At the Surrey Tabernacle, Borough Road
“And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.” Revelation 16:12
SOME of the learned think that the Euphrates represents the Turkish empire, and that the drying up of the waters means the drying up of that power for the ingathering of the Jews to their land, they being the people here meant by the kings of the east. That is the opinion of some: others, while they hold that the Euphrates here poetically and figuratively means the Turkish empire, hold that it means that the Mahometanism which that empire embodies shall be dried up, to make way for the kings of the east to receive and patronize the gospel in their kingdoms. This is a very good idea, but to my mind by no means the meaning. Before I enter upon the subject, I may just observe that here are seven vials poured out one after the other; and if you take the destruction of the Jewish nation and apply these seven vials to the destruction of that nation, you will then see that they all apply in completing the judgment of God towards that nation. But when you have taken that view you must not stop there, as though it meant that only; take that as one thing, and as a figure of a more terrible judgment yet to come. Hence one vial of judgment is poured upon the earth, and another upon the sea. Now these two vials, the one upon the earth and the other upon the sea, may be made, in a sense, to include the whole, and said to be poured upon the earth and upon the sea to show that there should be no way of escape from the judgment of God; fly to what part of the earth they may, the judgment of God must overtake them; and so the Lord says, though they hide themselves in the bottom of the sea, even there shall his hand find them; there is no place where the worker of iniquity may hide himself; so that by land or by sea the judgment of God is sure to overtake him. And we all by nature are enemies to God; and if we are friends, then it is grace that has turned us into friends to God, as it turned Abraham from his native enmity, for he by nature was like the rest; grace brought him into sweet reconciliation unto the blessed God and brought him into that region where no judgment belongs to those that dwell in the kingdom of Jesus Christ. And then the vial poured upon the rivers denotes that all the internal consolations and advantages of the people should be blasted and dried up. And then another vial being poured upon the seat of the beast, that is, the seat of the dragon, that is to say, Satan did reign at Jerusalem, and Jerusalem was become a mystic Babylon; Satan there reigned in crucifying Christ and persecuting the apostles; but the judgment of God came upon that government, and there was not any power able to defend the people, or to screen them from the judgments of God. Another vial poured upon the sun, expressive of the darkening of the Jewish nation, as a type of that ultimate and everlasting darkness into which all the ungodly must be brought. Hence the Savior, in contemplating the destruction of that nation, said, “The sun shall be darkened.” And here the vial, the sixth vial, being poured upon the river Euphrates, the Euphrates here stands as the representative of the mystic Babylon, not of the literal Babylon; we are not to understand the Euphrates here, this river, to be dried up literally, but we must understand that the Euphrates here has a figurative meaning, and would apply to Jerusalem as well as to any other, because the Euphrates was a Babylonish river, and therefore applied mystically to Jerusalem, and all its advantages were dried up. And then the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air, and then it is said, “It is done;” and so, when God completed his judgments upon Jerusalem, there was a national death. The vial being poured into the air would denote that the air was poisoned, they could not live any longer; and so, the Jews, as a nation, breathed their last; they died, and are now scattered to the ends of the earth, like bones at the graves mouth, and will never, no, never while the world stands, and I am sure not afterwards, again be organized as a nation. Thousands of them will, we hope, in future ages, be brought to Jesus Christ; but that nation has breathed its last, as a nation considered. “It is done.” I will just, before I enter upon the subject, observe that the river Euphrates is a river, for of course it still flows, and one thing that makes it interesting is, it was, as you are aware, one of the rivers of paradise, it is a river that takes its rise in the mountains adjacent to Mount Ararat, where the ark settled, and in its windings pursues its course nearly 2,000 miles, and then unites with the Tigris, and both are lost in the Persian Gulf. This river was essential to the fertility of Babylonia, or the greater part of the Babylonish empire, and is therefore here made use of in that figurative and spiritual sense which, if I can get on fast enough, will come before us this morning, I take, therefore, the river figuratively, and I take the kings spiritually. So, I shall first notice the persons that are here called kings. I shall secondly show the reason why they are called kings of the east. I shall thirdly show to what these kings come; and then, fourthly, what is meant by drying up this river, which prepares the way for them to come.
First, then, I just glance at the persons that are here called kings. And I think it is a term that will apply well to the people of God. God, the blessed God, is the king of time and the king of eternity, and we are brought to feel it our comfort that he reigns over all, and that Jesus Christ is the only man that has a kingdom that can never be destroyed; he only, of all kings, has immortality. Well, then, the people of God are born of God, and there is brought into the soul a divine principle. I may call this a royal principle. “Born again,” we read, “of an incorruptible seed, that lives and abides forever.” These are the King's sons; these are kings and priests to God himself. See how this divine royalty manifests itself. It will manifest itself thus: the man, the soul, that is born of God, it begins immediately to think of God; it begins to desire the mercy of God; it begins to desire to read the word of God; it begins to pray, and to seek God; godliness now becomes that solemn concern of the soul which cannot be destroyed, for when he thus begins the good work in the heart, that good work must go on. And such a one discovers what a sinner he is, what a poor, destitute creature he is, and how utterly destitute he is of any one thing that is good. He becomes discontented with the world; he becomes discontented with himself; in the Lord's own time he becomes discontented with his own supposed righteousness and holiness. All this is the working of that principle of which he is born, being born of God, and he seeks something now well worth seeking; to show this royal principle, this divine principle, he now seeks eternal life. He says, Before I sought only this life and its comforts, but now my desire is to obtain eternal file. And he is met with the sweet scripture, “He that believes on the Son of God has eternal life and shall never come into condemnation.” “He that believes on the Son of God;” does it come in that way? How does it come in that way? Why, by the blood of Jesus Christ cleansing from all sin; by the victory which Jesus Christ has wrought death is swallowed up, and he has brought life and immortality to light. Eternal life. “He that believes;” does it come in that way? Then how does it come in that way? Why, that Jesus Christ is the end of the law for righteousness unto every one that believes. He now looks at this eternal life; he says, There is nothing like it. He now looks at Jesus Christ in what he has done in swallowing up death in glory and rolling in one tide of eternal mercy from eternity to eternity; he looks now at the righteousness that the Lord Jesus Christ has brought in, and says, There is nothing will bear a moment's comparison with it. He looks at the people of God, and he says, Loved, loved forever; chosen, chosen for ever; “appointed not unto wrath, but to obtain salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ;” “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ;” that God is on their side; and that an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fades not away, is not only theirs, but they are sure to reach that happy possession, for they are kept by the power of God, and will be until that power shall meet with something superior to itself; and then, when that power of God shall meet with something superior to itself, then they may be in danger of coming short, but not before. Ah, such a one says, Now is fulfilled, in my soul's experience, that prophecy where it is said that “all that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the blessed of the Lord.” Ah, says such a one, may I be a real Christian! May I among that number be! May I be one of these happy, happy people! May I say acceptably to God, as Ruth did, “Your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God; and where they lodge in this wilderness, there will I lodge, in a sense; and where they die, let me die;” let me be one of these happy people. Now all this is nothing else but the working of that divine principle in the soul. You begin to see that there is as much difference between the temporal and the eternal as there is between the creature and the Creator; you begin to see that there is as much difference between the works, even the religious works of man, and the work of Christ, as there is between the infinite person of Christ and the poor, depraved moth, autumnal leaf sort of creature, man. Everything will sink in your estimation in comparison of God, in comparison of Christ, in comparison of the gospel. And while you are thus seeking, presently come these beautiful words, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” or spiritually poor. Such a one, in the very center of his doubting, Well, he says, with all my doubts and fears, I cannot doubt that I certainly am poor; I certainly am spiritually destitute of anything that is good; and if I have any hope, it certainly is in what the Savior has done; it certainly is in the mercy of God by Christ Jesus. “Blessed are the poor.” How are they blessed, Lord? Why, “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Call it a kingdom, or call it an inheritance, or call it a city, or call it everlasting joy, pleasures for evermore; call if by what term you may; “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Why, Christ himself cannot claim more; Christ himself cannot possess more; therefore, it is that they are to eat and drink in his kingdom, and to sit at his table; he with them, and they with him, forever. Thus, then, we can say some of us, that we have these feelings towards God, that we do hold eternal things in this estimation, and that we do appreciate the kingdom which the dear Redeemer has founded; that kingdom resting upon the impregnable, immoveable foundation that he has laid in Zion. Adam's kingdom rested upon his continued obedience; he gave way, and thereby lost the government, himself became a slave, himself came under sin, and under Satan, and under death, and under the curse of the law, and under all that which the word of God declares. The blessed Redeemer's kingdom rests upon his righteousness, but there is no danger now, he has got through the danger; he worked out the righteousness, and brought it in, and it is everlasting; and he has got beyond the danger, so that his kingdom cannot give way now. And Jesus Christ did, in order to perfect all forever that are sanctified, he did die, and he did not fail, and he did not give up his life until he knew all was perfected, and then he said, “It is finished.” So, the kingdom cannot give way now; it is eighteen hundred years too late to talk about its giving way now; the warfare is accomplished, the righteousness is brought in, the perfection is achieved, and there it stands, and our God is faithful to his saints, and faithful to his Son; so, as long as the foundation, Christ's work remains good, so long will grace reign; so long will mercy prevail.
