Daniel 2

Daniel 2:1-49

DANIEL THE OF DREAMS Daniel 2:1-49THERE are pulpit speakers who specialize on the Book of Daniel. They delight in prophetic portions of the Word, and profess special gifts in their interpretation. In some instances that profession is not a mere pretense; but, rather, a loyalty to the plain teachings of the Word of God and a willingness to accept its prophetic portions and instruct in the same. Hitherto I have not been guilty of Danielism. In truth, as I have faced the Book with its striking series of facts, its plain references to the future, and its presentation of the finalities of this age, I have felt my insufficiency, and have perhaps too often remained silent. At this time I propose a careful study of the whole Book!There are three phrases that adequately compass chapter two of this Book—The Development of Revelation, The Reversal of Evolution, and the Climax of Revolution.THE OF Strange as seems the apparent method of revelation in this particular instance, if one examines it carefully, he will find it is God’s usual method. Not that God always speaks through visions and dreams, but that revelation here follows the most unchangeable lines of development; namely, it came from God Himself: it came to and through men: it was interpreted by the help of the Holy Spirit.In these three statements we have the distinguishing features of all revelation. Let us examine them briefly.This revelation came from God Himself. There are dreams that seem to be from the devil; the mighty majority of them are from an over-dose of meat; but in these chapters of Daniel the dreams are neither from wine, meat, nor of the adversary, but from God. That is why we call it a “revelation.” Had it not been from Him, it would have gone the way of ten thousand other nightmares— to the grave of utter forgetting.If one would know how the Pentateuch came, he will find it in a single phrase, oft recurring throughout the pages of the same—“The Lord spake unto Moses, saying”, etc. If one would know the origin of the Book of Joshua, he can find it in the opening sentence—“Now after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord it came to pass, that the Lord spake unto Joshua”.One who reads the Old Testament from beginning to end is profoundly impressed with the fact that it, like the child of God, was born “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God”.In other words, “all Scripture is God-breathed.” Dr.

A. J.

Gordon tells of his visit with Joseph Rabinowitz, of Russia, the great Christian Jew, the mighty expounder of the Messianic Psalms, and preacher of the grace of God. Dr. Gordon says: “So saturated was he with the letter as well as with the spirit of the Hebrew Scriptures that to hear him talk one might imagine it was Isaiah or some other Prophet of the old dispensation.” One day Gordon asked him, “What is your view of inspiration?” “My view is,” he said, holding up his Hebrew Bible, “that this is the Word of God; the Spirit of God dwells in it. When I read it I know that God is speaking to me, and when I preach it, I say to the people, ‘Be silent, and hear what Jehovah will say to you’.” In true revelation God speaks!This revelation came to and through man. It came to Nebuchadnezzar: it came through Daniel. The circumstance that men wrote the Bible need in no wise militate against its very Deity.

How else would God be expected to voice Himself than through the life and by the very lips of the ones made in His own image? I have never been able to believe with Dr.

R. F. Horton, the old-world pastor, and inconsistent critic, that “all the great poets from Homer and Hesiod down to Browning and Walt Whitman, uttered, in the stress of their poetic afflatus, truths and feelings which we can only explain by attributing them to God Himself” unless he meant it in a very secondary and superficial sense. They never confessed even the consciousness of God; they never claimed any special inspiration from God. The influence of their writings is not such as to give proof of a Divine origin.That God illumines the minds of all men few of us question—there is a “Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world”; and that He lets into the minds of some, greater light than into others, and a consequent voice of higher wisdom, we need not doubt. But in the proper employment of the term, that is not “inspiration,” and certainly it is not a revelation from Heaven.

Inspiration establishes forever its own pretenses; and revelation is a making known of truths which God alone can uncover. In those facts we find the stability of Scripture and discover the justification of Charles Spurgeon’s series of questions: “Do you imagine that the Gospel is a nose of wax, which can be shaped to suit the face of each succeeding age?

Is the revelation, once given by the Spirit of God, to be interpreted according to the fashion of the period? Is ‘Advanced Thought’ to be the cord with which the Spirit of the Lord is to be straightened? Is the old truth, that saved men hundreds of years ago, to be banished because something fresh has been hatched in the nests of the wise?”No! the Word of the Lord standeth fast! The revelation from God can neither be improved nor destroyed. In spite of the fact that it records human experience and finds expression at human lips, or drips from the pen or the quill held by a human hand, it remains eternally Divine. It is by man, but not from him! It is from God!But it must be interpreted by the help of the Holy Spirit. Dr.

A. C. Gaebelein says: “The King acknowledged Daniel’s God as the God of gods, the Lord of kings and a Revealer of secrets. God is owned by him in a threefold way. The God of gods, as God the Father; and the Lord of kings, such is our Lord Jesus Christ; and the Revealer of secrets—the Holy Spirit.” And as it was God— the Spirit—who interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams, so it is the Holy Spirit who indwells believers in all ages to understand and interpret the Scriptures. Of Him, Jesus Christ said: “When He, * * is come, He will guide you into all truth”.That is why Martin Luther wrote to Spalatin, in answer to the question of the latter as to how he could best study the Bible, saying: “Above all things it is quite certain that one cannot search into the Holy Scriptures by means of study, nor by means of the intellect.

Therefore begin with prayer that the Lord grant unto you the true understanding of His Word.”There is no interpreter of the Word of God except the Author of the Word, God Himself!This chapter of Daniel, abundantly illustrates Luther’s claim. The land was filled with wise men; they were inadequate either to the discovery of the truth or its proper interpretation—being devoid of the Spirit.

