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Uev. James M. Gray 211
tion with the call of Abraham, recorded in the twelfth chapter of
Genesis. Abraham was the father and the founder of that nation.
For what purposes does God wish to use Israel? First, as a reposi-
tory for His truth in the earth. Every book of the Bible was written
by a Jew, and the Jews kept this Bible intact in all the centuries down
until the time of Christ and His apostles. But God desired Israel also
as a channel for the incoming of the personal Redeemer to the earth,
the Seed of the woman who should bruise the serpent’s head, and the
Seed of Abraham in whom all the families of the earth should be
blessed. And, as you know, Israel gave to the world its only Saviour
though they crucified Him when He came. But, third, God desired
Israel as a national witness to Himself before the other nations of
the earth, a witness to His unity. His supremacy, justice, holiness,
goodness, truth, and love.
The Root Cause of This War
Now while Israel fulfilled the two first of those purposes, she never
yet has fulfilled the last. She kept the sacred oracles intact, she gave
the personal Redeemer to the world, but she has never been a faithful
and true national witness to God among the other nations of the earth.
And what is the result? The result is set concretely before us in this
awful confiict of the nations today, for there is not a single nation
that is living in subjection and obedience to God,—not one. In other
words, there is not a single Christian nation on the earth. Thank
God, there are many Christians in all the nations, in our own per-
haps more than in any other; but there is not a single nation which,
as such, is serving God and His Son Jesus Chrst.
Also, so far as Israel herself is concerned, the result of her un-
faithfulness is seen in the fact that she is scattered among all the
nations of the earth, suffering, persecuted, or, as one of the prophets
says, "sifted as corn is sifted in a sieve" among them all; and yet
it is God’s will that not a single grain shall fall to the ground.
In other words, God has not forgotten or changed His purpose con-
cerning Israel. And the day is coming,—all the prophets are a unit
in testifying to it,—when Israel shall go back to her own land again;
at first, indeed, in unbelief, but ultimately, as the result of purifying
judgments which God shall pour out upon her at the hands of the
Gentile nations, she shall turn to Him in obedience and faith. In that
day Christ’s feet shall stand upon the Mount of Olives, the ^prophet
Zachariah says so, and in that day Israel as a nation shall cry out
in the language of Isaiah, "Lo, this is our God; we have waited for
Him; We will rejoice and be glad in His salvation." And when that
day comes, Israel will take up the broken threads of her witness and
testimony to God and to His Son which shall bring the nations in
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