the great sea, and will be a great blessing to the righteous remnant of Israel and others living in the land.

Then what, it may be asked, is the meaning of the saying, "And there was no more sea?" The meaning is this: There were no more invading armies to overflow and desolate Israel's land. Jeremiah prophesied saying, "The sea is come up upon Babylon, she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof." Babylon in this prophecy is Jerusalem; the sea is the sea of nations, even as it is said in the Revelation, “The waters which thou sawest, where the harlot sitteth, are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues (Rev. 17:15).

In the covenant that the Lord made with David, he promised saying, “Also I will ordain a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, and they shall dwell in their place, and shall be moved no more; neither shall the children of wickedness waste them any more, as at the beginning, and since the time that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel" (I Chron. 17:9-10). This promise has special reference the last planting of the remnant of Israel in the holy land, to be removed no more nor to be wasted any more by the armies that come up out of the seas of nations. By the hand of Joel, also, the Lord says, "So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain; then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more" (Joel 3: 17).

These are the things that will obtain among mortal men, among men in the flesh in Israel, and therefore the Prophet Isaiah says (65: 20), "There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days, for the child shall die an hundred years old (that is, a person in that age that dies at the age of an hundred years will be regarded as having died in infancy), but the sinner being an hundred years old, shall be accursed."

From this saying it is evident that there will be wicked people and transgressors also in that day, but their career will be cut short. But referring to the prosperity of the righteous in that age the prophet continues, saying, And they shall build houses, and inhabit them, and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat, for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands (or as the margin hath it, they shall live to wear out the works of their hands"). They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for trouble, for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them. And it shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer, and while they are yet speaking, I will hear."

And after this, speaking of the happy condition of the people of Israel in their own land, the prophet in figurative language treats of the friendly relations that will then obtain between the nations of the earth and the people of Israel in those joyful and peaceful years, saying, "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock, and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord" (Isa. 65: 20-25). These gracious things that are here spoken of are more fully set forth by the same prophet in chapter 11 (verses 6-7), where it is written, "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,

and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them (that is, a little child in Israel after the pattern of Jesus of Nazareth, meek and lowly in heart). And the cow and the bear shall feed, their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox."

The nations which will devour Israel in the latter days are symbolized by bears, wolves, lions, and leopards, ravenous beasts of prey who, after they have finished their work of judgment upon Israel, will themselves be subjugated and brought under obedience, and will after that dwell in peace with the remnant of Israel which are left after their judgments are taken away.

But the prophet speaks of another matter which will obtain in Israel's land during the reign of Christ, saying, "And the suckling child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand in the cockatrice' den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth (Israel's earth) shall be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."

THE HOLE OF THE ASP AND THE COCKATRICE' DEN

Speaking of the wicked and perverse in Israel, this same prophet says of them in chapter 59, “Your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath uttered perverseness. None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth; they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. They hatch cockatrice' (adder's) eggs, and weave the spider's web; he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed, breaketh out into a viper" (Isa. 59: 3-5).

This will be preeminently the character of the rebellious house of Israel in the latter days before the judgment. There has always been in the house of Israel in the past a rebellious element to rise in opposition to good men and to pervert the right ways of the Lord, and whose evil doings have often brought ruin and desolation upon the house of Israel. Well did Stephen say of them, “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit. As did your fathers, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One, of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers: who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it" (Acts 7:51-53). Jesus said to this same class, "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers."

These serpents and cockatrices had their holes and dens in Israel and especially in Jerusalem, which in the eighteenth chapter of the Revelation is spiritually called Babylon, where it is said of her, "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird" (Rev. 18:2).

Now this same serpentine, rebellious element will exist in the new heavens and the new earth, but with this important difference: in the former times it permeated even the government and obtained control of the kingdom which God himself had ordained and established among men, and turned the people out of the good ways of the Lord into evil ways, and into many abominable

idolatries. But in the new age this perverse element will be suppressed and trampled under foot by righteous, upright, and God-fearing men whom the Lord will exalt to power and supremacy in the land, men who love righteousness and hate iniquity, who are meek and lowly in heart, and just, as it is contained in the last words of David, saying, "He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God." It is this class of humble and childlike men that will play upon the hole of the asp, and these are the weaned children who will lay their hand upon the den of the cockatrice and will not allow them to hurt nor destroy in all God's holy mountain. Then dust will be the serpents' meat, and down upon their bellies before the righteous they will have to go all the days of their lives. And so great will be the zeal of the people in that day for truth and righteousness, that the Prophet Zechariah testifies of the false prophets and their evil-doings, "I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land. And it shall come to pass that when any shall yet prophesy, then his father and his mother that begat him, shall say unto him, Thou shalt not live, for thou speakest lies in the name of the Lord; and his father and his mother that begat him shall thrust him through when he prophesieth" (13:2-3).

THE PROMISE

The apostle Peter says, "We, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness" (II Pet. 3:13). We may inquire, Where did Peter find this promise and whence did he derive the knowledge that in the new heavens and new earth righteousness would dwell? We reply, From the word of the Lord by the hand of Isaiah, for Peter says he wrote his second epistle to stir up their pure minds by way of remembrance, that they might be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets. In the words of Isaiah it is written (65:17), “Behold, I create new heavens, and a new earth." And concerning the character of the people who will comprise the new heavens and the new earth, the same prophet says in another place (60:21), “Thy people also shall be all righteous, they shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified." And again it is said of them (54: 13), "All thy children shall be taught of the Lord"; and again (Jer. 31:34), They shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." Again it is testified of Israel's earth, saying (Isa. 11:9), "For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."

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