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From Time to Time - Part Three

Sep 03, 2023 by: John Herbert | Series: From Time to Time

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Est 1:16 And Memucan answered before the king and the princes: "Queen Vashti has not only wronged the king, but also all the princes, and all the people who are in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus.

We will continue to look at God's use of time with respect to disobedient Israel.

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Sunday September 3rd 2023
From Time to Time – Part 3

1). Est 1:16 And Memucan answered before the king and the princes: "Queen Vashti has not only wronged the king, but also all the princes, and all the people who are in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus. 17 For the queen's behavior will become known to all women, so that they will despise their husbands in their eyes, when they report, 'King Ahasuerus commanded Queen Vashti to be brought in before him, but she did not come.' 18 This very day the noble ladies of Persia and Media will say to all the king's officials that they have heard of the behavior of the queen. Thus there will be excessive contempt and wrath. 19 If it pleases the king, let a royal decree go out from him, and let it be recorded in the laws of the Persians and the Medes, so that it will not be altered, that Vashti shall come no more before King Ahasuerus; and let the king give her royal position to another who is better than she.

We had seen last time that it was during the two days, the two thousand years of the dispensation of the Jews, that the glory lost in the Garden had returned to the earth filling the Tabernacle of Moses, making rulership within a Theocracy possible for God’s adopted firstborn son. The first-time rulership had been directly extended to God’s creation, man, since Adam’s transgression. The return of the glory was not to cover the bodies of the Jews as with Adam and the Woman, as they still retained a sin nature. Rather this was the presence of God ‘tabernacling’ with them that made rulership possible. We will remember the inextricable link between the presence of the glory and rulership that was established in the foundation. However, the glory, and therefore God’s presence, departed from the earth once again, ending the Theocracy, centuries later, because of Israel’s continuing harlotry, a departure which began the times of the Gentiles. And we had also seen, from the Book of Esther, how Israel’s centuries of disobedience and unfaithfulness that brought about the end of the Theocracy was simply pictured in Queen Vashti’s refusal to appear before the king in her regal splendor, on a particular seventh day within the third year of Ahasuerus’s reign. With the numbers, three and seven, drawing from God’s Divinely constructed seven-day timeframe, that pervades all of Scripture, established in foundation in Genesis Chapter 1.
	a). We had also noted that the Book of Esther presented Israel’s disobedience from the perspective of the nation as the wife of Jehovah. While this same disobedience is presented again, from the perspective of Israel as God’s adopted firstborn son, in the Book of Jonah.
	b). Israel’s disobedience and the consequences of it, are seen in all the OT Books, through typology, history, and prophecy from Genesis to Malachi. And within the extraordinary amount of detail given through all of these books, we are looking at Esther and Jonah in particular, as together, these two books provide a somewhat complete overview of Jewish history, past, present, and future.

2). Jon 1:1 Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.” 3 But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.

Jonah is a Jewish prophet who lived around 800BC, whose life God has used to provide a typological overview of the history of the Jewish people, particularly from the perspective of them being God’s adopted firstborn son, and therefore the nation with the right to rulership. And historically, that recorded in this account took place during the time in which the Theocracy was still in existence.
	a). And from the verses we see that Jonah was given the specific command to ‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it’, and this was to be done because the wickedness of Nineveh had ‘come up’ before the Lord. The purpose then for Jonah to go to Nineveh was for the inhabitants of Nineveh to hear and respond to God’s warning, brought to them through Jonah, that they might be delivered and repent of their wicked ways. That they might turn to God. Jonah however wanted nothing to do with this.
	b). Now Nineveh was not just any city. Nineveh we may remember, had been built by Ham’s grandson, Nimrod, some one thousand five-hundred years before God’s command to Jonah – Ge 10:8 Cush begot Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one on the earth. 9 He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.” 10 And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. 11 From that land he went to Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah, 12 and Resen between Nineveh and Calah (that is the principal city).