Had the dreams been uncovered to them, they would have misinterpreted them. The great Daniel takes pains to deny independent ability to reveal, saying, “As for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living, but for their sakes that shall make known the interpretation to the king”.The men who attempt to interpret, ignoring the Spirit, become false teachers. How mighty is their multitude! The man who concludes that he is a specialist in Scripture interpretation and discredits the Holy Spirit is likely to give proof of the prediction of the Lord by landing himself and his followers full in the ditch provided for the blind who are leaders of the blind.Instead of human authorship of the Bible being true, the Bible cannot even be read and understood apart from the illumination of its true Author—the Holy Ghost, who is “the revealer of secrets!”But to pass from the development of revelation toTHE OF If ever there were two men who took opposite positions on any subject, they were Daniel and Darwin; and every intelligent student of Scripture is compelled to make his choice between them.According to Darwin, the human race, involving the question of personality, government and civilization, is on the ascent. But Daniel’s interpretation of the image insists that the opposite is true.This interpretation of Daniel’s presents the descent of kings: it presents the decline of nations; it portrays the catastrophe of civilization.It presents the descent of kings! Either this interpretation is a flattery or a fact. If flattery, then Daniel is a false prophet and his interpretation ought to be flung on the dung heap; if a fact, then Darwin falls before it, for the interpretation begins with a head of fine gold, descends to a breast and arms of silver, belly and thighs of brass, legs of iron, feet of part iron and part clay; and the interpretation is this, “Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of Heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath He given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold”.According to Darwin, Nebuchadnezzar and his kingdom ought to have been a head of mud as compared with King George or Kaiser Wilhelm.

The evolutionists have made a great deal of “the Pithecanthropos erectus,” a portion of a skull found in Java, supposed to be that of a primitive man, with a cubic capacity of sixty inches. There are smaller heads in the world now, and if we are told, “They are those of imbeciles,” we answer, “Was ancient man free from imbecility?” If so, it might easily be logically affirmed that we are on the down grade.How in the world any Darwinian, denying as he commonly does the doctrine of plenary inspiration, can place the pigmies of the twentieth century beside Moses—the man who, though he lived four thousand years ago, towered so far beyond them all by combining in one the merit of the literalist, moralist, statesman, scientist and religionist, I cannot understand.

If Moses could be brought back now and the noblest man of the hour stood beside him, I think we should see instantly the descent rather than the ascent of man.What marvel, and yet how surely to be expected by the men who know the Sacred Scriptures, that one of the great quartette of Scientists who popularized the theory of evolution and gave it a worldwide swing, should live until he saw the falsehood of some of his own premises, and the futility of certain of his own conclusions. If any one doubts this let him read Dr. Alfred Russell Wallace’s last book “Social Environment and Moral Progress” and hear him say:“The great majority of educated persons hold the opinion that our wonderful discoveries and inventions in every department of art and science prove that we are really more intellectual and wiser than the men of past ages—that our mental faculties have increased in power. But this idea is totally unfounded. We are the inheritors of the accumulated knowledge of all the ages; and it is quite possible, and even probable, that the earliest steps taken in the accumulation of this vast mental treasury required even more thought and a higher intellectual power than any of those taken in our own ear.”At a later time Dr. Wallace remarks further:“The fact that the physical characteristics of the Australasians are substantially those of the Caucasian race, in its lowest types, has led me to conclude that these interesting people may have been descended from much more civilized remote ancestors and are thus an example of degradation rather than of survival.”In the same volume, speaking of certain people who are known to have antedated Christ 1500 years, he says, of a poem produced by one of them:“We cannot read this beautiful rendition without feeling that the people it describes were our intellectual and moral equals.”Dr.

Joseph Clark, of Ikoko, Africa, affirmed to me that the people to whom he ministered, judged by the language they employed and the traditions which they held, were the descendants of a much nobler race. Sir William Ramsey, in his great volume “The Cities of St.

Paul,” after a careful study of ancient oriental civilization, says:“Our survey of the Mediterranean lands reveals no sign of development. It shows us only a process of degeneration and decay.” That is Daniel’s position; first gold, then silver, then brass, then iron, then mud—the reversal of evolution.Then again, it presents the decline of nations. Daniel is not speaking of the king as independent of his people, but, rather, as their representative. And he declares that the government of this man shall be succeeded by an inferior one, and that by one more inferior still, and so on.The thoughtful student of history can hardly misunderstand this prophecy. The great nations of the earth no more represent what the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Graeco-Macedonian and Roman did.The latter, divided into two parts, represented by the two legs,—Eastern and Western empires; and since that time the empires of succeeding rulers, as compared with those world-empires, have been as toes compared with legs; and Nebuchadnezzar would have disdained the limited territory of the modern king, while the Roman Empire was not compelled to fight for what might be called “elbow room!” Its scepter was supreme in the world.The division of territory has been the decline of nations, and is the very occasion of that worldwide conflict that now weakens them more and more. Is not Phillip Mauro justified in saying that “the system of material governments which has been in vogue in the earth, is a perishing system, holding in itself the seed of decay?” Truly “the world passeth away, and the lust thereof”.

The present crumbling of states that were supposed to be civilized, and the breaking up of unions that were supposed to be cemented forever, and the repudiation of alliances that were supposed to be insoluble, tell the tale of toes made up of iron and clay that will not cleave! The very nations that lie in the territory of the old Roman empire, and that came out of it as truly as the feet and toes continued the legs, represent national mixtures that cannot be sufficiently cemented to stand.The weakness of these nations has long been increasingly evident.

