PULPIT MESSAGES

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 106, 29 January 1935, Page 6

PULPIT MESSAGES

Wellington Churches GOD’S JUDGMENTS The Early and the Latter Rain Speaking in the Alexandra Hall on “The World’s Greatest Revival,” Mr. H. V. Roberts, general secretary of the Pentecostal Church, said “In a previous address we saw that Christ would not come back to earth until the Apostasy had begun—there, would be a great falling away of the Church from its foundation truths That was a gloomy picture; but it was not Of my painting. All I did was to draw aside the curtain that you might understand what God hath said of these last days we are living in. That was ' only half the picture, however, as we 'shall see from the Word to-night that the true position of God’s Church is not go down in ignominy and shame, but is shortly to go up in a blaze of glory. “The latter rain covenant is to be found in Deut. 11:14, ‘I will give in His due season, the first rain and the latter rain.’ Palestine under this covenant was the granary of the world, but God told His people if they were disobedient He would make the land desolate. They refused to obey, and for centuries the land lay barren and waste. The latter, rain had ceased to fall. The first or former rains fell at seed time, then during growth (the dry season) spasmodic showers would fall, but the crops could only ripen if the latter rains fell. Mau tried to rectify this by watering by hand, then by irrigation; but God’s plan was, and al ways is, ‘Rain from Heaven’ stated in the Hebrew as ‘mal-koshe,’ that is, ‘Rain of the second growth,’ or as the Greek has it, ‘Op-si-mos.’ ‘late in the day rain.’ “I want to ask you a vital quesion. Was it just chance that the latter rain which began to fall again lightly in 1911 and continued failing till 1917, when it was back to its oklen-day normal fall, should coincide with the deliverance of Palestine from the hand of the Turk? Had not Jesus Himself prophesied ‘and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled’? That prophecy was fulfilled in 191.7. “Then again the latter rain would continue to fall at a time, so the Epistle of Janies tells us, concurrent with the heaping up of treasure together in the last days ‘when the hire of labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.” When God speaks of a judgment to fall on the rich ‘go to now ye rich men howl and weep for your miseries that shall come upon you. , . . Behold : the husband-mail waiteth for the pre- I cions fruit of the earth . . . till He receive the early and the latter rain.’ * “It is quite evident that God does

not intend to allow present-day conditions to go on as they are, and I believe He is bringing to the notice of the world that for nigh on GOOO years He has supplied the earth with rain in abundance and jt has produced more and more continuously. Abundance on every hand; but a few men have used God’s bounty for their own ends and reaped to themselves the plethora of production, and heaped up their gold, resulting in awful poverty in the midst of plenty. God is about to act, but just before the judgments begin the Great Husbandman sends the latter rain and gathers in the harvest—that is, the Saints of God are to be translated before the Great Tribulation begins on the earth. “These rains also have a very significant spiritual application. Joel 2:23 says: ‘Be glad then . . . for He hath given you the former rain moderately and He will cause to come down for you the rain (Old Testament times) the former rain (Apostolic days) and the latter rain (last days) in the first month’ and in later verses these rains are spiritualised as outpourings of the Holy Spirit upon all flesh; Peter on the day of Pentecost says of those marvellous happenings: ‘But this is that which was spoken by the Prophet Joel.’ “The first Messianic effusion of the Spirit at Pentecost was the beginning of this fulfilment, the completion ot which as respects its end is yet future, and Joel fastens down the date to the Second Advent: ‘For behold in those days and in that time I shall bring •again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem and I will bring (all nations) down into the valley of Jehoshaphat (Armagldda).' From these Scriptures then we are assured that just before the close of the dispensation a colossal revival is to take place as all the rains are to fall together in a brief closing period. Joel’s forecast is ‘a double Pentecost’ witli the Old Testament (rain) miracles thrown in. Great tribulation, great terrors, mighty salvations. Then the harvest is gathered.”