The great pyramid passages and chambers

the dominion and accomplish all his gracious purposes’’—Scripture Studies, Vol. Il, page 75. As foreshadowed by God in the great image, seen by Nebuchadnezzar in his dream and explained by Daniel (Dan. 2: 31-45), various forms of government under Babylonia, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome, have been attempted, but just as the various parts of the image deteriorated from above downwards, first gold, then silver, then brass and lastly iron, so the empires named likewise degenerated both mentally and morally. In the present time of the divisions of the Roman Empire, represented in the great image by the ten toes, though the downward course has been stayed to some extent through the influence of the Reformation, the progress is still toward destruction. Men are using their increased knowledge and their many wonderful discoveries and inventions for their own selfish ends, and, asa result, unrest and discontent are so much on the increase that all thinking people recognize breakers ahead, and are predicting a general wreckage of present institutions.

157 The second purpose was to teach Israel, the chosen people, a much needed lesson. For seventy years they were imprisoned in Babylon and their land was left desolate, and never since then have they had a king to reign over them. When the seventy years were accomplished and all the former wicked generation had died out, only such of their descendants were permitted to return and build the temple and walls of Jerusalem as loved God and had respect to his promises. This was a period of great reformation in Natural Israel, and, dating from Nehemiah’s commission in 454 B.C. to build the walls of Jerusalem, the nation was promised seventy weeks (7 times 70 = 490 years) of continued favour—Dan. 9: 24-27. But, though they never again relapsed into gross forms of idolatry, their moral condition, when the Messiah came at the beginning of the seventieth week, showed that there had been a marked decline. They loved darkness rather than light, and crucified the Holy One. Thirty-seven years later, in the year 70 A.D., God visited his vengeance on his people; and once more destroyed their city and left their land desolate. Since then there has been no nation of Israel, nor will there be till the Gentile Times are fulfilled, and ‘‘he comes whose right it is” to take the Kingdom—Ezek. 21: 25-27.

158 At the end of the seventy weeks, in the year 36 A.D., God first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for his name (Acts 15: 14), and during the course of this Gospel Age, all, chiefly Gentiles, who have been justified by faith in Jesus as the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, and who have denied themselves, and taken up their cross to follow in the Master's footsteps of sacrifice unto death, have had Christ written on their mind and heart by the Holy Spirit—2 Cor. 3:3. But not all who have professed the name of Christ have been truly his disciples. As the Church grew in numbers and influence, the idea took shape that if only she were properly organized under a head, she would be able to do that which others had failed to do,—to rule and bless the world. Godin his wisdom and in pursuance of his great plan of the Ages, permitted the attempt to be made. The great apostate system, called in the Scriptures ‘‘ Babylon the Great,” came into existence, and its head, the Pope, became “ King of kings, and Lord of lords.” What was the result? Far from being saved, the world was plunged into such a depth of ignorance, superstition and moral degradation, that the epoch when the ‘‘Church” was at the height of her power has been universally denominated ‘‘ The Dark Ages.”