WE CLOSED last night by making a few remarks on the coming out of the white horse the second time, as named in the nineteenth chapter. John says, "He that sat on him was called Faithful and True; and in righteousness he cloth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood; and his name is called the Word of God."

When the Word of God went out in the opening of the first seal, it had one crown given to it; it had one battle to fight. It is distinctly stated there was a crown given to it; but at the end of a series of visions, John sees it once more in the field with many crowns: it had gained victories over the earthly powers--the corruption in the Church, Mohammedanism in the East, and the papacy, and all the false doctrines of the confused sects that the papacy has gone off into; and he had many crowns on his head. It has a name that no man knows but itself. No man knows the law of the Lord, the plan of salvation, the duty of the creature to God, but the Word of the Lord. This expression is dropped in here, not at random, but just to let the human family know they need not meddle with things pertaining to their duties to God. He has made it known in his Word, and beside that, no man knows it.

"And the armies which were in heaven followed him"-- /259/ he presents the Word of God as though it were a person-- "followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; and he treadeth the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS."

Some one might conclude that this is none other than the Lord Jesus himself riding at the head of a victorious army. But John said it was the Word of God. But the u ord of man is man, and the Word of God, John said, is God. When the Word goes forth conquering, it is the Lord; when the Word of the Lord does anything, it is the Lord doing it; and so John speaks of it.

"And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great. And I saw the beast," (that spotted one that had been wearing out the saints for 1260 years,) "and the kings of the earth," (that had been upholding and worshiping the beast,) "and their armies gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army." All the powers of Antichrist gathered in one grand army to fight against the true and faithful Word of God. The battle will be fought, is being fought now, as a man with half an eye can see. The time is on us now, when those that have been making laws for the Lord's people--that power that had given laws for 1260 years to govern the Church, and that corrupted it--and all that unite in making laws for the government of the Lord's /260/ people, are uniting their forces against the Word of the Lord. There is not an association, a general assembly, or conference of men, that meet to make laws to govern any part of the people calling themselves the Lord's family, but what raises the war cry against those that say we will have nothing but the Word of God. Let the fight come on!

There is a little more than that in this revelation just here. They fight the true and faithful Word of God, the denominations all over the land; the sectarian denominations that make rules and laws to govern themselves are opposed to a correct rendering of the original, and fight it all the time. One preacher said to me some time singe, "We have no business to meddle with King James' version, and add to the Word of the Lord." I quoted this revelation here, through John, that the kings of the earth, with the false doctrines of men, would combine to fight a true and faithful version, and were opposed to its coming out. I told him they were doing just what the Lord said they would. "And," said I, "you, among them, are determined that the people shall be kept in darkness, if possible, and will not let the true and faithful Word of God be given to them if yon can help it." He paced the room briskly three or four times (be was in his own house), and then raised his hand and said, "God forbid that I should ever do it!" I hope he has never done it since.

We spoke on the subject of translation last night. The Lord has promised, and will perform it--that the people shall have his Word, true and faithful to the original. The motto, the sign, is out now in the United States. When the Bible Union met, they have the very words that I have quoted, though not as a quotation there the very words that John saw written: "A True and Faithful version of the Word of God to all nations." They have not accomplished it yet, perhaps. It may be fifty years before they do; but as certain as God's promises are true, that certain /261/ the world will have it, and true and faithful to the original; for without that, it is not the true and faithful Word of God.

We are in that time, as I said. John saw the great battle--the kings of the earth and their armies, the beast and the opposers of the Word of the Lord, united in one army, to fight the true and faithful Word of God and them that followed it--the great battle of Armageddon. It is so stated in the pouring out of the sixth vial, the sound of the sixth trumpet being a parallel, when he says that in the pouring out of the sixth vial he saw out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three spirits of devils come, unclean spirits. And they gathered the kings of the earth and their armies together in the field of Armageddon, the great battle of God Almighty. He then tells of the gathering of another army; in other words, the true and faithful Word of God, to the battle field, and the result is that the beast is taken, and with him the false prophet that worked miracles before him.

