Part 43 (2/2)
All through the ages, the angels of G.o.d have been standing by. Daniel, and Peter, and Paul are dead; but the angels still live. ”Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?” Heb. 1:14.
Guardian Angels
That means that every child of G.o.d is under the guardians.h.i.+p of the angels. ”The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them.” Ps. 34:7.
Thank G.o.d, we are never left alone. Every child of G.o.d has a guardian angel commissioned by the loving Father to watch over him. Christ said:
”Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of My Father which is in heaven.” Matt. 18:10.
This does not mean that trials never will come, or troubles. In the midst of the trial, the angel of the Lord will stand by to strengthen and to bring help from the G.o.d of all comfort. It was in the midst of the fiery furnace that the ”form of the Fourth” appeared, walking with the three Hebrew children--Jesus Himself treading the fiery way with them. And when Jesus, in the days of His flesh, was sinking under the crus.h.i.+ng burden in Gethsemane, ”there appeared an angel unto Him from heaven, strengthening Him.” Luke 22:43.
Our Saviour, who knows the comforting power of angel ministry, is the Captain of the heavenly host, and has commissioned them all as ministering spirits to the heirs of salvation.
When He comes in glory for His people, Christ will have ”all the holy angels with Him.” As the voice of Jesus awakens His sleeping saints and they rise immortal from the opened graves, ”He shall send His angels, ... and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” Matt. 24:31.
The angels who have watched over the heirs of salvation through all the ages, know where they are, and they know how to gather them, with their loved ones, to meet the Lord.
The angels who rejoiced when the Lord laid the foundations of the earth, who mourned when man fell, who have all along been working with Christ, their leader, to rescue the lost, will yet rejoice when the Lord brings home His own. What a day will that be in heaven!
[Ill.u.s.tration: MODERN INVENTIONS FULFILLING PROPHECY
”Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” Dan.
12:4.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: CAREY IN INDIA TRANSLATING THE BIBLE
”So mightily grew the word of G.o.d and prevailed.” Acts 19:20.]
THE TIME OF THE END
”Thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” Dan. 12:4.
Thus the words of the angel, spoken nearly twenty-five hundred years ago, announced the opening of a new era of enlightenment when the latter days should come.
The Time
At the end of the long period of predicted tribulation of the church--the twelve hundred and sixty years of Daniel's prophecy--the world entered upon this era of ”the time of the end.”
”They shall fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, many days.... And some of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed.” Dan. 11:33-35.
In practically every outline of prophecy touching this time, the events of the last days are represented as following the end of the prophetic period of tribulation. Christ's prophecy of Matthew 24 so declares. Our Saviour showed that this period of tribulation, would be shortened, ”for the elect's sake,” and that ”immediately after the tribulation of those days” the signs of the end would begin to appear.
Thus, while the full period of the twelve hundred and sixty years ended amid the scenes of the French Revolution, which gave the papal power a deadly wound in the last decade of the eighteenth century, the shortening of the days of tribulation had begun even earlier to spread increasing knowledge and enlightenment over the earth.
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