The Establishment of the New Kingdom and the Overthrow of the Old Powers.

He came with power and great glory to vindicate His people, and cause the overthrow of the wicked, and to establish the kingdom of righteousness, peace and joy forevermore on the earth, and in earth,-in earthen vessels.

Peter says, "Whose sentence now from of old lingereth not, and their destruction slumbereth not." (II Peter 2:3.)

This great event was the fulfillment of a prophecy more than three thousand years old. It came down through the ages undimmed by time. But it was the Son of Man who first clearly announced the coming retribution, for to proclaim the "day of vengeance" was a part of the message that God sent Him to proclaim. (Isa. 61: 2.) How clearly He proclaimed it may be seen in the Synoptic Gospels.

That Jesus and His diciples did not have reference to the passing away of the actual heavens above us and the earth beneath, in connection with His second coming, the Bible, as we understand it, clearly proves. We neither know how long this sphere has been rolling in its orbit, nor how long it will continue thus to roll. The Bible is as silent

in respect to its ending as it is with regard to its beginning.

But not so with the heaven and earth to which Jesus and His disciples referred. As we understand it, they had reference to the old covenant, and the destruction and dispersion of ungodly men. While the old covenant was waxing old and nigh unto vanishing away, the New Covenant was prepared to supersede it and to be established at the final passing away of the old. The new Israel was also forming and ready to come into their promised inheritance, and like the Israel of old, gradually to take possession of the land, so that, as the old heaven and earth passed away, the new heaven and the new earth superseded them.

The Overflowed World.

In the third chapter of II Peter the apostle declares that a world perished in the waters of a flood, and in reply to the mockers of the last days who asked, "Where is the promise of his coming?" he says, "For this they wilfully forget, that there were heavens from of old, and an earth compacted out of water and amidst water, by the word of God; by which means the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished; but

the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men." (II Peter 3:5-7.)

Here we see that Peter says the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished. He did not have reference to the physical earth, seas and skies. The same physical heaven and earth that stood before the flood stands today. He had reference to the destruction of an ungodly race. The ungodly antediluvians who mocked at the warnings of Noah were suddenly destroyed "and without remedy." So these scoffers might expect to perish by the judgments of God, but as the physical heaven and earth did not pass away in the waters of the flood, may we not reasonably conclude that Peter did not wish to say that the physical heaven and earth would perish at the coming of the Lord?

But nearly twenty-four centuries after the antedeluvian world had been destroyed by the waters of a flood, another world was destroyed, not by the waters of a flood but by the "fires of His jealousy," "by desolation and destruction, and the famine and the sword."

But just as the earth that perished in the great deluge was earthy, ungodly men, so was the

earth that was destroyed at the end of the world earthy ungodly men, and as the living earth perished in the great deep, in Sodom and Gomorrah, and in the Red Sea, so the living earth perished at the end of the world. "O earth, earth, earth, hear the words of Jehovah." (Jer. 22: 29.)

CHAPTER II.

THE DESTRUCTION OF AN UNGODLY RACE AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE INNER KINGDOM.

Not Destruction as of Old.

God did not bring destruction upon the beasts of the field, nor the birds of the air as he did at the time of the great deluge, for "Jehovah said in his heart, 'I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake,-neither will I smite any more everything living as I have done." " (Gen. 8: 21.)

The Destruction of Them That Obey Not God.

Time, and, we believe, the Scripture also, proves that Peter did not have in mind the burning up of the immeasurable heavens above us, nor the "everlasting hills" about us when he said, "They shall give account to him that is ready to judge the living and the dead."

"The time is come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begin first at us, what shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel of God?"