Page 61 - Jesus is coming - Class version

58 JESUS IS COMING.
has caused suspicion of Mary's character, and it calls for
the greatest exercise of faith to believe in the Holy Ghost
Fatherhood of her Son. It professes the holiest purity
where the world can see only fornication and shame. And
yet this astonishing event rested for centuries upon a
single passage of prophecy, "Behold a virgin shall con-
ceive and bear a son." Isa. 7:14, and although it was
Lord to the Jews as a special and important
given by jthe
ign they will not rely upon it, because it occurs in a
poetical book, and so they reject the Babe of Bethlehem.
But shall we, who believe that Isa. 7:14 has been
literally fulfilled condemn the Jews for not accepting it,
and yet justify ourselves in rejecting the literal fulfillment
of this plain statement in Rev. 20? God forbid. Remem-
ber that He says, "Behold I come quickly; blessed is he
that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book."
Rev. 22:7; 1:3. Oh then let us earnestly entreat you, to
heed this one passage even though it may pierce through
.
24
your established opinions. Don't reject it. Don't pervert
its simple teaching, for it is God's holy Word of prophecy
and is as immovable as the rocky fastness of the moun-
tains yea more for these shall pass away "but the
Word of the Lord endureth forever."
Dean Alford's Comments.
And here, dear reader, let us invite your careful atten-
tion to Dean Alford's comment upon this passage, viz.:
"this is the first resurrection." He says : "It will have been
long ago anticipated by the readers of this commentary,
that I cannot consent to distort its words from their plain
sense and chronological place in the prophecy, on account
of any considerations of difficulty, or any risk of abuses
which the doctrine of the Millennium may bring with it.
Those who lived next to the Apostles, and the whole
Church for three hundred years, understood them in the
plain literal sense; and it is a strange sight in these days
(24) Heb. 4:12. For the word viding asunder of soul and spirit,
of God is quick, and powerful, and of the joints and marrow,
and sharper than any twoedged and is a discerner of the
sword, piercing even to the di- thoughts and intents of the heart