May it not well be that the imprecatory Psalms, otherwise so difficult to understand, in the virulence of their desires for vengeance, etc., are prophetic of these days of persecution and tribulation? As well, too, must be many of the Prayers of the Psalms, etc. Ps. xxv. 2. Ps. lxxiv. Ps. cxl. Ps. lxxix. Isaiah xxxv. 3, 4. Isaiah li. 12-15. Micah vii. 8, 9. Luke xviii. 7, 8.
The almost universal return of the Jew to his own land, with all the aims of Zionism, and other kindred movements among the Hebrew people today is, curiously enough, not marked by the religious spirit, but purely national. The comparatively few pious souls (certainly not more than a quarter of a million, if that) who built the Temple, and afterwards flee into the "wilderness," or are beheaded rather than worship the Beast, or who, unable to get away in time, are beheaded for their loyalty to God, are now left out of future count in the history of the final fate of Jerusalem.
The city will probably be enormously enlarged and will come to embrace miles of suburbs, as London has absorbed towns as far distant, almost, as Croydon, in Surrey.
In the latter years of the great Tribulation there will appear to be a general rising of the nations against Jerusalem—against the Jews. It may well be, that all the powers will have become so indebted, financially, to the Jews, that there shall be an universal outbreak of Anti-Semitism, the real cause of the outbreak being inability on the part of the nations to pay their debts, when they shall make common cause against the Jew, hoping thus to clear off their debts, by the destruction of their creditors.
Preparatory to this great and final struggle, the great eastern boundary river, the Euphrates, will be dried up. The literal accomplishment of this great physical wonder, is an absolute necessity, if the vast hordes of the Eastern armies are to be marched to Jerusalem.
Even as those days of the end draw nearer and nearer God's people of that time will suffer more and yet more.
"Happy the dead who in the Lord do die from henceforth. Yea (saith the Spirit) that they may rest from their toils, for their works do follow with them. Ceased only that form of service which brings weariness, and have found perfect happiness in the ability to continue service without weariness."—ROTHERHAM.
While this is true of all the saints of all the ages, it is specifically true of those who, in The Great Tribulation, shall lay down their lives for God in faithful, enduring obedience.
And now the end draws ever more rapidly near. North, East, South and West of Palestine the armies of allies against Jerusalem close in upon her. Had the Jewish race been as loyally devoted to their God and His Word as they had been to Anti-christ the Deceiver, and his vile, promulgated laws, they would have, inevitably, recognized Psalms lxxxiii. 3, 4, as a prophecy of this time and the approach of their foes: "They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones." They have said, "Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance."
But God has not forgotten His promises to Israel, and the time of her worst visitation, is to be His opportunity: