Would you turn with me this evening to the Book of Daniel, Chapter 2?
Daniel Chapter 2. We will read from verse 31.
Thou, O king, sawest, and behold, a great image.
This image, which was mighty, and whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the aspect thereof was terrible.
As for this image, its head was of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of brass, its legs of iron, its feet part of iron, and part of clay.
Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon its feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them in pieces.
Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken in pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that no place was found for them.
And the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.
This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king.
Thou, O king, art king of kings, unto whom the God of heaven hath given the kingdom, the power, and the strength, and the glory.
And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens hath He given into thy hand, and hath made thee to rule over them all: thou art the head of gold.
And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee; and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth.
And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron, forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things; and as iron that crusheth all these, shall it break in pieces and crush.
And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potter’s clay, and part of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay.
And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.
And whereas thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men; but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron doth not mingle with clay.
And in the days of those kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; nor shall the sovereignty thereof be left to another people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.
Forasmuch as thou sawest that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.
And then, if you will turn in the same book to Chapter 7.
The seventh chapter of Daniel.
In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed: then he wrote the dream, and told the sum of the matters.
Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of heaven brake forth upon the great sea.
And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.
The first was like a lion, and had eagle’s wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made to stand upon two feet as a man; and a man’s heart was given to it.
And behold, another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it was raised up on one side; and three ribs were in its mouth between its teeth: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh.
After this I beheld, and lo, another, like a leopard, which had upon its back four wings of a bird: the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it.
After this I saw in the night-visions, and, behold, a fourth beast, terrible and powerful, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with its feet: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.
I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.
I beheld till thrones were placed, and One that was Ancient of Days did sit: His raiment was white as snow, and the hair of His head like pure wool; His throne was fiery flames, and the wheels thereof burning fire.
A fiery stream issued and came forth from before Him: thousands of thousands ministered unto Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened.
I beheld at that time because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake: I beheld even till the beast was slain, and its body destroyed, and it was given to be burned with fire.
And as for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a season and a time.
I saw in the night-visions, and, behold, there came with the clouds of heaven One like unto a son of man, and He came even to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him.
And there was given Him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him: His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.
Shall we just bow together in a word of prayer?
Dear Father, we just want to thank You that You have made available to us all that we need for this evening time, and especially for the ministry of Your Word. Together, Lord, we would just take that provision by faith.
Whether myself speaking, or whether the rest of us in hearing, we pray, Lord, that there may be such an anointing upon our time together tonight that we may be given that spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Yourself.
Lord, let Your Word come to dwell in us richly, we pray. Give us the kind of insight, the kind of understanding, that we need for the days in which we are living.
Heavenly Father, we just commit ourselves to You now with thanksgiving, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
I spoke this morning, or began to speak, upon this subject of the relevance of biblical prophecy. What I had to say this morning was really introductory to the rest that I have in my heart.
I wish we had the time to deal much more thoroughly with this vital and strategic subject. I would like very much to have talked about some of those basic constituents of biblical prophecy, because it is not all to do just with the future, as I said this morning.
One of the main aspects, or important parts, of biblical prophecy is the revelation of the eternal purpose of God. It is only when we begin to understand what God is driving at—what was the goal He had from the beginning in the creation of the universe and in the creation of man—that we can begin to understand a little more about all the details concerning the nations, concerning the church, concerning Israel, and concerning all these other things.
They begin to fall into place only when we have an understanding of what His eternal and original purpose was. Now, no amount of academic study, or intelligence, or brain power, will ever bring a man or a woman to an understanding of the eternal purpose of God. It has to be revealed.
It is the prophetic Word of God which has given us an understanding of what that purpose is. That is tremendously important. I wish we had time to spend the whole session on it.
Another aspect of biblical prophecy which I consider to be one of the most vital constituents in it is the matter of origins. All the prophets were continually putting their finger upon the matter of origin.
If you have the wrong beginning, you will never end right. In other words, if you begin in Adam, you will never end in God. You have got to be got out of Adam and into Christ. You have got to have a second birth, a second beginning, a new beginning.
If, through the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, you have been transferred from Adam and placed in God’s Son, you have the right origin. You get it?
If you have the right origin, your destiny is the glory of God. Everything else falls short of the glory of God.
So it does not matter whether it is Ishmael. If it is Ishmael, he will never inherit. If it is Isaac, born through the promise of God and by the power of God, he inherits.
If you belong to Babylon, you can never come to the glory of God. If you have been spiritually born in Jerusalem, then you will inherit the glory of God. So we could go on.
But, you see, the prophets are always talking about the matter of origin, and it is tremendously important. If we could only see how vital it is, we would understand very much more of the prophetic Word, because that is why there is so much in it warning us again and again and again: make sure of your origins.
The Apostle Peter put it very simply. He said, “Make your calling and election sure.” In other words, make absolutely certain that your origin is right, because origin determines destiny.
