ind, a run back through the Old Testament brings
out that it is spoken of there much more than we may have realized. The
warning to Israel, at Sinai, as they made the covenant of allegiance
with God, of the bitter punishment that would come if they were untrue,
has seemed many times as though couched in very intense, almost extreme
language.[133] But it is found to fit into these later descriptions of
this great tribulation to come. That warning is repeated, in as intense
words and with a greater fulness, by Moses in his series of farewell
talks in the Plains of Moab,[134] and it runs through the song he left
for their use.[135]

The experiences of the people of Israel in Egypt are found to be an
illustration of the coming experience at the end, great persecution and
suffering, then great deliverance through a visitation of judgment upon
their persecutors, and great revelation of God's glory following. And
the experience of the three young Hebrew exiles in Babylon comes to
mind. They went through the fire, seven times heated, and they had a
marvellous deliverance, and then high promotion.[136]

Certain Psalms shine with new light in the light of this terrible truth.
Chief among these is the Ninety-first. Quite likely it grew up out of
the experience of Israel at the last before leaving Egypt. It, of
course, has its practical use in one's daily life. But the vividness and
intensity of its meaning will probably never be realized as during the
coming tribulation days. Nor will the exultant note running through the
nine Psalms immediately following it be appreciated as by those
experiencing deliverance when the tribulation is over. The Forty-sixth
Psalm, and the Psalms of praise immediately following it, likewise seem
to get new light.

It is quite probable that very much, all through this Book of Psalms,
will be understood and appreciated fully only by the generation of God's
people that go through the tribulation and know the deliverance
following. Much of the old Book of God is quite meaningless to the
Christian who has had no tribulation _experience_. That is, I mean who
has never known opposition in his Christian faith, or who has slipped
easily along when there is opposition.

The outstanding features in the Old Testament of this great experience
are terrible persecution of the Jew, deliverance at the very worst pitch
of extremity, by a visitation of judgment on their enemies, and by
Jehovah coming in person for t