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From Time To Time - Part Twelve

Nov 05, 2023 by: John Herbert | Series: From Time to Time

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Isa 46:13 I bring My righteousness near, it shall not be far off; My salvation shall not linger. And I will place salvation in Zion, For Israel My glory.

In the midst of the darkness the Sun of Righteousness will arise with healing in His wings.

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Sunday November 5th 2023
From Time to Time – Part 12

1). Isa 46:9 Remember the former things of old, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, 10 Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure,’ 11 Calling a bird of prey from the east, The man who executes My counsel, from a far country. Indeed I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it; I will also do it. 12 “Listen to Me, you stubborn-hearted, Who are far from righteousness:
13 I bring My righteousness near, it shall not be far off; My salvation shall not linger. And I will place salvation in Zion, For Israel My glory.

We have seen in our past weeks of study how God has used scripturally recorded historical events and individuals to provide types that declare ‘the end from the beginning and from ancient times things that are not yet done’, with respect to the revealing of the man of sin, in his own time, this being the subject of this facet of our study, and the conclusion of the whole of the matter as we head into the Kingdom Age.
	a). We have seen a worldwide destruction and a new beginning with the flood of Noah, to which we have added the account of Nimrod, giving us a man and a kingdom inextricably connected to a city, Babylon, and a geographical area, Assyria. From there we had briefly looked at the life of Joseph where a deliverer is first introduced, foreshadowing the Christ, in relation to seven years of plenty and seven years of famine that typified what was about to take place in Egypt in the short term and what is yet to take place during the tribulation.
	b). We had seen that sometime following Joseph’s death an Assyrian became Pharaoh and began his persecution of the Jewish people, foreshadowed in the seven years of famine and typifying the events of the coming tribulation. A man and a kingdom directly connected back to Nimrod, with the children of Israel added to the picture and a persecution of the Jews so intense that they cried out to the God of their Fathers who sent a deliverer, Moses. And we had seen that the children of Israel’s persecution was an integral part of a specific period of time that God had allotted to them for a specific purpose - Ex 12:40 Now the sojourn of the children of Israel who lived in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years. 41 And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years—on that very same day—it came to pass that all the armies of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.

And in connection with the deliverance of the children of Israel from Egypt, Exodus introduced the Passover, the death of the firstborn, as the means by which deliverance is accomplished.
	c). The substitutionary death provided by the Passover lambs had been seen in the account of the sacrifice of Isaac and foreshadowed through the tunics of skin that God made for Adam and the Woman, all of which can be traced back further still to – Re 13:8…………….the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

This being the only means by which redemption, whether of individuals, national Israel, or the earth, is possible.
	d). In Exodus then, the persecution of the Jewish people is seen at the hands of an Assyrian king, who along with his army was subsequently destroyed. The reason why the Jews are to be persecuted at the hands of the Gentile nations is not revealed until after the Exodus from Egypt when Israel’s history of unfaithfulness, disobedience and harlotry began – 
Ex 32:1 Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” 2 And Aaron said to them, “Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. 4 And he received the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molded calf. Then they said, “This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!” 5 So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow is a feast to the LORD.” 6 Then they rose early on the next day, offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.

From the Exodus we had then briefly gone to the Book of Judges, a time in Jewish history described as - Jg 17:6 In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

The same period of time of course in which the Book that follows Judges, Ruth, is set – Ru 1:1 Now it came to pass, in the days when the judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah, went to dwell in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons.

And it is within the Book of Judges that we see the record of a cyclical pattern of behavior by the Jewish people and God’s response to it – 
Jg 2:11 Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served the Baals; 12 and they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt; and they followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them, and they bowed down to them; and they provoked the LORD to anger. 13 They forsook the LORD and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. 14 And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel. So He delivered them into the hands of plunderers who despoiled them; and He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies. 15 Wherever they went out, the hand of the LORD was against them for calamity, as the LORD had said, and as the LORD had sworn to them. And they were greatly distressed. 16 Nevertheless, the LORD raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those who plundered them. 17 Yet they would not listen to their judges, but they played the harlot with other gods, and bowed down to them. They turned quickly from the way in which their fathers walked, in obeying the commandments of the LORD; they did not do so. 18 And when the LORD raised up judges for them, the LORD was with the judge and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the LORD was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed them and harassed them. 19 And it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they reverted and behaved more corruptly than their fathers, by following other gods, to serve them and bow down to them. They did not cease from their own doings nor from their stubborn way.