They cannot even form alliances and be faithful to the same. Look at the violation of Belgium’s treaty rights! Think of the breaking of Italy out of the Triple Entente! England and Russia could hold together until the close of the war, and have no prospect of friendship since the war is over. Even Austria and Germany dared not debate the inevitable questions they faced when peace with their common enemies was secured. Turkey and Germany could only remain mutual friends by the debasement of the latter.A few years since, exponents of “national prosperity,” “universal brotherhood,” “a confederacy of nations,” “a climax of peace and power,” were a multitude.

Now there are none so stupid as to do them reverence. History is running into the mold of prophecy, and its present pages are being written in blood in fulfilment of Daniel’s prediction of national decline. Daniel also portrays the catastrophe of civilization. Eighteen years ago his picture of coming events was held in well nigh universal contempt by men occupying Christian pulpits. But about that time portentous possibilities of catastrophe began to make themselves felt. On July 7, 1913, the great British University Congress was in session in London. Chief among the speakers was Lord Roseberry. Among other things he said: “The world has need of all the character, all the honesty and all the ability which it contains, developed or undeveloped, to carry it on without danger of anarchy and chaos.”Doubtless many of his auditors dubbed him a pessimist. Now he is regarded as a seer instead. Our boasted Christian civilization has passed in a total collapse and the language of Dr.

I. M. Haldeman is justified,—“In the centers of civilization, supposed supreme, and in those nations where the kings and sovereigns claim to have received the scepters from the right hand of the Son of God Himself, in those nations above all others calling themselves ‘Christian,’ millions of armed men, drawn from every rank of life, leap at each other’s throats like wild beasts drunken with one another’s blood. Smoke and flame went up from burning towns and cities; women were ravished in the open sunlight, children mutilated, and all the fabric, of a civilization, woven together through the sacrifice and devotion of long and painful centuries was torn apart and the priceless texture flung broadcast upon the cyclonic winds of an excuseless and lawless desolation. All the standards of righteousness, of sacred truth, and honor, the fealty of man to man, and all the worthfulness and sanctity of life have been trampled into the mire and slush and multiplying streams of wasted blood.”And if this were all, we might still hope that a few years at most would end these horrors, and peace, coming back to the world, righteousness might prosper and civilization recover herself. But, alas for those more fundamental features of collapse—the social, the mental, the moral.

Alas for the supremacy of “Science”—falsely so-called, predicted by the Master; for the apostasy from the “faith once for all delivered”, promised by the Apostle; for the “perilous times” when men are “lovers of their own selves, * * traitors, heady, highminded”, “trucebreakers”, disobedient to parents”, “lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof”. Alas for the triumph of those who heap riches unto themselves and live in the wantoness of limitless’ luxury.

Alas for the oppression of the poor by those in places of power; for the covetousness exceeding any idolatry that Judah ever knew! Alas for a religion that has exalted form and dispensed with power! Alas for that possible confederacy of nations that will inevitably result from this baptism of blood, and consent to crown the antichrist, and bring in that last, greatest tragedy of blood— the agony of the ages—the Great Tribulation!Is this pessimism? Then make the most of it, for it is present history and prophecy being even now partially fulfilled. The nations of the world, the greatest of them—and the ones with best repute—will as surely spread their sails to the winds of pride and fleshly lusts and false faiths as ever did Babylon, or Greece or Rome! And, as the wisdom of Babylon, the culture of Greece, and the power of Rome, in turn, utterly failed the people who trusted in them, so the boasted civilization of modern times—a civilization that is called “Christian” while yet in rebellion against the true Christ, will fail to keep the nations of this hour from the judgment that their conduct has provoked and precipitated.And yet, Daniel does not conclude in pessimism. He calmly proceeds to a brighter prospect and ere our study is finished he introducesTHE CLIMAX OF “For in the days of these kings shall the God of Heaven set up a Kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the Kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. “Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it break in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure” (Daniel 2:44-45). Mark two or three facts concerning this final revolution.Unlike its predecessors, it comes down from above.“Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces”. Hitherto attempts to right the world have been from below. They have been led by mortal man. That man has taken hold of human affairs has been evident enough; sometimes cunning, quite as often clumsy, sometimes capable, but always insufficient. But, as Joseph Parker in his “People’s Bible” says: “There are influences in the universe other than human. That is a fact that science cannot ignore. There are other directions than upward. There are things that come down from above.” There never was a falser couplet than Browning’s:“God’s in His Heaven All’s right with the world,” and yet, if one changes it a bit he can make it true, utterly true:“God’s in His Heaven, And will right the world.” But to do that, He will have to destroy the god of this world and compel the abdication of many of his minions.“He that sitteth in the Heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. “Then shall He speak unto them in His wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure. “I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto Me, Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee. “Ask of Me, and I shall give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession. “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Psalms 2:4-5; Psalms 2:7-9). What a revolution!When it is commenced it will be completed. Mark the language of Daniel: “The stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth”.That is the last revolution the world will ever see, and the only sufficient one. Every nation of earth has had its revolutions. A hundred and fifty years ago France entered upon Revolution, and experienced thirteen of them in eighty years; a hundred and fifty years ago America had her’s; twenty years ago China’s revolutions began. For twenty-five years Mexico has revolted. But they were all abortive! No sooner were they finished than there was need of another! There is coming a final revolution however, beyond which no other will ever be needed.

It will “fill the whole earth”.If Martin Luther were back in the world today he would want to begin his work over again. He would find that Protestantism was almost as apostate as Rome, and his heart would break. But when this change comes it will include all needful things and the world’s anguish will end; her divided kingdoms pass, her wars cease, for God will have set His own King upon His Holy Hill in Zion, and He who was rejected of men, treated as if criminally unworthy, shall at last be crowned “Lord of all.”In Creasy’s “Decisive Battles” he gives an interesting account of the anointing of Charles King of France, and says: “The ceremony of a royal coronation and anointment was not in those days regarded as a mere costly formality. It was believed to confer the sanction and the grace of Heaven upon the prince, who had previously ruled with mere human authority. Thenceforth he was the Lord’s Anointed. Moreover, one of the difficulties that had previously lain in the way of many Frenchmen, when called on to support Charles VII, was now removed.