This false prophet has reference simply to the confused Protestantism that has been, and is, the result of the departure from the true and faithful Word of God at first.

The kings of the earth--that is, the earthly churches that are established by law--shall be annihilated, and all that are following the works of men combined together, shall be taken. They took those that had been deceived, had received the mark of the beast, and those that had worshiped his image,--it matters not which one of the images--I think there are a great many.

"These both"--the divisions of sectarianism and the papacy--"were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone." They are not going to die off gradually, and then be decently buried; they will be taken fighting and alive. You need not fold your arms, fellow-citizens, and hope that error will die out of itself; you have to take it /262/ alive and fighting; for error--it is so stated here--is taken alive. 0, my soul! how I shudder sometimes, while I hear men and women professing to be Christians and followers of the Word of the Lord, singing a lullaby, that they can do nothing; and fold their arms, waiting for error to die off itself. John tells us better than that; he says we have to take them alive. We have to expose their errors while they are fighting manfully for them.

But after they are taken, their miserable fleshly institutions exposed for every bird of prey to feast upon, the men of the world are looking on, filling themselves to satiety with the miserable fleshly institutions of these sectarian establishments--they are devouring them, all of them. They were only food for vultures, sure enough--worldly institutions--and must be exposed.

But there is another feature to this. There is a winepress of God's wrath to be trodden. I have been talking about the battle of Armageddon just now, and that is to be fought "with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth ;" and that is the Word of God. Some men think that the great battle of Armageddon is to be fought in the valley of the Mississippi, and that all the kings of the earth will be engaged in it; that there is no other place large enough for them to assemble and marshal their mighty armies; and right there it must be fought. And they think that the blood will gush out like rivers, and deluge the whole land in human gore, two hundred miles, to the horses' bridles. John did not say a word about blood being shed in the battle of Armageddon--not a word; there was no need of it. The battle of Armageddon is a battle of doctrine against doctrine; the doctrine of the dragon, the doctrine of the beast, and the doctrine of the false prophet, against the doctrine of the Bible. That came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth /263/ of the false prophet on one side, and out of the mouth of the Lord--the Word of the Lord--on the other side.

The place where the battle will be fought is right here, in Indiana; right here at Unity, and over at Greencastle, and at Indianapolis--all over the State of Indiana, and in Ohio, Kentucky, and Missouri, and Illinois; in all the Western States, and along the valley of the Mississippi, and over the ridge in the Eastern States; all over the continent of America, and over in Europe; all over and throughout Asia, and down in Africa--all over the world, the battle of Armageddon must be fought,--the battle of the Word of the Lord against every error. A great battle, a mighty struggle, too; all the earth will engage in it before it is through with, and the Word of the Lord will conquer.

But I dropped an idea a little while ago. There is another battle beside the battle of Armageddon. The fire, smoke and brimstone battle is not called the battle of Armageddon at all, but the wine-press of God's wrath which is going to tumble the nations down. Blood will flow in that battle; it is a national warring of four hundred years duration, and John makes up the sum, the aggregate of all that blood spilt in this mighty fire, smoke and brimstone battle of four hundred years, and calls it the wine-press of God's wrath, into which he throws the nations.

And the third part of the human family will have their blood shed in this struggle before it ends. A large portion have already been killed in this war; and it is stated that, by these three, a third part of men would be killed. That would make a river of blood as deep and long, if It were all put together, as John saw in the Vision. There never was, and never will be, one stream of blood, at one place and at one time, two hundred miles long, to the horses' bridles; but to calculate mathematically we can make it out. If a third part of the population of human /264/ beings have their blood in one place, it would make this river John saw. He gives the sum total of all the blood shed during the four hundred years.

"And the remnant" those that were not cut off and slaughtered, but would not yield to the truth--"were slain with the sword of him that sat on the throne, which sword proceeded out of his month; and all the fowls were filled with their flesh." I do not know precisely what words to use to express my idea clearly. He was not speaking of their being literally killed; for the Word of the Lord does not kill men physically; but their old fleshly notions and their old fleshly ways, when they are slain by the Word of the Lord, fill all the fowls that devour these things. They eat them up; they become food for them to feast on; they devour them, destroy them, and get them out of the way. I would like to eat up a few of them myself, in one sense; that is, to get them out of the way--these old fleshly notions--expose them, destroy them, and get them out of the way.

