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By URIAH SMITH

Contents

1. THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL

Foreword

Introduction

1.    A Captive in Babylon's Royal Court

II.    The King Dreams of World Empires

III.    Integrity Tested by Fire

IV.    The Most High Rules

V.    The Handwriting on the Wall

VI.    Daniel in the Lion's Den

VII.    The Struggle for World Dominion

VIII.    The World Arraigned Before the Court of Heaven

IX.    A Prophetic Yardstick Spans the Centuries

X.    God Intervenes in World Affairs

XI.    Unrolling the Scroll of the Future

XII.    History's Coming Climax

2.    THE PROPHECIES OF REVELATION

Introduction

I.    The Divine Method of Prophetic Revelation

II.    The Letters of Jesus to the Churches

III.    "Behold, I stand at the Door and Knock"

IV.    Before the Throne of God

V.    The Challenge of the Sealed Book

VI.    Breaking the Seals on the Book of Prophecy

VII.    The Seal of the Living God

VIII.    The Collapse of the Roman Empire

IX.    The Moslem World in Prophecy

X.    The World-Wide Proclamation of the Second Advent

XI.    The Battle Between the Bible and Atheism

XII.    The Background of Religious Intolerance

XIII.    The Age Long Struggle for Religious Freedom

XIV.    God's Final Warning to a Wicked World

XV.    Preparing the Vials of Divine Wrath

XVI.    Seven Plagues Devastate the Earth

XVII.    A World Union of Church and State

XVIII.    The Doom of Modern Babylon

XIX.    King of Kings and Lord of Lords

XX.    The World's Millennial Night

XXI.    A New Heaven and a New Earth

XXII.    Peace at Last References Bibliography

"We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto you do well that you take heed, as unto a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts."

2 Peter 1: 19

"Believe in the Lord your God, so shall you be established; believe His prophets, so shall you prosper."

2 Chronicles 20:20

Foreword

This volume is devoted largely to tracing the story of God's marvelous dealing with nations and with notable individuals in fulfillment of the great prophecies of the Bible in the past, but more particularly to the unrolling of the prophetic scroll as seen in the stirring events of the throbbing present, and of those impending in the immediate and ominous future. Such events are of the greatest personal significance to every man and woman. No one can afford to live in a time like ours without studying the vital issues it has pleased God to open to our understanding in this fast moving age. Such issues have eternal consequences for every soul. The author of this book lived and wrote more than a century ago, and in the literary and polemic style of those times. His interpretation of prophecy, however, and the doctrines of truth he established through intensive study of the Scriptures, have borne the test of time and of diligent scrutiny by Bible students. Indeed, they have borne the test so well that they are the more worthy of being perpetuated in a revised edition, which it is our great pleasure to offer in this present attractive form. No effort has been spared by the editors to simplify and clarify the presentation of truth in the fluent and appealing diction of the writer, to verify all historical and exegetical sources drawn upon by the author, and in notable instances to fortify the teaching by new evidence not available at the time of the original writing. They have sought also to bring to bear upon prophetic interpretation the additional weight of significance so obviously discernible in political, social, and religious developments pressing upon our attention in these culminating days of the gospel era. Thoughtful and open-minded consideration of these vital themes by every candid reader is earnestly invited.

THE PUBLISHERS

Introduction

That the book of Daniel was written by the person whose name it bears, there is no reason to doubt. Ezekiel, who was contemporary with Daniel, bears testimony, through the Spirit of prophecy, to his piety and uprightness, ranking him in this respect with Noah and Job: "If I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out My fury upon it in blood, to cut off from it man and beast; though Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as I live, said the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness." Ezekiel 14: 19, 20. His wisdom, also, even at that early day, had become proverbial, as appears from the same writer. To the prince of Tyrus he was directed by the Lord to say, "Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee." Ezekiel 23: 3. But above all, our Lord recognized him as a prophet of God, and bade His disciples understand the predictions given through him for the benefit of His church: "When you therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place (who reads, let him understand), then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains." Matthew 24: 15, 16.

Though we have a more minute account of his early life than is recorded of that of any other prophet, yet his birth and lineage are left in complete obscurity, except that he was of the royal line, probably of the house of David, which had at this time become very numerous. He first appears as one of the noble captives of Judah, in the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, at the beginning of the seventy years' captivity, 606 BC Jeremiah and Habakkuk were yet uttering their prophecies. Ezekiel began soon after, and a little later, Obadiah; but all these finished their work years before the close of the long and brilliant career of Daniel. Three prophets only succeeded him, Haggai and Zechariah, who exercised the prophetic office for a brief period contemporaneously, 520-518 BC, and Malachi, the last of the Old Testament prophets, who flourished a little season about 397 BC

During the seventy years' captivity of the Jews, 606-536 BC, predicted by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 25: 11), Daniel resided at the court of Babylon, most of the time prime minister of that monarchy. His life affords a most impressive lesson of the importance and advantage of maintaining from earliest youth strict integrity toward God, and furnishes a notable instance of a man's maintaining eminent piety, and faithfully discharging all the duties that pertain to the service of God, while at the same time engaging in the most stirring activities, and bearing the weightiest cares and responsibilities that can devolve upon men in this earthly life.

What a rebuke is his course to many at the present day, who, not having a hundredth part of the cares to absorb their time and engross their attention that he had, yet plead as an excuse for their almost utter neglect of Christian duties, that they have no time for them. what will the God of Daniel say to such, when He comes to reward His servants impartially, according to their improvement or neglect of the opportunities offered them?

But it is not alone nor chiefly his connection with the Chaldean monarchy, the glory of kingdoms, that perpetuates the memory of Daniel, and covers his name with honor. From the height of its glory he saw that kingdom decline, and pass into other hands. Its period of greatest prosperity was embraced within the limits of the lifetime of one man. So brief was its supremacy, so transient its glory. But Daniel was entrusted with more enduring honors. While beloved and honored by the princes and potentates of Babylon, he enjoyed an infinitely higher exaltation in being beloved and honored by God and His holy angels, and admitted to a knowledge of the counsels of the Most High.

His prophecy is, in many respects, the most remarkable of any in the sacred record. It is the most comprehensive. It was the first prophecy giving a consecutive history of the world from that time to the end. It located the most of its predictions within well-defined prophetic periods, though reaching many centuries into the future. It gave the first definite chronological prophecy of the coming of the Messiah. It marked the time of this event so definitely that the Jews forbid any attempt to interpret its numbers, since that prophecy shows them to be without excuse in rejecting Christ; and so accurately had its minute and literal predictions been fulfilled down to the time of Porphyry, AD 250, that he declared (the only loophole he could devise for his hard-pressed skepticism) that the predictions were not written in the age of Babylon, but after the events themselves had occurred. This evasion, however, is not now available; for every succeeding century has borne additional evidence to the truthfulness of the prophecy, and we are just now, in our own day, approaching the climax of its fulfillment.

The personal history of Daniel reaches to a date a few years subsequent to the subversion of the Babylonian kingdom by the Medes and Persians. He is supposed to have died at Shushan, or Susa, in Persia, about the 530 BC, aged nearly ninety-four years; his age being the probable reason why he did not return to Judea with other Hebrew captives, under the proclamation of Cyrus (Ezra 1: 1), 536 BC, which marked the close of the seventy years' captivity.

 

Uriah-Smith---Daniel-and-Revelation.pdf

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