Thomas Williams

“ It might be said that Israel's fame and greatness are not so much in their past prosperity and power as it is in their persecution, exile and trouble in all parts of the world. Where other nations have sunk out of sight, by the hardships of human history, Israel has thriven upon persecution and trouble of all kinds imposed upon them in the worst ways imaginable. Every nation has raised its hand to smite Israel, and endeavored to crush it into the earth ”

“ Universally the history of the nations has shown that when their kings have been dethroned and their lands become the spoils of enemies they have disappeared from the face of the earth. Why is it that the same fate has not befallen Israel?--left without a king, without a prince, without a capital, even its ritualistic laws abolished, scattered everywhere without a home, why did they not cease to exist? ”

“ They are the Divine fiat, and no human opposition can defeat the purpose of Him, who holds the world in His hands. Keep the God of the universe out of sight, and Israel's history cannot be accounted for. Recognize Him not, and the Bible's existence and survival become a greater mystery and a greater miracle than it is now. Ignore the Great Creator's existence and interposition in human affairs, and He who was crucified to save a lost world was, in His history, in His character, in His death, to say nothing of His resurrection to life again, an unaccountable mystery. ”

“ Jer. 46: 27, 28--But fear not thou, O my servant Jacob, and be not dismayed, O Israel: for behold, I will save thee from afar off, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and be in rest and at ease, and none shall make him afraid. Fear thou not, O Jacob my servant, saith the Lord: for I am with thee; for I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have driven thee: but I will not make a full end of thee, but correct thee in measure ”

“ Such a miracle deserves the closest attention of every man who does not overlook all wonderful phenomena. Mendelssohn had said at the beginning of this period, ‘My nation is kept at such a distance from all culture, that one might well doubt the possibility of any improvement.’ And yet she arose with such marvelous quickness out of her abasement, as if she had heard a prophet calling unto her, Arise! ”

“ If we hold to popular theology, it will forbid us saying that Christ will come again and restore Israel, and that then they will hear Him. Popular teachers will frown upon us and tell us that this is not strictly according to "orthodoxy." They are more tenacious of so-called orthodoxy than they are concerned about the harmony of the Bible and the veracity of God. Under the influence of such teachers we cannot answer the infidel. He will tie us hand and foot; he will look us straight and sternly in the face and say, You cannot deny that Moses said Israel should hear that prophet in all things. ”

“ During the long history of this people they have enjoyed peace and prosperity comparatively for only a very short time. About three-fourths of their history has been one of trouble, exile and persecution. The great Gentile nations, Babylon, Greece and Rome in the zenith of their power and glory were famous so long as they maintained their power and prestige in the world, but as soon as the tide turned, down they went. Their downfall to them meant their obliteration, as nations, from the earth. Where is Assyria? Where is proud Babylon? ”

“ How can Christ reign over the house of Jacob, the twelve tribes of Israel, unless He gather them and restore them to the land of their fathers? This was the very thing that Zacharias, filled with the Holy Spirit, prophesied, saying, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people, and hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David; as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began; that we would be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us ”

“ FINAL SCATTERING BY THE ROMANS FORTOLD BY MOSES
That this scattering did not refer to their captivity in Babylon is clear from verses 49 and 50, "as swift as the eagle flieth" the nation should come, and "of fierce countenance" should be the nation that should "besiege them in their gates" and cause them to devour their own offspring. This is evidently the Roman nation, and it is generally understood that this terrible prophecy found its dreadful fulfillment in the destruction of Jerusalem seventy years after the birth of Christ and in what has since then been their history. ”

“ Israel's sad experience in fulfillment of these prophecies has been really and bitterly literal. They were literally in the land of promise. They were literally taken into captivity in Babylon, and were literally delivered. They were literally scattered by the Romans, driven into captivity among all nations of the earth. The prophecies apply to a real nation, having a real existence, and their existence in the scattered state foretold is a reality to-day. There is no need for seeking a "spiritual" meaning. There is no room for any misunderstanding. ”

“ Does it not suggest that God has a purpose in the future of this people, a future greater and grander than the past? There must be some reason, and a Divine reason. The prophet Isaiah in speaking of Israel says, "Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning, hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled. ”

“ To honor God’s holy name and to maintain the truth of His revealed purpose, Israel’s restoration must take place, and when it does take place, God will be justified and sanctified in the eyes of all the world. No one will be able to ask, Why are these men favored? because those who will enter the land will be of a different character from their brethren whom we now see throughout the various parts of the world. They will have hearts of flesh instead of hearts of stone. ”

“ I say apart from such prophecy, force of circumstances has compelled many people to admit that a great mistake has been made in relation to Israel; that there is something unaccountable about this people from the fact that now as we near the end of Gentile times they are becoming more and more remarkable and powerful in the world, and raising problems that puzzle the wisest statesmen and the most profound philosophers. Here is what Prof. Gratz says in relation to this wonderful survival of the fittest: "Can a nation be born in a day? or can a nation be born again? ”