He had been publicly stigmatized, even by his own parents, as no true son of the royal race of France. The queen-mother, the English and the partisans of Burgundy called him the ‘Pretender to the title of Dauphin but those who had been led to doubt his legitimacy were cured of their skepticism by the victories of the Holy Maid, and by the fulfilment of her pledges.

They thought that Heaven had now declared itself in favor of Charles as the true heir of the crown of St. Louis, and the tales about his being spurious were thenceforth regarded as mere English calumnies. With this strong tide of national feeling in his favor, with victorious generals and soldiers round him, and a dispirited and divided enemy before him, he could not fail to conquer.”The day will yet break in which the despised Nazarene will come to His own; in which the Child born for the throne, but accused by critics of bastardy, shall prove His title to the crown, when all Heaven shall declare in His favor and all earth shall join in His homage, for it is written: “His Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, and His dominion is from generation to generation”.

Daniel 2:31-35

DANIEL AND THE DOOM OF THE WORLD Daniel 2:31-35THIS Scripture provides at once a justification of, and gives direction to, what we shall say concerning “The Doom of World Governments.” We will not, at this time, enter into the controversy which has characterized two millenniums concerning “the ten toes.” It is not necessary, now, to determine whether these ten toes are in actual existence at the present or whether they are yet to take final form; nor is it essential to decide whether the ten toes occupy the identical territory covered by the old Roman empire or whether they will extend far beyond its ancient borders and include the natural descendants of the Roman period and the governments that retain much of Roman form.A study of Scripture makes it fairly clear that “ten kings,” and consequently ten kingdoms, are to mark the end of the age. Daniel’s interpretation of this dream (as recorded in Daniel 2:44, and as substantially repeated and emphasized in Daniel 7:7; Daniel 7:20; Daniel 7:24, together with John’s vision as recorded in Revelation 17:12), demands ten kingdoms for the end time; and unquestionably fulfilling prophecy will eventually discover those kingdoms and mark their territory as history has already uncovered the four world kingdoms of this prophecy, namely, Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greco-Macedonian and Roman.Students of Scripture are generally agreed that while the metals represent monarchies, the clay suggests democracy and the miry clay, mobocracy; consequently we are living, beyond all question, either in the foot period or, as is more probable, in the period of the toes; for while the feet were iron and clay, partly strong and partly broken, it is undoubtedly intended that “the miry clay,” mixed with iron, should refer to the toe period, or the end of the age!The study of this subject, as it is born out of this text, seems to fall into three divisions,—The Prophetic Scriptures, the Perils of Science, and the Plan of Salvation.THE Only unbelievers dispute the Divine inspiration of Daniel; and if history ever justified and scientifically demonstrated prophecy it has done so in the instance of Daniel.Reviewing the past and giving careful attention to the present, there are certain inevitable conclusions.Among them these:— Daniel was correct on the Four World Kingdoms; Daniel is being proven a Prophet concerning the Foot Period; and, already the toes of this image are in increasing evidence.Daniel was correct on the four world kingdoms. He interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the image as follows:— The head of gold symbolized the Babylonish empire; the shoulders of silver the empire that should succeed Babylon, namely the Medo-Persian; the belly and thighs of brass the third empire, namely, Greece; the legs of iron the fourth and last world empire, Rome.It is most amazing how history ran into that prophetic mold! Babylon perished while Daniel was yet alive. Medo-Persia existed for a few hundred years and then went down before the rising power of Greece, and while Greece was the most brilliant and intellectual, the most advanced of all ancient world kingdoms, 300 years in round numbers sufficed for her supremacy, and the world succumbed to Rome which, in literal accord with Daniel’s prophecy, divided, as do the legs of a man, establishing the Constantinople capital in the East and the Roman capital in the West.Almost concurrently with the coming of Christ, Rome began to crumble; and since its break-up the world has not seen another world monarchy, nor will it, until the King of Glory shall come, barring that brief reign of the antichrist.How wondrously, then, Daniel outlined some 2,700 years, and how marvelously God’s prophetic Word has been justified!Daniel is being proven a Prophet concerning the foot period. In that time Daniel saw a strange mixture of government, for the feet were part of iron and part of clay. Would it be possible if one sat down to deliberately select symbols of the governments that have characterized the last fifteen centuries to choose more significantly than is recorded in this Scripture?Gold, silver, brass, iron,—these substantial minerals, were selected to symbolize the monarchical forms of government, while clay was chosen to suggest those softer methods of administration known as Republican and Democratic forms.There is even in the clay some strength and a certain consistency; while in gold, silver, brass and iron you have strength in an ascending scale; and surveying the last fifteen centuries with the field glasses of historic inquiry, we discover the whole world divided up between a host of governments that were a mixture of strength and weakness,—monarchy and democracy.Beyond all question the 19th Century seems to have passed from feet to toes, for it is a time when iron, the strongest of all the minerals, is being mixed with “miry clay,” the softest, most slippery and uncertain of substances; and while the mixture continues as we still have some substantial monarchies and even a few dictators, the “miry clay” element seems to increase and the iron to decrease.A survey of the world at present, so far as permanence of government is concerned, produces only despair in the mind of the capable student.There are kings yet on thrones, and despots still in saddles, and dictators standing sword in hand; but there is not a stable government on earth.

