The Everlasting Covenant
Chapter 39 – The Time of the Promise at Hand
When the Promise Might Have Been Fulfilled
We have seen that if Israel had learned the lesson of trust in God and had not continued still in the bondage of pride and self-confidence, the seventy years of Babylonian captivity would have brought them to a point where the long-deferred promise of an everlasting inheritance might speedily have been fulfilled.
The conditions, would, in fact, have been the same as when Israel, delivered from captivity, was brought into the land of Canaan under Joshua, a thousand years before; for, as already stated, up to the time of the beginning of the captivity in Babylon the only definite time of prophecy was the period of seventy years. But God foresaw before this time ended that the lesson had not been learned; and so, toward the close of that period, He gave the prophet Daniel a vision in which another and longer time was fixed.
The prophecy is briefly this:–
The Vision of Daniel 8
Daniel saw in vision a ram with the peculiarity that one horn was higher than the other, and the higher came up last. He
“saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so that no beasts might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became great.” Daniel 8:3-4.
Next, he saw a goat coming furiously from the west, having one notable horn between his eyes.
“And he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power. And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns; and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground, and stamped upon him; and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand. Therefore the he goat waxed very great; and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven. And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land. And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them. Yea, he magnified himself even to the Prince of the host,” Daniel 8:5-11. etc.
After giving some further details concerning this wonderful little horn, the prophet thus concludes the account of the vision:–
“Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spoke, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” Daniel 8:13-14.
The Angel’s Interpretation
It is not the design to enter into the details of the prophecy, but simply to give the barest outline, so that we may be able to trace the history of the promise.
An angel was commissioned to explain the vision to Daniel, which he proceeded to do as follows:–
“The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. And the rough goat is the king of Grecia; and the great horn between his eyes is the first king. Now that being broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power. And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up. And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power; and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many; he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand. And the vision of the evening and the morning is true.” Daniel 8:20-26.
Two universal kingdoms that were to follow Babylon are named, and the other one is so clearly indicated, that we can readily name it. The power that acquired the lordship of the world as the result of the third revolution spoken of by Ezekiel was Rome, here plainly indicated by its work of standing up against the Prince of princes.
After the death of Alexander, king of Greece, his kingdom was divided into four parts, and it was by the conquest of Macedonia, one of these four divisions, in B.C. 68, that Rome acquired such strength that it could dictate to the world.
Hence it is said to come forth from one of them.
A Long Prophetic Period
But there was a period of time connected with this vision, which the angel did not explain with the rest of the vision.
It was the twenty-three hundred days, or, literally, twenty-three hundred evenings and mornings.
That these are not literal days may be known from this: This is a prophecy of symbols, in which short-lived animals are used to represent kingdoms that existed during hundreds of years; it is perfectly in keeping with the method of symbolic prophecy to use days in connection with the symbols, but it is evident that they must represent a longer period, in the interpretation, since two thousand three hundred days –a little more than six years–would scarcely be the beginning of the first kingdom. So we are warranted in concluding that each day stands for a year, as in Ezekiel 4:6, where the Lord uses days in symbolizing years.
Later on, the same angel came back as the result of Daniel’s prayer, to make known the remainder of the vision, namely, about the days. (See Daniel 9:20-23).
Beginning where he left off, as though not a moment had intervened, the angel said, “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people,” etc. (Verse 24).
Seventy weeks, four hundred and ninety years, were determined or cut off from the two thousand three hundred years, upon the Jewish people. They were to begin from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem.
This commandment, full and complete we find in Ezra 7:11-26 and it was given in the seventh year of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, which was B.C. 457.
Beginning in the year 457 B.C., four hundred and ninety years would end in the year 34 A.D. But the last one of these prophetic weeks was divided.
Sixty-nine of them–483 years–reaching to the year 27 A.D., marked the time of the revelation of the Messiah, or the Anointed One, the time when Jesus was anointed with the Holy Ghost at His baptism.
In the middle of the last week of years, namely three and one-half years after the baptism of Jesus, Messiah was “cut off, but not for Himself.”
During the entire week, or seven years, the covenant was confirmed. The whole period of two thousand three hundred years, it can readily be calculated, reaches to the year 1844 A.D., which is in the past.
Thus the longest prophetic period given in the Bible has expired, so that now indeed “the time of the promise” must be very near.
When the Lord will come to restore all things, no one can tell, for “of that day and hour knoweth no man.” Every so-called “calculation” to fix the date of the coming of the Lord, is pure speculation, with no manner of basis in truth.
The Time Allotted to the Jewish People
But let us note further for a moment that period of four hundred and ninety years devoted to the Jewish people.
