Rome and Turkey in Connexion with the Second Advent

by Edward Hoare

III. So much for the overflow. Let us now turn to the drying up as predicted in the prophecy.

Think once more of the illustration of the river, and consider what would be the effect on the overflow if the waters were to subside in the river. The inundation would gradually recede, and one field after another would be left dry, until after a time the whole country would be free. If, therefore, the interpretation of the prophecy be correct, we should expect to see the Ottoman power gradually dying out, and the various nations that were overrun by conquest one by one shaking off the yoke. And this is exactly what has been taking place ever since the year 1820. There is a remarkable prophecy in Daniel believed to refer to this same Ottoman power, and from it some of the best students of prophecy in the course of the last century named that year as the probable commencement of the decline of Turkey. Up to the spring of the year all appeared to prosper; but then the waters began rapidly to recede. That very year the Greek insurrection began. The flood receded from Greece, so that in 1827 the present kingdom was established. In that same year the inundation went back so far that Servia was left dry. In the same year Moldavia and Wallachia, and the territory north of the Danube, were set free from the Ottoman yoke; and now there seems to be every hope that Herzegovina and Bosnia will succeed in shaking off the invader. Indeed, the whole Turkish Empire is in such a condition that if the statesmen of Europe could agree as to who should possess Constantinople, the whole Ottoman Power would in all probability be driven out of Europe before another year is over.

As for Africa, the flood has already left it almost dry. Morocco has become an independent state. The French have taken Algeria, while on the east, Egypt has asserted its independence, and with the one exception of an annual tribute, is entirely free from the Turkish yoke. For some years this process had been going on, till at length, in 1866, the Pasha assumed the title of ‘Khedive,’ which means king, proclaiming thereby an independent monarchy. The only possession remaining to Turkey is the little province of Tripoli, containing considerably less than 1,000,000 inhabitants. Turkey in Africa has almost ceased to exist. Turkey in Europe may last a little longer, but is going fast. As for Turkey in Asia, it has ceased to be a power to any distance east of the Euphrates; and I fully believe that on the west of the river the drying-up process will be steadily continued till the floods recede from Palestine, and that beautiful land is set free from the blight of Turkish misgovernment, and handed over to be once more a land flowing with milk and honey to its rightful possessors, the seed of Abraham, the nation to which God has given it.

Such are a few of the leading events with reference to the decline of the Ottoman empire; and there is only one further remark that I would make respecting it. The failure has not been the result of external conquest, but of internal decay. The Turks have not been brought down by any great defeats, but by their own want of life. The powers of Europe have not attacked them, but, on the contrary, have done their best to uphold them, as, e.g., in the Crimean war; but, notwithstanding all that France and England could do, their power is falling to pieces of itself. The sick man is dying, and the physicians cannot keep him alive. Their energy seems gone, their exchequer is exhausted, and their population is so much diminished, that there are now only 2,000,000 Turks or Ottomans left in Europe. In other words, the Euphrates is drying up, and the inundation cannot long remain upon the land.

Now I can quite understand the feeling of those who have experienced a certain amount of disappointment in hearing this morning about the Turkish empire, instead of something bearing more directly on their own personal salvation, and I should myself have preferred to have preached on some such subject. But I have taken this subject on principle.

1. Because, as I have already said, ‘all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.’ No portion, therefore, of God’s word, whether it be prophetic or historical, ought to be set aside by those who really desire to know God’s truth. If we wish to know the whole mind of God we must be prepared to study the whole of the Holy Scriptures which God has given us.

2. But, besides that, we must remember that our whole faith depends on Holy Scripture. All that we know of the Lord Jesus Christ, of His great high priesthood, of His atoning blood, of His free salvation, of the gift of the Holy Ghost, of the new birth, and of the coming advent, all our hope for the future, and all our rest for the present, depend simply and entirely on the word of God. In it we find all; without it we have nothing. When, therefore, we see a great prophecy of Holy Scripture fulfilled in our own day, within reach of our own observation, traceable on our own maps, and included within the range of our own memory, we ought not to pass it by, but should accept it with thankfulness in these days of rebuke and infidelity, as a most blessed confirmation of our faith. Let any one who has a different view respecting Scripture look at the facts. Two thousand four hundred years ago there was a prophet, the prophet Daniel, by the river of Ulai, and he foresaw in a vision the rise and progress of a mighty power, telling us at the same time how long it was likely to continue. Six hundred years after him there arose another prophet, who described what appears to be the same power, and gave a graphic picture both of its progress and decay. Students of Holy Scripture have since been diligently occupied in the study of these two prophecies; and by comparing Scripture with Scripture were long since brought to the conclusion that in the course of this century the decline of the Ottoman Empire would take place. And now we see it going on. Just when the students thought it would begin, then it began, and just as the prophet described its decay, so it is decaying. The prophets themselves could have known nothing about it when they prophesied, for the empire did not arise till many centuries after they had foretold its fall. But God knew all, and a thousand years were to Him as one day. These prophecies, therefore, did not arise from any private interpretation or human calculation of probabilities, but ‘holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.’

Now what should be the result on our minds? What effect should such facts have on ourselves? Should they not strengthen faith and confirm us in a simple, childlike, unquestioning trust in the inspired word of the living God? Who but God Himself could have foretold either to Daniel or John the rise and decay of the Ottoman Empire? It is God’s own word, then, with which we are dealing when we study Holy Scripture. There may be things in it completely beyond all power of human calculation, as the history of the Ottoman Empire was utterly beyond the human calculation of either Daniel or John. But God’s truth does not depend on our power of calculation. It is beyond us altogether, infinite, eternal, divine; and our part is, whether we can fit it together or not, to receive the whole as God has given it, and as weak, ignorant, short-lived, and short-sighted creatures, to receive His will as He has revealed it, into our hands, and hearts, and say, ‘I believe God, that it shall be as it was said unto me.’

IV.
THE FROGS.

In opening our subject in the last lecture, I said that there were three questions to be considered: 1. Has the present state of Turkey been foretold in prophecy? 2. Does it teach us any lessons respecting our spiritual position? and 3. Does it throw any light on the blessed hope of our Lord’s return? The first of these questions we examined in the last lecture, and surely it was proved that in the symbol of the drying up of the Euphrates we have a most remarkable symbolic prophecy of the exhaustion of the Ottoman power. To-day we are to pass on to the second question: Is our own spiritual position affected by the exhaustion of Turkish power? Now I can quite understand the thought that has no doubt occurred to many of you, that the two things can have no possible connexion with each other, for there seems to our mind to be no possible connexion of even the most remote character between the Turkish Empire and our own spiritual life. We may well say, ‘What have we to do with the Turks, or the Turks with us in our own daily, private walk with God?’ It may surprise some of you when I say that, although no man can explain the reason of the connexion, I believe it to be very intimate, and that the religious life of modern Christendom is in a most remarkable manner bound up with the decline of the Turkish Empire.