There is not one of them that could assuredly claim the remainder of this century or boast itself of even tomorrow.Look at England;—one of the oldest and in the past one of the most stable of governments,— shaking today as she has not been shaken in hundreds of years; holding her African possessions only by force of arms; the greater part of Ireland gone; India in revolt; internal conditions seething; taxes sky-rocketing; her rulers wondering what to do and asking, “What next?”Look at Germany;—that stolid people! that government that at the beginning of the century stood for all that was stable,—it is a political maelstrom now. Only God knows what will issue tomorrow.Turn your eyes to the Orient and wonder at the Japanese-Chinese situation; a situation that embroils both these great nations and renders the future as uncertain for one as for the other.South American republics are in a whirl even exceeding that which has commonly characterized them.

One revolution is not subsided till another is risen.Think of Russia! Long the most imperial of governmental forms; now under the dominance of a successful mob!Turn your eyes to the south of Europe and look upon the black-shirted crowd of Mussolini, but don’t imagine for one moment that Mussolini has made a discovery that will prove a valuable asset to governmental stability! He is only walking again in the ways of the Caesar’s, and the Caesar’s of the early centuries are all in their graves, and the governments that they created crumbled before the hands that formed them had perished.I had a letter a few days since from the most intelligent and most Christian East Indian that I have ever met. When he was in this country it was my pleasure to have him for a time as my guest. I will give you a few sentences from his epistle:—“Since my return I find that almost every phase of public life, political, social, religious and economic, has been completely disrupted and things are going from bad to worse before our very eyes, reminding us of 1 Timothy 4 : and 2 Timothy 3 : and the Lord alone knows how and where things will end after the eruption has ceased. Practically every part of India from the Himalayas to Ceylon is in the grip of a terrible political struggle.

Round Table Conferences both in India and England seemed only to aggravate matters. With the best brains and statesmanship on both sides, nothing apparently could have been done even to ease the present tension.

Subsequent to the London Conferences all parties have been led into a dead-lock from which there appears to be no escape.“The Religious situation has precipitated riot, pillage, fire, murder, violence and blood-shed in many Indian cities between the Moslems and Hindus. As I write this there is a veritable reign of terror in Bombay, where business is at a standstill and street warfare between these two communities has continued for about a fortnight. There is a heavy death-toll with thousands injured and taken to hospitals. My poor countrymen have just piety enough to hate and murder each other for the love of religion.“The boycott of British goods has ruined many business concerns both British and Indian, and the financial depression following in its wake has all but thrown Indian trade relations, both internal and external, into a most chaotic state. There is constant agitation, change and uncertainty in almost every department of life such as we have never experienced before.”Who then will say that we are not now in the toe period; that we do not approach the end of this age?This leads me to my second suggestionTHE PERILS OF SCIENCE Strange, is it not, that the one term that we have glorified, the world around, for the last fifty or hundred years is now looming as the very one that may hold all conceivable disasters; yea even the destruction of society itself!Science has been the word with which men have conjured. In its knowledge they have boasted themselves; in its name they have put over many false philosophies, and by its magic they have promised the world all conceivable good. But, alas, we look today on a world that is sick unto death, and notwithstanding all the pretentions and boasts of modern science, the earth grows more sick daily, and it seems to some of us time for men to call a halt and attempt to make a diagnosis.Certainly that ought to precede a prescription.What is wrong with the world, and what is working the wrong?Astounding as it may sound, we answer, “THE WORLD IS DYING OF AN OF SCIENCE.”This proposed remedy for all things, like the old-time patent medicine that made a kindred claim, is proving an infection instead, and that infection is rapidly approaching the extent of a plague.There are hundreds of points at which one can prove this contention. I must, however, remembering the limitations of the hour, address what I have to say to some four or five of its most malignant effects.Permit me first of all to speak of the scientific attainment of birth control.The time is on when scarce a single Convention, whether it be legal, medical, scientific or religious, ignores the subject. Resolution has succeeded resolution; some of them applauding the practice, approving the philosophy that lies back of it; others, vigorously condemning both.Thoughtful men, therefore, should at least consider the subject, and consider it in its relation to the world’s future; to race continuance, if you please.Recently the “Literary Digest” called our attention to the fact that for the first quarter of the past year in England and Wales the death rate was higher than the birth rate; 15.4 death rate as against 15.3 birth rate, the excess of deaths, in that quarter, over births, being 1214.France has long led in this matter of birth control and in the same quarter to which I call attention, the birth rate in Paris was lower than that in London; and, strange to say, Chicago lower still.The same article insisted that the only group opposing this supposedly scientific procedure was the Roman Catholic Church. If that be true, then it is to the shame of Protestantism!A Paris correspondent, writing on this subject and expressing grave concern for his country, France, said:—“Whereas in 1930 the number of youths called to the colors was 258,000, the contingent for 1935 will, it is estimated, be only 136,000.”He further contends,—“In 1835 the average French family raised four children.

In 1896 they raised only three, and today the average number is only 2.2. If the decrease in the birth-rate continues at the present rate it is estimated that in seventy-five years the population will have decreased by nearly one-half.” Germany gives us no better report.

