The prophecy of a millennium we find only in the final book of the New Testament, the book of Revelation ; but for the detail of the blessing with which the earth is to be filled at that time, we must go to , the prophets of the Old Testament. And here we find, as the apostle of the Gentiles assures us, Israel's promises (Rom. 9:3), as in the New Testament we find the Christian ones. As we are " blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places" (Eph. 1:3), so Israel has as to the earth by the sure word of God, whose gifts and calling are without repentance, the adoption as first-born among its families (Ex. 4:22). Hence, wherever the picture of earthly blessedness is presented by the prophets, Israel is in the forefront of it. The destination of the Church is to heaven, but Israel is to " blossom and bud, and fill the face of the earth with fruit." (Isa. 27:6.) And "out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem " (chap. 2:3).

The blessing of the world is thus bound up with the blessing of Israel; and while Israel is an outcast from her land, and under the rod of the divine displeasure, the world also waits, and the prophetic history is suspended. The whole present time is a gap in Old-Testament prophecy, in which God is doing no doubt a more wonderful work, and in which the "mysteries of the kingdom of heaven" bring out "things kept secret from the foundation of the world." (Matt. 13:II, 35.) When these shall be finished, and the fullness of the Gentiles now gathering for heaven be come in, then the broken-off thread of this history will be resumed, and followed to its completion.

In the present time, Israel is thus as it were dead and buried, and when she appears again, her appearance is spoken of as a resurrection from the dead. " Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel ; and ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, and brought you up out of your graves, and shall put My Spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land :then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord." (Ezek. 37:12-14.)

But not only does Israel come up again as by a resurrection; the same thing is true of the nations of the earth with which she was in connection when her obliteration from the map of the world took place; they too have had their decay and dissolution, and been succeeded by others in the field in which they flourished ; and they too are to revive and take their place again as of old, and with Israel receive their judgment and their blessing from God. This it is important to understand, as ignorance of it is leading many into confusion, in applying to the physically dead these figures of national resurrection. Thus God says to Israel by Isaiah :" Thy dead shall live, My corpses* shall arise. *"Nebelah:a word without a plural, but frequently used in a plural sense, as in chap. 5:25, and so connected with" the plural verb.- (Delitzsch.)* Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust; for thy . dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead" (chap. 26:19).

So also Hosea:"After two days He will revive us:on the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight" (chap. 6:2).

So Ezekiel, in the passage just now quoted ; and so Daniel, who is perhaps of all most commonly misunderstood :"And many of those that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt."
It is not my purpose now, nor needful to it, to prove the application of these scriptures or fix their meaning. It is not of Israel that I purpose now to speak, but of the nations in historic association with Israel when as yet she held her place among them. And it is not a question of the symbols under which in Scripture their revival is spoken of, but of the fact of the revival itself as Scripture declares it. A comparison here of Daniel and Revelation will very quickly show that it is a fact, parallel to and synchronous with that of that revival of Israel in the latter days, of which, it cannot be denied by any simple reader of it, that scripture speaks.

The theme of Daniel is evidently the " times of the Gentiles,"-that is, of their domination over Israel. It begins with the Babylonish captivity, and the setting up of the first of the four Gentile empires, and predicts their course until the setting up of the kingdom of the Son of Man, and the subjection of all to Him under whom Israel will yet find deliverance and blessing. The second and the seventh chapters, in the visions of Nebuchadnezzar and the prophet himself, span this whole period. The second chapter shows us the image in its continuance until the stone cut without hands smites and destroys it, and then fills the earth. The seventh yet more plainly shows the fourth beast existing till the Son of Man comes in the clouds of heaven, and supreme and everlasting dominion is given to Him.

Now a great difficulty here seems to present itself as to the application of this. The fourth or Roman empire, according to this, lasts until the coming of the Lord in the clouds of heaven. Yet if we are to take this in its simple apparent meaning, it might well be asked how this can be shown to be consistent with the fact. Christ is not so come, and yet the Roman empire is in fact passed away; and that not smitten in its height with a sudden blow, but after a long process of corruption and decay. How shall we account for this, then ? For the Word of God is perfect, and "Scripture cannot broken:" heaven and earth shall pass away, but His glorious Word shall never pass away.

The gap in Old-Testament prophecy, of which we have spoken, is not, of course, revealed by the Old Testament itself. We must look to the New Testament for it. And here it is the book of Revelation comes in to supplement the book of Daniel. No one doubts, or can doubt, that the first beast of Rev. 13:, found again in 17:, is in fact the fourth of Dan. 7:Yet there is this that at first sight would seem inconsistent with it, that in Revelation the prophet, writing in the times of the Roman empire, sees it yet as rising once more from the sea. This, it may be said perhaps, is but a glance back at its original beginning:the seventeenth chapter, however, negatives this, while it explains the apparent anomaly; for here, the beast as seen by the prophet is identified with its own eighth head, while he yet recognizes what seems to be again a contradiction to this, that he is under the sixth head. " The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sitteth. They are also seven kings:five are fallen, and one is"-the sixth,-"and another is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition."

Thus the empire that he sees is a future form of one then existing; and not only so, but it is also one which "was, and is not" but which appears of course again, as it is stated in the eighth verse :"And the beast that thou sawest was, and is not, and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition; and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names are not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and shall come." (R.V.)
The matter is fully cleared, then. The Gentile empire which had enslaved and scattered Israel itself breaks up and falls into ruin, but, with Israel, also revives in the latter day. Then indeed in a new form, and as the instrument of the enemy, so that it revives but to go into perdition. This I do not follow out now. It is enough to have shown that the time of the end is marked by the restoration of the Roman empire.

