Rome and Turkey in Connexion with the Second Advent

by Edward Hoare

Now no one can have watched the progress of men’s minds during the last half century without observing that this has been most remarkably the case. There cannot be a doubt as to the fact that, while the Turkish power has been declining, the powers of good and evil throughout Christendom have been awakening into life. The two processes have gone on side by side. Turkey has been drying up, and almost every state in Europe has been aroused to religious conflict. Many amongst us have been able to trace the vast change that has taken place during our own lifetimes. I can see myself an immense difference between the state of things when I commenced my ministry forty years ago, and the state of things now. Then the characteristic of the day was stagnation, but now it is conflict. Then our warfare was against cold, dull, dead, stolid indifference; but now error in every shape is in full activity, and we require to be armed at all points against every species of attack. Then all that unconverted men desired was to be left undisturbed in the deep sleep that had settled down on their souls. But they are all awake now, and the cry is ‘To arms!’ Many, alas! are on the wrong side. Far too many have fallen under the fatal influence of these seducing spirits; but, whether on the wrong side or the right, they are awake. They are up, and hurrying to their post. The time for sleep is over; the bugle has sounded, the ranks are forming, the struggle has begun, and the time is come when those who know their Saviour must be prepared to stand with a holy decision on His side.

II. And now you can see the overwhelming importance of the warning of this verse: ‘Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.’ You can see that the exhaustion of Turkey is a conspicuous signal from God to arouse all Christendom to watchfulness. We cannot see the three unclean spirits coming forth, but we can see Turkey decaying; and that is God’s visible signal that the invisible spirits are at work. If ever, therefore, there was a time for especial watchfulness it is now. If ever there was a time when our young people require to be cautioned, and warned, and helped, and guided, it is now. And you will observe that the warning is given to those who have some garments. It is not spoken to the heathen, or unconverted worldlings; but to those who have, what I may term, some sort of Christian clothing. I have not time to discuss what that clothing is. It may be their baptismal robe, that which they put on when they were baptized into Christ. It may be the robe of their Christian profession, that which they wear habitually in daily life; or it may even be that spotless robe washed white in the blood of the Lamb, in which alone they can stand before God, the wedding garment of the perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. In whatever sense we understand the expression, the solemn and sacred warning from God to every one of us, both old and young, is the same; viz. that we watch and keep our garments, lest we walk naked, and they see our shame. We see the Euphrates drying up, and therefore we know that the evil spirits are abroad. We know, i.e. that there are subtle, deadly influences all around us, of various kinds and characters, whose object is to draw us away from the simplicity that is in Christ, to strip us of our garments, and to enlist us on the wrong side of the struggle. We may not be aware of their stealthy approach; and we are not likely to be so, for we are certain not to see them. We need not necessarily be shocked by their suggestions, for, though they be unclean spirits, they can clothe their temptation in the form of beauty. But, whether we detect them or not, we may be sure they are at work, and in full activity. They are moving with stealthy steps in the midst of us. They are approaching our minds in secret, disturbing prayer, suggesting doubts, weakening faith, poisoning thought, alienating love, and so labouring by subtle, mental influence, to detach us from Christ. And only think what the result would be if they were to succeed; nothing less than this, that we should walk naked and they would see our shame. It is not clear who is meant by the ‘they’ that are to see the shame. It may be the world at large, or it may be the very spirits that have done the mischief, looking on with a fiendish smile on the misery and nakedness of the poor wretch whom they have ruined. But it matters not who sees it; that will make very little difference. To be naked before God, that is enough. He is sure to see it, and the dreadful horrors of such a position far exceed any power of human imagination. You remember how St. Paul spoke of it in 2 Cor. v. 3: ‘If so be that being clothed’ (clothed, i.e. with the resurrection body) ‘we shall not be found naked.’ Clothed, but yet naked. Risen, but not covered. Alive with all the realities of the body, and all the faculties of the mind, memory, and conscience; but with the poor soul naked, without a claim, without an excuse, without an atonement, without a plea, without a Saviour, without any hope for all eternity of either concealment or forgiveness. The thought is too dreadful to be borne. Oh, may God in mercy grant that not one of us, and not one whom we love, may be found naked in that day! And oh! what an inexpressible joy it is for the child of God, however weak, however unworthy, however unable to cope with all the seductions of those wicked spirits, to fall back on the sure promise of his blessed Saviour: ‘They shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.’ He can keep us, and we may be sure He will. Let us throw ourselves then into His hand to be clothed, to be kept, to be watched over, to be held fast, that so, preserved in Christ Jesus, and clothed in His spotless robe, we may never be found naked, but may when He comes be presented faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.

