Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/95

 the Jew, instead of the Greek and Roman, the guiding spirit in the councils of the Church! "

But our human " if" does not reach deep enough to fathom God's inscrutable purposes, nor is it high and broad enough to unravel all the thoughts and hidden counsels of the Infinite and Eternal One. This, however, we do know, that while Israel is held responsible for its rejection and present attitude to Christ and the gospel, that unto God all things were known from the beginning of the world, and that it was clearly forecast on the prophetic page that so it would be; it is only " after these things" when Messiah returns to build again the tabernacle of David which is fallen, and builds again the ruins thereof, and sets it up, that the residue of men shall seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles upon whom His name shall then be called"

(Acts xv. 13-18).

Then, when "all Israel shall be saved"; when the miracle of a whole nation being born in a day shall first be witnessed on the earth in the case of the Jews; when the full significance of the precious Name " Immanuel " shall be realised in Jesus "dwelling in the midst" of His own people, so that the name of Jerusalem from that day shall be "Jehovah Shammah " (Ezek. xlviii. 35); when there shall at last be not only " thousands of Pauls," but a whole nation who shall burn with the same love and zeal for the glorious Person of their Messiah, and for the ex tension of His Kingdom, which characterised the blessed apostle to the Gentiles, who in so many respects is the type of His nation, then nations, as nations, " shall join themselves unto Jehovah," and the day of which prophets and psalmists sang, and for which they yearned, the day of universal peace and righteousness, when God's way shall be known in all the world, and His saving health among all nations, shall at last break on this earth.

But even when all nations of the earth shall walk in the light of Jehovah, the special position of Israel, as God's peculiar people on the earth, shall still be made manifest.