What we can see very clearly from Judges is that God has determined to use the Gentile nations as the instrument by which He will bring Israel to repentance and that this would continue until the cycle will be eventually broken at the end of the tribulation.
	e). Primarily throughout Judges, the Gentile nations would come into the land of Israel and persecute the people within the land itself. But God had already made known to them, before they entered the land, that captivity, to bring about repentance, would be inevitable - Le 26:31 I will lay your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not smell the fragrance of your sweet aromas. 32 I will bring the land to desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it. 33 I will scatter you among the nations and draw out a sword after you; your land shall be desolate and your cities waste.

De 28:41 You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity.

And we had concluded our study last week by noting an addition to God’s response to Israel’s cycle of behavior that was introduced in Chapter 12 of Judges, following the death of the eleventh judge, Abdon - Jg 12:13 After him, Abdon the son of Hillel the Pirathonite judged Israel. 14 He had forty sons and thirty grandsons, who rode on seventy young donkeys. He judged Israel eight years. 15 Then Abdon the son of Hillel the Pirathonite died and was buried in Pirathon in the land of Ephraim, in the mountains of the Amalekites. 13:1 Again the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD delivered them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years.

Forty is one of several numbers in Scripture that are used to show completeness. We might remember that Moses was on Mt. Sinai for forty days and forty nights, and that the disobedient first generation of Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years. The Lord was also tempted by Satan for forty days and forty nights and He had a forty-day post resurrection ministry.
	f). And so, for the first time, recorded in Judges Chapter 12, the children of Israel were consigned to subjection under a Gentile nation, the Philistines, for a complete period of time, because of Israel’s continued wickedness. At the end of the forty years God raised up Samson as the twelfth judge, who began to deliver the people, even though repentance had not been forthcoming. And although Samson ‘began to deliver’ the children of Israel, complete deliverance could not, and cannot, come about apart from national repentance.
	g). What we find set in place at this time in Israel’s history, that foreshadows their future experience, is persecution at the hands of Gentiles for a specific period of time in order to bring correction and repentance to a disobedient and unfaithful people.

2). That which has been pictured through Nimrod, the Assyrian Pharaoh and the Book of Judges is then brought together – 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.

Of course, it is by no means coincidental that we find the Jewish people in captivity in the Babylonian kingdom. A kingdom that had previously conquered the Assyrian Empire that had taken the northern ten tribes of Israel captive in 722BC before taking the southern two tribes of Judah captive in 605BC. And is not coincidental because Assyria and Babylon and Nimrod were established in the foundation to foreshadow these future events to which they point. Future events that are inextricably connected to a Babylonian kingdom and an Assyrian, who will be punished for his actions. From ancient times those things which are not yet done.
	a). And to understand the full significance of the Babylonian captivity let’s keep in mind that from the time the glory filled the tabernacle in the wilderness at Sinai Israel had held the scepter of rulership within a Theocracy. The Babylonian captivity, brought about because of the wickedness of the Jewish people, saw an end of the Theocracy, the departure of the glory and the transfer of the scepter of rulership from the children of Israel, God’s adopted firstborn son, to the Gentiles under the god of this world, a transfer that began the times of the Gentiles, with Nebuchadnezzar, as a ‘son’ of the god of this world, being the first Gentile king to hold the scepter in Israel’s place – Jer 27:5 ‘I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are on the ground, by My great power and by My outstretched arm, and have given it to whom it seemed proper to Me. 6 And now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant; and the beasts of the field I have also given him to serve him. 7 So all nations shall serve him and his son and his son's son, until the time of his land comes; and then many nations and great kings shall make him serve them.