"And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled; and after that he must be loosed a little season."

I am very glad of it! John saw an angel come down from heaven with a chain in his hand, and the key of the bottomless pit; and he just chained the old devil, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up for a thousand years there, so that he could deceive the nations no more for a thousand years. If we only knew what angel John saw doing this work! If we only could have him do the work right soon! O, Michael, why not? You chief of /265/ the angels, prince among the Lord's heavenly hosts--why not bind old Satan soon? Michael dares not touch him; it is not Michael or Gabriel that binds old Satan down. Michael had a dispute with him once about the body of Moses, but did not dare bring a railing accusation against him, let alone bind him. If Michael could bind him, he might as well, it seems to me, have done it then. No heavenly angel will ever bind old Satan.

This is not done yet. Satan is not bound yet,--though one brother said to me, sometime since, that he thought Satan, the devil, had already been bound nearly a thousand years, and would soon be let loose. I could but shudder to think (if he has been bound a thousand years, and now is bound,) of the time when he would be let loose. It would be awful! But that brother was a ripe scholar, and he said that I had proved to his satisfaction, that the old red dragon, that was called the devil in the twelfth chapter, was pagan Rome; and Rome had been bound in its pagan form a thousand years, and would soon be let loose again. I told him that idea would do very well, if the nations had been undeceived for a thousand years, and if it had not been that John saw this binding of Satan take place when the spotted beast was put down--which was the papacy--and after the image of that beast and all the images were destroyed, and after the false prophet was put down; and that these powers were not down yet, and Satan was to be bound one thousand years after they were put down. And that brother (I would mention his name, if it were admissible to put it in print,) said that my argument was unassailable; that Satan was not bound yet--it was in the future; any man that will read, can see that it is in the future,--he is not bound yet.

But, then, the next question is, who is it that is called the devil? Why, old Satan himself. But then, who is old Satan? One man said to me sometime since that there /266/ was no devil but man's wicked disposition. Now, if that be true, in the name of reason, if there is no devil but the wicked disposition of the human family, has that ever been bound a thousand years any time since Adam lived? Would to the Lord that it were bound a thousand years. But if it is the old Satan, the old liar himself, if there is a devil beside man's wicked disposition--and there is-- has he been bound?

This man that pleaded with me that there was no devil but man's wicked disposition, had to give it up. I brought up the Word of the Lord, and asked him if Adam and Eve had a wicked disposition before they transgressed the law of the Lord?--and he said, no; they were very good. I asked him then if Jesus, the Son of God, had a wicked disposition? He said, no; he was without sin. I asked him then what it was that told the falsehood to old Mother Eve, and caused Adam and Eve to sin--if it was their wicked disposition? He said it could not have been, for they had not any. I asked him if it was the wicked disposition of Jesus that was tempting him in the wilderness to tell a falsehood?--and he said, no. I told him there was no human being but Adam and Eve in the garden; no human being with Christ in the wilderness, but there was something that tempted Adam and Eve from the right way, and tempted Jesus. That man said it looked like there might be a devil. I told him there was, and he was deceiving the nations and trying to drag them to his dark abode. I exhorted him for a little while to turn to the Lord, and not be deceived and ruined by the old adversary.