Now, that is something you will find all the way through the Bible. It explains the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. So you have these two vital constituents in the word of prophecy. They could not be understood by natural intelligence or brain power. God revealed them through His prophetic Word, and in this way we are given an understanding.
Now, having said that, what I want to talk about this evening is another tremendous aspect of the prophetic Word: the outline of world history.
The Bible gives us an outline of world history. It is the only book in the whole world that has given us an outline of world history from its beginning to its end which has been exact in its accuracy.
It means that if it has been so exact in its fulfilment thus far, we have absolute confidence that what remains yet to be fulfilled will be accurately fulfilled.
Now, God does not give us a detailed history of the nations. It is very interesting, when you read the Bible, what is left out. There are tremendous civilizations and empires that are not even mentioned in the Bible. They are almost passed over.
Yet we know that some of these civilizations and empires were some of the greatest in the history of mankind. They are not mentioned because they do not touch the purpose of God.
We only have those civilizations and empires mentioned which, in some way or another, are involved negatively or positively with the eternal purpose of God.
For instance, the only reason the Bible mentions the great Egyptian civilization is because it had something to do with the unfolding of His purpose for His people.
The only reason why we hear of the Babylonian, or the Persian, or the Greek empires, or the Roman Empire, is only because, in some way, it touches the fulfilment of God’s eternal purpose. Everything else is left out.
So we do not have any kind of encyclopedic outline of all the empires the world has known, or of all the civilizations the world has known. What we have is, as it were, history in principle, and in particular where it touches the purpose of God.
Now, what really is the significance of this outline of world history that we have in the Bible? It is simply this: truth will ultimately win.
Truth will ultimately win. There may be a night of absolute and pitch darkness, but in the end, the light will win.
Now, the Bible is very interesting because it says, “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” That statement is much more than saying God gives light, or God enlightens people. To say that God is light is something far, far more significant and far more important.
Jesus said, “I am the truth.” If He had said, “I preach the truth,” or, “I speak the truth,” or, “I give the truth,” that would have been absolutely correct; but it would have been far less than saying, “I am the truth.”
Now, if God is light and Jesus is the truth, then light and truth have got to win. There is no question about it at all.
Whether the universe is filled with demons, whether there is an Antichrist that rules from end to end of the globe, whether there is a system that enslaves men and women in it, whether the Bible is finally banned from all places of education and preaching of the gospel is totally ruled out, it makes no difference to the fact that, however dark the night that might lie ahead, the truth is going to win.
That is why God gives us the outline of world history and, furthermore, is not afraid to bring before our vision pictures of very great savagery and bestiality. God does not hide it all behind a curtain.
He brings it all before our eyes and says, “Now listen, if you have no faith, you will fear. But if you have the eyes of faith, you will see right the way through to the ultimate victory of the Lamb.”
No matter what the darkness, no matter what the power and authority of evil, no matter what is done physically to those who belong to God, in the end truth must win.
Now, of course, the Apostle John put it very simply in 1 John 4:4. Speaking about the Antichrist and so on, he said:
Ye are of God, my little children, and have overcome them: because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.
Now, I find this quite tremendous. The child of God has no need to fear nuclear war. They can blow your body to pieces, but the One Who is in you is greater than he that is in the world, and He can put back your body in a single moment of time.
After all, does it matter if we go in a big bang, or if we die on a bed of sickness? Our bodies are going to go back to dust anyway.
One day there is going to be a miracle of resurrection in which all the atoms that have made up your body are regathered together, and you are given a resurrection body, a redeemed body. It is a miracle. Truth will win.
Jesus said this wonderful thing about martyrdom. He said, “This will happen to you, and this will happen to you, and this will happen to you, but do not fear, for not one hair of your head will perish.”
Now, I think that is wonderful. He did not just say, “Do not worry; you will have a whole being in the end.” He went to these hairs which drop out every day and said, “Not one hair of your head will perish.”
Not one hair of your head will perish.
I imagine even the bald will get back a headful of hair in the end.
Truth will win because truth is Jesus. Light will win because God is light.
If He has gone to so much trouble to redeem you—spirit, soul, and body—if you walk with Him, if you trust Him, and if you do His will, you will not suffer ultimately. In the end, you will be there in glory with Him. Not one hair of your head will be lost.
Now, I say that is quite tremendous. We have no need to fear nuclear war. Some people are so frightened to death of it that is why they get so worked up, in an escapist way, concerning the rapture.
They think, “Oh, oh, we must have a rapture. We cannot face a war. We have got to go before.” It is nonsense.
Just supposing the Lord has so ordered it that we have another world war. Are you going to lose your faith because you have all along thought, “No, no, no, no. We are never going to have anything like that. We are going to go before”?
Praise God if we all go before, but if we have to go through another world war, why should we fear? Greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world.
We have no need to fear. Why should we fear Antichrist? Let him come. Let him do everything he wants to do.