And it is Nimrod, the first king of Babylon, who provides for us the foundational type for the Antichrist.
	c). During Jonah’s day, Nineveh was the capital city of the Assyrian empire, the worldwide empire of its day. The same Assyrian empire that took the ten northern tribes of Israel into captivity around 722BC, shortly after the time seen through the life of Jonah. Nineveh then was the central and foremost Gentile city of that time. And as such would be symbolic of the whole of the Gentile world. God’s purpose then, through Jonah, was for this foremost Gentile city, and by extension the Gentile world, to receive God’s grace, mercy, and blessing through the ministry of a Jewish prophet. And in Jonah we see national Israel and their calling as God’s witnesses.
	d). Through Noah’s son Shem, and nine generations later through Abraham, and then Isaac, Jacob and the twelve sons, God brought into being what was then a new creation in Jacob, national Israel, adopted as a firstborn son. And God’s purpose for this creation and adoption was threefold. His Word, the Word of God, was to be given through Israel, just as we had seen in the first part of our study from – Heb 1:1 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets…..

Ro 3:1 What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision? 2 Much in every way! Chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God.

And secondly, the Messiah, with the promise of His Kingdom, was to come through Israel – Isa 9:6 For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

And thirdly, Israel was to rule at the head of the nations within a Theocracy and be God’s witness to all the Gentile nations, with these nations receiving God’s Word and being blessed through Israel – 
Ge 12:1 Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father's house, To a land that I will show you. 2 I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Isa 43:10 “You are My witnesses,” says the LORD, “And My servant whom I have chosen, That you may know and believe Me, And understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, Nor shall there be after Me. 11 I, even I, am the LORD, And besides Me there is no savior. 12 I have declared and saved, I have proclaimed, And there was no foreign god among you; Therefore you are My witnesses,” Says the LORD, “that I am God.

So then, the Jewish people, the creation in Jacob,  adopted as a firstborn son, were to be established in a Theocracy, in the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, a specific location from which to rule, just as Adam and the Woman were placed in the Garden, and the co-heirs with Christ will be placed in the New Jerusalem – Ex 19:6 And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.”

They were to dwell in the land, in a Theocracy, as God’s adopted firstborn son on the one hand and as the wife of Jehovah on the other. Both roles having to do with rulership over the earth as established in Genesis. And as the ruling nation, ‘a kingdom of priests’, they were to take that which had been given through them, the written Word and the Word made flesh, as ‘a holy nation’, to the Gentile nations of the world; pictured through Jonah being commanded to go to Nineveh, that great city.
	e). They were then to be the messengers who would carry the Word of God which told of a Savior, to all the other nations throughout the earth who were without God, to be witnesses to the one true God and to His salvation, they were to be the conduit through which God’s blessings, both material and spiritual were to flow.
	f). This was, and is, the purpose for Israel’s creation in Jacob, and was, and is, the reason for their redemption past and future, but as we look at Jonah, we know exactly what Israel did and continues to do with respect to their calling. They went, and continue to go, in a completely contrary direction to God’s command to them. A situation that has continued for years, into centuries, and into millenniums, as God has remained longsuffering with them. On the one hand then Jonah’s response to God’s command was entirely in keeping with the nation’s response to their calling throughout their history, resulting ultimately in captivity, and on the other hand, Jonah provides the type to show how national Israel would respond to the God of their fathers’ command to them. And it really doesn’t matter which way we come at this, the end result remains the same, and this is what we can see through the eyes of faith.
	g). And woven into the fabric of the centuries upon centuries of disobedience is Israel’s unholy relationship with the Gentile nations that the Scriptures call harlotry. This is not dealt with in the Book of Jonah as such, other than being alluded to at the beginning of the Book –
Jon 1: 3 But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.

Knowing what we know about Israel’s harlotry, by comparing Scripture with Scripture, we can see in this verse a picture of the Gentile nations being complicit in Israel fleeing from the presence of the Lord, by entering into a forbidden relationship with her, pictured in the fare paid by Jonah and the passage provided on the ship for Jonah and the Gentile crew to go together to Tarshish. 
	h). And what we will realize is, that even to this present day the threefold purpose for Israel’s creation in Jacob has not been realized. Although the Word of God was given entirely to the Jews, both OT and NT, they have refused to take this Word out to the nations. They have rejected their Messiah and are unable to declare His salvation. Neither did they rule at the head of the nations in any meaningful way because of their disobedience, with that rulership being subsequently lost. Consequently, God’s blessings could not, and cannot flow to the nations, and the nations remain outside of God’s Divinely established order, separated from Him.

3). To return to Jonah – Jon 1:1 Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.” 3 But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. 4 But the LORD sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship was about to be broken up. 5 Then the mariners were afraid; and every man cried out to his god, and threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea, to lighten the load. But Jonah had gone down into the lowest parts of the ship, had lain down, and was fast asleep.

