As we enter a New Year, we desire to extend to our readers at home and abroad an expression of our goodwill in the spirit of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that the Father of mercies and God of all grace will be unto individuals and families, the God of their salvation and a refuge in every season of need. We live in troublous times, and yet days wherein, we have no doubt, the purposes of God are being fulfilled and in the process of accomplishment relative to His kingdom. Whether young or old, we would enjoin our readers who fear the Lord and love the Cause of the Gospel of Christ, to have regard not only to the present, but also to the future spiritual needs of His Church at home and abroad, among white and black, in giving themselves much to secret prayer for the coming of the Holy Spirit among us in abundant power, to do His gracious and great work in the souls of many sinners to their conversion, and to build up the people of God on their most holy faith. However long or short a period the Lord will still leave any of us in the world, let each one solemnly consider the above recommendation which we make humbly and with all seriousness. And may our readers in all their comforts and afflictions, in the present and during days to come, be enabled to discern the hand and the love and the wisdom of a covenant God. May Jesus become increasingly precious to those whose hope and confidence is placed in Him alone. Our time and days here will soon pass; but Jesus has intimated that He has gone to prepare a place for His people in the great Eternity. Let each one of us then seek grace and more grace to be more lovingly and
faithfully devoted to Christ than ever before, to the end of life’s journey. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be known in the experience of each one of our readers during every step of their sojourneying here.
Proposed Uprooting of Israel.
Having regard to a great deal of what Scripture asserts and reveals concerning the Jews as a people, which applies to their past history, and to much in the present which has overtaken them by way of persecution and tribulation, even in the last war, in Europe, and to their future and their being brought to look to their Messiah, the Lord Jesus, in a day of power—”What shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?” (Romans xi. 15)—we as professing belief in the Word of God and the Christian faith must avoid anything at all savouring of an anti-Semitic character. Now amid the babel of political noise and propaganda, we find one matter clearly defined, viz., a desire and design to destroy the present State of Israel. The Iraq Government on 13th November, 1956, issued a memorandum which concluded with these words: “The Iraq Government is fully convinced that the uprooting of Israel is the only practical method to secure peace and order in the Middle East, otherwise Israel will continue its aggressive policy. Iraq appeals to world powers and peace-loving nations to co-operate in uprooting Israel.” Well, there is no ambiguity about these statements; and those have been the declared sentiments of Nasser of Egypt and his friends for years. The Jews were put to death in millions during the last war by Hitler, and now the same is to be done to them in Palestine, if wicked men will obtain their purpose. We have no intention of delving into the political pros and cons of divided opinion in our own nation about the action of our Government in going into Egypt recently. But we are profoundly relieved that our Government is not one of those world governments, who have directly or indirectly been involved in siding with Egypt and the other Arab bitter enemies of God’s ancient people. Let the Jews have their faults and sins, which they indeed have; but Scripture warns us as to how God deals with their enemies and persecutors, and in this aspect of the matter, we are not unaware of the fact that their enemies were used as rods of punishment upon them. But what did God do with their enemies afterwards?