Will you do me the favor of clearing up one or two of my difficulties?
Q. 1. The hour of temptation (which you take to embrace a longer period than the crisis of the great tribulation) is to come upon all the world (the whole habitable world) to try them that dwell upon the earth (apostate Christendom): why upon the whole earth if only to try Christendom?
Again, the “great multitude” are of “all nations, kindred, people and tongues:” do you judge that Christendom has no representation in this that is, that she comes into the tribulation, and is utterly cut off thereby
Do you think the expression, “the great tribulation” embraces the whole Apocalyptic judgments, and judgments of every kind (pre-millennial of course), and touches every member of the human family on earth, save the ten tribes who are brought under the Lord's rod in the land?
In what form does the great tribulation come upon the heathen nations—being far away from the seat of the beast?
Also will you kindly say whether the Jews will rebuild the temple, or a certain part of it in unbelief, to be destroyed after the abomination of desolation has been setup therein? If not, are we not driven to conclude that Ezekiel's temple will be erected by unbelieving Jews, on the divine pattern (somewhat a difficulty), and the idolatrous image be sustained there before the glory of the God of Israel comes into it? Does Ezek. 43:7, 8, 97And he said unto me, Son of man, the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever, and my holy name, shall the house of Israel no more defile, neither they, nor their kings, by their whoredom, nor by the carcases of their kings in their high places. 8In their setting of their threshold by my thresholds, and their post by my posts, and the wall between me and them, they have even defiled my holy name by their abominations that they have committed: wherefore I have consumed them in mine anger. 9Now let them put away their whoredom, and the carcases of their kings, far from me, and I will dwell in the midst of them for ever. (Ezekiel 43:7‑9), throw any light on this, “the place of the soles of my feet they shall no more defile, nor their kings, nor by the carcasses of their kings in their high places. In their setting of their threshold by my thresholds, and their post by my posts, and the wall between me and them, they have even defiled my holy name by their abominations?"
What countries are “Gomer and all his bands, the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands?” Being in confederacy with the king of the north, I suppose they are Eastern powers. But in Smith's Bible Dictionary the writer seems to identify them with the Cimbri of the north and west of Europe during the Roman Empire (Denmark, between the Elbe. and the Rhine, and Belgium), the whole of the British Isles at one period, and now the Gael of Ireland and Scotland, and the Cymry of Wales. W. R.
A. 1. I consider that “they that dwell on the earth” is here, at least, rather a moral expression than a designation of apostate Christendom. It is opposed to dwellers in heaven, and not merely a distinction from some other part of the world.
Christendom seems to be not included in the vague and general mass of nations on whom “the great tribulation” is to fall, having its own special description and judgment, as Babylon, &c., just as it also is distinct from the Jews and from Israel in this chapter. The Jews will pass through a tribulation severer than this, but also more circumscribed, as we may gather from Matt. 24 and Mark 13, compared with Jer. 30 and Dan. 12. The scourge is the Assyrian, or king of the north, rather than the beast who is the support of the false prophet, king in Palestine. But it is plain that the Apocalyptic period as a whole is a time of trouble increasing in intensity and over many spheres, extending to Gentiles as well as Jews; and as the everlasting gospel will go out far and wide, so I think the surviving fruit of that last mission will be seen in “the righteous” or sheep of Matt. 25, when the Son of man comes and reigns over the earth. That apostate Christendom will have the sternest doom of all, is plain from 2 Thess. 2:10-1210And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: 12That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thessalonians 2:10‑12).
Undoubtedly the Jews will build in unbelief the temple in which the lawless one or Antichrist is to sit as God. But we have no reason to suppose that God would deign to own it, or that the temple as described by Ezekiel is not distinct. We must remember that it is the habit of scripture to regard “the house” as having a continuity of character, however often destroyed and rebuilt. In Haggai it is not “the glory of this latter house,” but “the latter glory of this house."
“Gomer and all his bands” are north-eastern; but Possibly the Cimbri, &c., may be some of the race that migrated westward. “The house of Togarmah” of the north quarters I presume to be the Armenian stock, as the latter people say themselves. They will follow Gog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, that is, the last head of the Russian Empire. (Ezek. 38; 39)