8. _The Conversion of the World and Conquest for the Lord will follow Through Converted and Restored Israel._ Verses 20-23. These verses have often been spiritualized. How much harm there is done by taking such words and promises out of their connections and fitting them to a time and people for which they were never meant. Can God give His blessing to such teaching of His Word? We believe not. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, It shall yet be that nations will come, the inhabitants of many cities. And the inhabitants of one city shall go to another saying, Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord and to seek the Lord of hosts: I will go also. And many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and to pray before the Lord. This the world has not yet seen. Individuals have turned to the Lord, and His own are gathered out of all nations and languages, but such a picture as it is seen here has not yet been seen. The conversion of peoples and strong nations is still future. It will not come by modern missionary efforts, consisting not alone of preaching, but as it is done to-day, by educational work in heathen countries, as well as other humanitarian institutions, such as hospital work, orphanages, etc. Nations can never be converted by these efforts, nor has God given His Church promises that nations and the world is to be converted by the preaching of the Gospel of grace. Individuals, of course, are converted and will be converted by the Word faithfully preached. A people is thus taken out for His name. And to this agree the words of the prophets, as it is written, After this I will return and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down (Israel's time commencing again, in restoration and regeneration) and I will build again the ruins thereof and I will set it up; that the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the nations upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things. (Acts xv: 14-17.) It is sad to think that Christendom ignores such a revelation of the divine purpose and order and goes on in entirely different lines. We are living now in the time of the outcalling of a people, the Church, the body of the Lord Jesus Christ is formed. When that body is completed, which does not mean the conversion of the world, the Lord will come for His outcalled saints and then with His saints in glory. This will be followed, according to the words of the prophets, as we have so clearly seen in these studies by the building again of the tabernacle of David and all that is connected with it, and then the residue of men, the nations, will seek the Lord. It is also to be noticed that these nations will seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and worship there before Him. This means that Jerusalem will become the great center of not alone world government but also of worship. The last chapter in this book of Zechariah shows nations coming up to Jerusalem on the feast of tabernacles.