Edward Hoare

“ If you are reconciled through the precious blood of Christ; if you are justified in the righteousness of Christ; if you are preserved and sanctified by the loving Spirit of Christ, then of course you will be ready to say, ‘Even so come, Lord Jesus; come quickly.’ But if you are still living for the world, content with the world’s gifts and the world’s enjoyments ”

“ May you be amongst those who can peacefully look for His appearing, because you are clothed in His righteousness! May you be kept walking in the light, and cleansed from all sin through His most precious blood! Then you will have nothing to fear, but everything to hope for, in the thought of His coming. Then He will never come as a thief to you, for you will be ready at any time to open the door and welcome Him. ”

“ Alive with all the realities of the body, and all the faculties of the mind, memory, and conscience; but with the poor soul naked, without a claim, without an excuse, without an atonement, without a plea, without a Saviour, without any hope for all eternity of either concealment or forgiveness. ”

“ I might well spend all the time that remains in pressing on you the importance of keeping clear of all alliance with Rome. If God is consuming her, God’s people must have nothing to do with her either in politics or religion, for if they do, they will find themselves drawn into the vortex into which she must infallibly sink. ”

“ No one asks you to trust in rulers either in Church or State, for the Scripture says, ‘Put not your trust in princes.’ What we ask you to do is to trust the Lord Jesus Christ at the right hand of God. ”

“ We may well say, ‘What have we to do with the Turks, or the Turks with us in our own daily, private walk with God?’ It may surprise some of you when I say that, although no man can explain the reason of the connexion, I believe it to be very intimate, and that the religious life of modern Christendom is in a most remarkable manner bound up with the decline of the Turkish Empire. ”

“ Let us look at a few great European facts, not at little things that happen to fall within our own observation, but at great facts that are conspicuous before the world.
Rome has always claimed, as she does still, dominion over all the kingdoms of the world, and she used to exercise it over all those of Western Christendom. ”

“ In the days of the Cæsars united Rome was supreme in the pomp of the iron empire. Its body was Europe, and its heart was the emperor. It was one as much as Babylon had been one under p. 12Nebuchadnezzar. But look at it now. There is all the old power; for Europe and its races practically govern the world. It has not lost its iron. But there is no one kingdom that embodies all. The power is vested in a cluster of independent nations. ”

“ There is not one spirit only, but there are three acting together. We are taught, therefore, that at the time of the drying up of the Euphrates we must be prepared for subtle and seductive power of various forms and characters. ”

“ But do we all desire it? Are we all looking out with loving and longing hearts for the appearance of our beloved Redeemer? I fear that many would be very far from glad if they thought it would come to-morrow. ”

“ Their special object appears to be to gather together the kings to the battle of the great day of God Almighty; and in studying the prophecy it is impossible to forget the political difficulties that have already arisen from the decline of Turkey. But we must not limit the prophecy to kings, for the warning voice of verse 15 clearly applies to us all. Kings are not the only persons who find it necessary to watch and keep their garments. These spirits, then, are predicted as gathering men together for battle. When they are abroad truth and error will be thrown into antagonism. ”

“ It is high time therefore that we act on His own words, ‘When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh.’ He does not say, ‘Wait till they have all come to pass,’ but ‘look up as soon as they begin.’ Now they most undoubtedly have begun, and for a long time have been in progress. ”

“ I believe that the great public, political event of the sixth vial, is the drying up of the Ottoman Empire, and that we can all see to be in progress. There can be no doubt about the great, public, political fact. It is confirmed by every newspaper, and is forced on the attention of England by the sore distress brought on many families through the Turkish bankruptcy. But if this be p. 88the fact predicted by the symbol of the drying up of the Euphrates, then it follows that we are living under the sixth vial, and that the seventh vial is all that remains of the great prophetic series. ”

“ Because, as I have already said, ‘all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.’ No portion, therefore, of God’s word, whether it be prophetic or historical, ought to be set aside by p. 59those who really desire to know God’s truth. If we wish to know the whole mind of God we must be prepared to study the whole of the Holy Scriptures which God has given us. ”

“ There are certain signs already given; do they wake up society? Have they produced such an impression as to arouse the great mass of worldly men? There are the Jews preserved as a separate people, in fulfilment of a prophecy given more than three thousand years ago; what effect has such a fulfilment of God’s word had in the city? There are all the politicians of Europe at their wits’ end because of the decay of Turkey; how many even of yourselves have been led thereby to look out for the near approach of our blessed Saviour? There is Rome stripped of its p. ”

“ The time for sleep is over; the bugle has sounded, the ranks are forming, the struggle has begun, and the time is come when those who know their Saviour must be prepared to stand with a holy decision on His side.
II. And now you can see the overwhelming importance of the warning of this verse: ‘Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.’ You can see that the exhaustion of Turkey is a conspicuous signal from God to arouse all Christendom to watchfulness. We cannot see the three unclean spirits coming forth, but we can see Turkey decaying ”

“ Now no one can have watched the progress of men’s minds during the last half century without observing that this has been most remarkably the case. There cannot be a doubt as to the fact that, while the Turkish power has been declining, the powers of good and evil throughout Christendom have been awakening into life. The two processes have gone on side by side. Turkey has been drying up, and almost every state p. 74in Europe has been aroused to religious conflict. Many amongst us have been able to trace the vast change that has taken place during our own lifetimes. ”

“ We are not merely to look out for three distinct and separate forms of error, but, as all the three act together, they may combine in every conceivable variety. One may act on one mind, two on another, and all three on a third, and so produce the most remarkable and inconsistent combinations. ”

