THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL

A History of Israel Past— Present—and Future

DR. BRIAN J. BAILEY Version 1.1

“A History of Israel—Past, Present and Future” © 2010 Brian J. Bailey Front cover images © 2009 Yuri Chertok (Torah), © 2009 Volker Kreinacke (Pyramids Egypt) and © 2006 Keith Reicher (Israeli Flag). Used by permission, Istock Images.

Front cover design © 2010 Zion Fellowship Inc. Illustrations: Solomon’s Temple, Restoration Temple and Herod’s Temple © 2007 Hugh Claycombe for Zion Christian Publishers, used by permission.

All rights reserved All Scripture quotations in this book are taken from the King James Version Bible unless otherwise stated.

AUTHOR’S NOTE My own affinity with Israel was sealed in September of 1973. I had been ministering in Amman, the capital of the kingdom of Jordan, where the Lord had been pleased to pour out His Spirit in a very gracious way.

People were saved, baptized with the Holy Spirit and we had very warm relationships with all of those dear Jordanian believers. Then with reluctance, we had to leave and travel to the Allenby Bridge to cross into Israel. There, the Israeli customs consisted of soldiers who were very rude and ill-trained for such a job, and succeeded in upsetting the most seasoned of travellers by their attitudes and demeanour toward those entering the country. I myself was feeling anything but kind thoughts toward the nation they represented and was longing to return to the friendly Jordanians. The fact that the crossing was below sea level in the heat of September did not help one’s temperament either. As I took a taxi to the Intercontinental Hotel on the Mount of Olives, my thoughts were still focused upon the kind Jordanians, and even that night I was yet to find myself in a good frame of mind toward the Israelis. However, around three o’clock in the morning, I was woken from a sound sleep by the presence of God the Father. He was saying to my spirit, “I love Israel, I love Israel.” Well, I was very shaken, and I quickly agreed with Him, saying, “I love Israel too.” He proceeded to tell me that He was about to reveal sin in high places and change the heads over many nations. This fact can be readily confirmed, since 30 heads of nations were changed in the following 18 months, including President Nixon in the U.S.A, which resulted from the Watergate scandal.

God then said He would remove His peace from Israel, and Israel has enjoyed no real peace since the Yom Kippur war, which took place a month later in October 1973. He also told me that He would begin to visit His church to purify it. From that time, many congregations have emphasized the necessity of a deep inner cleansing and circumcision of heart. After that, the Lord showed me in a vision the Arabic armies coming against Jerusalem, and particularly filling the Mount of Olives with their troops. They broke into the northern part of the city with much bloodshed, but then the defenders of Zion held firm, and the Lord appeared, delivering them at His Second Coming (cf. Zech.14:1-4).

PREFACE The nation of Israel is unique in that it is the only nation God has chosen to be His people. It is highly distinguished in the annals of mankind. Its origins and history are contained in a Book that only the Almighty could have inspired, for it covers a period from around the beginning of the world to the birth, ministry and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, 4,000 years in all. The origin of the nation takes its form from the patriarch, Abraham, who lived some 20 generations after Adam. He was called “The Friend of God,” and to him the Almighty gave many precious promises concerning his seed, which later (through his grandson Jacob) became known as the nation of Israel. This book is presented so that you, gentle reader, may come to appreciate the richness of the heritage of the nation of Israel, and understand its present struggles, as well as the glorious hope and future that await them at the coming of their Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ.

We are dividing this book into three sections: • The Past: From Creation to Messiah’s First Coming • The Present: From Messiah’s First Coming Until 1948 • The Future: From 1948 to the End of Time

CONTENTS Author’s Note Preface The Past—From Creation to Messiah’s First Coming 1. Adam to Abraham 2. Abraham to Israel 3. From Israel to the Exodus Under Moses 4. Entering the Promised Land 5. The United Kingdom of Israel 6. The Divided Kingdom 7. Babylonian Captivity 8. The Medeo-Persian Empire 9. The Ministry of the Prophet Daniel 10. The Grecian Period 11. The Roman Period The Present—From Messiah’s First Coming until 1948 12. The Early Church Age 13. Islam and the Crusades 14. The Middle Ages to 1948 The Future—From 1948 to the End of Time 15. Statehood in 1948 and Beyond 16. The Last Days 17. Christ’s Second Coming and the Millennium 18. New Heavens and New Earth Epilogue

Part I Israel’s Past From Creation to Messiah’s First Coming

CHAPTER 1 Adam to Abraham Without the Bible we would have no sound historical account of Creation, nor would we know in particular the generations and the men that lived immediately after the creation of Adam until the Flood. Therefore, the Bible must be our reference when considering the history of the nation of Israel, which was brought to birth 22 generations after the creation of man. There are seven days of creation in Genesis 1.

The forming of Adam occurred on the sixth day. The first three days had seen the division of light from darkness; the separation of the dry earth from the waters of the seas; and the bringing forth of grass and trees. On the fourth day, the sun, moon and stars were created. On the fifth and sixth days, God created every living creature that moves—including the fish in the seas and the fowls of the air. Everything had been created and spoken into existence by God’s Word (Ps. 33:6, 9), but man himself was formed with God’s own hands on the sixth day.

