Part 15 (1/2)

[105] Genesis iii. 24.

[106] iv. 6-9; v. 6, 8, 14; vi. 1, 3, 5, 7; vii. 11; xiv. 3; xv. 7; xix.

4.

VI.--A CLEARING-UP STORM IN THE REALM

(Revelation, Chapters vi.-viii.)

”G.o.d Almighty! King of nations! earth Thy footstool, heaven Thy throne!

Thine the greatness, power, and glory, Thine the kingdom, Lord, alone!

Life and death are in Thy keeping, and Thy will ordaineth all: From the armies of Thy heavens to an unseen insect's fall.

”Reigning, guiding, all-commanding, ruling myriad worlds of light; Now exalting, now abasing, none can stay Thy hand of might!

Working all things by Thy power, by the counsel of Thy will.

Thou art G.o.d! enough to know it, and to hear Thy word: 'Be still!'

”In Thy sovereignty rejoicing, we Thy children bow and praise, For we know that kind and loving, just and true, are all Thy ways.

While Thy heart of sovereign mercy, and Thy arm of sovereign might, For our great and strong salvation in Thy sovereign grace unite.”

--FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL.

The Area of the Storm.

Goodness arouses evil. Faithfulness to Christ stirs opposition. This is a commonplace. A piece of white-hot metal plunged into cold water makes a great fuss. Two areas of sharply different temperatures in the atmosphere above us coming suddenly together make a storm.

Purity entering an atmosphere of impurity and insisting on staying, and on keeping pure, creates a lively disturbance. The tempter was aroused to his subtlest effort when Jesus appeared. There is no such demoniac activity recorded as when Jesus walked among men.

So crowning a king arouses opposition, if there be opposition. And the active taking of the reins of government has intensified the opposition when it was strong enough to make a stand. The striking ill.u.s.tration of this in the Bible is King David. After Saul's death the men of Judah anointed David king. That was the signal for an immediate attack by the chief of the forces of Saul's house. And this was succeeded by a long war, before David was acknowledged as king over all Israel. The clearing-up storm in his realm lasted a good while before good weather came.

Here in this Revelation scene we have been looking at our Lord Jesus is represented as stepping forward to take possession of His realm. It is natural to expect a storm. This will be a signal to the opposition to rally all its power. But there can be no question about the outcome of such a set-to. That storm proves to be a clearing-up storm in the realm.

It is to be followed by such fine moral weather as has not been known before. But the storm itself proves to be a terrific one for the earth while it lasts.

The greater part of this little end-book is taken up with a description of that storm. But before we turn to this book itself and its storm, we want to get our bearings a bit, so as to understand better what is here.

Revelation is the knot in the end of a big bunch of threads. We shall understand the knot better by knowing more about the threads before they are tied into the knot.

The storm area proves to be very large. It takes in the whole earth. The Bible is a big book in its outlook and grasp. It deals with the whole earth, and the whole race. The thoughtful Bible student comes to have a broad outlook, as well as a close lookout about his own front and back doors.

It is fascinating to study the geography of the Bible. We talk about the world growing smaller. That refers of course to the rapidity of transit. It is only within a few hundred years that we have learned of the earth being round. The Bible map includes practically the whole world as we have come to know it.

The centre of the world as seen on this map may seem a little surprising. We Americans _feel_ that the centre of things is here. The Englishman _knows_ that it is in London; and lately the Germans have had the same exclusive sort of knowledge about Berlin. The Chinese has long called his country ”the Middle Kingdom,” in the sense of its being the central kingdom about which the rest of the world revolves. But here the centre is seen to be on the boundary line, practically, between Orient and Occident, reaching out an embracing arm to each.

We have a broad division of the earth into East and West. The differences between the two, in civilization, mode of thought, religion, language, and so on, are so radical as to make it seem that there was no point of contact. At least this has been emphasized much by western writers on the East. We are disturbed just now here in the far West over the Oriental, Chinese j.a.panese and Indian crossing the _far_ boundary line between Orient and Occident and coming into the United States and Canada.

Yet East and West have always overlapped at the _middle_ boundary line.

There is a great mixture of races in the strip where the eastern edge of the West and the western edge of the East come together. It is the strip running roughly north and south where Russia's western border and Turkey's touch Germany and Austria and Greece, including the never-at-rest Balkan Peninsula. Constantinople sits on the dividing line between East and West, with the worst of both civilizations within her confines. Here the hemispheres touch and their life currents intermingle and flow together.