He said he reckoned it was too late. Said I, "You are not yet before the great white throne; your soul is not eternally lost yet; do n't let the devil cheat you out of a home in heaven by persuading you that you are too old to turn. "But, then," said he, "I have pleaded this doctrine so long, I reckon it is hardly worth while now." /267/ Said I, "If you see your error now, turn with all your might; for heaven's sake, turn to the Lord." That night that old man, seventy-two years of age, pressed through the crowd, saying, "The devil has been deceiving and trying to ruin me, until I am seventy-two years of age, and by the grace of God, Jesus shall have the balance of my life." And a more faithful and humble Christian never confessed the name of Jesus than that old man was. There is a devil; but what angel will bind him, and what chain will he be bound with? I would say another word or two in reference to the conversation with this old man. Perhaps it would be better to do so, as we are talking rather familiarly about the devil. When I had convinced him that there was some wicked being, aside from man's wicked disposition, he said there was one thing that bothered him. Said he, "If there is a real devil, going about like a roaring lion, why don't somebody get to see him sometime?" Said I, "Do you think there is a God?" "O, yes." "A real being?" "Yes." "Everywhere present?" "O, yes." "Why do n't somebody get to see him, then?" "O, he is a spiritual being, and we can not see him with these natural eyes." "So is the devil, and we can not see him with these natural eyes." "But," said he, "if there is a real devil, I want to know how he came. Did God make him, or is he self-existent? If self-existent, he is equal with Almighty God. One self-existent being is just equal to another self-existent being, and I would as soon worship one self-existent being as another. Then, if he is self-existent, he is equal with Almighty God; if he is not self-existent, the Lord made him; and if the Lord God made him, be is not only a good being, but very good; for God declared that all that he had made was very good. Then you have a very good devil, or one equal with the Almighty." There I was, a poor soldier for Jesus, before that old man, bound with his mighty logic! What do you /268/ think I did? I just quit talking about it! I not only quit talking about it, but I changed the subject, and talked about the price of stock and grain; about the neighbors, about his farm, about his prospects and worldly matters, and diverted his attention from the subject we had been talking on, until he seemed to have let it pass from his mind. Then I told him I supposed his neighbors were all good. "Very good people," he said, "except one or two." Then he told me of some of his neighbors that were very bad men, and told me of some of their bad acts. I told him, from what I had learned since I had been in the neighborhood, they were very good men, all of them, and that he had better look a little nearer home for the fault. The old man became angry, and said that I knew nothing about them, and that he did not want me to throw the blame on him. I told him then that I had learned, since I had been in the neighborhood, that all the neighbors were good men. He said he knew they were not; they were very bad men. Said I, "I suppose I '11 have to admit it, as you declare it is so. But I want to know now, sir, of you, who made these neighbors of yours that are so bad?" He said he supposed I knew who made them. I told him I thought I did, but would rather he would tell me. Said he, "You know God made them." I told him I had no doubt of it. "But you told me, sir, a little while ago, that God never made anything but what was very good; but from yourself I learned that your neighbors were not good; yet God made them. Now, you say they are very bad. I want you to explain that; how it is that God made these neighbors of yours, and they are very bad, while you say all that God made is very good." "Well," said he, after pausing a moment, "they made themselves bad!" Said I, "Angels are greater in power, and the devil made himself bad: and the secret of the whole matter is--and if I could make the world hear just now, I would--that no worship happifies the worshiper and glorifies God, only that /269/ which is voluntarily offered. Every good man on earth, or angel in heaven, if he honors God by worshiping him, and happifies himself in doing so, must do it voluntarily. It must be a voluntary act, for no other will do than that which is voluntary, whether from a man or an angel, for you have the ability to do or let alone. Men and angels are rational moral agents, worshiping God from choice, choosing whether they will obey the Lord or leave it alone--with the conditions placed before them, to serve God and live eternally, or let it alone, and be miserable and damned for ever. There is a weight of responsibility resting upon us. There is a devil, and he made himself; he fell from his high position, as the scriptures tell us, by being lifted up with pride; and the apostles said there was danger of some Christians falling into condemnation of the devil by being lifted up with pride.

That old liar, that lied to mother Eve, that deluged the earth in infidelity, that reared the man of sin to the zenith of his glory on the throne that governed the world, is to be bound after a while; the Lord grant the angel may get to work soon!