Then God planted a garden in Eden and placed man in this most beautiful paradise. Adam was no caveman but possessed of a highly cultivated intelligence, since we see that God brought all His creatures unto Adam so that he would name them: “And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him” (Gen. 2:20).

Then when there was no companion found for Adam, God caused a deep sleep to come upon him. He took a rib from his side and formed woman, whom Adam called Eve. Thus, she became the mother of all the living (Gen. 3:20). Adam and Eve were created in a state of innocence, but innocence is not holiness.

These are different. Innocence must be tried and tested before it becomes holiness. Therefore, man had to be tested. Adam and Eve were permitted to eat of the fruit of every tree in the garden, with the exception of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:16-17). A number of godly people who have visited heaven and conversed with Adam tell us that Adam and Eve were thoroughly warned by the Lord time and time again not to touch that forbidden fruit, for in so doing they would become sin and corrupt all of creation. When man fell by disobedience, it caused the whole creation to fall, for man had been given dominion over all of God’s creation.Satan was permitted to test Eve through a serpent that was able to talk. He started his dialogue with doubt, his greatest weapon, saying, “Hath God said…” He reasoned that she had misunderstood God’s command and assured her that she would not die, whereupon Eve gazing upon the fruit, saw that it was pleasant to the eyes and to make one wise, and partook of it (Gen. 3:1-6). This entire episode took place in the absence of Adam; the Adam to Abraham dialogue here was totally between the serpent and the woman. Eve was deceived, not Adam, according to 1 Timothy 2:13-14. When Adam returned home, immediately he understood what had happened. He knew that he would lose her because she had become sin and would die. Because his love for Eve was greater than his love for God, he identified himself with her and also partook of the forbidden fruit. Thus, the root sin of Adam was that he preferred human love above God’s love. This is perhaps one of the greatest weaknesses of the human heart. So many people have forfeited so much in exchangefor human love! Anything we love more than God is idolatry, and human love and the need for man’s approval is often idolatrous.

After partaking of the fruit, Adam and Eve realized that they were naked and hid from God when He spoke to them in the cool of the evening. In His compassion, the Lord made coats for them from the skins of animals, indicating that the shedding of blood was necessary for the atonement of sin. This looked ahead to the Lamb of God who must die so that man could be clothed with His righteousness (Gen. 3:8, 21).

From Adam and Eve came forth two principal lines of men— the godly and the ungodly. Cain, who murdered his righteous brother Abel, is the father of the wicked line. Seth, who replaced Abel, was the father of the godly line. Seth produced a line of godly patriarchs unto the Flood who were essentially prophets and knew that the flood was coming. These prophets accomplished many notable feats. For example, there was Enoch who walked with God so closely that he was translated into heaven and never saw death (Gen. 5:24). He became a type of those who will be raptured in the last days. Enoch also prophesied of the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in Jude 1:14-15. These saints knew the flood was coming. Enoch prophetically named his eldest son “Methuselah,” which means, “At his death will the waters go forth.” Amazingly Methuselah died in the same year as the Flood. He was the oldest of all men, living until 969 years, which signifies the fullness of man. Then Lamech the son of Methuselah, named his son “Noah” which means “rest.” This indicated that Noah would bring that generation into rest. Lamech lived 777 years and died five years before the flood. He is a type of righteous men who are taken beforehand so that they do not live to see the coming judgments. This is described in Isaiah 57:1-2: “The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness.” By faith, Noah built an ark which preserved the human race and also all animal life. He passed from one dispensation to another. Noah’s generation was severely judged by a catastrophic flood and the earth was purged from great wickedness. When Noah stepped out of the ark, he was walking upon an earth that had been purified and Noah literally inherited the whole earth. In our times, the earth will also be severely judged and purged by the Great Tribulation. Those who live godly and meet the qualifications (as Noah did) will pass from the Church Age into the Millennial Age. Thus, Noah represents those who pass from one dispensation into another one. It is the meek who will literally inherit the earth (cf. Mt. 5:5).

ADAM 10 generations NOAH 10 generations ABRAHAM Peleg: 5 generations after the Flood ADAM 20 generations ABRAHAM

From Adam to Noah there were ten generations. From Noah to Abraham there were another ten generations. All together there were 20 generations from Adam to Abraham. After the Flood, man’s life expectancy was greatly diminished. Noah had three sons—Shem, Ham and Japhath. Once again, iniquity quickly abounded on every hand, especially those who descended from the line of Ham, the second son of Noah.

The line of Ham produced such rebels as Nimrod who built the cities of Babel, and Nineveh from which sprang forth the evil empires of Babylon and Assyria. They journeyed toward the land of Shinar and there they built a city and a tower where they intended to reach heaven. They did this obviously in defiance of the Almighty who stated: “…Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth” (Gen. 11:6-9).