In 1931 the birth rate was the lowest on record, and in Berlin itself the deaths exceeded the births by 10,718.The United States can present little better report. Here the rate dropped from 24.3 per 1,000 in 1921 to 19.9 per 1,000 in 1930.The decline was 22% in Boston in 1931, and 17% in Detroit.The only city in the United States with a birth rate of over 20% per 1,000 was Pittsburgh, and there the decline was more than 6% in the year.Listen to the “Literary Digest” editor’s remark:—“Thus it is seen that the whole of Western civilization is facing possible extinction. It is not due to some inherent biological weakness. It seems rather generally agreed that Western Civilization is committing suicide.”But this issue of the “Literary Digest” of July 9, 1932, quotes from the “London Daily Herald” these words:—“If there are fewer children in quantity there is slight gain in the great probability that they are of better quality and that their parents will be able to give them a better start in life.”Of all the remarks made upon this subject, this is the most shallow and inane. Those who have given themselves to a careful study of this subject know that exactly the opposite is true, and that the majority of the children being born at the present time are not coming into homes of either culture or competence, but arrive in the midst of ignorance, squalor and poverty.Professor Albert E. Wiggam, the noted American biologist recently said—“Morons are multiplying faster than college professors, or business men, or skilled workmen.

If you take 1,000 Harvard or Yale graduates, at the present birth-rate there will be only fifty descendants of theirs left within six generations. But 1,000 unskilled workmen, at the present rate, would have 100,000 descendants within the same period.“Civilization is making this world safe for stupidity . . .

At the present rate American intelligence declines, moral character sinks with it. Society is dying at the top and democracy cannot continue, nor can civilization of any kind, unless its leaders actually lead in intelligence and character.”This question was actually submitted to a scientific test by the late War. In our own country during the period of the selective draft in 1917 and 1918, something like 1,700,000 men (who may be taken as fairly representative of the entire population) were submitted to mental tests—and the result was that the moron proved to be incomparably in the majority! Only thirteen and one-half percent of the men were shown to be of a superior intelligence (or of a mental age of sixteen or over); only thirty percent (including those of superior intelligence) were demonstrated to be of a high average intelligence, or of the mental age of fifteen; while the remaining seventy percent had a mental age of fourteen or under; and forty-five percent of the total were no more intelligent than a normal child of twelve!”The truth is that Culture and wealth refuse to bring babies to the birth, and the children of the future will come from the lowest stratum of society, and be delivered in tax-supported hospitals by state paid doctors! The present expense to the would-be parents of the middle class is so great as to practically prohibit their parentage.We will not, at this time, enter into that somewhat deep and extensive subject of metropolitan influence upon children in the matter of tenement houses, foul air, squalid surroundings, foul-smelling, narrow streets, and above all the ever-increasing pinch of poverty as it affects the very districts that are bringing babies to birth in the largest numbers, but pass rather from this disquieting subject to another that is equally or even more disturbing at the present moment, namely,The wide-spread unemployment situation. Here again we deal with a situation that is not local, but world-wide!

The only nation that boasts itself without this problem is Russia where 150,000,000 people are slaves to Soviet task-masters, and slaves in all countries at all times are always busy. The problem is not the problem of work.

There is plenty of that to be done. The problem is the problem of pay, and when none is received, as in Russia, a slave can be driven to any job day after day; but in those more civilized countries and under those more intelligent governments where men are supposed to be somewhat equitably rewarded for their labors, not thousands nor tens of thousands, but millions on millions are without employment.The marvel of all of this is in the circumstance that we are but thirteen years removed from the close of the World War which wiped out a generation of men, and it was the young, labor-producing crowd that went to its grave.When the War closed we vainly imagined that this shortage in man-power would not be recovered in a hundred years; and now, only thirteen years later, millions of men—for whom there is no profitable employment!Philosophers and statesmen are asking “Why?” To us the very question indicates superficial thinking. The answer is easy and instant. SCIENCE, so-called, has so shaken the whole social foundation as to leave labor prostrate.The invention of machinery has been the solitary argument in favor of Evolution.Nature knows nothing of Evolution. There is no change of species in the heavens above, the earth beneath or the waters under the earth; but Evolution advocates, when hard-pressed at this point, have fled from the text book illustrations with which they have deceived babies and immature boys and girls into believing that nature knew such “transmutations,” to the argument “Look at Evolution in modern discovery;—your old tallow candle has been succeeded by the electric light; your stentorian orator by the mechanical loudspeaker; your old-time horse and buggy by the automobile; your old-fashioned horses and plow by the Ford Tractor; your old-time wooden bridge by the modern concrete and steel structure; your old-time hack by the modern bus, and your old-time well-nigh bottomless mud roads by the cement highways; and your old-time hot air-balloon, by the flying machine. Behold what invention hath wrought!”Yes; but is not unemployment of men a definite by-product of that so-called development, and have we not forced the question “Is a machine better than a man?”When I was a lad, fifty years ago, such a thing as a man without a job was unknown, except in the instance of illness, mental or physical incapacity or down-right indolence.

The world was smaller than it is now and its luxury demands almost infinitely less, but those demands always exceeded the possible supply!Today that whole feature of life is reversed, and machinery accounts for the reversal. The supply exceeds the buying ability!When I was a lad it took six of us to gather corn; —one driver, two men on either side of the wagon, and one for the down row.

Now this is done by a corn gatherer in the form of a Ford Tractor, one man driving; the machine accomplishing the rest.How are you going to employ the five that have been put out of a job?Some time ago in North-East Minneapolis I saw an immense caterpillar engine so slowly pulling its way up a hill that I suspected it would stall. Turning my car into a side road that ran by where this engine was working, I found to my amazement that as that engine pulled up that hill it was cutting a channel in the hill 15 or 20 feet deep and about 2 feet wide. It would do that Saturday afternoon what it would take 500 men to accomplish,— and two men only were managing it.Where are the 498 flung out of this trench-digging employment to find another job?Some months ago I was at Cardiff-by-the-Sea, Calif. It was Sunday morning. I was dressed for the pulpit, waiting beside my car for my wife to come out of my son’s home and drive with me to Los Angeles where I was preaching that day.Hearing a roar and looking up, I saw a flying machine sweeping so low that I feared it was falling and might strike my son’s house. Excitedly I called the family outside and asked, “What is the matter with this fellow?

