David Baron

“ We know from the Word of God that it is God, the God of Israel, who keeps them together. Within the last twenty years the national consciousness of the Jews has been once more roused from its slumber, and now as was lately shown at the Zionist Congress it is more vigorous than ever before. They feel that they are a nation, and separate from the other nations. They feel they are still " a peculiar people," though dispersed among so many nations. They feel something of the peculiar position which God has assigned to them in the world, although they do not know exactly what it is. ”

“ The answer of this sublime scripture is, " Our God cometh, and shall not keep silence." But before considering further this great and awful event, let me remind you that there is deep significance even in God's silence.
(a) The silence of God is designed to drive man to that which He has spoken ; He would remind us of His Word, which in His good providence is preserved to us, and which is sufficient and profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteous- ness, that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. ”

“ But Israel did not understand the unity of the Law, or its spirituality, and thus the purpose of the Law was not attained in them. What was the real purpose of the Law? The Law was not given that people should be saved by it, or feel comfortable under it It was given to show people how utterly corrupt is the heart from which comes our outer life ; to show people how exceedingly sinful sin is in the sight of God. It was not given for life, but for death, to bring people to despair about the depravity of their moral nature. ”

“ They have not learned faith in Christ from Christians, but that which they have taken in, is the unbelief of the so-called Christian world. The more educated Jews are well acquainted with everything that is said and written by nominal Christians and anti- Christians against Christ and Christianity. Masses of Jews all over the world speak now on this wise : " We do not see any miracles nowadays, so we do not believe that miracles have ever been. Moses, David, the Prophets, and Jesus were great men, wise men, men of great moral force and character. ”

“ The period of God's silence is the period of His longsuffering, which, in the riches of His goodness, is designed to lead men to repentance. The continued length of that period gives us a glimpse into the in- finitude of the patience and forbearance of the everlasting God, but man should be the last to complain about it, since it lengthens the time in which God commendeth His love and undeserved favour to men, and in which peace and pardon is proclaimed to the vilest sinner. ”

“ Because it was a rare thing to find a man who in sincerity of heart and mind understood the drift of the Law, its true meaning and original purpose, and who was thus able to condense all the different precepts and injunctions into this, its real aim love to God and to our neighbour. ”

“ None of the persecutions which they have endured have availed to destroy them, neither have they broken their energy or subdued their indomitable will, or crushed their power of mind ; and no sooner was the great pressure which the nations so-called Christian nations put upon them, removed, than we see them prosper in every country, and take leading positions in every sphere of life, in commerce and politics, as well as in literature and art, showing that the Lord God has made them to be a peculiar people ”

“ And the individual Christian also, though free from all condemnation in his person, shall then be judged in his works, " for we must all be made manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in His body according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad" (2 Cor. v. 10) .
But the great and solemn event of His glorious appearing is viewed in this psalm in relation to three different sections of humanity, namely, the Church, Israel, and the apostate nations of Christendom. ”

“ Israel in its present state, the Christless Israel, shows this to the whole world. Notwithstanding the great activity and energy of the religious life of the Jews, they have we say it with great sorrow no life indeed what they have is all carnal and this accounts for the phenomena that they have not been of much spiritual use to the world since Christ's coming. In Christ alone will Israel live again and be a blessing to the world. ”

“ Both the Law and the Prophets must remain an enigma to them, for as the greater and more vital part of the law has vanished, as the Levitical dispensation has disappeared, as the Temple has been destroyed, as the sacrifices are no more offered, as the Priesthood, with its head, the High Priest, no more exists, oh! ”

“ Living One," can bring life to this nation. The truth and mystery of Israel is Jesus. What Israel is without Him is manifest, what Israel shall be when it will see and acknowledge and adore Him is beyond human thought, but it is described with prophetic and apostolic pens in the Scriptures. ”

“ They hold in high esteem their Rabbis, who devote their lives to the study of the law and oracles of God ; and yet not knowing the centre and star of the Scriptures, not knowing that Jesus is the Messiah, not knowing the counsel of God, that through suffering He should enter into glory, they are not able to understand the scope of the Scriptures. All their minute knowledge of the letter does not help them. They cannot enter into the spirit of it. ”

“ THE SILENCE OF GOD HOW IT SHALL BE BROKEN
The Second Advent in Relation to the Church, Israel, and Christendom
IT must be obvious, even to the most superficial student of the Scriptures, that we have in the Old Testament two distinct series of prophecies referring to the coming and person of the Messiah ; the one de- scribing Him as coming in humiliation, "lowly and riding upon an ass " ; "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; led as a lamb to the slaughter, and pouring out His soul unto death ;" ”

“ The Christian, too, becomes more reconciled to the long delay in his Master's return by the thought that in the interval the acceptable year of the Lord is still running its course, and that by the preaching of the gospel multitudes of souls are being gathered into the company of the redeemed, to the praise and glory of Him who died to save them. ”

“ The last echoes of that voice die away, and there ensues a period of silence during which men lived and the world made progress, in the sense in which it always does, until the silence was broken, and Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying : " Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among men, of all their ungodly deeds, which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly men have spoken against Him." ”

“ While God has been silent, man has taken the opportunity of speaking, and his words are ever more foolish, proud, and blas- phemous against the Most High, as may be seen from the press and the literature of the present day. ”

“ In it He tells thee, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of thee.
{b} The time of God's silence is another testing-time for man under more favourable circumstances than in preceding ages. It is a time of opportunity for the full development of good and evil, so that when God again interposes it may be manifest to principalities and powers that " He is justified when He speaks, and clear when He judges." ”

“ For by fire and by His sword will the Lord plead with all flesh : and the slain of the Lord shall be many " and forms also the basis
76 THE SILENCE OF GOD
of that sublime and terrible description of the descent of the Son of God " in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ : who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power" (2 Thess. i. 8, 9) . ”

“ After Enoch another pause of long centuries set in, and the earth again went on developing in the old way, until the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and until it became manifest in the sight of the heavens that " every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart was only evil continually." ”

“ He is made of a woman, and " took hold of the seed of Abraham," and being found in fashion as a man, He, for our salvation, "humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." ”

“ Oh no ; the whole history and continued existence of Israel, the Divine and won- derful character of the words preserved to us, and the consciousness of the Christian cry aloud against so monstrous a supposition.
But after this long period of speaking there followed again a long interval of about four centuries which was suddenly broken by the cry, " Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand ! " From this time there recom- menced another period of revelation on the part of God, during which He spoke His most wonderful words of all through His Son, and through the apostles by the Spirit. ”

“ God withdrew Himself from open inter- position, and for a space of long centuries there was silence. But what was the result of the new test ? The world again made progress, and man developed what was in him, until by the end of the time " dark- ness covered the earth and gross darkness the peoples." But in the midst of the universal darkness the God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, saying, " Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house." From this point of time onward, from Abraham to Malachi, a period of more ”

“ To the two distinct series of prophecies announcing two different advents, two well-known prophetic scrip- tures may be taken as key passages. The first is Micah v. 2, which tells us that " the Ruler in Israel," whose origin is Divine, and whose goings forth are from the days of eternity, will be born as a child in Bethlehem Ephratha. The second is Dan. vii. 13, 14, where we see Him no longer as a child born on earth of a Jewish ”