In the days of Peleg, (a descendant of Shem), the earth was divided (Gen.10:25). It is believed that five generations after the Flood, the Lord changed all the races and languages and scattered mankind all over the earth. This He did to dissipate evil, for the earth’s inhabitants used their combined intelligence to work evil in the sight of the Lord. Thus, the Lord thwarted their works by changing their languages. The next ten generations from Noah to Abraham are listed in 1 Chronicles 1:24-28. The first ten are given in 1 Chronicles 1:1-4, and also in Genesis and elsewhere. In a world that quickly became corrupt all over again after the Flood, God was looking for a man in whom He could create a separate and holy nation for Himself. Not only did God want to have a separate and holy nation, He desired this nation to be a light to the rest of the world. God found such a heart in Abraham, whom he termed, “The Friend of God.” We will develop the call and life of Abraham in the following chapter.

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CHAPTER 2 Abraham to Israel Let us now look at this great man Abraham, who is called the father of the faithful and a friend of God. From him came the two major religions of this world—the Jewish faith which Christianity adheres to, and the Moslem beliefs.

Abraham We are told that when Abraham was living in the Ur of the Chaldees, God spoke to him and told him to leave his country and kindred and go to a land which God would show him (Acts 7:2-3). He obeyed, not really knowing exactly where he was to go (Heb.11:8). The Lord also gave him great and mighty promises: “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Gen.12:1-3).

Unfortunately, Abraham did not fully comply to the Lord’s injunction to leave his kindred, since he took his nephew Lot along with him (Gen.12:4). This resulted later in the incestuous birth of Moab and Ammon who were fathered by Lot, whose descendants have been a thorn in the side of Israel even unto this day, and who will continue to be so until the Second Coming of the Lord (Gen.19:24-38). The perils and consequences of partial obedience, as well as those errors resulting from seeking to accomplish God’s will through our own efforts, are often tragedies that last for generations and sometimes, for eternity. For example, Abraham’s desire to fulfil God’s will in having a son through Hagar the Egyptian led to the birth of Ishmael and eventually the formation of the Moslem religion. Mohammad claimed descent from Ishmael through Kedar, the second son of Ishmael. Eventually Abraham and Lot had to separate because their cattle and substance was so great that the land could not contain them both (Gen. 13). To his detriment, Lot chose to camp in the direction of Sodom and lost everything, including his wife and the moral purity of his daughters.

God’s Promises to Abraham Abraham was given further precious promises and we quote, “And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee” (Gen. 13:14-17).

Then the Lord came to Abraham promising him that an heir would come from his own loins. The faith of Abraham is tested as we read Genesis, “And [the Lord] brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness” (Gen. 15:5-6).

This event in Genesis 15:5-6 is most important because it is quoted by the Apostle Paul to substantiate the doctrine of salvation by faith: “For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness…Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” (Rom. 4:3, 23-25).

The Promise Confirmed by a Covenant At this time, the Lord was going beyond a promise to a most solemn covenant. God said, “Unto thy seed 8

have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river Euphrates.”

Now the nature of the making of this covenant has to be clearly understood that we may realize the solemnity that binds and establishes it. In those times when a man made a covenant, both parties divided animals in half and then they walked between those divided parts, thus sealing their covenant. Abraham was instructed by the Lord to take a heifer of three years, a she-goat of three years, a ram of three years, and a turtle dove and a young pigeon. Abraham divided these animals and laid each piece one against another. As the sun was going down, a deep sleep and a horror of great darkness fell upon him. Then the Lord declared that the seed of Abraham would be in Egypt for 400 years, after which God would judge the Egyptians and bring forth the seed with great substance. This is a profound reference to the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt some 400 years later (Gen.15). Then in Genesis 15:17, something very amazing happened. Instead of the Lord and Abraham passing between those divided animal parts, two other Persons walked down that pathway. While Abraham was in a deep sleep, “… it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.”

God the Father (represented by the smoking furnace), and God the Son (represented by the burning lamp) walked between those divided pieces. Thus, the covenant was made between the Father and Son, and Abraham had no part in it. This meant that the covenant was not conditional upon any action of Abraham, or of his seed. The covenant is irrevocable and is sealed for time and eternity by God. It cannot be broken and therefore the seed of Abraham will have the land of Canaan from the river of Egypt unto the great river Euphrates. It all belongs to them by a mandate of God.

The Birth of Ishmael God had promised Abraham that he would have an heir that would come forth from his own loins. Sarah was growing older and was unable to bear him any children. Therefore, without enquiring of God, Sarah suggested that Abraham seek to have children through an Egyptian handmaid named Hagar whom she gave to Abraham to be his wife. Ishmael was born from this union. Realizing her mistake, Sarah dealt harshly with Hagar and sent her out of the house. In the wilderness, Hagar was met by an angel who told her that her seed would become a multitude that could not be numbered. However, the angel also said that he would be “a wild man whose hand would be against every man and every man’s hand against his” (Gen.16:6-12). Ishmael’s birth was the result of impatience and natural thinking, and something they could produce. Yet Isaac’s birth required a miracle of grace. We can see that the faith of Abraham and Sarah was still not made perfect. Paul compares these two women (Sarah and Hagar) and their sons to the Old and New Covenants in Galatians 4:22-31.

Ishmael was born when Abram was 86 years of age. The Lord waited another 13 years before speaking to Abraham about Isaac. At the age of 99, the Lord began by giving a command to Abram “to walk before Him and be perfect” in Genesis 17:1. He follows with the promise that He will make Abram (whose name He changes to Abraham) “a father of many nations” (17:5). He then continues, “And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God” (Gen.17:6-8).