Ah, poor sinner, if you did but see into the excellency of this foundation, and into the greatness of the mercy that is by Jesus Christ; if your sins were ten million times, that is saying a great deal, ten million times more than they are, you would not dare to despair; for you would see an infinity and eternity of mercy by the Lord Jesus Christ; and his righteousness would become your refuge; and like the people that left Saul for David, it is said of them, that they were m distress, and in debt, and discontented, and they came to David, and he became a captain over them; and has not Jesus Christ said, “Him that comes to me I will in no way cast out”? Priest, get out of the way; Puseyite, get out of the way; all human inventions, get out of the way; I want nothing between me and Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ has said, “Him that comes to me,” my soul comes to him in prayer, my soul comes to him in faith, my soul comes to him in approbation, my soul comes to him in decision; and if my conscience bear me testimony of this, his word bears testimony of the other, that he will not cast me out. Now these are kings, then, because of that royal principle, that divine principle, that is within them, that stirs them up to know this high association, this royal association; a chosen generation, a royal priesthood. Now such persons love Jesus Christ, such persons love a covenant God. And it does not matter what God you love if it is not a covenant God, no. The Lord says, “As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you, and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.” “As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that fear him.” I bless God that the kingdom is for the poor, the needy, for the rebellious, that the Lord God might dwell among them. Now, I say, those who are thus brought to know and appreciate these eternal things, they love the blessed God. “God,” said the apostle, “has chosen the poor of this world;” not because they are poor, but he has so arranged it that his people, the majority of them that he has chosen to eternal salvation, shall be so placed by his providence as to be poor; “rich in faith,” that is the best treasure; “and heirs of the kingdom which he has promised;” and his promise is yea and amen to them that love him. Thus, then, the people of God are called kings, because, being born of God, born from on high, their royalty is not merely of a formal kind, it is of a vital kind; and as they are born of God, it sets them seeking God, and they will never be content until they find him.
