The great pyramid passages and chambers

152 With the termination of the First Dispensation a second beginning was made; but again the course has been downward toward destruction. It is this Second Dispensation, called by the Apostle Paul ‘ this present evil world’’ (Gal. 1: 4—see the Chart of the Ages, Plate VI), which is especially symbolized by the Descending Passage. During the first eight and a half centuries of this Second Dispensation God still refrained from giving a written Law, but the result was the same, namely, increased misery due to deep degradation, and the gradual obliteration of God's image from heart and mind.

153 Then for a period of 1685 years God, having specially chosen and prepared a people for himself, separated them from the nations around so as to protect them from their corrupt influences, and gave them his Law, engraved on tables of stone: but though he watched over them with the jealous care of a wise and loving Father for his children, punishing them for wrong-doing and blessing them for well-doing, and though he sent them prophet after prophet to warn and exhort them, it was all of no avail. Why was this? Was God disappointed ? Did he expect the nation of Israel to keep his Law? By no means. God knew that by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified.” He was merely permittin g men to learn for themselves the lesson that ‘both

Jews and Gentiles . . . are all under sin; as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one; .. . that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God; . . . for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” The Lord's

purpose in this was that his righteousness, which is by the faith of Jesus Christ. might be manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets—Rom. 3: 9-26.

154 During their existence as a nation, from the exodus from Egypt, God led the Israelites through various experiences. After their period of 40 years in the wilderness, and six years in taking possession of the promised land, they had judges for a period of 450 years, then kings for 513 years, and lastly they were a subject nation to various Gentile powers for the remaining period of 676 years, after which they ceased to existasa nation, although as a people they preserve their identity to this day. Thus even a specially prepared people with all the help that God could give them, short of taking away the freedom of will, were unable to keep the perfect Law of God; and by this means the Lord demonstrated that, so long as evil was permitted to reign unchecked, the race must continue on the downward course to destruction.

155 In 606 B.c., with God's permission, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, destroyed Jerusalem, and the Times of the Gentiles referred to by Jesus, began—Luke 21 : 24. In Scripture Studies, Vol, II. Chap. 4, C. T. Russell proves conclusively that the Times of the Gentiles, the period during which the Israelites, first as a nation, then as a people, have been subject to the various Gentile governments which have held sway over the world, is an era of 2520 years, beginning in 606 B.C., and terminating in 1914 A.D.

156 There was a two-fold purpose in this arrangement. First, God thus permitted the Gentiles to take control and try the experiment of ruling, ‘that thus the world might also learn the futility of its own efforts at self-government while in its present sinful condition. As he had given the dominion forfeited by Adam to the angels, to demonstrate their inability to rule and bless the world, so he now delivered that dominion over to the Gentiles, to let them try their various methods, unaided by him. These various experiments God permits as so many valuable and necessary lessons, filling the intervening time until the Lord's anointed, whose right it is, shall come and take

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