To turn back now to Psalm 2, we find the gathering together of the kings and rulers of the earth against the Lord, and against His anointed; “Yet,” saith the Lord, “have I set My King upon My holy hill of Zion.” Judgment, as we have seen in our last paper, falls upon the powers of this world. Christ takes the kingdom, and the remnant of Judah are delivered; for “it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the Lord, two parts therein shall be cut off, and die; but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried they shall call on My name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God” (Zech. 13:8-9).
Following upon this we get the restoration of the ten tribes of Israel, now scattered and lost among the nations. The fullness of the Gentiles being come in, the Lord begins now to bless in a special way, according to His many promises, His earthly people Israel. “The gifts and calling of God are without repentance” (Rom. 11:29).
Many deny the truth of the restoration and blessing of God’s ancient people, and spiritualize and explain away the numerous scriptures which refer to it, applying them often to the present blessing of the church of God. Such would do well to ponder Romans 11:25-36. “I would not, brethren,” writes the apostle to God’s saints at Rome, “that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob”. For “thus saith the Lord; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel, for all that they have done, saith the Lord” (Jer. 31:37).
Again; “He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet; and they shall gather together His elect (Israel) from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Matt. 24:31).
Great numbers of Jews having returned to their land by the aid of a certain maritime power (Isa. 18), come into great tribulation; one-third who witness for Christ in this time of Jacob’s trouble (Zech. 13:9). are saved out of it; others are martyred; the rest judged; then the ten tribes are gathered back (the rebellious being purged out) and united with the two, as one nation, under Christ.
Ezekiel, in Ezekiel 20:34, speaks thus of this event: “And I will bring you out from the people, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with a stretched-out arm, and with fury poured out. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face . ... And I will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against Me: I will bring them forth out of the country where they sojourn, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel; and ye shall know that I am the Lord.”
Jeremiah, in Jeremish 31:8-10, says: “Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travaileth with child together: a great company shall return thither ... . Hear the Word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd does his flock.”
Isaiah 49:20-23 is a most touching description of the union of the tribes after the Redeemer has come out of Zion. “The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me; give place to me that I may dwell. Then shalt thou say in thine heart, Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to and fro? and who hath brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where had they been? Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will lift up Mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up My standard to the people; and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers”.
Then again, in the well-known passage, Ezekiel 37, the vision of the valley of dry bones, we are distinctly told, in Ezekiel 37:11, “these bones are the whole house of Israel.” They are viewed in the vision as in their graves — the present state of the tribes scattered and lost among the nations; but the Lord God says, “I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel,” (Ezek. 37:12-14).
“Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: and I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all ... . And David My servant shall be king over them” (Ezek. 37:21-24).
I might cite many more scriptures; but these will suffice to show simply the fact of that which God will shortly do for His earthly people. The prophets speak so plainly in the above passages, that comment upon them is almost superfluous, as I do not aim at giving the reader much more than an outline sketch.
The Deliverer being come out of Zion, Israel saved, “they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jer. 31:34).
“Lift up your heads, eternal gates,
Transcendent dawn glows o’er ye!
At Salem’s door Messiah waits;
He is the King of glory.”
(Continued).