Has he lost control?” My son glanced at him and smilingly answered, “No! He is bugging potatoes.” “He is what?” “He is bugging potatoes.”By the time the answer was made he had dropped to within three feet of the ground and slid like a swallow over a 50-acre patch of potatoes followed every inch of the way by a cloud of bug powder that was being mechanically released and doing ten rows on a side.Almost within the time it takes me to tell it he had bugged the 50-acre patch, raised on wing, and was off for the next 50-acre patch.

He would bug more potatoes that morning, Sunday—when he had no right to work—than 1,000 men could bug on week days and do it better. What are you going to do with the 999 men thus flung out of a job?For further and astounding illustration take the A. O. Smith Corporation in Milwaukee. According to the January, 1931 “Reader’s Digest” the Corporation was founded over half a century ago with the commendable purpose of fabricating baby carriages. It evoluted into a bicycle factory and from that into an automobile factory.It centralized on the steel frame of the automobiles. In 1902 the orders for these frames began to arrive and the first frames came from the shop at the rate of ten per day.When Mr. L.

R. Smith, grandson of the founder, took the helm, he looked at these rows of men handling heavy steel side bars and thought to himself, “It’s stupid and wasteful. All this work should be done by machinery; machinery that can automatically turn out 4,000 or 5,000 of these frames a day.”The engineers were set to work. The drawing boards got busy. Some $6,000,000.00 were expended on the new experiment, and suddenly in the early ‘20’s 4,000,000 or 5,000,000 motor cars a year were demanding Smith frames.The 2,000 men who had been in the old mill were reduced to 200, and, as the “Reader’s Digest” says, “2,000 dreary jobs gave place to 200 amusing ones.”The out-put under this automatic machinery was over a thousand times as large as it had been in the old day of hand-made work.Eighteen hundred men dismissed—out-put increased 1,000 times over. In other words, 1,800,000 men put out of a job by the machinery of a single factory!What are you going to do to employ these men?But, says some one, is it not so that by this shift men are greatly relieved of the heavy and consequently physically and mentally degrading work; and are assigned to genteel and elevating jobs?

Let us see.Coblentz, commenting on modern machinery, says:—“The factory system positively tends to place a premium upon mental limitation; it tends to encourage those of blunted mentality as the ones best adapted to the simple motions required of the average unskilled laborer. Imagine a man standing for eight hours before a rapidly rotating machine, required to perform no task other than pull a lever at mechanical intervals—surely, here is an occupation in which intelligence is likely only to be in one’s way.”We have glorified mechanical inventions.

On this account we have well-nigh exalted man to the throne of the universe, denying that any higher Being is in existence, and our professors are adopting and advocating Humanism—the new religion!Now we are being rudely awakened to the fact that, at the very point at which our progress has been most boasted and lauded, we approach a social and economic explosion that will leave the world filled with the fragments of human minds and bodies; in other words, that will fulfil Daniel’s prophecy of society and government ground to powder.But, alas, for the further and still more frightful effects of modern science,As it relates itself to future warfare. Peter in his Epistle referring to the flood tells us that “the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished” (2 Peter 3:6). Then he adds, “But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men” (2 Peter 3:7).The wars of the early centuries, yea, even of the middle ages, were, speaking comparatively, minor in their effects upon the world population or world governments. When men went to deadly combat with nothing better in hand than stones and sticks, and later spears and bows, comparatively few fell. It was more a savage, social pastime than a national or world menace. But not so now!Modern science has created such destructive implements of warfare as to give pith and point to Peter’s prophecy, for in them all “FIRE” is the chief element.

It drives the ships of all navies; it makes effective the machinery of all armies; it speeds the submarines through the darkness of the deep, and sends the flying machine through the space of the heavens; it drives the caterpillar engine over every conceivable obstacle; it voices itself in the discharge of every gun, every cannon of every conceivable shape and size; yea, it lays down the barrage under the cover of which the deadly attacks are made; and, still further, it was the chief element in the creation of those deadly gases that asphyxiated men by the tens of thousands in the late World War.In Gibb’s volume, “NOW IT CAN BE TOLD” p. 103, we have this statement “On the morning of July 30th (1915) there was a strange lull of silence after a heavy burst of shells and mortars. Men of K.

R. R. raised their heads above broken parapets and crawled out of shell holes and looked about. There were many dead bodies lying around, and wounded men were wailing. The unwounded, startled by the silence, became aware of some moisture falling on them; thick oily drops of liquid.“What in hell’s name?” said a subaltern! One man smelled his clothes which reeked with something like paraffin. Coming across from the Germen trenches were men carrying cylinders with nozzles like hose-pipes. Suddenly there was a rushing noise, like an escape of air from some blast furnace. Long tongues of flame licked across to the broken ground where the King’s Royal Rifle’s lay; some of them were set on fire, their clothes burning on them, making them living torches, and, in a second or two, cinders.

Oh, the horror! Next time “by fire”!Winston Churchill, the English Secretary of state for war and also the Secretary of state for air, said:—“Let it not be thought for a moment that the danger of another explosion in Europe is past… A German recently said to me, “Some think the next war will be fought with electricity,’ and on this a vista opens out of electrical rays which could paralyze the engines of a motor car, could claw down aeroplanes from the sky, and conceivably be made destructive of human life or human vision.“Then there are explosives! Have we reached the end? Has science turned its last page on them? May there not be methods of using explosive energy incomparably more intense than anything heretofore discovered?