He will come, and he will do everything that he wants to do. Why? Because it says God will allow him to speak these great words of blasphemy and to do every single thing that he wants to do.
But he has a predestined time of appearing and, thank God, a predestined time for finishing. His appearance and his end are foreordained by God.
Now, it is most beautifully put in Thessalonians, where it says, “And the Lord Jesus will slay him with the breath of His mouth and the brightness of His appearing.”
How simple. It will not seem too good when the Antichrist is here, and if, in the will of God, we should live through at least the first part of his appearing, it will not seem so simple then.
It will seem that he will have a cast-iron system and a power that is unparalleled in the history of mankind. But, oh, how marvellous it is that truth is going to win.
All the Lord Jesus has to do is appear and breathe on him, and he will shrivel in an instant. Thank God for that.
Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. The most priceless thing in the whole world is to know the indwelling of the Lord Jesus.
What can you compare with a human being—especially some of us decaying, grotty, not very beautiful, slowly decomposing—and yet we have within us the Son of God?
The Son of God is in us, dwelling in our mortal bodies, able to quicken them. How tremendous that is.
Why, you could have all the gold in the gold mines of South Africa and the Soviet Union, and yet it pales into insignificance compared with the indwelling of the Lord Jesus.
I could have so many diamonds that I could be smothered with them, and yet I am the poorest man in the world, in the history of the world, if I do not have the Lord Jesus living within my mortal body.
Diamonds, or platinum, or gold, or silver—they are worth nothing compared with the indwelling of the Lord Jesus. What a privilege it is, as human beings, to have received the Son of God into our hearts and into our lives, to have been joined into a union with God in Christ.
We sometimes murmur and complain and rebel and devalue our salvation, and yet we are the recipients of the greatest treasure that this world knows: fathomless, unsearchable riches of the Lord Jesus.
Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. I remind myself continually, though it is a mystery, that the devil is a created being. God created him. Why, I do not know.
One day I shall ask, and maybe we shall get an answer. But it comforts me to know that the devil is not infinite, that he is not like God, without beginning or end.
He is a created, finite being with the greatest intelligence in the universe and great power and authority, but he is a created being.
In me is an uncreated Being. Thank God for that. In me and in you is the Son of God—God the Son.
Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. Does it not blow your mind, the very thought of it?
Can you believe, my dear friend, when you go back to your room, go to the mirror and have a look and say to yourself, “Look, can you believe? In that body lives the Son of God.”
In me—not a created spirit, not some principality or power, but the Son of God Himself—lives within me. Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.
We have no need to fear nuclear war. Why should we? We have no need to fear the Antichrist. Why should we?
His coming is predestined, his power is predestined, his duration of time is predestined, and, thank God, his end is predestined. Why should we fear?
It is rather like going to the dentist without anaesthetic: a sharp pain, and it is all over.
We can endure these things if we see beyond to the glory that is to be, to the kingdom of God which is forever.
Truth will win because truth is God.
Now, I say that this is very satisfying. Why should we have no reason to fear these things? For the satisfying reason that we are on the winning side.
I think it is always good to be on the winning side. I do not know how you feel, but I think it is a tremendous thing to be on the winning side. I thank God that He took me out of the losing side and put me on the winning side.
Adam is the losing side. Satan is the losing side. Christ is the winning side. God is the winning side.
Oh, I thank God He delivered me from the power of darkness and transferred me into the kingdom of the Son of His love. I am on the winning side.
So we should encourage ourselves: greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world.
Now, the problem is that he that is in the world is sometimes a good deal more manifest than He that is in us. We so often see the circumstances and feel the influence of he that is in the world.
Even when he does this war dance around us, it sometimes seems that he has all the power and all the authority, and that he is there forever. But it is not true.
That is why we have the outline of world history. It is as if God is saying, “I know how the enemy is going to work on you, My dear children. I know that he will bring you to the place of discouragement, of despondency, where perhaps you will be tempted to throw away your great confidence.”
“Therefore, I have given you an outline of world history, and I have not hidden from your days any of the dark things, or the evil things, or the savagery, or the wickedness, or the triumph of darkness. I have depicted it all as it will come to pass.”
“So that, when these things are fulfilled, you do not lose faith or heart, but see through it to the ultimate victory of the Lord Jesus.”
There you understand why the word of prophecy is a lamp in a dark and squalid place, to which we should give heed.
Now, it was to Daniel that God gave this understanding of what we call the times of the Gentiles.
Daniel was born of nobility. In fact, we have an ancient Jewish tradition, which I imagine is probably true, that Daniel was born of the royal house of David.
Certainly, Daniel was of aristocratic birth. It was precisely because of his noble birth that he was deported by Nebuchadnezzar in 606 BC, when all those of good birth and good pedigree were taken away to Babylon.
They were there investigated and examined, and the very choicest of them were made eunuchs. Daniel was amongst them.
For three years he went through the training programme and then entered into royal service.