The Promises Involve the Land of Canaan for an Inheritance Thus, we see that the promises that the Lord was giving to Abraham were not just for the patriarch, but also his seed for an everlasting possession. These promises are irrevocable and remain forever and ever.

They cannot be broken. The promise, in particular, is with respect to the land of Canaan. God has declared that the land of Canaan was to be given to the seed of Abraham forever and ever. Therefore, as long as the earth remains, that land belongs to Abraham’s seed, and Abraham to Israel specifically to Isaac’s 9

seed. In Genesis 17:9-14, God commands that to have Canaan for an inheritance, every male child had to be circumcised. Circumcision is related to inheritance. Without circumcision, they could not inherit the land of promise. Many years later when Israel crossed Jordan, they could proceed no further until all were circumcised (Josh. 5:2-7).

This has a profound spiritual meaning to us, the Church. Our inheritance is spiritual, and our circumcision is in heart, in our spirit (Rom. 2:28-29). We cannot receive our inheritance until we are circumcised in heart, until the natural fallen nature that we were born with is cut away by the Sword of God’s Word. The Lord then proceeds to declare that Sarah, who is 90 years of age, will have a son from Abraham’s loins. He is now 100 years of age. The Lord decrees that the name of the son would be “Isaac” meaning “laughter” or the “laugh of faith” as C.T. Studd, founder of the W.E.C. missionary society, was known to say.

All the Promises Are Passed Down to Isaac, Not Ishmael Abraham pleaded with God for Ishmael, whereupon God said, “And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation” (Gen. 17:20). Nonetheless, with respect to Isaac, God reiterated, “But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year” (Gen. 17:21). These verses are of utmost importance when studying the history and future of Israel. Although Abraham had these two sons, both of whom God promised to multiply, Isaac was the chosen seed, not Ishmael.

Abraham Intercedes for Sodom and Gomorrah The Flood of several hundred years past had destroyed the entire human race, except for eight people.

Incredibly, it was not long afterward that mankind turned to astrology, witchcraft, and false religions at Babel. The problem with man is not that he does not know the truth, but that he does not love the truth.

We then have the intercession of Abraham for those in Sodom and Gomorrah, whom God promises to spare if there were only ten righteous in those cities (Gen. 18). Consequently, only Lot, his wife and daughters escaped the judgment of the fire and brimstone that fell upon those cities. Regretfully, Lot’s wife looked back, for her heart was with those city dwellers and she was turned into a pillar of salt. The Lord Jesus uses her as a solemn warning for all those who would look back at the time of His Second Coming (Lk. 17:32). To illustrate this, I remember a young girl who had a dream of being caught up to be with the Lord at His Coming. Then she looked down at her bedroom that was filled with her shoes and wardrobe.

Instead of continuing to ascend to be with the Lord, she started to descend and was lost. We must set our affections on things above, not on the things of the earth (Col. 3:1-2; 2 Tim. 2:4). With respect to the judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah, we are reminded in Jude: “Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh [homosexuality], are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire” (Jude 1:7). Here, the Lord is saying to us, “I am the Lord and I change not.” Therefore, those that practise these abominations associated with these cities will in like manner suffer eternally in the lake of fire. Paul warns repeatedly, “Be not deceived” “Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience” (Eph. 5:6; 5:3-7; 1 Cor. 6:9-10).

The Rejuvenation of Sarah In order to fulfil the promises made to Abraham and Sarah that they should have a son, it required a supernatural renewing of their youth. We quote the following passage as proof of this fact: “And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country, and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar. And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah” (Gen. 20:1-2). Obviously, a king would not take a 90 year old woman for his harem unless a great restoration of youth had taken place.

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The Birth of Isaac and the Expulsion of Ishmael “And the LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did unto Sarah as he had spoken. For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him” (Gen. 21:1-2) After the birth of Isaac and the great feast for his weaning, Ishmael mocked Isaac.

“Wherefore she [Sarah] said unto Abraham, Cast out this bondwoman and her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac. And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called. And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed.” (Gen. 21:10-13). This event is quoted in Galatians, “For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise…Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman” (Gal. 4:22-23, 28-30).

These two women and their sons represent the Old and New Covenants. Ishmael was the result of works, what man could produce; but works do not inherit the promises or salvation. Isaac was the result of promise and his birth required a miracle of faith. The promises are only inherited by faith, not works. Thus, we see the difference between the Old and New Covenants. Also, those who rely on their works attack those who are of faith. People who are legalistic cannot inherit the blessings; instead they hate and are jealous of those who are of faith and who have the promises. The importance of Abraham’s life to us as Christians lies in the statement of Paul when he says, “And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:29). If we are of faith, then we are counted as Abraham’s seed.

