The day of the Lord - Chambers, Oswald
(“The Day of the Lord,” Tongues of Fire, May 1915)
He sun shall be changed into darkness and the moon into blood, ere the great, open day of the lord arrives. Acts 2:20 (moffatt)
The day of the lord is at hand,
at hand: the storms roll up the sky:
the nations sleep starving on heaps of gold;
all dreamers toss and sigh;
the night is darkest before the morn;
when the pain is the sorest, the child is born
and the day of the lord is at hand.
Gather you, gather you, angels of god
freedom, and mercy, and truth:
come! For the earth is grown coward and old,
come down. And renew us her youth.
Wisdom, self-sacrifice, daring, and love,
haste to the battle-field, stoop from above,
to the day of the lord at hand.
Gather you, gather you, hounds of hell
famine, and plague, and war;
idleness, bigotry, cant, and misrule,
gather, and fall in the snare!
Hireling and mammonite, bigot and knave,
crawl to the battle-field, sneak to your grave,
in the day of the lord at hand.
Who would sit down and sigh for a lost age of gold,
while the lord of all ages is here?
True hearts will leap up at the trumpet of god,
and those who can suffer, can dare.
Each old age of gold was an iron age too,
and the meekest of saints may find stern work to do.
In the day of the lord at hand.
Kingsley22
Distraction of nations
For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. (Matthew 24:7)
The words of Charles Kingsley quoted above are rousingly appropriate for that day of blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke, the day of the lord, so near at hand. To consider that the flower of the british empire will be mown down this summer, that the flower of Germany is being exterminated, the flower of France is broken and shattered in the soil of flanders,23 is really appalling. Truly it is a day of blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke. Pictures and poems inspired by broken hearts, and the dissipation of tender and beautiful ideals, have been and are being painted and written, daring almost to blasphemy, in a realisation born of agony.
It is easy to criticise from the severe security of a crystallised orthodoxy, such conceptions, but we had better remember that the cry of the human heart, long blinded to god by the god of this age, when suddenly made to see by the alchemy of hell in slaughter, sees with distorted and blurred vision, but beware lest we forget that such things may be the half-way expression to worship. Pray for them, you who have got better sight and clearer understanding. Our duty is to serve by intercession. In these days when there are wild interpretations of his words, greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends, remember that they are his words. If in the inspiration of the terror of war, artist or poet has made the blunder of James and john when they said in early zeal that they could drink of his cup and be baptised with his baptism, why any more than these disciples should they be made out to be belittlers of the great atonement? We who know that the love of god is revealed in that while we were yet enemies Christ died for us, ought to have more of his spirit who redeemed us than to criticise; we are called to pray for them the effectual prayer.
Distress of nations
Upon the earth distress of nations, in perplexity for the roaring of the sea and the billows, men expiring for fear, and for expectation of the things which are coming on the inhabited earth. (Luke 21:2526 RV mg)
Let us not imagine that distress of nations is exactly war. War is the natural inspiration of a nations challenged pride; but distress of nations is the diabolic inspiration of covetousness, leading people to revolution and mutiny and anarchy. Psalm 65:7 says, which stilleth the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, and the tumult of the peoples, and those words might well put us on to the right track for the meaning of our lords words quoted above the roaring of the sea refers to the nations.
Those ominous mutterings before the war, those sinister sounds during the war, on the Clyde, those irregular undisciplined outbursts in neutral countries like America, and the stormy petrels which appear from time to time in Germany are all big with portent. On Wednesday, march 3rd, 1915:
A telegram from Berlin states that on the occasion of the second reading of the budget for the ministry of the interior in the prussian diet, Dr. Liebnecht, the socialist member, speaking before an almost empty house, said that the bourgeois attitude on the franchise question did not mean the democratisation of government, but more consistent plutocratisation through plural voting. For the national liberals, he said, the war is an important economical and political business. The democratisation of foreign and domestic policy in all states would have prevented the war. The only salvation for the mass of the people is an international class war. Therefore away with the hypocrisy of party peace. Forward to class war against war.
These are grave indications, and just to consider that when the flower of our own country, of France and Germany, are gone, who will be able to restrain the lawless mobs? Truly the words of our lord are full of fearsome warning, men expiring for fear. It is also opportune here to quote Abraham Lincoln in reference to a big factor in this distress of nations. He said this just before his assassination
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me, and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of competition in high places will follow, and the moving power of the country will endeavour to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the republic is destroyed.
Much is suppressed, but we as gods children have no right to be taken unawares when our lord speaks so plainly, let us note how history fulfills the word, and watch unto prayer. Our motto ought not to be business as usual, or victory as usual, but rather nothing us usual.
Delivered from nations
But watch ye at every season, making supplication, that ye may prevail to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the son of man. (Luke 21:36 RV )
There is yet, thank god, ample opportunity for repentance and we children of god must beware of two extremes: the one the Jonah-mood where indignation with god arises from the fact that gods judgements are conditional, like his promises, and just because the nine vites repented, the conditional judgements of god which Jonah had pronounced seemed to fail. Gods purpose is not so much to vindicate the word of his servants as to bring to pass his divine purpose. Now there is a type of prophetic study that is apt to produce just this hard defiant severity.
The other extreme is to refine all prophetic utterances relative to the end of this age into mere spiritualised imagery, and to deify the emotions of human interest. The day of the lord is an awful joy in the scripture use of the phrase, for it is the final vindi- cation of goodness and the final establishment of righteousness.
Do not be ignorant of our times, look up. Let intercession entrench itself in all our plans for those
In the trenches, enwheel the vessels and embrace them below, above and around; let intercession ascend the heavens and guard the airy premises. For it is not peace that is to be born of this war, but the day of the vengeance of our god, the drawing nigh of redemption.
And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his own arm brought salvation unto him, and his righteousness, it upheld him. (Isaiah 59:16 RV)
Devotion in nations
Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the son of man. (Luke 21:36)
The escape in that verse must be interpreted in its evangelical context, namely, it must be made to convey the idea, not of saving ones skin, because it is a word of our lords, and he never taught such self-preservation, but escape must be made to mean deliverance from all personal forms of selfish remembrance, and to stand before the son of man undisturbed, with the heart at leisure from itself to soothe and sympathise, and with ample power to give to others through gods good grace.
You who know by his revelation in the words of the bible, that the earth is the lords and his saints, and that human world systems have foisted them- selves, so to speak, on gods earth and these must pass by cataclysms or otherwise because there is nothing eternal in them, and then the meek shall inherit the earth. Surely in the blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke we may be accounted worthy to escape from it all standing before the son of man unsullied and uncompromised, devoted directors and helpers together with him!