In the eighth chapter of Daniel, we have a similar prophecy as to the third of the Gentile beasts, continuing its history also to the coming of Christ. Imperial rule indeed passes from it, but the kingdom of Alexander has its representative among the notable powers of the latter days. The prophecy has been applied, indeed, to Antiochus Epiphanes, but can only apply to him as a type of a greater, for he who interprets the prophet's vision declares distinctly it is for the "time of the end;" and this is emphasized by repetition:-"Understand, O son of man, for at the time of the end shall be the vision." And again, "Behold, I will make thee know what shall be in the last end of the indignation, for it belongeth to the appointed time of the end' (5:19, R. V.) He too, like the last head of the Roman empire, stands up against the Prince of princes ; and like him also is "broken without hand."

This, there need be no question, is the last "king of the north" in the eleventh chapter, a Grecian king throughout, whose course and end are just like those of the king of the eighth chapter. Zechariah also refers to Greece as in conflict with Israel, when God at last interferes for His people "(chap. 9:13).

But here also the gap in prophecy prepares us for a lapse and revival, similar to what we have seen with regard to Rome; and history already affirms both the one and the other.

The revival of the Roman empire we do not yet see :a remarkable note of preparation has been sounded, however. Rome is once more the capital of a united Italy:and this national resurrection has been witnessed by the present generation ; so sudden and unexpected also was it as to manifest the hand of God in a remarkable way. In but ten years from the commencement of the movement, the disunited states, sundered for centuries, and in continual conflict with one another, had come together. The "swift and comparatively bloodless conquest of the Two Sicilies is one of the most extraordinary incidents in modern history." Venice was gained from Austria; the papal states from the pope. Bone had come to bone, and sinews and flesh covered them, by what might well be deemed a resurrection from the dead.

The revival of Greece, though as yet but partial, had already taken place. Greece had been for a much longer period in a state of utter prostration. From nearly a century and a half before the Christian era, when it succumbed to Rome, for almost two thousand years her history had been but that of her conquerors. Yet Greece is again a kingdom, free, aggressive, growing, and yet to have an eminent though still dependent position in the time near to come :"his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power" (Dan. 8:24).

These two witnesses, Greece and Italy, should be enough by themselves to show us that the time of the end is fast approaching ; but our Lord in the gospel of Luke carries us further, and extends indefinitely this principle of the revival of nations as a sign of this. Not only does He say here, " Behold the fig-tree," as in Matthew,-words of which we have already seen the significance,-but He adds, "and all the trees:" "Behold the fig tree and all the trees ; when they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand; so likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand." (Luke 21:29-31.)

Inasmuch, then, as we have seen that the fig-tree is the figure of the Jewish nation, and its putting forth leaves speaks of its awakening, as it is awakening out of its sleep of centuries; the shooting out of all the trees can only intimate a general outburst of national life and feeling, especially in the lands which come directly into view in Scripture,-the prophetic earth. Is there any thing answering to this, then, to be found among the nations of the present day? If so, in proportion to the breadth of the field of view will be the significance of the sign.

And just now it is not difficult to trace this written in broad characters right across the face of the political heavens. To a united Italy succeeded with scarcely an interval a united Germany, under the leadership of German-Prussia, instead of the less than semi-German Austria. On the other hand, Belgium had some time before seceded from her union with Holland on the same principle:Belgium being Celtic, and Holland Saxon. And the same under-current is at work in the claim of "home-rule " in Celtic Ireland, the cry of "Ireland for the Irish!" already waking up a faint echo of "Wales for the Welsh ! "

Lastly, Russia aims (and has almost attained) to be the head of a Slavonic union, a people whose settlements extend from the Elbe to Kamtchatka, and from the Frozen to the Adriatic Sea, the whole of eastern Europe being mainly occupied by them.

Assuredly, then, the trees are putting forth their leaves; and this spirit of the age will doubtless operate in restoring Israel to her full place among the nations. A foreign element every where, they do not assimilate with the populations among which they sojourn, while their land providentially lies vacant for them. The Word of God assures us of the issue, and it cannot be far off.

The rise of Russia seems not an example of the resurrection of the nations. It is the development of a new power, as significant as any resurrection, and if not known among the nations of the past in Scripture, it is known in the prophetic vision of the future. More and more are interpreters constrained to recognize in Russia the power depicted as coming up against restored Israel in Ezek. 38:and 39:. It is now widely admitted that we should there read (as the Septuagint and lately the Revised Version), " Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal." The connected names in the passage speak for themselves. " Rosh " we have modernized in Russia; "Meshech," in Moscow, Muscovy; "Tubal," in Tobolsk. Of other nations in Gog's company, Persia and Armenia (Togarmah) at least are plain :we need not, for our purpose, examine the rest. How plainly the rise, so late in the world's history, of this last enemy of Israel- spreading down continually nearer toward the " land of unwalled villages," as it is,-is depicted in the challenge, "Art thou he of whom I have spoken in old time, by My servants the prophets of Israel, which prophesied in those days many years, that I would bring thee against them ?"

This fact, that Gog is spoken of not merely here by one, but by the prophets of many years, necessarily leads us to look for him under another name in their writings. Accordingly it is believed by some that he is that power which represents the old Assyrian (as in Isaiah and Micah,) in the last days. As to his position, he may well fill it, and it is even claimed that the title "czar " is "Assyrian." If this be so, Russia also is an example of the resurrection of nations. But we cannot pursue this topic here.

But, at any rate, the indications of the "time of the end " are plain. The trees are putting forth leaves. The winter of the world may struggle fiercely yet, but it is doomed. We know, blessed be God! that "summer is nigh" ! But for this the summer's sun must come. The world's winter is arctic,-winter and night in one; but Christ as the Sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings ; and then the Sun shall not withdraw itself; the days of darkness shall be ended.