The second reason why they are called kings is because they reign over everything. They reign over sin completely; they reign over the world completely; they reign over error completely; they reign over death completely. They so reign over sin as never to commit one sin, never. Ah, say you, I do not believe that. Yes, you must. Well, but I sin in the flesh. I am not talking about your flesh. I sin in the world. I am not talking about the world. “The just man sins seven times a day.” I am not talking about that. Where is it, then, they do not sin? In their faith they do not sin, they receive Christ Jesus as their entire dominion over sin; and there is your dominion; they receive Christ Jesus as their entire dominion over the world. He is my dominion over sin; he is my victory over the world; he is my victory over Satan; he is my victory over error; he is my victory over death; he is my victory overall. Now put these two scriptures together; “Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift;” that is, for Christ, Jesus Christ is the gift. Now, then, “Thanks be to God, that gives us the victory by our Lord Jesus Christ. This is our victory, even our faith.” Oh, then, say some, do you mean to say the Christian has a life in Christ that is spotless? Certainly, he has; he has a dominion in Christ that is entire. So “he has made us kings and priests to God; and we shall reign on the earth,” and reign over the earth; and so, we do. I do not know how many years I have known the Lord, hardly, and I have never been conquered yet, and never shall be. I seem to get more daring than ever, and I seem to get bolder than ever, I hope, in the right sense of the word. My experience makes me bold; I mean bold for the grace of God; for nothing is more clear to me than that my continued standing in the liberty of the truth, in the love of it, and devotedness to God, and a desire to know more of him, is entirely of the grace of God: “he that began the good work will continue it unto the day of Jesus Christ.” So then by our faith we are enabled so to reign as to hold fast the truth in the promise of it, in the practice of it, in the order of it, in the advantages of it. Oh, how I enjoyed that chapter, the eighth of Romans, this morning, when I read it over! “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? who shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?” Now the apostle said to the Corinthians, when they were inclined to give way a little, and bring in a few human inventions, he knew that just in proportion as they did so they would lose their dignity, and therefore, he said, “I would that you reigned as kings, that we may reign with you.” And how can you reign as kings? By faith in Christ. This is what the natural man cannot understand. The natural man must be a king and a priest to God without Christ; the natural man cannot understand how it is that while sin brings a man from time to time into bondage, how that man can be reigning. Why, by faith in Christ. You are never conquered till you are severed from the love of God. What was it that conquered so many people in the wilderness, and by which they fell? Why, that which never fatally conquered a child of God, and never will. What is that? Unbelief. I have had sharp attacks, not as to the truth of God, not for many years, because the devil hardly ever attacks me upon that; no; I do not recollect for these thirty years having five minutes temptation to disbelieve God's truth; the devil himself knows it is no use to try to tempt me upon that. He generally comes in this way, Is the Bible true at all? He says, I know that fellow; no use to go and tell him that his order of things is not true, because he is so well versed in it that I should fail there; he would know at once where it came from; therefore, I won't touch him there; but I will say, Is the Bible true at all? Is it not all delusion together? Now I have had these abominable attacks sometimes; these are floods that the serpent casts out of his mouth, and there is plenty of infidelity in my heart to unite with them; but I bless God the temptation has never been powerful enough to sever me from the Bible. So, the enemy knows how to attack and where to attack. No, bless the Lord; those that know their own hearts, and know the truth, they well know that they reign entirely by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a blessed thing; we cannot be too bold for these truths: “We were bold to speak unto you the gospel of God with much contention.” Thus, then, the people of God, by a royal birth, and by oneness with the Savior, they are born, then, to be kings, and they reign as kings. Christ governs and Christ reigns, and they can never be conquered until he is conquered: the apostle might well say, “We are more than conquerors.”
Let us just glance hastily at what these kings come to, and we will notice the preparing of the way afterwards. We, perhaps, in order to show what they come to, cannot do better than refer to a favorite scripture of ours, 31st chapter of Jeremiah, “The Lord has redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he. Therefore, they shall come and sing in the height of Zion.” The height of Zion there will mean, I think, three things. First, the perfection of the Lord Jesus Christ. He has gone to the end of the law, to the end of sin; the perfections of God by him unite; mercy and truth meet together, righteousness and peace embrace each other; and that his perfection is their perfection. So that the height of Zion is the height of holiness. What a sweet thought! Oh, it is more blessed than language can describe, that the Christian stands by Christ Jesus in the height of holiness, and that is in the perfection of holiness, without spot, without wrinkle, and without blemish. I do not wonder at some of the people of God being so happy in a dying hour; it is just as the Holy Spirit enables them to realize that height of holiness, that perfection of holiness, they have in Christ. Also, here is the height of righteousness. Righteousness: what can be more? Why, it is something too great for the creature to believe, or for the Christian to believe, unless the Lord enable him. Righteous even as he is righteous. Is not Jesus Christ divinely righteous? So are they. Is not Jesus Christ everlastingly