The interesting thing is this: from the very beginning, when he was a teenager, Daniel, who knew the Lord, determined not to compromise on one single issue.
It must have been a very great temptation to him to compromise and so to win favour. Maybe the argument would have gone, “Well, it does not matter very much if I have to eat things that are not right, I know, against the Levitical law, and do this and do that and do the other. After all, it is more important to remain alive, and later on perhaps times will be better. Then I can start to go back to this when I have greater favour with the authorities.”
But not Daniel. From the very beginning, from the very beginning, he purposed not to defile himself in any single way.
God brought him from one influential position to another, right through the successive reigns of Babylonian kings and Persian kings, until in the end this Jewish boy became the supreme administrator of the whole Persian Empire.
First, in the end, he became one of the three—the committee of three that ran the whole nation under the king—and finally he became the first of the three, in the greatest empire the world had ever known.
It was to this man that God gave an understanding of world history. He revealed to him the times of the Gentiles.
Now, it is the Lord Jesus Who used this term, “the times of the Gentiles,” as it is recorded in Luke 21:24. I will read it to you:
And they, that is the Jewish people, 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.
We must not confuse, at least in my estimation, this phrase, this term, “the times of the Gentiles,” with the Apostle Paul’s term in Romans 11:25, “the fulness of the Gentiles.”
Some people think that the times of the Gentiles and the fulness of the Gentiles are the same thing. But the fulness of the Gentiles is a term meaning the full number of the Gentiles, of the elect people of God amongst the Gentiles. The times of the Gentiles refer to something else.
Now, I think that is quite important, and I just want to underline it and go straight on.
I read to you two chapters in Daniel. I hope it is not too complex, what I have got to say. It is a complex subject.
In the first, when Daniel was in his twenties, a dream vision was given not to Daniel but to the emperor, King Nebuchadnezzar. Finally, God gave to Daniel the interpretation of that dream.
Do you remember the dream? Nebuchadnezzar saw a huge colossus, a huge idol, a huge image of a human being. Its head was gold. Its chest and arms were silver, its belly and thighs were bronze, its legs were iron, and its feet were baked clay and iron mixed together—two materials that do not fuse.
Then, as you watched, suddenly a stone was cut, not humanly, without hands, out of a mountain of rock, and was sent hurtling towards the statue.
It did not hit the head, nor the chest, nor the thighs, nor even the legs. It hit the feet. In that moment, the whole great ninety-foot-high statue collapsed into a heap. It was shattered beyond repair.
Then, as the king watched, he saw this stone, this rock which had been cut out of the mountain but not with human hands, grow and grow and grow and grow and grow until it filled the whole earth.
To Daniel was given the understanding. He said, “You, O King Nebuchadnezzar, are the head of gold.”
That is, this outline of history begins. These times of the Gentiles begin with the Babylonian Empire, and in particular with King Nebuchadnezzar, the greatest of the Babylonian kings.
After you, there shall come another empire, inferior. What followed the Babylonian Empire? The Persian Empire, dramatically, suddenly, overnight.
We know from the Bible, do we not? Because Daniel was all part of it. Do you remember when, at that great feast, the hand wrote on the wall? He said to the last Babylonian king, Belshazzar, “You have been weighed in the balances and found wanting. This night the kingdom will be taken from you and given to another.”
In that night, the Persian army dammed up one of the great canals of Babylon, came through the river gate, and took the whole city. The whole Babylonian Empire disappeared, never to reappear again.
So the next part of the statue, the silver chest and arms, is Persia—the greatest empire, from the human point of view, that the world had seen to that time, for it stretched all the way to India.
Then, said Daniel, after this empire there will rise another empire: bronze. What followed the Persian Empire? The Greek, the Hellenic, which stretched all the way from Greece in Europe to northern India.
After that, there will be another kingdom, diverse and strong, that will crush everything to pieces. We know that the fourth empire was Rome.
Now, you wonder, “Well, is that all there is to world history?” No, because if we go on, we find that the whole thing continues right down to modern times.
Modern civilization is a conglomerate, a Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and Roman thing, with a little bit of mixture of biblical things as well. That is really modern civilization.
It is a very interesting fact that we are now witnessing the process by which our present civilization is returning to its pagan origin and throwing overboard everything that has come from the Jewish-Christian source. We are in the very process at the present time.
Now, it is a very interesting thing that in Daniel Chapter 7, Daniel records a dream vision that was given to him. This time it is not an image or a colossus. This time it is four savage beasts.
The first was a lion. The second was a bear. The third was a leopard, and the fourth was a creature that Daniel had never seen before. He said it was exceedingly diverse, strong, and fierce. Four beasts.
Now, the lion corresponds to the head of gold. The bear corresponds to the chest and arms of silver. The leopard corresponds to the belly and thighs of bronze, and the diverse beast, the fourth one, corresponds to the legs.
There are some people who say that it does not, and I will leave that to another time. They say that it does not end with Rome, that it ends with the Greek Empire; or some of them say that it will be a revival of the Babylonian Empire in the last days.