And the purpose for the times of the Gentiles, beginning with Nebuchadnezzar, is to bring the Jewish people to the place of repentance through Gentile persecution, as we have already seen foreshadowed in Egypt and in the Book of Judges. And all is inextricably linked to a Babylonian Kingdom whose geographical boundaries included the conquered Assyrian empire. And the children of Israel cannot be what their name says, ‘He who will rule with God’, until persecution at the hands of the Gentiles is of such a ferocity that it produces national repentance, and a Deliverer is sent who is the Lamb of God, the Lion of the tribe of Judah.
	b). The length of this captivity in Babylon was specifically stated to be seventy years, but the end of the seventy years saw neither the end of Jewish harlotry nor the end of the times of the Gentiles as only a remnant of Jews returned to Jerusalem – Isa 52:5 Now therefore, what have I here,” says the LORD, “That My people are taken away [the Babylonian captivity] for nothing? Those who rule over them Make them wail,” says the LORD, “And My name is blasphemed continually every day. 6 Therefore My people shall know My name; Therefore they shall know in that day [the coming Day of the Lord] That I am He who speaks: ‘Behold, it is I.’ ”

And as the Babylonian captivity was ‘for nothing’ with respect to God’s purpose for the Jews, we can see a parallel between the seventy years in Babylon and the forty years Israel spent in the hand of the Philistines.
	c). However, within these seventy years, one man, Daniel, was shown another specific period of time, the completion of which is necessary for God’s purpose for His people to be fulfilled –
Da 9:24 “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.

That which would not be accomplished during the seventy years in Babylon will be accomplished in a time seven times greater than seventy years, four hundred and ninety years. And not only was this specific time given, but also the exact moment at which the four hundred and ninety years would begin, ‘from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem’, which of itself means an exact moment when the four hundred and ninety years will end.
	d). And to piece together how that established in the foundation connects with the Babylonian captivity and the coming kingdom of the Antichrist, we need only return to the Book of Daniel, which is a Book about the kingdom of this world during the times of the Gentiles and the coming Kingdom of Christ at the end of these times, as it is all there – 
Da 2:27 Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, “The secret which the king has demanded, the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, and the soothsayers cannot declare to the king. 28 But there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream, and the visions of your head upon your bed, were these: 29 As for you, O king, thoughts came to your mind while on your bed, about what would come to pass after this; and He who reveals secrets has made known to you what will be. 30 But as for me, this secret has not been revealed to me because I have more wisdom than anyone living, but for our sakes who make known the interpretation to the king, and that you may know the thoughts of your heart. 31 “You, O king, were watching; and behold, a great image! This great image, whose splendor was excellent, stood before you; and its form was awesome. 32 This image's head was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, 33 its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. 34 You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. 35 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed together, and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. 36 “This is the dream. Now we will tell the interpretation of it before the king. 37 You, O king, are a king of kings. For the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory; 38 and wherever the children of men dwell, or the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven, He has given them into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all—you are this head of gold. 39 But after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours; then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. 40 And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything; and like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others. 41 Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. 42 And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile. 43 As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay. 44 And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. 45 Inasmuch as you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold—the great God has made known to the king what will come to pass after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation is sure.”