Was it a time in which God would be partial, in that he would not regard the salvation of any other people? Impossible; for God is no respecter of persons. It was simply an evidence of the longsuffering of God, in that He would wait yet so many years on the people of Israel, to give them an opportunity to accept their high calling as priests of God, to make the promise known to the world. But they would not. On the contrary, they themselves so far forgot it that when the Messiah came they rejected Him.
So from being the ones around whom the kingdom of Israel, the fifth and last universal kingdom, should centre, they ceased to have any distinctive place in the promise. Individuals of the race may be saved by believing the Gospel, just the same as other persons; but that is all. The desolate temple, with the rent veil revealing the fact that the glory of God no more dwelt in its most holy place, was a symbol of that people’s standing in connection with the covenant. As individuals they may be grafted into the good olive tree, the same as any Gentiles, thus becoming Israel; but their position as leaders, as the religious teachers of the world, is for ever gone, because they did not appreciate it.
They knew not the time of their visitation.
“The Times of the Gentiles.”
Jerusalem was destroyed, and its inhabitants carried captive to Babylon, because of the rejection of the word of the Lord by the mouth of His prophets. The city was, however, restored, and the people allowed to return, not as an afterthought, but in fulfillment of the promise of God, made before the captivity.
To the rebuilt city and restored people came the Word of God in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and was again rejected.
For this cause the city and people were again left to be the prey of the heathen. In foretelling the miseries that should befall the Jews in the destruction of the city by the Romans, the Saviour said:–
“And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. And there shall be signs in sun and moon and stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, in perplexity for the roaring of the sea and the billows; men expiring for fear, and for expectation of the things which are coming on the world; for the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” Luke 21:24-27 R.V.
The Coming of the Lord
From the text, it is evident that “the times of the Gentiles” reach to the coming of the Lord to judge the world. In announcing this second destruction of Jerusalem, the Lord told, as at the first time, what would take place at the end of the period of desolation.
The Jews had had their time in which to accept the position and work to which God had called them, and had misused it, not knowing the time of their visitation. Then came the times of the Gentiles, when the Gospel was not simply to be carried to them, but committed to them, for them to carry to the world.
The Gentiles comprise all nations, so that the termination of their time must necessarily be the end of the world.
That is the coming of the Lord, “to give to every man according as his work shall be.”
“The Fulness of the Gentiles.”
We read: “Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved.” Romans 11:25-26.
“The fulness of the Gentiles” is the complete restoration of the house of Israel.
All Israel will be saved when all who will hear the voice of the Lord shall have been gathered out.
The “lost sheep of the house of Israel” are among all the nations of earth,–the Gentiles after the flesh,–and when they are found and gathered, there will be no more necessity for the preaching of the Gospel. “This Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” Matthew 24:14.
The ending of the times of the Gentiles is the ending of the accepted time, the day of salvation.
The Time not Revealed
“But of that day and hour knoweth no man.” Matthew 24:36.
It is a sad fact that many, in the face of these words of the Lord, have presumed to fix the date of the coming of the Lord. Every attempt of that kind is both vain and wicked. The longest period named in prophecy is long since past, and all that anybody can know of the time of the Lord’s coming is that “it is near, even at the doors.” And that is enough to know.
It is true that some have thought to evade the charge of setting time for the Lord to come, by fixing a date for the termination of “the times of the Gentiles;” but that, as we have just seen is the same thing.
Besides, there is not the shadow of an indication in the Bible as to how long the times of the Gentiles are, nor when they begin. Consequently, it is absolutely impossible to say when they will end.
The term “times of the Gentiles,” occurs but once in the Bible, namely, in Luke 21:24, and all that we there learn of it is that the times end at the coming of the Lord.
But “in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.” Matthew 24:44. Therefore one thing is certain, and that is, that whatever date any man may fix upon as the time of the coming of the Lord, that will be the time when He will not come. “Watch therefore.”
No Secret Coming
In this connection, it will not be amiss to call attention to the fact that the coming of the Lord “as a thief in the night” relates simply to the unexpectedness of His coming, and not to the manner.
He will return just as He ascended. Acts 1:10-12. “While they beheld, He was taken up; and a cloud received Him out of their sight.” So “He cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see Him.” Revelation 1:7.
“The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God.” Matthew 24:26-27.
“If they shall say unto you, Behold, He is in the desert; go not forth; behold, He is in the secret chamber; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”
The text in Luke tells us that the times of the Gentiles are to be terminated by the coming of the Lord “with power and great glory,” and that the people shall see it, and shall be terrified even to death by the terrible commotion in heaven and earth in connection with that event.
The Final Call from Babylon
And now what remains?–Only this, that God’s people hear and obey the call to come out of Babylon, lest by remaining they receive of her plagues.
