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Colonel Conder

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passing through the Royal Military College at Woolwich. Five years he did arduous survey work in the Holy Land, and about the same time in Cyprus. He then spent 16 years in Egypt, and after an interval of some years returned thither Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, in the capacity of Britain's chief representative in Egypt. In July, 1914, he paid a brief visit to Britain, and was about to return to his duties when the great European war broke out; in fact, he was actually on the way when a telegram summoned him back, the man in whom the whole of Britain had absolute confidence, the man that knew the Holy Land, Cyprus, and Egypt better than anyone. Combine all these facts, and who can fail to see that his career was specially fitted for the outworking of the divine plan. This was the man who saw in the plain of Esdraelon the scene of Armageddon. The Irish Question or Belgian neutrality never troubled him.

Colonel Conder.

This gentleman (then Major Conder), who was Lord Kitchener's fellow-surveyor in Palestine for the Ordnance Survey, also heartily supports the verdict of Lord Kitchener respecting Esdraelon. He has written :

"If another campaign should ever occur in Palestine, the Megiddo is said by military men to be the most likely spot for a battle, its position being so important."

Keeping in view all the foregoing inspired and uninspired evidence, can we not plainly see that

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the retreating Russians and Germans will be allowed to reach the plain of Esdraelon, in other words, Armageddon, and will then be overtaken by Christ and His mighty hosts? In this connection we remember His words to Pilate nearly 19 centuries ago :

"If my kingdom were of this world (kosmos-world, as in verse 20) then would my servants fight' (John xviii. 36).

Now will have arrived the time for His servants to fight, as it is so unmistakably put in the Psalms :—

"To execute vengeance upon the nations, and punishments upon the people; to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron; to execute upon them the vengeance written: This honour have all his saints' (Psa. cxlix. 7-9).

A Punitive Expedition.

There is no other means by which the world can be made to learn righteousness. Preaching cannot do it; never has done it, and never will. God has instituted preaching for a very different purpose, namely, to take out of the nations "a people for his name " (Acts. xv. 14). The world will be taught right thinking and right doing in quite a different way. The God of Israel in the Bible says so. The prophet says:

"When thy judgments are in the earth, the

A Punitive Expedition

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inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness (Isa. xxvi. 9).

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And Jesus, in His Apocalyptic programme, in speaking of that era, says :

"Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? For thou only art holy for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest' (Rev. xv. 4).

It will mean a terrible time for the world at large, such trouble as the world has never previously experienced; not even the unparalleled European war of our day will compare with it. The prophet greatly beloved" speaks of it thus :—

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"There shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time and at that time thy people shall be delivered" (Dan xii. 1).

So far reaching will the trouble be that

"The slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth: they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung upon the ground" (Jer. xxv. 33).

That may be terrible reading, but any revulsion of feeling, caused thereby, vanishes when we are made aware of the character of "the slain of the Lord." We are told in verse 31 of the same chapter :

'A noise shall come even to the ends of the

earth; for the Lord hath a controversy with the nations, he will plead with all flesh; he will give them that are wicked to the sword."

God's Ways.

There will be no half measures then. God tells He will then say :

us so.

"I have long time holden my peace; I have been still and refrained myself now will I cry like a travailing woman; I will destroy and devour at once" (Isa. xlii. 14).

The cause and effect are unique :

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"The Lord hath a controversy with the nations. Evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth" (Jer. xxv. 31, 32).

The Psalms vividly depict how the earth will appear at that awful juncture; here is a sample :

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"Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth (Psa. xlvi. 8).

If this be your first introduction to these things, we can read your thoughts. You are thinking it a sorry picture, one you have no sympathy with, no desire nor place for. Yes; and that is just what the mind of a child would be on being shown an operating theatre where a surgeon was engaged in

An Ideal King

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removing some malignant growths from a human being. In all things, however, we want to consider the end", and the Psalmist proceeds to tell us that after the desolations :

He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire. Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth" (Psalm xlvi. 9, 10).

"" Immanuel

An Ideal King.

God with us" in the person of the Messiah. David sang of Him when with a prophet's eye he could see Him as King in Immanuel's Land." He said :

"He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth. Men shall be blessed in him all nations shall call him blessed" (Psa. lxxii. 6, 17).

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As was truly said by another lover of Israel and Israel's Land, this time of Restitution:

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"God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began " (Acts iii. 21).

We could well fill volume upon volume with extracts from those writings of the prophets. Not a prophet of Israel is there who has not in some way

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