“ Let any one who has a different view respecting Scripture look at the facts. Two thousand four hundred years ago there was a prophet, the prophet Daniel, by the river of Ulai, and he foresaw in a vision the rise and progress of a mighty power, telling us at the same time how long it was likely to continue. Six hundred years after him there arose another prophet, who described what appears to be the same power, and gave a graphic picture both of its progress and decay. ”

“ It is the one great empire existing p. 47in the world that originated on the banks of the river Euphrates. Its birthplace was at Bagdad, and it would be historically more correct to call it the Euphratian than the Turkish Empire. For we must remember that the Turks, or Ottomans, do not belong to the soil. The French are the natives of France, and the Italians of Italy, but the Turks are not the natives of Turkey, but invaders from Asia. They hold the country by conquest. The head-quarters of the empire are now in Turkey, on the shores of the Bosphorus ”

“ Let us throw ourselves then into His hand to be clothed, to be kept, to be watched over, to be held fast, that so, preserved in Christ Jesus, and clothed in His spotless robe, we may never be found naked, but may when He comes be presented faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. ”

“ And oh! what an inexpressible joy it is for the child of God, however weak, however unworthy, however unable to cope with all the seductions of those wicked spirits, to fall back on the sure promise of his blessed Saviour: ‘They shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.’ He can keep us, and we may be sure He will. ”

“ All that we know of the Lord Jesus Christ, of His great high priesthood, of His atoning blood, of His free salvation, of the gift of the Holy Ghost, of the new birth, and of the coming advent, all our hope for the future, and all our rest for the present, depend simply and entirely on the word of God. In it we find all; without it we have nothing. When, therefore, we see a great prophecy of Holy Scripture fulfilled in our own day, within reach of our own observation, traceable on our own maps, and included within the range of our own memory, we ought p. ”

“ Think once more of the illustration of the river, and consider what would be the effect on the overflow if the waters were to subside in the river. The inundation would gradually recede, and one field after another would be left dry, until after p. 54a time the whole country would be free. If, therefore, the interpretation of the prophecy be correct, we should expect to see the Ottoman power gradually dying out, and the various nations that were overrun by conquest one by one shaking off the yoke. ”

“ Turkey in Africa has almost ceased to exist. Turkey in Europe may last a little longer, but is going fast. As for Turkey in Asia, it has ceased to be a power to any distance east of the Euphrates; and I fully believe that on the west of the river the drying-up process will be steadily continued till the floods recede from Palestine, and that beautiful land is set free from the blight of Turkish misgovernment, and handed over to be once more a land flowing with milk and honey to its rightful possessors, the seed p. ”

“ Such are a few of the leading events with reference to the decline of the Ottoman empire; and there is only one further remark that I would make respecting it. The failure has not been the result of external conquest, but of internal decay. The Turks have not been brought down by any great defeats, but by their own want of life. ”

“ The powers of Europe have not attacked them, but, on the contrary, have done their best to uphold them, as, e.g., in the Crimean war; but, notwithstanding all that France and England could do, their power is falling to pieces of itself. The sick man is dying, and the physicians cannot keep him alive. Their energy seems gone, their exchequer is exhausted, and their population is so p. 58much diminished, that there are now only 2,000,000 Turks or Ottomans left in Europe. In other words, the Euphrates is drying up, and the inundation cannot long remain upon the land. ”

“ It is high time therefore that we begin to look up in faith and hope, waiting for p. 41Christ, looking for Christ, longing for Christ, and meanwhile trusting in Christ, so that when He comes we may be found pardoned through His blood, accepted in His covenant, clothed in His righteousness, and with loving hearts waiting for His appearing. ”

“ They are moving with stealthy steps in the midst of us. They are approaching our minds in secret, disturbing prayer, suggesting doubts, weakening faith, poisoning thought, alienating love, and so labouring by subtle, mental influence, to detach us from Christ. ”

“ See how it exhibits Him in His own time, and His own way, working out His own predicted purpose. It was utterly impossible for any man by private interpretation to calculate the course that things would take. ”

“ Sceptical opinions might be combined with Romish ritual, and high ceremonial with worldliness of life. Indeed, there is scarcely any form of seductive error that you might not develope by combining in different proportions those three most dangerous spirits. ”

“ Remember, I do not say that they are, but suppose they were. In some cases you might have avowed Atheism; in some, a life so absorbed in the world that a man does not even take the trouble to be an infidel ”

“ If such a warning is so clearly given, how can He be said to come as a thief? He Himself teaches us perfectly clearly that the meaning of the illustration is that, as the thief comes without giving notice, so He will return without previously giving any such notice of His approach as will arouse the sleepers. The thief does not tell you when he is coming ”

“ But like the seventh seal, it, too, is found to contain within itself a third series. The seven vials are wrapped within it, and when that last trumpet is blown they are poured forth in awful succession on a wicked world. Thus the seventh seal contains all the trumpets, and the seventh trumpet all the vials. Now if this be the case it is clear that the sixth vial must come very near the end. The trumpets p. 86are none sounded till the six seals are passed and the seventh seal is opened. The vials do not begin till the six trumpets have completed their blast and the seventh has sounded ”

“ It comes and goes, but it leaves no footsteps in the sand. It seems, therefore, a great mistake to explain this prophecy by different systems that are conspicuous to the eye, and we must p. 69be careful lest, by so doing, we should be thrown off our guard with reference to our real danger. There may be no false system presented to us, and we may be perfectly safe with reference to any definite form of evil, such as infidelity or popery, but there may be any one, or indeed all three, of these deadly spirits imperceptibly breathing poison into our souls. ”