abaddon,-a Destroyer, the Angel of the bottomless pit. So, also, the title of The Saviour of the whole world,-Jesus " Help of God," "Saviour," and King of the Jews,-legibly to all nations since all are concerned, was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin (Luke xxiii. 38; John xix. 20).] CLEANSING (Dan. viii. 14) BY THE SPIRIT OF Herein is My Father glorified, Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit Isa. xxviii. 23-29. Give ye ear, and hear My Voice! hearken, and hear My speech! Doth the ploughman plough all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground? When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the wheat in the principal place, and barley in the appointed place, and the rye in their border? And he bindeth it in such sort as his God doth teach him. For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin: but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen. This also cometh forth from The Lord of Hosts, Who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working. (Isa. xxix; xxx. 1-17.) John xii. 35-43. Then Jesus said unto them, "Yet a little while is The Light with you. Walk while ye have The Light! lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have light, believe in The Light, that ye may be the children of light." These things spake Jesus, and departed, and did hide Himself from them. But though He had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on Him: that the saying of Esaias the Prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, "Lord! who hath believed our report? and to whom hath The Arm of The Lord been revealed?" (Isa. liii. 1.) Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again, "He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them." These things said Esaias, when he saw His glory, and spake of Him (Isa. vi. 1-10). [Blindness following upon unbelief: Acts xxviii. 26-28; 2 Cor. iv. 4; 2 Thes. ii. 10, 11.] Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on Him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. [Rom. x. 9, 10; Rev. xiv. 13; xii. 17; xiii. 15; xx. 4; (Rev. vi. 9-11; xviii. 24).] John vii. 33, 34. Then said Jesus unto them, "Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto Him Who sent Me. Ye shall seek Me, and shall not find Me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come. [Acts i. 11; iii. 21; Matt. xxiv. 27. The heavens having received Jesus until the Times of Restitution of all things: and His Return shall be in no other manner than "so as He was seen to go into heaven,"-in The Cloud -the symbol of The Divine Presence to the Israelites.] "Be Matt. xxiv. 26-28. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, hold! He is in the desert: go not forth! "Behold! He is in the secret chambers: " believe it not ! For as the lightning cometh out of the East, and shineth even unto the West; so shall also The Coming of The Son of Man be. For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together. [First in the siege by Titus:-a final and full accomplishment yet future, Rev. xvi. 12-21; xix. 11-21.] [The history of the Israelites contains significant foreshadowings, and the words of their True but rejected Messiah give more distinct forewarning, of the "strong delusion" and blind choice of the nation when "the mystery of iniquity” shall be completing the weaving of its complex web. One of their own wise proverbs (i. 17) says, "Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird,"-" in the eyes of everything that hath a wing:" and the Children of Abraham have a Place of Refuge whither they may fly and be at rest (Ps. lxi. 4; Ex. xxv. 10-22; Matt. xxiii. 37 (xi. 28-30); for he who dwelleth in the Secret Place (Ps. xxvii. 5) of The Most High, having believed His Word, and entered by The Living Way and through the Atoning Blood of Jesus, The Lamb and High Priest, into the Holy of Holies (Heb. x. 19-21), He will surely deliver from the snare of the fowler, and from the pestilential atmosphere of guile and deceit and violence, Ps. xci. Ex. xxxii. 1-20 (xix., xxiv., xxxi. 18). "For this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him: "'--so the people made a golden calf (or 3 years old ox, worshipped as Apis by their Egyptian taskmasters): yet gave to it The Name of their own God, and proclaimed the feast as unto Him (xxxii. 5). And in the stead of The Prince of Life, The Holy and Just One (Acts iii. 14, 15), the Jews chose a murderer, a robber, the chief in an insurrection (Mark xv. 7; John xviii. 40); a notable prisoner (Matt. xxvii. 16: compare Jude 6; 2 Pet. ii. 4; John viii. 44; Rev. xii. 9; xiii. 2, 4). The Christ is The Truth (John xiv. 6; viii. 45): Antichrist is a Lie (John viii. 44; Rev. xii. 9; xiii. 1, 2, 6, 13, 14; 2 Thes. ii. 10, 11). Christ is The Saviour (Matt. i. 21; iv. 23, 24; Luke ii. 11): Antichrist is a murderer (John viii. 44; Rev. xiii. 7, 15). Christ comes down from Heaven (John vi. 38; xvi. 28; vii. 29): Antichrist ascends out of the sea, and the earth or the bottomless pit (Rev. xiii. 1, 2, 11; xvii. 8, 10, 11). Christ came in His Father's Name (John v. 43; xvi. 28): Antichrist comes in his own name (John v. 43; xiv. 30; Luke iv. 5-7; Rev. xiii. 2): in some characteristics an exact contrast to The True Christ; in all, during the time of deception,-the first half "Week" of his covenant with the Jews,-a mimicry of The Prince of Peace and Saviour of the world. A final warning is given in the midst of the Great Tribulation (Rev. xiv. 9-12), and the promise of salvation given to all who shall call on The Name of the Lord in that perilous Time. Rev. xiv. 13; Acts ii. 17-20, 21; iv. 12; Rom. x. 6-13.] I will make an Everlasting Covenant with them. Isa. lxi. 8-11 (Rom. viii. 21, 19). Isa. 1. 10, 11. Who is among you that feareth The Lord, that obeyeth the voice N |