14. What instrumental means has God provided to this end?

15. What is the Christian's duty to those about him? 16. What is meant by "preaching" in this case?

17. What definition of false religious teachers does this lesson give?

18. What encouragement is there for the faithful serv ant of Christ?

XVIII

WHY GERMANY CANNOT RULE THE

WORLD

(Note: This chapter and those that follow, with exception of the last perhaps, are not intrinsically related to the foregoing, although they were published as articles in the Christian Herald at about the same time, having been called forth by special circumstances. As their contents have more than a passing interest, however, it has been thought desirable to add them to this volume.)

F

I

OR nearly one hundred years there lived in
England a Bible teacher, seer and student of

prophecy, named Benjamin Wills Newton. He died just prior to the present war at the ripe age of ninety. In 1855, during the progress of the Crimean War, he published a tractate to show, from the Scriptures, that the struggle between the Western Powers and Russia must result in the triumph of the former a prophecy he saw fulfilled.

The German Empire was not then in evidence, and indeed, the name of Germany is mentioned only once in the tractate; but if it were now rewritten, and "Germany" substituted for "Russia" throughout its pages, few other changes would be needed to make it fit as perfectly into present conditions as it did into those of sixty odd years ago.

In other words, the reason, fundamentally, why

Russia could not control the world then, is the reason why Germany cannot control it now. The present chapter, though original in that its author is alone responsible for it, is nevertheless, in essence, the rewriting, though in much abridgment, of Mr. Newton's work.

II

Europe for a long while has been minus a controlling center, a balance of power. Prior to the present period, the will of Great Britain and France, unitedly expressed, was determinative of most European questions. But when the strength of France was impaired-as at the time of the Franco-Prussian war-no such controlling force remained.

Gradually, however, France has been regaining her former position with England, and at the bottom of the present war is Germany's purpose to offset the results certain to follow in that case. But she cannot finally and permanently achieve her aim, not because she lacks the force, nor the organization, nor the advantage of temporary success, but because a higher Power than she or any other nation has decreed otherwise.

III

It is the Divine prophecy recorded in Daniel 2 that enables one to speak thus confidently. It was given him of God at a time when controlling power was being withdrawn from his nation of Israel and committed by God to certain nations of the Gentiles. This power had been given to Israel away back in

the days of Solomon, the son of David, but because of her transgressions it was now being transferred for the time being.

This transfer, be it noted, was not to the other nations of the world indiscriminately, not to others who through their own strength might be able to grasp and retain it, but to certain and particular nations which God Himself indicated and to which He gave, and would continue to give, the power to execute His will.

These nations were symbolized in the colossal metal image seen in a dream by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and which Daniel the prophet was enlightened and empowered to interpret.

Scripture itself identifies the nations that are meant-or rather empires, as we now call them— as being in succession, Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. For the supreme power of the first, compare Daniel 2:37, the second, Ezra 1:2, the third, Daniel 11: 3, and the fourth, Luke 2:1.

Quoting Newton: "The sovereign controlling power of earth which was first vested in Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, next in Cyrus of Persia, afterwards in Alexander of Greece, descended at last to the emperors of Rome; and within the territory once ruled by them, that sovereign power resides, and there its home will be until the Gentile Image comes to an end and forgiven Jerusalem becomes the 'City of the Great King.'”

By the "Gentile Image," he means that image which Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream, and the interpretation of which afforded the occasion of

Daniel's prophecy. By "forgiven Jerusalem," he means the ancient city of Palestine, restored to Israel and occupied by her when she shall at length have become reconciled to God through the acceptance of the crucified Jesus as her Messiah.

"Accordingly," he goes on to say, "during all the rude shocks which the Roman Empire has received, the supreme determinating power of earth has never left its boundary. Invading tribes have never succeeded in removing the seat of power outside its limits. Such tribes have either lost the authority they temporarily possessed, or else, in order to retain it, they have abandoned their primeval seats and sought a new home within the divinely prescribed area. This the Turks did when they left their primeval seats for Constantinople."

We may be pardoned a digression here to say that, while some Biblical scholars question the application of the fourth empire to Rome, nevertheless such has been the orthodox application from the beginning. It was early expressed by Josephus in his Jewish Antiquities, by a majority of the church fathers, by all the expositors of the Middle Ages, and by a majority of the moderns. Among these last some of the best known are Lange, Hengstenberg, Havernick, Hofmann, Keil, Gaussen, Auberlen, Kliefoth, Pusey, Barnes, Faussett and Tregelles.

The great Joseph Mede, an English theologian of the seventeenth century, first of his countrymen to attempt an explanation of the book of Revelation, places the application of the fourth empire to Rome as among the axioms of prophetic interpretation.