(Job 11:7).  Do we not need the rebuke of Elihu to Job, 'Behold, God is

great, and we know Him not, neither can the number of His years be searched

out' (Job 36:26).  In the highest revelation given to us are there not

'unsearchable riches'?  Are we not endeavouring to get to know the love of

Christ which passeth knowledge?  Did not the apostle, when concluding the

revelation of God's ways with Israel, rightly say, 'O the depth of the riches

both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are His judgments,

and His ways past finding out!  For who hath known the mind of the Lord

(knowledge)? or who hath been His counsellor (wisdom)? or who hath first

given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again (riches)?' (Rom.

11:33 -35).

Is there no suggestion of mystery in the destiny of such a one as

Pharaoh, or of Esau as recorded in Romans 9?  Does not inspiration anticipate

our natural desire to find out more than is revealed, and does it not meet it

with the words, 'Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?

Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why hast Thou made me

There are many who speak as though the Bible deals with eternity; it

does no such thing.  It begins and ends with time.  It is the inspired

revelation of some of God's ways and purposes relative to, and during the

Ages.  Of what took place before the age -times began we know very little,

and of what will take place when these ages have run their allotted course,

we know comparatively nothing.  Is it not wiser, better, and more befitting

us as those who have been saved by grace, to recognize the wisdom and the

kindness which underlie this withholding of information?

Think of the errors which have clustered around the wrong translation

of aion.  Instead of honestly rendering the word 'age', the translators

assumed that it must refer to eternity, and so wherever possible they

rendered it by words which indicate eternity, and that which is everlasting.

Has not the book of Ecclesiastes been written in order that we may be

led to see the utter impossibility of pushing beyond that which it has

pleased God to reveal to us?  'He hath set the world (olam, the age), in

their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the

beginning to the end' (Eccles. 3:11).  Is there no word for us here?  Are we

quite sure that we, if taught by the Spirit of God, can hope to find out the

work that God maketh from the beginning to the end?  Some of God's children

appear to think so.  With all our hearts we sympathize with them.  Problems

press hard upon us all.  Believing implicitly in the full inspiration of

Scripture, and believing, moreover, that outside its sacred pages there is

found no light upon these matters, many have come to the conclusion that by

prayerful, painstaking study, by careful collocation, the whole range of

God's purposes will at length be discovered.  Indeed this is no longer a

supposition.  Many of our readers will have read already articles from the

pens of earnest Bible students, who believe that they have pieced the whole

together, and who do not hesitate to teach us what is to take place after

Satan, and those whose names are not found written in the Book of life, are

cast into the Lake of Fire.

At this point, however, exposition ceases, and inference enters.  There

is no written revelation given us as to anything happening to those who are

thus consigned to the second death.  True, passages of tremendous import are

brought to bear upon the subject, but it is only by way of deduction.  This

immediately puts the whole subject beyond the limits of inspiration, and we