V.
THE ADVENT.

I trust there are many amongst us who are able to say, from the very depths of their longing hearts, ‘I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait.’ The long-expected coming of the Lord is the blessed hope on which their hearts rest in eager and earnest expectation, and they can add their unqualified ‘Amen’ to the last prayer of Scripture, ‘Even so, come, Lord Jesus.’

I am persuaded that all those who are thus looking for the coming of the Lord must feel the greatest possible interest in the last of the three subjects proposed for our consideration with reference to the exhaustion of the Turkish Empire, as symbolized by the drying up of the Euphrates. We have seen that the exhaustion which is now attracting the anxious attention of all the politicians of Europe was foretold more than eighteen hundred years ago in this remarkable symbolic prophecy. We found also in the last lecture that the internal decay of Turkey is a warning to us all to be on the watch against the seductive spirits of the latter days; and we now have to examine whether there is any connexion between that decay and the glorious advent of the Lord Jesus; whether, in other words, the decline of the Ottoman empire is not like the cry which aroused the ten virgins in the parable, ‘The Bridegroom cometh.’ There are two questions which will clearly require our careful study, (1.) What light does the decline of the Ottoman Empire throw on the near approach of our Lord’s return? And (2), if it does throw such a light, how are we to understand His declaration that He will come as a thief? May God Himself, who has inspired His own word, be graciously pleased to direct us in the study of it; and to lead us, every one of us, to be perfectly ready, waiting for the Lord Jesus!

I. What light, then, does the decay of the Ottoman Empire throw on the prospect of the near approach of our Lord’s return? Has it any bearing on our Christian hope? and may we regard it as a signal from God that the time is come when we may soon expect the Advent?

In order to answer this question we must examine:—

(1.) The position of the prophecy in the general structure of the Book. The prophecies of this wonderful book are arranged on a divinely ordered plan. There are some chapters to which it is difficult to assign their place; but it is easy to see what may be termed the backbone running through the whole. To use a very homely illustration, there is the main line of rail conspicuously running through the whole, and you may trace that clearly, though you cannot always trace the branches. Now in this outline there are three great series of prophetic periods—the seven seals, the seven trumpets, and the seven vials; and these three series appear in a remarkable manner to follow each other. First there are the seals, as in chap. vi.; and when the sixth seal is opened, and the seventh about to follow, there appears a general expectation of the coming of the Lord. But when the seventh seal is actually opened, instead of our coming to the end, as apparently was expected, we find a second series developed. The seven trumpets were wrapped as it were in the seventh seal (viii. 1, 2), so that when it was opened they appeared, and a fresh series commenced, and the trumpet-angels one after another blew their blast. At length the seventh trumpet is sounded, and again it appears as though you had reached the end. But like the seventh seal, it, too, is found to contain within itself a third series. The seven vials are wrapped within it, and when that last trumpet is blown they are poured forth in awful succession on a wicked world. Thus the seventh seal contains all the trumpets, and the seventh trumpet all the vials. Now if this be the case it is clear that the sixth vial must come very near the end. The trumpets are none sounded till the six seals are passed and the seventh seal is opened. The vials do not begin till the six trumpets have completed their blast and the seventh has sounded; and of the vials five must have been poured out already, so that there can be nothing remaining but the seventh, or the last.

To take the very homely illustration of a railway. Suppose a series of stations on a line, the seventh being a junction; suppose that on the branch from that junction there was another series of stations, the seventh again being a junction; and from that second junction there was another line of seven stations, the last being your home. What would you think of your position when you had travelled the whole length of the main line, and the whole of the first branch, and when you had gone so far along the second branch that you had actually reached the sixth station on that last line? You would say, surely, that you were near the end of your journey, close to home. Now whenever the Church of God reaches the sixth vial that will be its position. All the seals will have been opened, all the trumpets blown, and six of the seven vials poured out.

But that I believe to be our position now, and that we are at this present time living under the sixth vial. I believe that the great public, political event of the sixth vial, is the drying up of the Ottoman Empire, and that we can all see to be in progress. There can be no doubt about the great, public, political fact. It is confirmed by every newspaper, and is forced on the attention of England by the sore distress brought on many families through the Turkish bankruptcy. But if this be the fact predicted by the symbol of the drying up of the Euphrates, then it follows that we are living under the sixth vial, and that the seventh vial is all that remains of the great prophetic series.