For although the city on the Euphrates was destroyed many hundred years ago, even several hundred years before Christ, yet nearly one hundred years after Christ the prophet John was by the Spirit moved to repeat the very threats uttered by Isaiah against Babylon, and in almost the identical words:–
Judgment upon Babylon
“How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her; for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine.” Revelation 18:7-8.
Compare also Isaiah 47:7-10.
Babylon was a heathen city, exalting itself above God. As shown in Belshazzar’s feast (Daniel 5), it represented a religion that defied God.
The same spirit exists to-day, not simply in a certain society, but wherever men choose their own way in religion, rather than submit to every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
God in His longsuffering and tender mercy is but waiting until His people, coming out of Babylon, and humbling themselves to walk with Him, shall preach this Gospel of the kingdom, with all the power of the kingdom, even the power of the world to come, “in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come.”
That end will be the destruction of Babylon, just as spoken through Jeremiah; but as Babylon of old was a universal kingdom, and its real king, as shown in Isaiah 14, was Satan, the god of this world, so the destruction of Babylon is nothing less than the judgment of God on the whole earth, when He delivers His people.
For now read the words which “Jeremiah prophesied against all the nations,” when he prophesied about the end of the Babylonian captivity:–
God’s Controversy with the Nations
“For thus saith the Lord God of Israel unto me; Take the wine cup of this fury at My hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send thee, to drink it. And they shall drink, and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them. “Then took I the cup at the Lord’s hand, and made all the nations to drink, unto whom the Lord had sent me: to wit, Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and the kings thereof, and the princes thereof, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, an hissing, and a curse, as it is this day; Pharaoh king of Egypt, and his servants, and his princes, and all his people; and all the mingled people, and all the kings of the land of Uz, and all the kings of the land of the Philistines, and Askelon, and Azzah, and Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod, Edom, and Moab, and the children of Ammon, and all the kings of Tyrus, and all the kings of Zidon, and the kings of the isles which are beyond the sea, Dedan, and Tema, and Buz, and all that are in the utmost corners, and all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the mingled people that dwell in the desert, and all the kings of Zimri, and all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes, and all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another, and all the kingdoms of the world, which are upon the face of the earth; and the king of Sheshach shall drink after them. “Therefore thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Drink ye, and be drunken, and spue, and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you. And it shall be, if they refuse to take the cup at thine hand to drink, then shalt thou say unto them, Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Ye shall certainly drink. For, lo, I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by My name, and should ye be utterly unpunished? Ye shall not be unpunished: for I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, saith the Lord of hosts. “Therefore prophesy thou against them all these words, and say unto them, The Lord shall roar from on high, and utter His voice from His holy habitation; He shall mightily roar upon His habitation; He shall give a shout, as they that tread the grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth. A noise shall come even to the ends of the earth; for the Lord hath a controversy with the nations, He will plead with all flesh; He will give them that are wicked to the sword, saith the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth. And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth: they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung upon the ground.” Jeremiah 25:15-33.
This is the fearful doom to which all the nations of the earth are rushing. For that great battle they are all arming. Many of them are dreaming of federation and of universal dominion; but God has said of universal dominion on this earth, “It shall be no more, till He come whose right it is, and I will give it Him.” Ezekiel 21:27.
Fanciful Dreams of Universal Peace
All dreams of universal peace are destined to vanish in the smoke of battle.
The idea of a millennium of peace on this present earth, to be brought about by alliances and confederations, whether religious or purely civil, is a delusion of Satan, to lull men to sleep concerning the coming destruction, that they may be swept away by it.
People talk about crowning Christ as King of this earth, and look forward to a time when all nations shall own His sway; but all such teaching is simply a preparation for the general worship of anti-christ.
When Christ assumes the authority over this earth, the first thing He will do will be to break the nations in pieces and to gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and all that do iniquity, and cast them into a furnace of fire; and then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.
But before that time comes, Satan will appear as an angel of light, claiming to be Christ, and will receive the allegiance of all who have rejected the word of the Lord as to the manner of the coming of Christ.
When men, assuming that the looked-for millennium has come, shall say, “Peace and safety,” then sudden destruction shall come upon them, “and they shall not escape.” 1 Thessalonians 5:3.
The Last Battle, and Final Peace and Freedom
The last general revolution will be at the coming of “the Seed to whom the promise was made,” Galatians 3:19, who will then take the kingdom to Himself.
Yet a little while are these terrible judgments delayed, that all may have opportunity to exchange the weapons of the flesh for the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, which is
“mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:4-5.
This captivity is freedom.
By God’s Word we come from the Babylonian bondage of pride and self-confidence to the freedom of God’s gentleness.
Who will heed the call to come out, and exchange the bondage of human tradition and speculation for the freedom which God’s eternal Word of truth gives?
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