I am not at all convinced, for the simple reason that the Scripture says that in the days of those kings God will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed.
When did the Lord Jesus appear on the earth? Not in the Greek Empire, not in the Persian Empire, not in the Babylonian Empire—in the Roman era.
We have witnessed the whole of that right down to the present day. We are the product of that Roman civilization. I do hope I am making this at least a little clear. I hope you will not be more confused at the end of this than when we began.
In Revelation Chapter 13, we have a most remarkable thing. There, suddenly, John sees coming up out of the sea, just as Daniel saw the winds breaking from four quarters onto the sea and churning it up into a great storm, like a hurricane-force storm.
John sees coming out of the sea—a restless sea—a great beast, and it is a composite beast: lion, bear, leopard, and that last creature, all mixed up into one.
In other words, it is as if modern civilization is the conglomerate of Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and Roman ideals and philosophy. It is exactly the same, if you look very carefully.
Now, maybe you begin to wonder, “Oh dear, what is all this about?” If we had time, we could spend time talking about all the details of this, for they are fascinating.
So accurate was Daniel’s prophetic insight that liberal modernist Bible scholars have said it could not possibly have been Daniel who foretold all this. No one could describe empires a century or two before they came to pass in such accurate detail.
Now, these are men who normally would like to discredit the whole thing. So what they say is, “This is such a remarkably accurate record of the Greek period, the Greek period in particular, that it must have been written afterwards in the guise of prophecy.”
At least everyone admits it is accurate. It is a question of whether it was written up after the event or predicted before the event.
Well, I think you know. I think we can say we believe that God is able to do anything. He is well able to speak of Cyrus two hundred years before he appears. Why cannot He?
He is well able to speak of the Greek Empire and Alexander the Great, and then, after his whirlwind victories, the whole empire breaking up into four kingdoms, and then two of them becoming the principal ones: the south, centred on Egypt; the north, centred on Syria; and the battles between the two.
Then this extraordinary king called Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who is the original Antichrist of the Bible.
This man was a most remarkable man. I will not spend too much time upon him, except to say this: you have in these different visions a little horn mentioned, or a contemptible person mentioned, or a king of the north mentioned, and they are all the same person.
Although they refer actually to different times in history, they are all predictive of a man who is going to come at the end of the age, in our generation, I believe—a man of tremendous culture and sophistication, a man who believes in democratic principles, who will sweep the whole world after him.
He will produce a system in which war and terrorism will be banned, and a new kind of morality and a new pattern for living will be initiated or introduced. This man is called in the New Testament the man of sin, or the Antichrist.
Now, it is not my purpose to say too much about him tonight. All I want to say is this: we have an outline of world history here which, if we only had the time, we could go into in detail and show you how amazingly accurate it has been.
What I find so interesting is this: we have here a revelation of what we call the times of the Gentiles, which began with King Nebuchadnezzar. Have they ended?
What are the times of the Gentiles? Why is it called the times of the Gentiles? Because it speaks of the subjugation of the Jewish people.
It was called the times of the Gentiles because the Jewish people were not sovereign, but subservient. Those times began, with certain exceptions—for, in one instance, almost a hundred years—with Nebuchadnezzar. They lasted all the way through the Roman time, and right the way through the last two thousand years, right into this generation.
Now listen to me very carefully. If these times of the Gentiles mean the subjugation of the Jewish people—that is, their being brought under the sovereignty of Gentile superpowers or Gentile nations—then surely the emergence of a sovereign Jewish state ought to spell the end of those times.
On 14 May 1948, a sovereign Jewish state appeared amongst the nations of the world. Therefore, we can say that the times of the Gentiles have ended.
Now, is that correct or is it incorrect? Because there are those who say, “No, no, that is not so. The times of the Gentiles means the times of unbelievers.”
They say this means that the unbelieving peoples and nations will trample down Jerusalem until Jesus comes again. But hang on. Just look at this word again, will you, in Luke 21:23-24.
This is what Jesus says:
Woe unto them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days! for there shall be great distress upon the land, and wrath unto this people.
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.
What land? The land of Israel. What people? The Jewish people. Which people will fall by the edge of the sword? The Jewish people. They shall be led captive into all the nations.
That happened in AD 70. Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
In other words, the Lord Jesus was speaking to the Jewish people about their national territory, about their national capital, and about their statehood. All of these things would disappear until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
What does that mean? It means this: that on 14 May 1948, God began to tie up something that He first revealed to His servant Daniel twenty-six hundred years ago. The times of the Gentiles were fulfilled.
But I have some more evidence, if I can persuade you, or at least put it before you so you can consider it.
“Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” Never at any time in the last two thousand years has Jerusalem been under the sovereign government of Jews, except for a few months in AD 135 in the Bar Kokhba rebellion. That is the only time.
In all the last two thousand years, Jerusalem has been under the heel of Gentile nations of one kind or another—until 6 June 1967.