righteous? So are they. Is not Jesus Christ infallibly righteous? So are they. Does not Jesus Christ live in the eternal advantage of his righteousness? So shall they, “your people shall be all righteous;” and they shall live in the advantage of it, for “they shall inherit the land forever.” The height of Zion also means the height of victory. The victory is complete; the saying must be brought to pass that death is swallowed up in victory. That is one thing, I think, meant by the height of Zion; and if you are a Christian, it is what you will come to; you will not be satisfied till you come to it. The next thing meant by the height of Zion is that to which few of the Lord's people come, perhaps, and do not stop long when they get there; and what is that? Full assurance of interest in it. When the conscience is sprinkled by the blood of Christ, when the Holy Spirit sheds abroad everlasting love, when he brings the soul out of prison, when he makes the peace of the soul like a river, his righteousness like the waves of the sea; blessing comes rolling after blessing, blessing after blessing, blessing after blessing. You stand by the seaside and think you will have a bath when the waves leave off; but they do not leave off; they have been moving, sometimes more and sometimes less, ever since the foundation of the world. So, the righteousness in which the Christian is justified, blessing after blessing, blessing after blessing, without any help of his, keeps rolling in upon him, until he is surrounded with an ocean of blessings. Now when the Holy Spirit thus favors the Christian, then he can say, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” That is the height of Zion. Now you can get to heaven without this, I grant, but it is very nice to have this. If we never get it so powerfully as we could wish, nevertheless let us seek it, for if we do not get that we shall get something towards it, and a little is better than nothing. Then we are also to understand by the height of Zion, of course, everlasting glory, when the people of God shall, in the highest sense of the word, glorify him forever. Now these kings, then, shall come to this perfection, perfection of Christ, heaven, and full assurance of interest; and if you do not get it before you get to heaven, you will get it then: “that he might deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” Well, but what sort of a place is it, this height of Zion? Why, a place of very great plenty. “They shall flow together,” by this perfection, “to the goodness of the Lord,” and Christ is the goodness of the Lord; “for wheat,” and Jesus Christ is the wheat; “and for wine,” the blood of the everlasting covenant; “and for oil, and for the young of the flock,” that means the sincere milk of the word “and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all. Such, then, are the kings.
But my text says they are “the kings of the east;” as some modern good Greek scholars render it, “kings of the sunrising.” “Kings of the east,” or “of the sunrising.” The first verse of the 60th chapter of Isaiah will explain this: “Arise, shine; for your light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. The Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising:” Gentiles by nature, but kings by birth, kings by position, kings by destiny; “the Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.” Kings of the sunrising. Yes, say you, that is because Christ is the sun that rises and shines upon them. Yes, but that is not all; now just listen to your humble servant upon this point and get a clear idea upon it; and when you get it into your understanding you can ruminate, and meditate, and cogitate, and do some good with it. Kings of the sunrising. Ask yourselves this simple question: Was there not a Sun that went down at Calvary's cross? Is not Christ called the Sun of righteousness? Did he not go down at Calvary's cross? And did he not the third day rise? And when he arose did not all his people virtually rise with him? “Your dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing,” you kings, that know not that you are kings; though in and of yourselves poor, needy, and as beggars, he will lift you up out of the dust, and out of the world, and out of sin, to inherit thrones of glory. And so, it says, “Awake and sing,” you kings, “for your dew is as the dew of herbs.” Kings of the sunrising, one with Jesus in his triumphant and glorious resurrection. So, then, there is his resurrection, here is regeneration, and then the resurrection of the body at the last day. They are kings of the sunrising; “Arise,” which they did virtually when Christ arose; “Arise,” which they do personally when God commands the light to shine into their hearts, to give them the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ; “Arise,” at the last great day, which they will, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, shall be saints in light, even in that light that is above the brightness of the sun. Thus, these kings; thus, that to which they come; thus, they are the kings of the sunrising. You will observe that this character of the people of God stands in direct contrast to the kingdoms of this world. The sun of the kingdoms of this world must go down. The Lord says, “Your sun shall no longer go down.” The sun of Queen Victoria, though God grant it may yet be many years first, must someday go down; she must drop her scepter, leave her throne, and die like the rest of us. And therefore, there is no kingdom in this world can be said to be the kingdom of the sunrising, kings of the sunrising; their sun is going down. The healthy man, the young man, the young woman, the wealthy, the strong, the pleasure-taker, let them be who they may or what they may, alas! alas! the shadows are already stretched out over the prospects of the most charmed and delighted with things that are seen; alas! your sun must go down; yes, the Lord says, “I will cause your sun to go down at noonday;” just as you readiest the heyday of your carnal objects and worldly delights, down goes your sun. But here, in eternal things, a sun that will never go down, thrones that can never be shaken, kings that never die, glory that never fades; not an adversary nor evil occurrent throughout the regions of this glorious kingdom.
