![]() ![]() ![]() The posterity of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob had early come to be known by the title in which they took undying pride and found inspiring promise, Israelites, or the children of Israel. Such consideration involves at least a brief review of the antecedent history of the Hebrew nation. That we may the better comprehend the true significance of the Lord’s life and ministry while in the flesh, some consideration should be given to the political, social, and religious condition of the people amongst whom He appeared and with whom He lived and died. The long history of the Israelitish nation had unfolded a succession of events that found a relative culmination in the earthly mission of the Messiah. The occasion of the Savior’s advent was preappointed and the time thereof was specifically revealed through authorized prophets on each of the hemispheres. It is instructive to note that a similar system was adopted by the isolated branch of the house of Israel that had been brought from the land of Palestine to the western continent for from the appearance of the promised sign among the people betokening the birth of Him who had been so abundantly predicted by their prophets, the Nephite reckoning of the years, starting with the departure of Lehi and his colony from Jerusalem, was superseded by the annals of the new era. Thus the world’s chronology has been adjusted and systematized with reference to the time of the Savior’s birth and this method of reckoning is in use among all Christian nations. The years preceding that epoch-making occurrence are now designated as time Before Christ ( B.C.) while subsequent years are each specified as a certain Year of our Lord, or, as in the Latin tongue, Anno Domini ( A.D.). So the years and the centuries of human history are divided by the great event of the birth of Jesus Christ. The term “meridian,” as commonly used, conveys the thought of a principal division of time or space c thus we speak of the hours before the daily noon as ante-meridian (a.m.) and those after noon as post-meridian (p.m.). If the expression be regarded as figurative, be it remembered the figure is the Lord’s. The curse of God had aforetime fallen upon the wicked, and upon the earth because of them, “For they would not hearken unto his voice, nor believe on his Only Begotten Son, even him whom he declared should come in the meridian of time, who was prepared from before the foundation of the world.” b In this scripture appears the earliest mention of the expressive and profoundly significant designation of the period in which the Christ should appear-the meridian of time. ![]() Unto Moses, with whom the Lord spake “face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend,” a the course of the human race, both as then past and future, was made known and the coming of the Redeemer was recognized by him as the event of greatest import in all the happenings to which the earth and its inhabitants would be witness. ![]()
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