Ishmael (born of works), was cast out and rejected by God from inheriting the promises that were made to Abraham and are inherited by faith. This rejection is felt by the Moslem people until this very day, for they are relying on works and have no assurance of salvation. They can only be accepted by turning to Christ and then becoming the seed of Promise. We should pause here and consider the lineage of Ishmael, since the promise to Hagar was that God would make a nation out of him as he was also the seed of Abraham. The angel of the Lord said of Ishmael: “he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren” (Gen.16:12)

The Twelve Sons of Ishmael — Fathers of the Arab Nations Both Jews and Muslims agree that Ishmael is the ancestor of the Arab nations. His lineage is as follows: “Now these are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s handmaid, bare unto Abraham: And these are the names of the sons of Ishmael, by their names, according to their generations: the firstborn of Ishmael, Nebajoth; and Kedar, and Adbeel, and Mibsam, And Mishma, and Dumah, and Massa, Hadar, and Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah: These are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names, by their towns, and by their castles; twelve princes according to their nations. And they dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, that is before Egypt, as thou goest toward Assyria: and he died in the presence of all his brethren” (Gen. 25:12-18).

Havilah is understood to be the Arabian Desert, while the wilderness of Shur is just north of the Red Sea along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Thus, Ishmael and his descendants occupy the wilderness areas of the lower Middle East. Until recent times they were a nomadic people, moving with their flocks and cattle from one oasis to another.

The Further Testing of Abraham In Genesis 22:2, God was bringing Abraham to the greatest test of all. Abraham and Sarah had waited many years for the birth of Isaac, the seed of promise. Now God was asking Abraham to give him back.

“And God said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell 11

thee of.” In Isaac were all the promises. Through Isaac’s seed came Jacob and his 12 sons. From the 12 sons came the 12 tribes of Israel. From these tribes came all the apostles and prophets and the greatest Seed of all, the Lord Jesus Christ, and through Christ, redemption came to the whole world. All the blessings and promises were wrapped up in Isaac. Now God was asking Abraham to give it all back to Him, but it was because God wanted to know something. He was testing Abraham to see if God was more important than the call and the promises. God will test us also to see what is number one in our life. For many, the call and the ministry are more important to them than their relationship with God. Abraham obeyed and was willing to give Isaac back to God, but prior to him plunging his knife into the bound body of his son Isaac, the Lord stopped him: “And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me” (Gen. 22:12).

The Voice from Heaven “And the angel of the LORD called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice” (Gen. 22:15-18).

Originally, God had made a promise to Abraham that “in his seed all the earth would be blessed.” A few years later, He repeated the promise and also made an immutable covenant with Abraham, in Genesis 15. Now, in Genesis 22, God is shouting from heaven and affirming the same promises, saying that “in his seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.”

Isaac and His Family The Choosing of a Bride for Isaac Now after the death of Sarah, Abraham gave particular instructions to his elder servant Eliezer to go unto the land of his family in Mesopotamia and select a bride for Isaac his son. In so doing, Abraham promised his servant that God’s angel would go before him and choose that bride (Gen. 24:1-7).

The girl whom God selected was Rebekah, the sister of Laban. Rebekah was the daughter of Bethuel, Nahor’s son, and Nahor was the brother of Abraham. Eliezer had carefully asked God for confirmation.

When he saw all the young girls at the well, the servant proposed unto the Lord that the damsel who volunteered to draw water for him and also for his camels, would be the one that God had chosen. He was looking for the quality of diligence. It is very clear that the good nature and beautiful countenance of Rebekah, and her willingness to work hard is what made her God’s choice. Rebekah would not only give Eliezer a drink but also his servants and all the camels. After crossing the desert, these camels were capable of drinking 30 gallons each. Thus, it was quite a test, seeing that she would have to haul about 300 gallons of water from the well (See Genesis 24:13-20). Therefore, God carefully chooses wives for His sons— especially wives who are industrious and hard working. The same could be said of Ruth who tarried only a little time in the rest house for the labourers as she was gathering the harvest (Ruth 2:7). She qualified to become the wife of Boaz, and then to be in the line of David and of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Often, we do not know when we are being tested. Eliezer, the servant of Abraham, made a statement that has stood the test of time. He declared, “…I being in the way, the LORD led me...” (Gen. 24:27). When you stay on God’s path for your life, God will lead you and bring you into His perfect plan for your life. The servant of Abraham was faithful and God-fearing, and God brought him to the right girl that was ordained to be the wife of Isaac and the mother of Israel.

Esau Sells His Birthright to Jacob Isaac was 40 years of age when he married Rebekah, and for 20 years she was barren. Then when Isaac interceded for her, she conceived and the twins, Jacob and Esau, struggled within her womb. The Lord 12

declared, even before their birth that, “the elder would serve the younger” (Gen. 25:20-24). This is recounted by Paul in Romans 9:10-13, “…when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.”

The Lord could declare that “the elder shall serve the younger” because He knows the end from the beginning, and He knows also what choices people will make, those choices being from our desires which form our characters. What kind of desires did Esau have? We are told that he was “a fornicator and a profane person, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright” (Heb.12:16). God knew beforehand that Esau would treat eternal matters lightly. Thus, God chose Jacob to carry on the promises. We must consider the details surrounding the forfeiture of the birthright. We are told that the characters of the twins were vastly different.