“ Being depraved and fleshly in their minds, they were unfit for the purpose which God had in view in their national deliverance and planting in the land of Canaan. In all these things the glory of God is the end and object and no room is left for the glory of men. Commencing, then, with a people depraved, stubborn and faithless, fit only that their carcasses should fall in the wilderness, out of them God developed a people suitable for his purpose, leaving the purged-out ones strewn along the crooked and rugged pathway of the wilderness. ”

“ There is a vision of a valley of dry bones and the question is asked, "Can these bones live?" Then there is a "shaking among the bones, bone coming to his bone"; there is flesh upon the bones and then they are covered with skin; and breath is breathed into them and they live and stand upon their feet and know that God is the Lord. ”

“ After Israel's deliverance from the bondage of Egypt, they were by God's direction and under His laws organized and became the most remarkable nation that has ever existed upon the face of the earth. It is generally admitted that their laws were the most perfect, and that so long as they were obedient they were the healthiest and happiest nation that could possibly exist in the evil days of mortality. ”

“ As we have seen in the covenants of promise, the possession of the land under Moses did not disannul the Abrahamic promise, which reached down to a future everlasting inheritance under Christ. While it was involved in the same promise, it was only a parenthesis, as it were, thrown in for the time being, explanatory and to emphasize the great book of the covenant which is yet to be realized in its fullness. As history repeats itself, and prophecy is history in advance, prophecy also must necessarily repeat itself. ”

“ Shall we hand the Bible over to the infidel and admit that God has promised what He has not and never will perform? This is what must be done if we submit to popular theories. But what is the duty of every fearless honest-minded person in the case? Is it not to vindicate God and His word above all things and let "God be true, though all men be liars." There is no alternative. The man who has the courage of his convictions will cry aloud and spare not against apostate Christendom in vindication of the veracity of God and the truthfulness of the Bible.
The famous prophecy of Ezek. ”

“ And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have wrought with you for my name's sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor according to your corrupt doings, O ye house of Israel, saith the Lord God.
BEYOND COMPARISON WITH OTHER NATIONS
There is no nation in the history of mankind that has had such a bearing on the world at large as the Jewish nation. There is no nation that can trace its history and pedigree back to the remotest antiquity as the Jewish nation can. ”

“ They are in every land and in every clime. They are in every city, in every street, marked out distinctly from every other people, hated and despised and yet they are the victors in every conflict in which they engage, except in the conflict for national existence and power as a kingdom. By analogy of human history this is impossible to account for. It is unique in the history of human affairs. ”

“ We may, therefore, say that God is no respector of persons, as persons. It was not because He respected Abraham as a person above all others that He selected him, but it was because Abraham was possessed of certain characteristics that would be responsive to the Divine purpose, though he may first have to be tried and tested severely, and gradually elevated to that standard and status of faith which should be accounted to him for righteousness. ”

“ This blindness had happened in part to literal, national Israel, and the part in which they were blind was that they did not see that Christ was to be a sacrifice first, ascend to the Father and return before He could become their great deliverer and king. The blindness in part, then, which happened to them is only "until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in." "And so shall all Israel be saved, as it is written, there shall come to Zion, a deliverer that shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob." ”

“ The nation of Israel was favored of God above all nations of the earth in the past, to say nothing of what awaits it in the ages to come. The esteem in which Israel was held by God is shown by the following testimonies:
Deut. 7: 6--For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth. ”

“ The future restoration, involving the twelve tribes is compared with their deliverance from Egypt which also included the twelve. These two deliverances being spoken of, the one compared with the other, it follows that since only one of them has taken place, the other remains to be fulfilled. One is spoken of as the "second time," the first of course, being implied. The first we know to be a fact, the second we know has not become a fact. ”

“ Why, they ask, should God favor such men as we see on our streets-- these hated Jews? The fact that they are hated is only another proof of the truth of prophecy in relation to them. But the objection raised against their being favored because of what some of them appear to be is without foundation. ”

“ The wealth of the Jews has been proverbial in the phrase, "rich as a Jew," but the most remarkable thing is the great power and influence they wield over nations by means of their wealth. The money of the Rothschilds is used to help the great nations of Europe, and thus to command power behind the press and the throne. ”

“ What appears objectionable in the characters of some with whom we come in contact in commercial life existed, perhaps, to a greater extent when they were in Egypt, and the same objection could be raised to the favor shown them in their deliverance from Egypt and in their subsequent history. The Scriptures show that they were a very stiff-necked, stubborn and faithless people, and the question might well have been asked, judging from what they were when their deliverance commenced, Why should these people be gathered and taken into a favored land ”

“ And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters which the Lord thy God hath given thee, in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thy enemies shall distress thee. ”

“ If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee: and the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it ”

“ Here then is a restoration which must find its fulfillment after the final scattering at the hands of the Romans, and that this will be a real and literal gathering will be shown fully presently. Meanwhile we submit the following testimonies:
II Sam. 7: 10, 24--Moreover I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own, and move no more; neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them any more, as beforetime. ”