RUSSIA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21296, 24 September 1932, Page 14

RUSSIA

(Published by Arrangement)" ' . 'HJ

BY BEREAN CHBISTADELBHIAN Known as Ross (the name of an obscure people inhabiting the region north of the Danube), this tremendous country is developing on a scale comparable to the rapid rise to power of the j ancient Assyrian empire. The political upheaval which demolished a corrupt autocracy, secular and ecclesiastical, cleared f; the way for a new order, the merits or' demerits of which are not in the scope of this article. The revolutionaries who dethroned the French monarchy (the same corrupt system in Church and State) were made to experience a terrible reaction, through one serious mistake—that is, they - expunged the name of God from every-';® thing connected with their new order, but - were eventually compelled by an awful reprisal to give "Glory to the God of | Heaven " (Revelation xi., 13.) Though at the present moment there seems to be a certain amount of religious liberty (individually), yet the fact remains that from it® inception the new order in Russia has made the same blunder by expunging God's name all its affairs. Past Judgments One of the hardest things to remember (applied to individuals, communities and nations) is the examples of the past. The latter-day invasion of the land of Israel by the great northern confederacy will experience the same truth of God's pronouncement; " Whosoever toucheth you toucheth the apple of His eye." Christianity is bound up with the future of Russia just as the Kingdom of God in the past was affected by "the Assyrians (n. Kings, xix.) The. Christian hope is still the "hope of Israel," the same as in Paul's day (Acts xxviii., «20). The policy of the new order in Russia is rightfully regarded as a menace to world peace. On the other hand, the divine record proves that God clashes one nation against another when their crimes warrant such a procedure. One of God's principles is: "First pure, then peaceable." So as the Jewish race reject tlieir own Messiah, Jesus Christ the King of the. Jews, lasting peace would be impossible in Palestine. The prophetical forecast is that through the latter-day Russo-Assyrian invasion, two-thirds of the then population of Palestine will be destroyed, and the purified remaining third will ask their-, deliverer, with the deepest gratitude, "What are these wounds in your hands!" (Book of Zachariah xiii., 14.) The invaders retreating with the loss of fivesixths of their huge army (Book of Ezekiel xxxix., 2.) Christians of the Dark Ages In the ecclesiastical systems of Europe in the dark ages, Christianity in relation to the hope of Israel was almost- completely lost, and the following record in that valuable book, "H&Jp to the Memory of History," stands out in letters of illumination: "The hope of Israel rediscovered by Dr. Thomas, M.D. (Christadelphian), 1848, A.D." > With all that has been written on the subject by the late Dr. Thomas, R. Roberts and others, darkness still prevails in the European Churches, and to a great extent among the Protestant Churches of the favoured British Empire, who, as far as doctrine is concerned, are in a very corrupt state, still holding on to those unscriptural fables* of the fourth and sixth centuries, viz., "Trinitaiiani-m." "Immortal Soulism," '-'The Devil a Super Human Being," etc. The "immortal soul" re-

ligion of the leading "lights" of the nineteenth v century, John Wesley, Charles Spurgeon, William Booth and hundreds of thousands of lesser "stars," who have fallen from' the ecclesiastical fnn\nr>cnt, will have vanished like a great nightmare before the glorious light oPisrael's I niversal King, the Illustrious Son of David, King of Israel, and Son of God paternity of first birth. Reader..—Peace will never b<> brought about by human agency. Man is not the Lord of Creation; and what is more to the point as affecting yourself, the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, which Paul stated was the power of God unto salvation to everyone believing it, is not to be fcanu among the Churches. Any member of the Berean Christadelphians would be glad to enlighten you about that Gospel from the Holy Scriptures. >T. J. CONNOLLY.