In a lightning move, the Israeli Defence Forces retook the Old City of Jerusalem, reunited it with West Jerusalem, and on 30 July 1980, by Act of Knesset, it was proclaimed the eternal and indivisible capital of the Jewish people.
Now listen to the actual words of the Act of Parliament, of the Jewish Parliament: it is proclaimed the indivisible and eternal capital of the Jewish people.
“Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” What has happened? First, there has been the emergence in 1948 of a sovereign Jewish state, and now Jerusalem has been retaken to become the capital of that sovereign Jewish state.
The times of the Gentiles are over.
Then what time are we in? Into what have we been led, as the people of God?
We have been introduced into that phase—if I am right, and I may be wrong, but if I am right, and I think I am right—we have been led into what is called in the Scripture the last days, or the end time.
Or, I like it much more, the threshold of the Messiah’s coming. Jesus said, “When you see these things coming to pass, know ye that He is nigh, even at the door.”
You can hear His footsteps on the threshold of the door when you see these things beginning to come to pass. How exciting.
People get all frightened. “Oh dear, dear, dear. Are we going to see persecution? Are we going to suffer the Antichrist? Is there going to be another world war?”
Well, my dear friends, it is what you look at. Of course, if you want nuclear war, you can have it. If you want the Antichrist, you can have him. If you want persecution, you may well have to suffer it.
But, my dear friends, that is not the point. The point is this: we are on the threshold of the Messiah’s coming. That is exciting. At least it is for me. I hope it is for you.
The outline of world history—do you see how this word of prophecy is a lamp, shining in a dark and squalid place, to which we do well to give heed?
What would we do without this word of prophecy? It is vitally important that the people of God should at least know where they are in world history.
We are not in the Babylonian era. We are not in the Persian era. We are not in the Greek era. We are not even, in one sense, in the Roman era, thank God.
We are in the last days. We have passed out of the times of the Gentiles and into the last days of the age.
Now, I do not know how long they will last. Some people say a generation. I personally am not very much with it.
Because if it is a generation from 1948, we can date the coming of the Lord, cannot we? Then some say, “Oh no, no, no, no. He is going to come before then.” Well, then we can date it even more clearly, cannot we?
Sometime before, between now and 1988, He is going to come. I am not very sure about this.
What I know, and it thrills my heart and my spirit starts to jump and leap, is this: here we are in a last period, however long it lasts. We have got a work to do as the people of God.
We have got to see the bride prepared. We have got to see the issues in our lives settled. We have got to hold forth the word of life to the dying multitudes all around us. We have no time to lose.
We have passed irrevocably, irreversibly out of the times of the Gentiles, thank God, into the last days.
Are you ready?
Are you ready? Supposing He came tonight, are you ready?
Or would you like Him to give you another week? I am not being funny. Would you like Him to give you another week so that you could get things settled?
In other words, you are not ready. There are people you should write letters to, phone calls you should make, difficulties that need to be overcome, forgiveness sought, humbling made.
I know many people who would say, “Oh, please, please do not let Him come tonight. I have got a few things I need to do.”
Dear people of God, you will not know when He comes. He will come like a thief. It is time to get ready. There is no time like today.
So we need to begin to get ready.
Some of you say, “Oh, could You not just give me a little more? I want to grow more in the Lord.” My dear child, just settle the issues in your heart with the Lord, and be obedient to Him, and He will make you grow very quickly if necessary.
Normally, God has to give time to you that you might grow. But there are times when there is the right spirit, when God can put you, as it were—if I may so speak—into a pressure cooker, and get you more quickly done than otherwise.
You may not like the pressure cooker spiritually, but God can do it if you are ready and willing.
Now, dear people of God, what are the lessons from this prophetic Word?
I find it a tremendous comfort to myself to know that God is working out His purpose. From the beginning, He has been working everything according to His purpose.
Well, I find that very exciting. I think to myself, supposing I had lived in the days of Nebuchadnezzar before he was converted, I think I might have been very afraid.
When he set up that great ninety-foot image and said everyone was to bow down and worship the power of the man, he only had to flick a finger and someone’s head came off. I would have said, “Oh, what am I to do now? He has supreme power.”
It may not have been quite so easy to realize God was behind Nebuchadnezzar. In all his wickedness and all his unbelief, God was behind him. He had his beginning, and he had his end.
If I had lived in the time of Antiochus IV, when he defiled the temple, I would have been really afraid. He changed all the laws. He banned the Sabbath. He said there could be no more circumcision. He made the Jews eat non-kosher food.
He sacrificed a pig on the brazen altar in the temple, and then went into the Holy of Holies with the blood of a pig and sprinkled it in the Holy of Holies.
He caused immoral rites and orgies to be held within the temple precincts. He set up a statue of himself upon the brazen altar and took the name Epiphanes, “outshining a god,” because he believed that he was a manifestation of God in the flesh.
He caused the blood of godly people to flow from end to end of the country for seven years.