Nebuchadnezzar, the first Gentile king of Babylon to hold the scepter of rulership taken from Israel, the king whom God described through Jeremiah as His ‘servant’, had had a dream. And according to the Scripture, ‘the great God has made known to the king what will come to pass after this.’
	a). What is revealed in the dream then, has to do with the Babylonian kingdom beyond the days when Nebuchadnezzar and his descendants would be its king. And given the context in which this dream is given, the captivity of the children of Israel, and who is given the interpretation of the dream, the Jewish profit Daniel, the Jewish people remain in view throughout. What is set out in the dream then, has as much to do with the Jewish people and God’s purpose for them as it does with the kingdom of Babylon. The two remain inextricably connected for the accomplishment of God’s purpose.
	b). And as we see from the Scripture the dream reveals ‘a great image’ that stood before Nebuchadnezzar. The head of gold is stated to be Nebuchadnezzar, the king at the beginning of the times of the Gentiles. After Nebuchadnezzar and his descendants would come another kingdom, seen in the chest and arms of silver, identified as the Medes and the Persians, a kingdom inferior to Nebuchadnezzar’s, but a Babylonian kingdom, nonetheless. There would then be a third kingdom, identified as the Greeks, the belly, and thighs of bronze, ‘which shall rule over all the earth’; to be followed by a fourth kingdom, the legs of iron and feet partly of iron and clay, that ‘will break in pieces and crush all the others.’
	c). The feet partly of iron and partly of clay is an intriguing description, particularly when considering what is said about them, As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay. And in the following verse we are told, And in the days of these kings…… The feet with ten toes points to ten kingdoms as a part of the fourth kingdom, with the king of each kingdom being the offspring of the ‘they’ who will mingle with the seed of men. And I am sure that this will remind us of what we had seen back in Genesis Chapter 6 – Ge 6:1 Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, 2 that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. 3 And the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” 4 There were giants [Nephilim] on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. [more Nephilim] Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.

De 3:11 “For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of the giants. Indeed his bedstead was an iron bedstead. (Is it not in Rabbah of the people of Ammon?) Nine cubits is its length [approx. 13.5 feet] and four cubits [6 feet] its width, according to the standard cubit.

And with the ten toes mingling iron and clay in mind, we will then find this in – Re 12:3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, [horns are symbolically used to denote power and can therefore be seen as kingdoms whose power is with and under the Antichrist – the seven heads with seven diadems] and seven diadems on his heads.

And this is confirmed for us at the beginning of Chapter 13 – Re 13:1 Then I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, out of the Gentile nations] having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, [ten crowned rulers forming the ten-kingdom confederacy with the Antichrist] and on his heads a blasphemous name.

These ten crowned rulers are ten ‘Nephilim’, the progeny of fallen angels mingling with the seed of men, coming to prominence within Antichrist’s kingdom. These are the ten toes of iron mixed with clay of Nebuchadnezzar’s great image.
	d). And in the interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, we are told, And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever, pictured through the stone cut without hands that strikes the great image at its feet, then becoming a great mountain that fills the whole earth – Isa 2:1 The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. 2 Now it shall come to pass in the latter days That the mountain of the LORD'S house Shall be established on the top of the mountains, And shall be exalted above the hills; And all nations shall flow to it.

Mic 4:1 Now it shall come to pass in the latter days That the mountain of the LORD'S house Shall be established on the top of the mountains, And shall be exalted above the hills; And peoples shall flow to it. 2 Many nations shall come and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, And we shall walk in His paths.” For out of Zion the law shall go forth, And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

Zec 8:3 “Thus says the LORD: ‘I will return to Zion, And dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. Jerusalem shall be called the City of Truth, The Mountain of the LORD of hosts, The Holy Mountain.’…………….. 20 “Thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘Peoples shall yet come, Inhabitants of many cities; 21 The inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, “Let us continue to go and pray before the LORD, And seek the LORD of hosts. I myself will go also.” 22 Yes, many peoples and strong nations Shall come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem, And to pray before the LORD.’ 23 “Thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘In those days ten men from every language of the nations shall grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man, saying, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.” ’ ”

The four kingdoms seen in Nebuchadnezzar’s great image revealed through his dream are further expanded and explained through Daniel’s vision of four great beasts, given to him in the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar, the son/grandson of Nebuchadnezzar.

The four great beasts though will have to wait until next time if we remain and the Lord is willing, and we have prayed.

From Time To Time - Part Twelve

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From Time To Time - Part Twelve

Nov 05, 2023

Speaker: John Herbert

Series: From Time to Time

Category: Sunday Morning

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A Recap from the Sermon