But what kind of a chain will the angel have to use in binding him? Is it a chain of metal, as large as the great chain that was on the twin snag-boats, that weighed several tons weight? Human might and human contrivance broke that chain, and the devil is as good at contriving as a mortal man could be. I would not like to risk a chain of iron, with the links as thick as my body, to bind the old fallen angel, with his legions of assistants. You can not bind the devil, a spiritual being, or man's spirit, with a chain of metal. They have tried that often; they tried it on old brother Paul--had him bound with a chain, standing before the Roman governor; his hands and feet were manacled with fetters, but his spirit was still unchained; his mind was still free, and he made the Roman governor, /270/ Felix, tremble on his seat before his free, unchained spirit You can bind down the limbs, but you can not chain the spirit. The devil is a spirit that works in the children of disobedience. They tried it again on Paul when he stood before Festus; but his unchained spirit is still free, and he peals forth such mighty words of freedom in the ears of the Roman governor as to make him exclaim, "You are beside yourself; much learning makes you mad." And King Agrippa said, "You have almost persuaded me to become a Christian;"--when it would have cost him his crown, his goods, all his earthly possessions, if not his head, to become a Christian. . . Paul's spirit was not chained. He said, "I would, King Agrippa, you were altogether such an one as I am, except these bonds." Was Paul's spirit chained?

They had others besides Paul chained in body, but they never have chained a man's spirit yet with a chain of metal. Then, can we ever chain the old adversary with a metal chain? We have pictures of it, sometimes, and I would that men had never made them. They had Paul's hands chained, his feet fast in the stocks in the city of Philippi; but his free, unchained spirit ascended in prayer and praise to the God of heaven, scaled the lofty prison walls, ascended to the throne of God; and He sent a strong angel that burst the prison doors open, and loosed all the bonds of the prisoners. Chain the devil with a metal chain? 0, no! you can not do it.

What kind of a chain will bind a man's spirit? A chain of evidence, my brother--a chain of testimony. We can have our minds, our spirits, chained down to facts in this way, and we can not break loose, although it is sometimes against our will. I have had my mind chained by evidence against my will, sometimes, when the testimony was so strong, even to things I did not like, and I could not break the mighty links; my mind could not sever them; they /271/ were linked in each other so firmly, that yield I must Nothing else than a chain of evidence, a chain of fulfilled prophecy, of gospel facts, a chain that can not be broken by even the spirit of wickedness itself. There is no other way to chain the old adversary so that he can not deceive the nations, but to give the nations the testimony so strong that he can not break the mighty links that bind him. A glance of the mind shows that to be true. It is not to bind him as a spirit, but only so that he can not deceive the people; and the nations must have the chain of evidence that ties the old adversary fast.

Where do we find it? Right here I feel like I am just getting into the work. We have a few of the links in this book I have been noticing for a few days. A few of them? Yes. John, 1800 years ago, told in this book of Revelation all the history of the kingdom of heaven, from the day of his exile, on down until the mighty struggle between the Word of the Lord and the doctrines of men had been fought, and the Word of the Lord prevailed. He wrote that the spirit of peace would triumph in Asia, in the very first place after the Vision was seen by him when he was in the Isle of Patmos; and so it did. He said that a bloody spirit would follow after, and strive to drive this spirit of peace, or gospel, out of the land; and so it did. John foretold it! He said, that in the dark time Christians would be put to death. In the days of the prevailing spirit of terror and anguish--represented by the pale horse--Christians would be killed with the sword, with hunger, with death, and with the beasts of the earth; and so they were. And John foretold it. He said that a mighty government was to go down, the Church was to become corrupted at the time that this great mountain went into the sea, in one third part. History's page tells us it is literally true. And John foretold it. He said the dark time was to come, and after that the Eastern nations had been made bitter by some /272/ bitter star that fell on them. This has been fulfilled, precisely as John foretold. And then he said, in the dark time of the dark ages, the bottomless pit--the under, or infernal world--was to be opened, and a smoke come out-- a smoke of superstition to darken the whole land; and out of the smoke came locusts which had men's faces, and hurt those that did not understand the Bible--that had not the seal of God in their foreheads; and, lo! it is literally fulfilled, as John said. They have hurt those men that did not understand the Bible--poisoned their minds, and taken from them their hard earnings, by selling them indulgences to sin for money, and indulgences from the guilt of sin for money, and offering their prayers to change the state of their dead for money. They hurt the men that did not understand the Bible--had not the seal of God in their foreheads; and John foretold it. Then he said that all nations were to be let loose from the power that had held them down, and were to fight with fire, smoke and brimstone; and every man that has two good eyes can see its fulfillment. And John foretold it. And he said it made a great hail fall upon the nations of the earth, and the stones were about the weight of a talent, and men blasphemed God on account of the hail--the great iron and leaden hail; and I have heard men do it in the midst of the fight, because of their pains and their sores on the battle-field-- blaspheme God because of the cannon-balls and the smaller balls that the fire, smoke and brimstone sent. These are a few links of the chain. Do you want another?