Now, then, I take Euphrates to represent the mystic Babylon, and I may in conclusion just notice four things; though I regret that I have not more time to work it out to make it clear. If you can find out what Babylon was noted for, then you will get at the meaning of the river being dried up to prepare the way of the kings of the east. Now, then, Babylon was noted, in the first place, for sin in general; it was a very wicked city, it was a sinful kingdom. God, or Christ Jesus, has, on behalf of his people, dried up sin; and when the angel pours into the soul the vial of conviction, the sinner's sin now becomes dried up. What a delight sin was! what a delight the world was! what a delight ungodly pursuits were! what a delight error was! but God has poured his judgment upon your sin in your soul, that he may prepare your soul for the reception of his mercy, and thus prepare the way for your soul to get out of your unbelief into faith, out of your enmity into love, out of your prayerless into a prayerful state, out of your graceless into a gracious state; that he may thus, by drying up this sin that was your sole element, prepare the soul to leave this Egypt; it is thus prepared to seek God; the way is now prepared for you to look to God; no longer remain reasoning, “I will be religions when I get so old; I am too young.” Oh no; but say like Ruth; Ruth said, “Let me now go to the field, and gleam ears of corn after him in whose sight I shall find grace;” and the soul is ready there and then. This appears to me to be one part of the meaning; so, dries up sin within you that it becomes a dry brook, in the place of what it has been; your soul becomes thirsty; thereby the way is prepared for you to wend your way towards Zion, to drink of the river of God's pleasure. Second, Babylon was noted for idolatry, very noted for it; therefore, the drying up of the river will mean the drying up of your false religion. God will pour his wrath upon your self-righteousness, upon your supposed goodness; he will dry the whole of it up. Hence the Lord said, in the 2nd chapter of. Zephaniah, 11th verse, “He will famish all the gods of the earth,” Sweep them all away, and then you shall wander in a solitary way until you find the one true God; then you will say, “Other lords have had dominion over me; but by you alone will I make mention of your name.” Third, Babylon was noted also for persecuting the people of God. “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, we wept when we remembered Zion; and we hanged our harps upon the willows;” and they taunted us, “You are the elect, are you? then sing us one of the songs of Zion.” How can we in a strange land? We cannot mingle our songs with your idolatrous songs; no; still, we do not forget Jerusalem. Then that psalm goes on to show that happy shall he be that served Babylon as Babylon has served us. So, then, the persecuting power of the enemy shall be dried up; God will pour his wrath upon that power. And the old Pope may sit and shiver and be unhappy to see the legions of soldiers depart from him. Only imagine, there is that old gentleman has got the stomach-ache, and the backache, and the headache, and he is very unhappy, because ten thousand French soldiers are going to leave him. Just look at it. And that is his Holiness; that is the vicar of Christ! A vicar means a representative. Did Jesus Christ ever lament that he could not get any soldiers, or because the soldiers left him? Only just look at it! Now, then, as Babylon was noted for persecuting the people of God, so the persecuting power shall be dried up, that the kings of the east may escape their enemies, escape their tyranny, and sing as they pass along, “Awake, awake, O arm of the Lord; are you not it that has cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? Are you not it which has dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that has made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?” Now the angel means the messenger, means the prophets, the apostles, those that declare that these things shall come to pass. Lastly, I have got fourteen or fifteen ideas, one after the other, upon this subject; but then your time is gone, and you always get a little impatient when your time is gone, very natural, that is; and so, I must keep you just a little longer. Lastly, then, Babylon was noted for strength; it was a wonderfully strong city; a wall 350 feet high, a city 60 miles in circumference; 100 brazen gates, 25 on each side, and each street 15 miles long; and no one of that day thought the city ever could be taken, they laughed at the thought of it. But God said it should.