The Explosion Of A Dream
Poor old tottering Mussolini has made a speech designed to bolster the morale of his crumbling empire. His coughing words betray the panic that grips his heart. Churchill has offered the Italian people the choice of getting out of the war and repudiating their jackal of a leader, or submit to having their beautiful country scientifically shattered. Forces are poised to carry out the threat. While Mussolini looks to the international bandit Hitler for help, my mind goes back a few years when Mussolini was swelling and ranting and some of our premillennial prophets were prophesying. The boasting dictator was about to reestablish the Roman Empire. He was actually fulfilling prophecy. Every premillennialist bulletin and pulpit exhorted us all to watch Mussolini and if we declined to take the old puff of wind seriously we were shutting our eyes in the face of inspired prophecy, rejecting the plain literal teaching of the sacred Book. I recall that one of our number, a preacher with years of experience, departed from the faith under the spell of the ugly vision of premillennialism. He wove his dreams around Mussolini and ranted and raved to the effect that they were the very word of God. He went to the digressives, then on to the Lord knows where, and was heard within the recent past to say: "I once belonged to the Campbellites." Poor old Mussolini! And some of the prophets must feel about as sad and deflated as he and doubtless feel that he has let them down. It is not apt to cure them for they are facile in finding somebody or something else to fulfill the prophecies in favor of their dreams. But there is a host of sane and normal disciples who can profit by doing some sober thinking on these things. Some weak brethren who have been shaken by these prophetic blatherskites must feel somewhat humiliated and ashamed. It is a compliment to the sanity and good judgment of brethren generally, that they have not done more harm than they have. They are like Mussolini in at least one respect. When they are whipped, they cry persecution! The old broken-down dictator whimpers that he and the Italian people have, never been understood, that England and the United States are wickedly picking on him. Of all things, he has become a pessimist with persecution complex! Whoever saw a dyed-in-the-wool premillennialist who was not a pessimist with a persecution complex? .
Some of our modern prophetic interpreters might read with some profit what a real prophet says about some prophets. Jeremiah said a long, long time ago: "The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully.". "Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that use their tongues, and say, He saith. "The prophets, who a few years ago were turning the prophetic spotlight on Mussolini were evidently just "using their tongues.}" Whatever use they made of what real prophets said, was obviously misapplied. Roosevelt and Churchill have apparently exploded the dream of Mussolini and some American premillennialists. The prophets must have been talking about somebody else. Surely nobody expects Roosevelt and Churchill to reestablish the old Roman Empire. Somebody better hurry, for the time is short, you know, and the day of the Lord is just at hand. Maybe the failure of Mussolini has postponed it. Premillennialists are great on postponement. They even claim that the kingdom of God was postponed because the Jews crucified Christ instead of crowning him king on David's throne in Jerusalem. If the Jews thwarted God's plan once, it is entirely within the realm of possibility, that America and England might do it again. You may have the idea by now that I think the whole premillennial dream is as fantastic, unreasonable and unscriptural as my friend, Brother C. R. Nichol, has declared and shown it to be in recent issues of the Gospel Advocate.
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An aging brother who recalled Indian Territory' days grew reminiscent in my presence. A presidential proclamation opened up the Apache, Kiowa, Caddo, and Comanche reservations for settlement. Thousands of people, common people, some of whom had little or no education, managed to learn enough from that proclamation to file on land. It is amazing in view of the magnitude of the movement how few mistakes were made as the people took possession of their claims. Yet the language of that government document was not as simple in style, nor was it as easily understood, as the language of the Bible which affords information on the way to heaven. Any man with intelligence enough to file a claim on an Indian reservation with a government proclamation as his guide ought to be able to file a claim on a home in heaven with the New Testament as his guide. "But we cannot understand the Bible alike." Why not? They understood the President's proclamation "alike;" didn't they? A lot of current conversation in religion today is just inane apology for indifference and rebellion. The story is told of an old cowman who could not read a letter unless he saw it branded on a cow. He got into a heated argument with a neighbor over some point of government regulation pertaining to the matter of filing on claims. He had a filing receipt which the neighbor read to him, and the old man quickly and gladly accepted the correction because it involved a clear title to his claim. If a mans title to a home in heaven is clouded by false information and erroneous ideas, it ought to be easy to take a New Testament and correct him.