Rome, Turkey, and Jerusalem

by Edward Hoare

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 the slightest doubt as to the inspiration of 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.

To understand this we must remember that the great prophecy in the book of Revelation is arranged in periods. Each seal, each trumpet, and each vial, represents a period. So there is one particular period of history foretold under the figure of the sixth vial, and all the events predicted under that vial we should expect to appear at about the same time in history. Whether we can trace any connexion or not, the events of each vial are linked together in respect of time; so that if there are two events under any one vial, when we see the one we ought to look out for the other, and when one takes place we have every reason to believe that the other is at hand. Now there are two events, apparently quite distinct in themselves, which are thus connected with each other under the sixth vial—the drying up of the Euphrates, and the appearance of certain most dangerous and seductive spirits, going forth to gather men together for the battle of Almighty God. If, therefore, it be a fact, as I firmly believe it to be a fact, that the Euphrates is now being dried up, then it follows as a sure and certain consequence that the unclean spirits are soon, if not already, going forth to do their deadly work. The two things go on according to the prophecy within the same prophetic period, and therefore if we see the one, as believers in the word of God, we ought to be on the lookout for the other. We are thus brought to the conclusion, that whenever the Euphrates shall be drying up, there will be a time of great spiritual seduction; or, in other words, that the exhaustion of the Turkish Empire will be accompanied, or quickly followed, by a remarkable development of mischievous spiritual power. This, then, must be our subject in this lecture, and we will study (if God permit) first the danger, and then the caution. May God grant that the result may be that we may be like those few men of Sardis who had not defiled their garments, and who will walk with the Lord Jesus in white, for they are worthy!

I. The danger.

This is described in Rev. xvi. 13, 14. ‘And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of the great day of God Almighty.’

All students of prophecy are well aware how much has been written in exposition of these two verses, and what different explanations have been given of these three seductive spirits. I have not time this morning to discuss any of them, but there are three things perfectly clear, and it will be sufficient for us to study them.