Might not a bomb, no bigger than an orange, be found to possess a secret power to destroy a whole block of buildings—nay, to concentrate the force of a thousand tons of cordite and blast a township at a stroke? Could not explosives even of the existing type be guided automatically in flying machines by wireless or other rays, without a human pilot, in ceaseless procession upon a hostile city, arsenal, camp, or dockyard?“As for poison gas and chemical warfare in all its forms, only the first chapter has been written of a terrible book.”Lloyd George, that greatest of English statesmen, addressing a meeting in September, 1930, remarked:—“We have the League of Nations and the Kellogg Peace Pact and Locarno declaring that there shall be no more war.

And yet we find at this moment more people training for war than since the days of Cain. A generation is rising that knew not the war—a generation that is beginning to think of what the romance and glory of war might be.”Does it not occur to us that all of this looks to the speedy fulfilment of that prophecy in the Apocalypse when the number of the army of the horsemen are to be 200 thousand thousand: or 200,000, 000, and when the breastplates of these horses are to be of fire and brim-stone, and their heads as the heads of lions, and out of their mouths shall issue fire and smoke; and by them one-third part of the men on the earth shall be killed by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone. And when the Lord Himself should appear with His right foot upon the sea, and His left foot on the earth, declaring that time shall be no more?By his scientific attainment man’s inhumanity to man will exit this age!And yet; let no man imagine that this is the end for anything more than THIS EVIL AGE; for certainly the text does not stop with the grinding to powder of the toes and feet, but continues with world-government in a new form.—Mark it!THE PLAN OF The king’s dream saw a “stone cut out of the mountain without hands, and it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold”; and Daniel says, “the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure”.What was the interpretation?“The stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth”. Mark these facts in passing:—First—this stone that the king saw “was cut out without hands”.Throughout the Bible, the Old Testament and the New alike, the stone is a symbol of the Son of God.The stone that went with the Children of Israel through the wilderness wanderings, gushing streams of living water, Paul interpreted by saying that that “stone was Christ”.Christ is the Psalmist’s “Rock in a weary land”.On one occasion Christ said, “On this ROCK I will build My Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”, You ask what the ROCK is? The answer is, “Other foundation can no man lay” for the church “than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ”. He is the foundation stone.When the Temple was being constructed there was one stone for which no fitting place could be found. It was unnumbered. It was tried again and again, and finally flung off as debris.At last when the Temple was practically complete, it was found that one stone was demanded to finish the same and become the cap stone thereof. After diligent search somebody suggested that they fish this one out of the ash heap; and, lo, when it was placed, it perfectly completed the Temple, and the old Jews shouted, “Grace, grace be unto it!”Christ says, “I was that stone rejected by you builders, but now become the Head of the corner.”This, then, is a prophecy concerning the Coming CHRIST!But “cut out without hands”.

What is the significance? Man had nothing to do with His appearance.

He “came down from above”; He was not even the child of a man, but “the seed of the woman” instead, and the Son of God. In His Second appearance, He comes independently of all flesh.“And the stone that smote the image became a great mountain”. What is the significance of that? Read further and hear:—“And in the days of these kings shall the God of Heaven set up a Kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the Kingdom shall not be left to other people”. That is His Kingdom. He is the Coming King, and the Kingdoms of this world are to become His Kingdom.

It shall never pass away. It shall become a permanent Kingdom, breaking into pieces and consuming all others, and standing forever.World governments then, as at present constituted, when they have come to their final ends, and have affected their own destruction, shall be succeeded by a Divine government with God’s Son on the throne; and, in the 1,000 year reign shall fulfil prophecy and bring to the experiences of men the realization of their most Utopian dreams, and present to the world its first righteous ruler since the day when Saul displaced the King of Glory; His enthronement shall produce in the world all the social and economic blessings for which men pray, and watch, and wait.Peace will then brood over the world!In that day He, the King of Glory, “shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Micah 4:3).In that day poverty will be banished from the earth—“But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid”. In that day the false worshipers of the world “will walk every one in the Name of his God, and we will walk in the Name of the Lord our God for ever and ever”.“Jesus shall reign where’er the sun Does his successive journeys run. His Kingdom stretch from shore to shore Till moons shall wax and wane no more.” It is claimed of Edward the Black Prince that he never fought a battle which he did not win, and of the great Duke of Marlborough that he never besieged a city that he did not take.But with both conquest was limited. Not so with the Coming Christ. To Him “every knee shall bowl”; in His favor every king shall capitulate. And the sway of His scepter shall be “from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth”.When one remembers that this Kingdom is to be universal; when he recalls that it is to be a Kingdom administered in justice and righteousness; when he remembers that it is to be a Kingdom of plenty, every man sitting under his own vine and fig tree; when he is reminded of the promise that in that Kingdom wars shall not be; that even the implements of butchery shall be beaten into those of husbandry; and above all, when he looks afresh into the Word of God and sees that God’s Son, man’s Saviour, is to sit upon its throne, he is glad for the fact that it shall stand forever.The great Napoleon said:—“I shall soon be in my grave. Such is the fate of great men. So it was with the Caesars and Alexander.

And I too will be forgotten, and the conqueror and emperor will become a college theme. My exploits will be tasks given to pupils by their tutors. I die before my time and my dead body must return to the earth, and become only food for worms. Behold, the end is at hand for him who was called the great Napoleon.“What an abyss between my brief misery and the eternal reign of the Christ, who is proclaimed, loved and adored, and whose Kingdom will extend to all the earth,” and he might have added, “and of that Kingdom there shall be no end”. “His Name shall be the Prince of Peace, For evermore adored; The Wonderful, the Counsellor, The great and mighty Lord.

“His power, increasing, still shall spread; His reign no end shall know; Justice shall guard His throne above And peace abound below.”