He said that the two witnesses--the two Testaments-- were put in an ugly dress, a sackcloth garment, for 1260 gears; and, lo! they were in a bad translation for that length of time. He said they were to lie dead--in a dead language--in the streets of the great city for 1260 years, and not be used as a measure for that length of time; and that has been literally fulfilled. He said they were to be /273/ given to the people--restored to a living language--in the days of the fighting with fire, smoke and brimstone; and, lo! that was true. He said that during the time the witnesses were lying dead--the Word of the Lord unused as a measure--the Church itself was in the wilderness--went off into the wilderness of humanism, and became a corrupt monster--was borne off on the wings of the Roman Empire; and that is fulfilled. He said of the power that did the work of wearing out the saints, that it was the power that was on the seat of the Roman Caesars;--the Book says it, my brother. That is the papal power that has been doing that work. He said it became scattered after a while into images, and therefore it is called Babylon, because it became confused and scattered into sectarianism; and that is fulfilled. He said he saw the Word of the Lord rising, and the nations crouching down under its bright rays; and, lo! that is being fulfilled. No uninspired man could have guessed these things.

But we have other links to this mighty chain. The Bible tells us that that nation which was the mightiest beneath the sun when the Bible was first written, shall become the basest of all nations--that Egypt shall become the basest; and it is so to-day. It is said of the greatest city on earth--Babylon, the glory of the Chaldees' excellency, that mighty city which was sixty miles in circuit, whose walls were three hundred and fifty feet in highs, that had its one hundred and fifty gates, and its teeming millions thronging its busy streets, and provision at all times to last for twenty years--it is said, in the thirteenth chapter of Isaiah's prophecy, that it shall become a desolation, it shall become a place for owls to hoot in, and satyrs shall dance there; the Arab shall not pitch his tent there, and it shall be a desolation forever; and it is true. Could a mortal man have foretold it, if uninspired? Suppose you try, my brother, to tell the history of some city or nation /274/ for a few thousand years to come. You would not like to try it, would you?

This is not all. The Bible tells us of the fate of Nineveh, the next greatest city on earth; tells us it shall be destroyed, and even tells the agency--the river shall become its enemy, and Nineveh shall be forgotten; and it has been for centuries. The Bible tells us of Tyre, which was once the mistress of the seas, and says it shall become a barren rock; and, lo! that is fulfilled. The Bible tells us there shall be four, and only four universal monarchies on earth ruled over by men; it does not take half a glance to know that the last one is passing away; there is no one man ruling the human family now. With the present views and feelings, books and conveyances, telegraphs and railroads, and steam printing-presses, the one-man power is out of the question in the future.

But this is not all. The Bible tells us that Assyria, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome, these mighty universal empires, are to be scattered to the four winds, and not a vestige of them left. They are gone, three of them, and the fourth nearly gone. But while the Bible says that, it says too, that a little family of one man, a mere handful, the seed of Abraham, shall never cease to be a people while the sun shines on the earth and gives light. Could you guess the history of some man's family five hundred years to come? Would you? Moses, in Deuteronomy, says, in his valedictory, You shall become an astonishment and a proverb, a by-word and a hissing among the nations whither you shall be scattered. And it is literally fulfilled. The Jews are an astonishment to-day. The Jews are a proverb in every nation under heaven. The Jews are a by-word everywhere. Did you ever hear a man say, "I don't like to be Jewed?" Not long since I heard a little boy say, "That beats the Jews." I heard an old man say, "Well now, that does out-do the Jews!" I heard a /275/ mother say, "Now, don't that beat the Jews?" I hear it from the old man and the young; in every land it is so, and Moses, in the Bible, foretold it, four thousand years ago.