We have already seen then that the account of Jonah provides us with the type for the experience of national Israel. And the history of the nation from its inception to the present day is presented in the first three and a half verses of the Book. All that follows, from the second half of v4 onwards, deals with what still awaits Israel in the future during the time of Jacob’s trouble and beyond.
	a). These first three and a half verses of Jonah correspond to the first nineteen verses of Esther. And we will realize from this that both Jonah and Esther are Books that primarily focus on what awaits Israel in the near future, when their disobedience and unfaithfulness will finally be dealt with. And that which awaits Israel in the near future must be seen within the context of the fulfillment of God’s plans and purposes for His Son, Man, the earth, angels, and the universe at large within the Divinely orchestrated and perfectly structured ages that have been framed by the Word of God.
	b). To stir ourselves up by way of reminder one more time, the command given to Jonah to go to Nineveh is the same command given to national Israel to be God’s witness to the Gentile nations. Both Jonah and national Israel chose to flee from the presence of the Lord aided and abetted by the Gentile nations. And for national Israel, this was brought to its zenith at the rejection and crucifixion of the nation’s Messiah. The offer of the Kingdom of the Heavens and the rejection of Messiah are not dealt with in Jonah. But the Lord cites Jonah as being the only sign that would be given to the nation following His rejection in Matthew Chapter 12 – 
Mt 12:38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.” 39 But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here.

And as we have seen, Israel’s continual disobedience and unfaithfulness, pictured in both Queen Vashti and Jonah, have in history been dealt with out among the Gentile nations as seen in the Assyrian and then the Babylonian captivities. And so that we may understand what the Lord said to the Jewish people in the continuing verses from Matthew Chapter 12, following the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit - Mt 12:43 “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. 44 Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. 45 Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation.”

And so that we may understand the significance of these verses in relation to the sign of the prophet Jonah, and so that we may understand the meaning of the coming of the ‘mighty tempest’ upon the sea and also understand Haman’s attempted annihilation of the Jews in the Book of Esther, we need to return to the end of the Babylonian captivity and to the prophet, Daniel, and what God spoke through him concerning these things.

4). Da 9:1 In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the lineage of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans— 2 in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books [literally - writings] the number of the years specified by the word of the LORD through Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.

And that which Daniel read in Jeremiah’s writings was this – Jer 25:11 And this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. 12 ‘Then it will come to pass, when seventy years are completed, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity,’ says the LORD; ‘and I will make it a perpetual desolation.

The Babylonian captivity, as we know, began around 605BC. And according to Jeremiah, God would count seventy years from the beginning of the captivity and precisely at the end of the seventy years He would then do two things. He would firstly, ‘punish the king of Babylon and that nation’. And secondly – Jer 29:10 For thus says the LORD: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.

God would ‘visit’ the captives in Babylon and would cause them to return to the land of Israel from which they had been taken.
	a). Daniel knew that the seventy years had been completed and he had witnessed the punishment of the king of Babylon – Da 5:30 That very night Belshazzar, king of the Chaldeans, was slain. 31 And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old.

Belshazzar was the son [or possibly grandson] of Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king who had taken the southern two tribes of Judah captive, beginning the Babylonian captivity. The king at the beginning of the times of the Gentiles. And it was, Belshazzar, who was slain as the Medes and the Persians conquered the Babylonian kingdom, just as Babylon had conquered the Assyrian kingdom previously. But here, as God had promised, was the punishment of the king of Babylon for having taken Israel captive.
	b). Daniel would likely have also read from Jeremiah, Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.

And no doubt, he would have known this from other Scriptures – 
Le 26: 38 You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. 39 And those of you who are left shall waste away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; also in their fathers’ iniquities, which are with them, they shall waste away.40 ‘But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, with their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to Me, and that they also have walked contrary to Me, 41 and that I also have walked contrary to them and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if their uncircumcised hearts are humbled, and they accept their guilt— 42 then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham I will remember; I will remember the land.

2 Ch 6:24 “Or if Your people Israel are defeated before an enemy because they have sinned against You, and return and confess Your name, and pray and make supplication before You in this temple, 25 then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of Your people Israel, and bring them back to the land which You gave to them and their fathers. 26 “When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against You, when they pray toward this place and confess Your name, and turn from their sin because You afflict them, 27 then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of Your servants, Your people Israel, that You may teach them the good way in which they should walk; and send rain on Your land which You have given to Your people as an inheritance.

