Nyasaland

“ That is the problem of Africa, and it is the problem of today. What is to be the future of this great continent? The land is in trust to the powers of Europe, Christian by name. They must decide its fate. Is the simple, laughing savage, clinging so feebly to his poor superstition, to be gripped by the iron hand of this Islam we have studied, or shall his feet be set upon the path which has no limit but the purity, the love, the holiness of God? Twelve centuries ago the Christian citadels of North Africa were wrested from the Christian Church and they have never been recovered. ”

“ And say to them, 'Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: "Behold, I am about to take the Israelites from among the nations, whither they are gone, and gather them from all sides, and bring them into their own land: and I will make them one nation in the land, upon the mountains of Israel; and there shall be one king over them all; and they shall be no longer two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any longer; nor shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions ”

“ Commandment is given that when the Israelites pass over Jordan they shall use effectual means for establishing themselves as the people of Jehovah in Canaan. They are, for one thing, to drive out before them all the inhabitants of the land. Nothing is here said of putting them all to the sword; only they are not to be left even in partial occupation. The plan of Israel's settlement in its new territory requires that it shall be subject to no alien influence, and shall have the field entirely to itself for the development of customs, civilisation, and religion. ”

“ The twentieth century sees Islam spreading {100} with incredible speed, though deprived of its sword, down to Sierra Leone and Lagos in the west, up the Nile Valley and down to South Africa, threatening to engulf the native Christian churches in Uganda, Livingstonia, Nyassaland, and even in British South Africa, offering an example in missionary enthusiasm which the Church of Christ may well covet. ”

“ Neither Egypt of old, nor Britain and America of modern times, can say," We are the people of the Lord." God has never called these nations "My people," for they have never been the subjects of political adoption as Israel were. State religions are established upon the hypothesis that the people are God's people and, therefore, as acceptable worshippers as the Jews under the law; and that they are constitutionally" in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ." Hence, they call the nations of Europe "Christian nations." ”

“ When God called Israel out of Egypt, he said to them: “Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be mine own possession from among all peoples: for all the earth is mine: and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.” (Ex. 19:5, 6.) For a long period of time after they settled in Canaan they had no king but Jehovah; they were, therefore, Jehovah’s kingdom. But there came a time when they wanted a change; they wanted a centralized government, with a man as their king. At that time they had an excuse for demanding a king. ”

“ There has thus been much missionary work done for Islam in this part of Africa by men who have never taken up the sword to further their end,—the conversion of the heathen. Such have been the members of some of the great Muhammadan religious orders, which form such a prominent feature of the religious life of Northern Africa. ”

“ O Jehovah, thou art our God; let not man prevail against thee.
12 So Jehovah smote the Ethiopians before Asa, and before Judah; and the Ethiopians fled.
13 And Asa and the people that were with him pursued them unto Gerar: and there fell of the Ethiopians so many that they could not recover themselves; for they were destroyed before Jehovah, and before his host; and they carried away very much booty.
14 And they smote all the cities round about Gerar; for the fear of Jehovah came upon them: and they despoiled all the cities; for there was much spoil in them. ”

“ Here we may preach to more Scandinavians than we can preach to in Scandinavia. Here we have opportunity to teach the truth unto gathered Israel in this blest land of Zion, and here and among the other known nations of the earth is full scope and opportunity for the accomplishment of all those things that have been predicted by the servants of God in all ages of the world respecting Israel, without assuming that it is necessary to go into the north polar regions or to detached portions of the earth somewhere in illimitable space. ”

“ When we turn to ask the secret of this distinction, we find the answer in the character of the God, whom Israel served. The God explains the people; Israel is the response to Jehovah. Each of the laws of the nation is enforced by the reason, For I am holy. Each of the prophets brings his message from a God, exalted in righteousness. In short, look where you will in the Old Testament,—come to it as a critic or as a worshipper,—you discover the revealed character of Jehovah to be the effective principle at work. ”

“ But further yet, Israel is to be the only medium of God's blessing upon the nations--the only channel. Those refusing her leadership will, for lack of vital sap, die of dry rot. The wondrous blessing enjoyed by this central nation, the unhingeing of dungeon doors, the opening of blind eyes, the mellowing of all the hard conditions of life, the reign of simple, full justice to all, is to be shared with all the nations. Israel's peace with all nations is to become a universal peace between and among all nations. ”

“ Here is a question first of evolution, then of the character of God.
Do we justify Saxons in their raid on Britain? History does. They become dominant, they rule, they slay, they assimilate; and there grows up British nationality strong and trusty, the citadel of freedom and religious life. The case is similar, yet there is a difference, strongly in favour of Israel as an invading people. For the Israelites have been tried by stern discipline: they are held together by a moral law, a religion divinely revealed, a faith vigorous though but in germ. ”

“ But it is a greater power than " our enemies " who is keeping Israel distinct " in their own despite," and who, all through the ages, has continued to stir up the Jewish nest, whenever they have wanted to assimilate with the nations. It is the power of God, who swore, that " as long as sun and moon endure, Israel would abide a nation before Him for ever" of the irresistible Ruler among the nations, who has warned them long in advance that " that which cometh into your mind shall not be at all, that ye say we will be as the nations, as the families of the countries. ”