Of the land of Judea, and the city of Jerusalem, it is said by the prophets, and by the Lord Jesus himself, they shall be made desolate; that is, the land and the city, and be trodden down of the Gentiles for many centuries. Yet Isaiah says, in the sixth chapter of his prophecy, thirteenth verse: "But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a tell tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof." And it is true to the letter. Never has been the day or the hour when the Jews (the holy seed) have all been driven from that land or city. They have lived there in the most abject poverty, but still they stay. Could a mortal man have guessed it? No.

Thank the Lord, we have the Bible, the chain of evidence. Its prophecy is fulfilled and fulfilling. We have the mighty chain that will bind the old adversary! We can read it and understand it. The devil can not break the mighty chain of evidence that the Bible is from God, and Jesus is the Christ.

It is impossible to be an infidel, utterly impossible. So much so, that the Lord said, "He that believeth not shall be damned." The word of the Lord--his two witnesses in the hands of the people--is rising, and will fly above the world in spite of the devil's wiles to pull them down.

But where is the angel that is to bind old Satan down? John said he saw an angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to them that dwell on the earth. And another angel followed him, saying, Babylon is down, (the devil is bound, of course.) Then the gospel chain does the work, but what angel carries it? /276/ Which one of the angels ? John has just told us in the few verses I read to-night. He said, I saw the armies of heaven united and following the Lord's Word. He saw the fulfillment of the prayer of Jesus, in the seventeenth chapter of John, when he says, Father, I pray that they may be kept in the truth, and one, as we are, that the world may believe. When the Lord's people unite on his Word, follow it, obey it, and live by it, they are strong enough to bind the old deceiver. Jesus said it--not I. United in the truth, and on the truth, in the Lord, and following his Word, they are strong enough to bind him-- but in their divided condition they can not do it. It is union;--that is the mighty angel John had just spoken o£ The armies of heaven united, following the true and faithful Word of the Lord, is the angel, and the Word of the Lord the chain. It is so made out here. And I pray that the angel may come soon, that the Lord's people may soon be united, that they may bind old Satan down. There is some work to do. There is a great deal of work to do.

But, says one, "don't you think it is a heavenly angel that preaches the gospel?" Don't you know better? We have said in one of our lectures that Michael never had the power to preach one word of the gospel. Gabriel never was commissioned to do it. Paul said, "Unto the angels"--that is, the heavenly ones--"hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak." An angel came to Cornelius, but was not allowed to say one word of the gospel to him, but told him to send for Peter. A heavenly angel came to Philip, but was not allowed to say one word to the eunuch, but sent Philip to preach to him. The angels in heaven are not allowed to preach the gospel.

The Lord's people are the angel, then. They are the only ones the Lord allows to preach the gospel, unless he has changed since. Peter was at the house of Cornelius. /277/ The dispensation is the same; the laws have not changed since then; then let us be at work. Good Lord grant that Babylon may come down; that the mighty angel--the Lord's united people--may lay hold of the mighty chain, the Word of the Lord, and present its evidences, and the fulfillment of its prophecies to the infidel world, so that the devil can not break the mighty chain of testimony. He is to be bound a thousand years.

Could any thing be better than to know that we--the Lord's people here--have the blessed privilege of binding old Satan one thousand years? Could anything be better than this gracious and heaven-high promise of our divine Redeemer, that we can follow the Word of the Lord, and present its evidence to the world so that old Satan can not break the chain of testimony; and the world will acknowledge Jesus, and bow and worship him?

Get up! do not fold your arms and say, "Lord send the angel from heaven to bind the old adversary ;" we have to do the work ourselves. What a glorious work it is!