If I had lived in the time of Antiochus, I might have feared and wondered, “What can I do? Shall I compromise to save my skin?” But Antiochus had a beginning, and Antiochus had an end.
I find that a tremendous comfort. All the tyrants of world history, strangely enough, have only come to the zenith of their power by the allowance and permission and authority of God.
This means that every empire that ever has come to rule and reign has come by God’s ordering. Both its rise and its fall have been ordained.
And all the ideologies. Oh, you say, “You cannot say that, surely. Do you mean to tell me that Marxism has been ordained by God?” Yes, I do.
The rise of Marxism was within the sovereignty of God. Its rise to power, the duration of its time, and its fall are all ordained by God.
It does not matter whether it is the Babylonian Empire, or the Persian Empire, the Greek Empire, or the Roman Empire. It does not matter whether it is the Holy Roman Empire, the British Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Chinese Empire, or the Russian Empire.
They all came to their power, and all came to their end. It does not matter whether it is the superpowers of the present era.
The United States is at present at the zenith of its power. God has ordained its beginning, its rise to power, the duration of its time, and its fall.
God has ordained the rise of the Soviet Union, its rise to power, the duration of its time, and its fall.
Marxism, capitalism—both of them are under the sovereign hand of God. He is not, as it were, the master of them, or in any way, in some sense, the producer of them; but He is the One Who works out His purpose through them all.
I remember an old Danish sister whom some of us knew very well, who was one of the most remarkable women, I think, that Denmark produced as far as the church of God, as the house of God, is concerned.
I had a friend who went to her when the Nazis invaded Denmark in 1940. The air-raid sirens wailed, and as these German bombers were dive-bombing a nearby town, and as others came along and machine-gunned people in the lanes and in the fields, there she was out in the garden with a little trowel planting petunias.
Her friend, who dashed in through the gate, saw her on her knees planting away and singing quietly to herself, and said, “Sophia, Sophia, you must go in. The Germans are bombing.”
She looked up and said, “The Germans will come, and the Germans will go. Only God is forever,” and went on planting her petunias.
You know, we must learn some of these lessons. God is working out His purpose.
Maybe you would have preferred to be in a period of peace rather than a period of war. It seems rather sad, from the vantage point of time, that some of us must spend our whole little life, say, under the heel of a Marxist tyrant.
But whether it is Stalin, or whether it is Mao, or whoever it is, they come and they go. But the kingdom of God is forever.
These other kingdoms God uses and discards. His kingdom is forever. That is the first lesson.
Then there is a second lesson that I find of tremendous help, and it is this: do you notice that when God reveals the times of the Gentiles, He reveals it in terms of an idol, a huge colossus or image of a man?
Do you think it is not interesting that in the very next chapter Nebuchadnezzar set up such an image, ninety feet high, and had all the band come out and play, do you remember? Whenever the band played, everyone had to prostrate themselves before this image.
We are not told that that image was the image he saw, but the association seems clear.
Now, what am I trying to say? I am saying precisely this: human history is the deification of man. It is a process of self-worship.
If you look at world history, man has risen to his greatest heights, driven by self-worship; and he has gone down to the greatest depths of depravity for the same reason.
This is why, in the last book of the Bible, when we hear of this beast coming out of the sea, we are given a number: 666, the number of man.
It says again and again that the dragon will cause all people to worship the beast. Then it says that the false prophet will come and set up an image and cause all the nations to worship that image of the beast.
Is it not interesting? History repeating itself in the final analysis.
I find that very interesting. Human history is an image—very beautiful at times, very sophisticated, very refined—but an image that man worships.
Here is something else that I also find very interesting: a statue is immobile. It has no heart. It has no heart.
All these great ideologies, whatever they are through human history, have appeared so magnificent, but they are lifeless. Man is drawn into them like cogs in a machine. His individuality, his originality, is destroyed.
We have seen in our own generation such great things. Take some of the tenets of Marxism. They are so socially just, so magnificent in concept, and yet it is a huge monolith without a heart that grinds human beings into nothing.
An idol. I find that very interesting.
But may I go on to another lesson, which I find also very interesting? This same picture of human history is given to us in another way, only this time in the picture of savage beasts.
Suddenly we see behind the façade, the sophisticated façade of the image, what it really is: savagery.
I do not know whether I need to go through history to talk about savagery. You would have thought that man, after these thousands of years of existence, would have finally learned his lesson.
But, my dear friends, the twentieth century has been as savage as any other single era of human history. Do you know how many people died in two world wars alone—the 1914-1918 war and the 1939-1945 war?
Fifty-five million people died in those two wars. Fifty-five million people died. Twenty million in concentration camps alone, in the Far East and in Europe, savagely.
I can give you four instances taken from this century that, I think, in capsule form, will give you an understanding of this picture of world history as four savage wild beasts: the cruelty, the inhumanity, the bestiality of man without God.