Esau was an avid hunter, a man of the wild open country; whereas Jacob was a pious man and stayed among the tents (Gen. 25:27). The account of Esau selling his birthright is found in Genesis 25:29-34: “And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field, and he was faint: And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom. And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me? And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright.” Esau lived for present appetites; he had no eternal, long-range vision. He was willing to cast eternal honours to the wind, just to satisfy a present appetite. Thus, Esau despised his birthright, and therefore the call and promises made to Abraham and Isaac were going to be passed on to Jacob, who was later named Israel.

Isaac Is Tested After this episode, God reaffirmed to Isaac: “I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws” (Gen. 26:4-5).

Now Isaac is going to be tested. The Philistines started filling up the wells that Abraham had dug. The Philistines were a heathen nation, and they typify jealousy. When Isaac re-dug them, then they contested for them. Thus, Isaac named the well Esek (meaning contention), because the herdsmen of Gerar strove with his herdsmen. Then they dug another well and the Philistines also strove for that, and he called the name of the well Sitnah (meaning hatred). Finally, they dug another well named Rehoboth (meaning room) because they did not strive for that one (Gen. 26:20-22). We see here the beautiful character of Isaac—one who was meek and allowed the Lord to provide for him, eventually having that which he desired— room to live.

Jacob Jacob Deceives Isaac However, there was a distressing situation in Isaac’s marriage with Rebekah. They were not in one accord with respect to their children. Isaac loved Esau because he partook of his venison; but Rebekah loved Jacob, the spiritual twin (Gen. 25:28). This resulted in a tragic sequence of events. Isaac made it clear that he was going to pass on the blessing and call to Esau, after he had made him a pot of venison (Gen.27:1-4).

When Rebekah heard of this, she conceived a plan for Jacob to pretend to be Esau (since Isaac was now blind in his old age), so that Jacob would receive the treasured blessing, instead of Esau the firstborn (Gen. 27:5-29). Although this deception succeeded in obtaining for Jacob the coveted blessing of the firstborn, and therefore becoming heir to the promises of Abraham through Isaac, the cost was very great.

Jacob had to flee from Esau and leave for Mesopotamia, and Rebekah never saw her son Jacob again (Gen. 27:34-45). These were the results of a divided home. How we should all strive for unity and harmony in our households.

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Laban Deceives Jacob What we sow, we will reap. Jacob’s name means “deceiver.” He would later be deceived by his future father-in-law, and also his own sons. His mother hurried him off to her brother’s Laban’s house, to avert Esau’s attempt to murder Jacob. While he was there, Laban deceived Jacob in the matter of his daughters.

Jacob dearly loved Rachel, the younger daughter, and agreed to serve Laban seven years to have her for his wife. On the wedding night Laban deceived Jacob and gave him Leah, the oldest daughter instead.

Jacob received Rachel only after serving for another seven years. Then Jacob served Laban an additional six years for cattle, and his wages were changed ten times. Thus, Jacob had 20 years of hard labour where he suffered at the hands of his deceitful uncle. God allowed this in order to teach Jacob to hate deceit and to purge him of the deceitful spirit that controlled him. How important it is that we learn from the mistakes of others and that we avoid years of unnecessary suffering that comes from disobedience. On his return home from Uncle Laban’s, God met Jacob and wrestled with him, and there Jacob’s name was changed to Israel (Gen. 32:24-30). Jacob the deceiver was now Israel, “a prince of God.” We will review this turning point in Jacob’s life in just a moment.

There is another interesting point that is worthy of note— Ishmael was promised 12 princes which descended directly from Ishmael, while the 12 tribes of Israel came a generation later when evil had been separated from the holy seed. The descendants of Esau and his sons were called dukes, but one of them in particular is of importance because of his recurrence later in the history of Israel, namely Amalek. He was the grandson of Esau. Thus Esau, who is a type of the flesh, produced Amalek, who was also a type of the flesh, and later caused Israel much trouble. The dwelling place of Esau was Mt. Seir. His nation became known as Edom, and his descendants known as the Edomites. They occupied an area south of the Dead Sea bordered by Moab. The reason for the fact that Esau separated from Israel was that both possessed an abundance of cattle which could not be sustained by the land (Gen. 36:7).

Perpetual Hatred and Unforgiveness of Esau’s Descendants Another of the prevailing sins of Esau is that of perpetual hatred and unforgiveness. Amos 1:11 describes this: “Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Edom, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because he did pursue his brother with the sword, and did cast off all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually, and he kept his wrath for ever.” It was because of perpetual hatred that God decreed of Edom, “Behold, I have made thee small among the heathen: thou art greatly despised…Shall I not in that day, saith the LORD, even destroy the wise men out of Edom, and understanding out of the mount of Esau?” (Obad. 1:2, 8). The hatred of Esau and his seed for Israel remained throughout all generations, and they sought every occasion to avenge themselves upon their brother Jacob: “For thy violence against thy brother Jacob shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off for ever. In the day that thou stoodest on the other side, in the day that the strangers carried away captive his forces, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem, even thou wast as one of them. But thou shouldest not have looked on the day of thy brother in the day that he became a stranger; neither shouldest thou have rejoiced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction; neither shouldest thou have spoken proudly in the day of distress. Thou shouldest not have entered into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity; yea, thou shouldest not have looked on their affliction in the day of their calamity, nor have laid hands on their substance in the day of their calamity; Neither shouldest thou have stood in the crossway, to cut off those of his that did escape; neither shouldest thou have delivered up those of his that did remain in the day of distress” (Obad.1:10-14).

