13 Have mercy upon me, O Yahweh; consider my trouble which I suffer of them that hate me, thou that liftest me up from the gates of death:

If you examine the Psalms where expressions of misery occur, you will find that they all have relation to the moral and mental attitude of the men around him. David suffered from the godlessness of those who became his enemies, and from the proud indifference or brutish inertia of men whose portion is in this life, and who have not set God before them.

In this, David was a preliminary exhibition of Christ, for the spirit of Christ was in him and made use of him to paint, in advance, so to speak, the portrait of the inner personal experiences of the Lord.

Now anyone who lays hold of the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, with the result which those things were given to produce, will feel in fellowship with his sufferings on these points: he will feel alone; he will feel that the present is an evil world in a high sense; he will feel a pilgrim in the midst of it.

It is well to see this; for in proportion as we see it, we are able to reconcile ourselves to our position, and to go through our course with much less chafe than we should experience if we were to go upon the supposition that we were to find things satisfactory in the present.

If we act upon the idea that we are now to find edification, comfort, pleasure in all around, or to any great extent anywhere, we shall be grievously disappointed, because we shall be finding at every step that it is impossible at present to realise the aspirations of our hearts; impossible for a great variety of reasons.

Even if the world were all we could wish, we are in ourselves only flesh and blood just now, and that is a weak thing both physically and spiritually. We do not require to live in the first century to fellowship the sufferings of Christ. We may have thought so in the first days of our spiritual childhood.

We all, no doubt, had the idea that we required to be put in prison and to have the officer of the law come into our houses and take our things, or that we should be led forth to the stake or have our heads cut off, before we should suffer with Christ. We come to see the fallacy of that idea as we grow older. In one respect we are called upon to endure a more difficult martyrdom than the faggot or the block.

The Christadelphian, April 1876

16 Yahweh is known by the judgment which he executeth: the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. Higgaion. Selah.

The march of the rainbowed angel

This New Power of Southern Asia is known to be theocratic, as was that of Joshua and his hosts by the Canaanites, when the walls of Jericho fell at the sounding of Israel's trumpets the seventh and last time. The treading of the winepress in its initiation at Bozrah is accompanied with a great shaking in the land of Israel, by which mountains are overturned, and towers fall, and all walls are prostrated (Ezek. xxxviii. 20); for it is "the day of the great slaughter when the towers fall;" when

"Yahweh causes his glorious voice to be heard, and shows the lighting down of his arm, with the indignation of his anger, and with the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering and tempest, and hailstones; for through the voice of Yahweh shall the Assyrian be beaten down, who smote with a rod" (Isa. xxx. 25,30).

But the Rainbowed Angel's pedal pillars of fire may not halt long at Bozrah. Isaiah in vision saw him "coming from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah;" and describes him as "glorious in his apparel, and travelling in the greatness of his strength" (lxiii. 1).

John's rainbowed angel is symbolical of this traveller, who proclaims himself "mighty to save;" and powerful to tread down the peoples in his anger, and to make them drunk in his fury, and to bring down their strength to the earth (verse 6).

The mutual slaughter of the enemy, the sword called for against him throughout all the mountains of Israel, and the pestilence, make his overthrow coextensive with the land. It reduces the invading hosts to only one sixth of their original force; as it is written,

"I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee" (Ezek. xxxix. 2,4).

This wreck of the invading force falls back upon Assyria, to which the war is transferred from the Holy Land.

A great and marvellous change comes over this country politically, socially, and physically. The peace so long and earnestly prayed for (Psa. cxxii, cxxv, cxxviii), and promised (Psa. lxxii. 3,7; lxxxv. 8,10; Isa. ix. 6,7; xxvi. 12; xxxii. 17; liv. 13; lxvi. 12; Ezek. xxxiv. 25), is at length established; so that "from this day forward" (Ezek. xxxix. 22) there will be no more war in the land of Israel for a thousand years; and the house of Israel will come to know that the ETERNAL SPIRIT is Yahweh their Elohim, manifested in the Lord Jesus Christ and his Brethren, symbolized by the Rainbowed Angel of the Rainbowed Throne.

Eureka 10.6.

17 The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.

To be‭ "‬turned into hell‭" ‬in the scriptural sense,‭ ‬is to be put there for the purpose of being left there.‭ ‬This is the difference between the righteous and the wicked.‭

‭"‬Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell‭"

‭ ‬may be taken as the language of all the righteous,‭ ‬though the individual utterance of the Messiah.‭ ‬Again,

‭ "‬God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave.‭"—(‬Ps.‭ ‬49:15.‭)

But of the other class,‭ ‬it is written:

‭ "‬Drought and heat consume the snow waters,‭ ‬so doth the grave those that have sinned.‭ ‬The womb shall forget him.‭ ‬The worm shall feed sweetly on him.‭ ‬He shall be‭ ‬no more remembered.‭"—(‬Job‭ ‬24:19‭–‬20.‭)

‭ ‬The righteous say at last,

‭ "‬O‭ ‬grave,‭ ‬where is thy victory‭?"

The Christadelphian, Feb 1875