The first is, in 1915 to 1918, the genocide of the Armenian people. The Armenian people are amongst the most artistic and gifted of all the peoples of the earth.
But for no other reason than that they were Armenian and Christians, the Turkish Muslims fell upon them and murdered one million four hundred thousand at least, in enforced marches in which men, women, children, and babes in arms were butchered mercilessly.
That is the twentieth century.
My second example is much nearer to us: 1939 to 1944—four years in which six million Jews, men, women, children, babes in arms, were butchered in the most horrifying circumstances.
All that the modern world could conceive was used in the gas ovens to simply liquidate people. Nor were the remains even dumped.
The teeth were taken out; the gold was extracted and melted into gold bars. The hair was shaved off and used for mattresses. Even the skin was used, in some cases, for lampshades. The fat was melted down for soap, and the bones were ground into powder for fertilizer.
This is not two thousand years ago. It is not three thousand years ago—the Babylonian wickedness, or the Assyrian cruelty, or the Roman hardness.
This is the middle of the twentieth century, and one of the most cultured peoples in the whole of Europe, the German people, when they became demonized through Nazism.
I have friends who witnessed one-month-old babes tossed into the air and caught on bayonets as they came down, and others who saw little children thrown alive into the furnaces.
Surgery was performed upon human beings without anaesthetic, in which living organs were removed from them without even anaesthetic. Can you believe that in your generation such things could happen?
World history depicted as savage wild beasts.
I give you another example. In the years of the rise of the Soviet Union, in enforced labour camps, for no other reason than political dissidence, fifteen million people have died in the most inhuman and bestial circumstances.
Today, thank God, there are not so many concentration camps in the Soviet Union. But, you know, the new thing is to send people to hospitals where they are injected with a brain drug which destroys their ability to think.
This is the 1970s, the 1980s. Wild, savage beasts.
My last example is right near to hand. It is the Cambodian tragedy, when the Khmer Rouge took over that little beautiful land and murdered two million people in a bloodbath of unparalleled savagery.
Why? Because they wanted to destroy a whole class of people that Marxism might take root.
People in hospitals were taken out of hospitals in a de-urbanization programme in which whole towns and cities were driven into the fields. People who had just had surgery had all the things disconnected, and as they were taken out, they died.
Now, my dear friends, you may not like to hear such things as these. These are not the cosy, comforting little things that so often Christians are content to listen to.
These are the dark, savage, evil, but realistic things of this world.
This is why, when God speaks of the times of the Gentiles, of world history, He depicts it first in the form of an image, an idol. “Covetousness,” says the Bible, “which is idolatry.”
It is human greed that lies at the root of all this self-worship and self-gratification. But it is not just a beautiful idol. Behind the idol is the savagery of wild animals: men and women without God, brute beasts.
Dear friends, we have Daniel to thank for this revelation concerning world history.
Shall I tell you something? I am undisguisedly thankful it is coming to an end.
It may have beautiful architecture, beautiful music, and beautiful literature, but behind its façade of sophistication and refinement and education is a savage beast.
Thank God, there is an end to it all. When it ends, then all things will be made new.
That is the last lesson I want to leave with you tonight. The message of the times of the Gentiles, of this outline of world history, is not all the bestiality and cruelty and wickedness.
The wickedness and cruelty of the beasts is for time only. The grace and the glory of the Lamb is forever.
It is a supreme point of divine inspiration that it is a Lamb that is seen in the throne of God. Could there be anything more different to a beast than a lamb? A little lamb. There could be nothing more different.
On one side: dragons, serpents, beasts, false prophets, Babylon with all its glory and splendour and avarice. On the other side: a little Lamb, as it had been slain.
But the message of Daniel is that this One Who was like unto a son of man, Who came to the Ancient of Days, into His hands were given glory and honour and dominion, and a kingdom that shall not pass away.
I am very thankful for the Bible. I am thankful it does not hide from me the real facts concerning the nations and concerning world history.
I am even more thankful that the character of the One Who is King of kings and Lord of lords is not a beast, but a Lamb. In His hand, authority and power are safe.
Oh, dear people of God, we are meant to be followers of the Lamb. We are those who are meant to follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.
So, dear people, we end this evening. I hope you do not find it too depressing and too dark to talk about these times of the Gentiles. Let me say it once again: they have ended.
We have before us the last, darkest part of the night. Thank God, I personally do not believe we shall have to endure too much of it. There are those who believe we shall have to endure the whole of it.
I will not argue with you. I will love you, and I hope you will love me too. If we go through this darkest part of the night to the end, please support me and help me. It will be a bit of a shock.
But this I can tell you: the grace and the power of God will be sufficient for whatever we have to face.
These times of the Gentiles are over, thank God. Now we are in the last phase, for however long it lasts. Are you ready?
Here is the word of prophecy, which is a lamp shining in a dark place, whereunto you and I do well to take heed, until the day dawn and the day-star arise in our hearts.
Shall we pray?