Even in the last book of the Old Testament, the Lord is still bringing up this subject. The Lord said to Israel: “I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall build, but I 14

will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever” (Mal. 1:2-4).

This is emphasized again at the Second Coming of the Lord as we read now in Isaiah 34:5-10: “For my sword shall bebathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment. The sword of the LORD is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams: for the LORD hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea. And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness. For it is the day of the LORD’S vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion. And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever.” Thus, the end of Esau is that he and his seed will be destroyed from off the earth and his name from the sons of men. His land south of the Dead Sea shall become burning sulphur and pitch where no life is sustainable. We see from this lesson the results of an unforgiving spirit, and from this we should learn to forgive quickly any offence that a person has committed against us. If we do not, we will end up suffering the most, and not the person who committed the offence, as we have seen with Jacob and Esau. Also, we should remember the words of our Master Teacher who stated, “If you will not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses. (Mt. 6:14-15). We can see the awesome effects of generational iniquities that were passed on from Esau and his wives, unto their children. The evil words spoken against Jacob and his family have been passed down to all the generations of Esau, even unto this day.

The Sorrows of Jacob These were the sorrows of Jacob: 1. He had to leave home to escape the murderous wrath of his brother Esau.

2. He was deceived with respect to his bride Rachel; for her, he received Leah.

3. He endured six more years of difficult times looking after the cattle of Laban.

4. Then he had additional wives (Bilhah and Zilpah) because Rachel was barren.

5. His wages were changed ten times by his deceitful father-in-law.

6. Later, as we shall discover, he was deceived by his own sons into believing that Joseph, his anointed heir, had been devoured by the beasts of the field. (Joseph was the firstborn of his beloved wife Rachel.)

Twenty years after suffering the work of purification at the hands of Laban, the Lord now directs Jacob to return to the Promised Land. In obedience, Jacob does so with his four wives, eleven sons and daughter Dinah. Upon reaching the borders of Canaan, he is informed that his brother Esau is coming to meet him with some 400 armed men on horseback. Fearful of retaliation from Esau, Jacob sent lavish gifts unto his brother, seeking his favour. Jacob remained on the other side of the River Jabbok. There, he wrestled with the Lord all night long, saying, “I will not let Thee go until Thou bless me.” The Lord then enquires, “What is your name?” God then replies, “Your name shall no more be called Jacob (meaning “the supplanter”) but Israel (meaning “Prince of God”), for in prayer you have wrestled with God and prevailed” (Gen. 32:28). It was from this change of name from Jacob to Israel that the nation composed of the 12 tribes took its name—the children of Israel. Jacob called that place Peniel meaning the face of God, for he said, “I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved” (Gen. 32:30). Is there record of any other founder of a nation who has made such a statement? Israel is a most unique nation!

Joseph Having returned to the Promised Land, Jacob (now Israel) has his twelfth son Benjamin whose birth cost the life of his beloved wife Rachel (Gen. 35:15-20). Joseph, the firstborn of Rachel, was designated by Israel as the favoured one and was given by his father a coat of many colours as a sign of his choice (Gen. 37:3-4).

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The brothers hated him because of this, and to add fuel to their rage, Joseph declares to his brethren and his father two dreams he had from God. The second dream in particular was interpreted by his father that he shall be the ruler over his brethren (Gen. 37:5-11). When he was sent by his father to report on his brethren, they, seeing him afar off, plot to kill him. This was thwarted by Reuben and Judah. Nonetheless, Joseph was sold to a band of Ishmaelites who in turn sold him as slave to Potiphar, captain of Pharaoh’s guard (Gen. 37:13-28). To cover for the missing Joseph, the brothers brought to Jacob the blood-soaked coat of many colours of Joseph and caused their father to believe he had been torn to pieces by a wild beast. Thus, Jacob the deceiver suffers further deception through the hands of his own sons. He spent 22 years in mourning for his beloved wife’s son, believing him to be dead. Yet in reality, Joseph was the governor of Egypt next to Pharaoh in authority. This we will see in our next chapter under The Life of Joseph. We can learn many lessons for this incident, one of which is the power of thoughts. Believers can suffer much in their minds from things they imagine to be so, but are not so. Joseph was not dead. He was alive and being prepared in Egypt to be a world deliverer for a coming world crisis. However, in the mind of Jacob, his son was dead, devoured by wild beasts. It is the truth that sets us free.

CHAPTER 3 From Israel to the Exodus under Moses The Life of Joseph It was under the care of Joseph that the family of Israel flourished from 70 souls to eventually a nation of several million. This was achieved in the wisdom of God through the brethren of Joseph selling him to the Ishmaelites, who in turn sold him as a slave to Potiphar, captain of Pharaoh’s guard. There God prospered him and he arose to become the steward of his household. We could apply Psalm 81:5-6 to the personal life of Joseph: “This he ordained in Joseph for a testimony, when he went out through the land of Egypt: where I heard a language that I understood not. I removed his shoulder from the burden: his hands were delivered from the pots.”