“ The greatness of service.—Even better than these promises of happiness, our unknown prophet helped the people to understand more clearly what it means to be a great nation. He did not believe that the God of heaven and earth would make a favorite of any one nation. Instead he taught that Jehovah had chosen Israel to be a servant nation for him, to serve all other nations by teaching them about the true God. ”

“ Why should "all the high places," where the other nations served their gods, be destroyed? Did not Moses go to Mount Sinai, a high place, to worship Jehovah? Why may not a Gentile have his own high place, as well as a Jew? Surely, the heathen gods on their mountains could not possibly have given a more unmerciful set of commandments than those which Jehovah dictated to Moses. There was no breadth in the God of the Jews. Live and let live, or Think and let think, is the conquest of modern thought for which we are indebted to Rationalism. ”

“ Israel, too, had its heroes of freedom; and even those who, like Ehud and Samson, did little or nothing for faith and struck wildly, wrongly for their country, did yet choose consciously to serve their people and were helpers of a righteousness and a holy purpose they did not know. When all has been said against them it remains true that the freedom they brought to Israel was a Divine gift. ”

“ Very many Arabs were already Christians. Their Christianity, it is true, sat but loosely on them; for the finest elements of that religion they had no organ. Moreover, there were in Arabia many Jews who here also occasionally, as in Abyssinia, made numerous proselytes; but the rigid and irksome ordinances of Judaism were suited to the nature of the proud and untamed inhabitants of the Arabian desert as little as were the mystical doctrines and the too ideal ethics of Christianity. ”

“ The Israelites, though as a nation they never reached such power or culture, made their conquests in the world of religion, and while the crowd of deities worshipped in Assyrian and Phœnician temples vanished away, the worship of Jehovah passed on into Christianity, and overspread the world. Latest, the warrior-tribes of Arabia carried the banner of their prophet among the nations around, and founded the faith of Islam, a civilizing power in the middle ages, and even in these days of its decay an influence across the world from Western Africa to the islands of the far East. ”

“ The history of Islam in Africa, covering as it does a period of well-nigh thirteen centuries and embracing two-thirds of this vast continent, with its numerous and diverse tribes and races, presents especial difficulties in the way of systematic treatment, as it is impossible to give a simultaneous account in chronological order of the spread of this faith in all the different parts of the continent. Its relations to the Christian Churches of Egypt and the rest of North Africa, of Nubia and Abyssinia have already been dealt with in a former chapter ”

“ Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.
68:32 Sing unto God, ye kingdoms of the earth; O sing praises unto the Lord; Selah:
68:33 To him that rideth upon the heavens of heavens, which were of old; lo, he doth send out his voice, and that a mighty voice.
68:34 Ascribe ye strength unto God: his excellency is over Israel, and his strength is in the clouds.
68:35 O God, thou art terrible out of thy holy places: the God of Israel is he that giveth strength and power unto his people. Blessed be God. ”

“ But the fighting men of these tribes agreed to accompany the other tribes and share their struggle till all had obtained an inheritance. So when the great host passed over the Jordan, not far from where it empties into the Dead Sea, the men of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh crossed with the rest. Jehovah, who at the Red Sea a generation earlier had struck terror into the hearts of all nations by his wonderful interposition to save Israel and destroy its enemies, repeated here his saving help, by stemming the swift current of the Jordan River, till all had passed over dry shod to the western side. ”

“ Ver. 8. "Behold, the eyes of the Lord Jehovah are upon the sinful kingdom, and I destroy them from off the face of the earth, saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the Lord."
The sinful kingdom, whether its name be Israel or Judah, or whether it be called Egypt or Edom. The holy God has not by any means, as you in your blindness imagine, given you a privilege to sin. A difference exists between Israel and the others in this respect only, that utter ruin does not take place in the case of the former, as it does in that of the latter. ”

“ Likenesses between Islam and Judaism.—There was a kinship of religious thought, as well as of language and of race, between the Arab and the Jew. The Unity of God is the first principle of Islam as it is of Judaism. Abraham and Moses are the heroes of the Koran as of the Pentateuch, and the covenant of Abraham and the dietary laws of Moses are enjoined by Mahomed on his followers.
5. Differences between Islam and Judaism.—But there were differences too, and these of a very vital sort. ‘Allah was God.’ That doctrine of the new faith, the Jews, worshippers of One, might agree with. ”

“ All nations shall come to the mount of Jehovah to learn the way of Jehovah, and walk in his paths, for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem. Then will Jehovah judge among the nations, and the work of righteousness is peace, and the fruit of righteousness is rest, so that the nations [Pg 135] will beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks. Nation shall not raise up sword against nation, nor shall they learn war any more. ”

“ So Jehovah overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea, and the waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen, and all the army of Pharaoh that went after them into the sea, so that not one of them was left. Thus Jehovah saved the Israelites that day from the power of the Egyptians; and they saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore. When the Israelites saw the great work which Jehovah did to the Egyptians, the people feared Jehovah and believed in him and in his servant Moses. ”

“ Hence it is that very many even in the Christian world too believe that that nation will be again elected, and will then be brought back again into the land of Canaan; and this also according to the sense of the letter. (A. C. n. 7051.)
The children of Israel are called the people of Jehovah, not because they were better than other nations, but because they represented the people of Jehovah, that is, those who are of the Lord's spiritual kingdom. ”