2 Ch 7:12 Then the LORD appeared to Solomon by night, and said to him: “I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. 13 When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, 14 if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

And Daniel’s knowledge of all of this will account for what Daniel did next Da 9:3 Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. 4 And I prayed to the LORD my God, and made confession, and said, “O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments, 5 we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments. 6 Neither have we heeded Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings and our princes, to our fathers and all the people of the land. 7 O Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but to us shame of face, as it is this day—to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, those near and those far off in all the countries to which You have driven them, because of the unfaithfulness which they have committed against You.

Daniel then, knew that the seventy years had been completed, he had seen the punishment of the king of Babylon at the hands of the Medes and Persians. And so, he embarked upon the remaining thing which he knew from the Scriptures was necessary for God to visit His people and return them to the land, repentance, by confessing his own sins and the sins of the Jewish people.
	c). What we don’t know is whether repentance on behalf of the Jews extended beyond Daniel to any of the other captives. But really this makes little difference, because God had clearly stated that at the conclusion of a specific period of time, seventy years, He would visit His people that they might return to the land covenanted to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It was not a conditional promise.
	d). Now Scripture records that only remnants of the Jewish people returned to the land following the end of the seventy years. The majority it seems had become quite content to settle down in the Gentile world and stay where they were in the kingdom of Babylon that was then ruled by the Medes and the Persians, and then the Greeks etc.
	e). Those who did return, did so for the most part at three different times. The first came under the leadership of Zerubbabel, and then under Ezra, and finally under Nehemiah. Even though it was not the whole house of Israel that returned, God nonetheless, had remained true to His Word effecting a restoration of His people to the land. And we are going to pay close attention to the fact that God had set in place a very specific timeframe, seventy years, after which, and not before, He acted in complete accord with what He had previously said. For seventy years life had continued uninterrupted for the Jewish people within the Babylonian kingdom; life became usual, safe, and predictable, but at the end of seventy years God acted in accordance with His Word.
	f). And as we know, the end of the seventy years provided just a glimpse into what awaits the Jewish people within another very specific timeframe – Da 9:20 Now while I was speaking, praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the LORD my God for the holy mountain of my God, 21 yes, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, reached me about the time of the evening offering. 22 And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, “O Daniel, I have now come forth to give you skill to understand. 23 At the beginning of your supplications the command went out, and I have come to tell you, for you are greatly beloved; therefore consider the matter, and understand the vision: 24 “Seventy weeks are determined For your people and for your holy city, To finish the transgression, To make an end of sins, To make reconciliation for iniquity, To bring in everlasting righteousness, To seal up vision and prophecy, And to anoint the Most Holy. 25 “Know therefore and understand, That from the going forth of the command To restore and build Jerusalem Until Messiah the Prince, There shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; The street shall be built again, and the wall,
Even in troublesome times. 26 “And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself; And the people of the prince who is to come
Shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood,
And till the end of the war desolations are determined.

While Daniel was still making his prayer and supplication to the Lord concerning the restoration of Israel to the land, he was interrupted by the angel Gabriel. And Gabriel had been sent as Daniel began his prayer and supplication to reveal to Daniel that there was to be another period of time subsequent to the seventy years. A period of time that would be seven times longer than the seventy years, four-hundred, and ninety years. And this extended period of time would again relate to the Jewish people and would be for the same purpose as the seventy years, but as the multiple of seven would suggest, this period of time would bring to completion that which was not completed at the end of the seventy years in Babylon.
	g). And so, it would be at the end of the four-hundred and ninety years precisely, that all the Jewish people, the whole house of Israel, scattered among the Gentile nations within a future Babylonian kingdom would be brought to repentance and restored to the land covenanted to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in order that God’s purpose for His adopted firstborn son should be fulfilled. So, that God the Father would once again have a wife, in accordance with that set out in the opening thirty-four verses of Genesis. The wife pictured in Queen Esther who replaced the disobedient Queen Vashti, the one who proved to be ‘better than she.’ And all within the context of fulfilling His Divine purpose for the perfectly organized ages with respect to His Son, Man, the earth, the angels, and the universe at large.

We will continue with this next time if we remain and the Lord is willing, and we have prayed.

From Time to Time - Part Three

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From Time to Time - Part Three

Sep 03, 2023

Speaker: John Herbert

Series: From Time to Time

Category: Sunday Morning

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