Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 January 1915 — WHY GOD’S WRATH UPON THE NATIONS? [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WHY GOD’S WRATH UPON THE NATIONS?

Outgrowth of Wrong Doing Up Earth.

Justice of the Day of Vangoane*. “Render Unto Her Double"—“The Controversy of Zion" —The Year of tho Redeemed—Balancing the Books. Proparing For tho New Dispensation.

Jan. 3. Pastor Russell’s discourse inquired into the reason why In God’s providence the world Is ushering Into "a Time of Trouble such as was not since there was a nation.” (Daniel 12 :L) His text was, “The nations were angry, and Thy wrath is

come.”—Revelation 113.8. Alter Introductory remarks upon Ms text, the speaker read Isaiah 34rtf3jr Jeremiah 25:15. 16. 27-38; Isaiah 66:15, 16: Luke 21:24-26; Revelation 6:6-11; 2 Thessalonlans 1:3-10. Their united testimony, be claimed, referred to the present time—mistranslated the end of the world; properly Interpreted, the end of the Age, inaugurating the New Age—“the world to come.” God’s people Israel typified Spiritual Israel. All others were called tbs nations, the people, Gentiles, and were outside covenant relationship with God. If we recognize saintly people of all denominations as the true Church, and all others as Gentiles, we shall get into alignment with the Divine mind. From this viewpoint alone can Biblical prophecies be understood. The Divine rod is to be expected upon the so-called Christian kingdoms -nominal Christians. Responsibility and punishment will be proportionate to failure to live up to knowledge possessed. God’s wrath and the coming judgments are wholly different from the creedal legends respecting' eternal torture for all except the Sleet. Elsewhere God shows us that the troubles of the Day of Wrath are the outgrowth of human wrong-doing, and that these dire penalties for sin would have wrecked our social and religious fabric long ago, had He not held back the storm of human passion until the end of/this Age. Jnst so soon as that storm shall have taught humanity needed lessons and liquidated longstanding accounts, Messiah’s Kingdom, with a clean slate, will be inaugurated. “The Recompenses of Zion." We have reached the end of the world —end of this Age, the Pastor declared. Then he explained that, although God has provided, through Jesus’ sacrifice, for absolute forgiveness of all sins and frailties traceable to original sin, and that certain wilful sins have been more or less punished during the lives of.the sinners, nevertheless this will not be a full settlement for sin. Persecution of the Body of Christ is a crime against God; and a Divine curse has rested upon their persecutors, whose responsibility has been proportionate to knowledge. The great trouble closing the Jewish Age was retribution for unsettled claims of Justice (Luke 11:50, 51). The generation then living had far greater responsibility than had those preceding them. They had a great Light, shining from Jesus and the early saints. The Bible Intimates shat similar aggregations of punishments are due in the end of this Gospel Age. As Jesus foretold, the Kingdom class have suffered violence, while outwardly the violent have posed as the True Church. The Time of Trouble now beginning will be the squaring of God’s accounts. According to Scripture, the closing of this Gospel Age will witness^the martyrdom of the last members of the Body of Christ In our day a more re fined? process of persecution obtains. Some are gibbeted by the pulpit; sorhe, are roasted in the press; some have their tongues cut -out in that their words are misrepresented, and they are denied a hearing. Yet the Bible seems to imply a destruction also. Babylon—what 1% known as 'The Christian world”—will be punished for these crimes against God’s saints. “Christendom” of today corresponds exactly to the Jewry of Jesfis’ day. Ml an a mlng itself “ChrLsfß Kingdom,” it is intent upon the preservation of the great Babylon which it has constructed* willing to do anything to avoid the destruction foretold. Hypocrisy the Greatest of All Sins. 1 Time was when men really thought that kings ruled as part of Christ’s Kingdom, that human destiny was in the hands of the clergy, that tkgp nonelect were doomed to eternal mature. sut that day has passed. No longer deceived; the clergy know that Sheol and Hades represent the death state, and not fire or torture tn any sense. They pee God’s character clearly; they perceive that the kingdoms of thiß WOflcT Ase merely political institutions." Nevertheless, the 1 Divine character Is still blasphemed-. Ged is srtlll misrepresented to the people. Two hundred thousand professed ministers of Christ stand before the world today, telling legends of the Dark Ages and hindering. people from a knowledge of the Truth. Does not such hypocrisy, such blasphemy against God. such deception of the