and fidelity to Him—not the Lamb. The Son of man judging as the Judge from God, so to speak, not wielding His power as King of kings and Lord of lords.
But upon this judgment[1] (the drying up of the Euphrates), the last struggle must. commences and Satan uses all his energies to prepare his forces: but it is only for the battle of the great day of God Almighty. This is done (being a vision in the midst of the course of the judgment) by the influence and principles of the positive exercise of infidel self-will and enmity to Christ’s power—the concentrating spirit of empire in the beast—the Roman power—and the spirit of popery—here, having changed its secular hierarchical power as a beast for its false influence on minds as a prophet. We see the sort of place this holds in Judah in Jeremiah’s time,
- ↑ Although I do not doubt this will have an actual physical accomplishment in gathering of the nations, or their powers and armies, to battle, yet, as that which concerns us all, I would say, that in that which the Church is entitled to understand—the more hidden working of the enemy in principle—this is just going on: that a moral, and so far partial, fulfilment of what preceded has taken place, and there is that which morally gathers them now taking place, so that we have a date of locality as to the Church’s spiritual judgment and position given: the separation then only marked in character, and morally also.