While in Potiphar’s house, Joseph was being prepared to become the governor of Egypt. He was faithful in all his duties, but also he had to become holy through further testing. This test involved Potiphar’s wife consistently tempting Joseph to lay with her to satisfy her sexual desires. Finally, Joseph fled out of the house to get away from her. The consequence of standing for holiness was that she falsely accused him of attempted rape to her husband, who put Joseph in the prison where Pharaoh’s prisoners were kept.

There, the Lord was with him and, through the keeper of the prison, promoted him and gave charge over all the other prisoners. Thus, even in prison, God continued to train and develop Joseph for leadership (Gen.39:1-23). Then the butler and the baker who had been imprisoned by Pharaoh had dreams in a single night. Interpreted by Joseph, the butler would return to his former position as Pharaoh’s butler three days later, but the baker would be executed. Both of these prophecies were fulfilled, but when the butler was restored to his position, he forgot to appeal to Pharaoh on behalf of Joseph who had been imprisoned unjustly. These events are recorded in Genesis 40. Two years later, Pharaoh had two dreams, but no one could interpret them. It was then that the butler remembered Joseph, who was summoned speedily into the presence of Pharaoh and gave him their interpretations. The two dreams were essentially the same—that there would be seven years of plentiful harvest, followed by seven years of severe famine. Joseph advised Pharaoh to set a man over the plentiful harvest and to store it in barns to feed the population in the time of famine. Pharaoh spoke to his counsellors and said, “Is there such a wise man as Joseph to fulfil that task?” whereupon he set Joseph as the governor in the land next after himself (Gen. 41:38-40).

Joseph then prepared barns throughout the land to receive the surplus harvest. When the famine came, he opened the barns and fed the multitude, which included not only the population of Egypt but also those from other countries that were ravaged by the famine and had heard that there was food in Egypt.

Among these were the brethren of Joseph, who eventually became reconciled to the brother they had cast out. Joseph, with the permission of Pharaoh, gave his brethren and their families the best of the land of 16

Egypt in which tolive (Gen. 47:1-6). Here they were nourished, and they were multiplied for several hundred years until the day of the Lord’s visitation came to bring them back into the land that God had promised Abraham and his seed for an inheritance. With respect to the history of the nation of Israel, God first brought them down into Egypt where they grew into a multitude, so that they could take the journey from Egypt (a type of this world) to the land of Promise. The journey of Israel from Egypt to Zion is a remarkable roadmap for each believer. It shows us where we have come from and where we are going, and what to expect along the way. This journey is a pattern for our personal lives and it is laid down and recorded in Scripture for our edification. The Apostle Paul, speaking of the Journey of Israel, said, “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come” (1 Cor.10:11).

The Exodus from Egypt The time was now fast approaching for the fulfilment of the promise that God made to Abraham in Genesis 15:13-14: “And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.”

After dwelling in Egypt for several hundred years, the Lord then raised up a Pharaoh who had no respect or appreciation for all that Joseph had done for Egypt (Ex.1:8). The account continues in Psalm 105:2325: “Israel also came into Egypt; and Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham. And he increased his people greatly; and made them stronger than their enemies. He turned their heart to hate his people, to deal subtly with his servants.” The new Pharaoh imposed slavery upon the Israelites, and their bondage was very bitter. It was then that the people were ready and willing to leave the land of Egypt where they had prospered for several centuries. Thus, God raised up Moses to deliver them from their bondage. Psalm 105:26-38: “He sent Moses his servant; and Aaron whom he had chosen. They showed his signs among them, and wonders in the land of Ham. He sent darkness, and made it dark; and they rebelled not against his word. He turned their waters into blood, and slew their fish.

Their land brought forth frogs in abundance, in the chambers of their kings. He spake, and there came divers sorts of flies, and lice in all their coasts. He gave them hail for rain, and flaming fire in their land. He smote their vines also and their fig trees; and brake the trees of their coasts. He spake, and the locusts came, and caterpillars, and that without number, And did eat up all the herbs in their land, and devoured the fruit of their ground. He smote also all the firstborn in their land, the chief of all their strength. He brought them forth also with silver and gold: and there was not one feeble person among their tribes. Egypt was glad when they departed: for the fear of them fell upon them.”

The Journey of the Children of Israel from Egypt to Jordan This journey is referred to frequently in both the Old and New Testament Scriptures. Not only does it glorify the God of wonders, but as Paul writes to the Corinthian church, this journey is “written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come” (1 Cor.10:1-11; v11). In other words, these truths presented from the journey of Israel are timeless truths and are written to all succeeding generations.

We will not discuss here the rich spiritual truths that this journey teaches, for those are fully covered in our book The Journey of the Children of Israel from Egypt to Zion. Suffice it to say that when God turned the hearts of the Egyptians against the Israelites, this prepared to leave Egypt. God then raised up a deliverer, Moses. Moses was preserved by his mother during the genocide of Exodus 1 to 2. She made an ark of bulrushes and placed him among the flags at the brink of the river. The daughter of Pharaoh found him and adopted him as her own son. Moses was therefore raised as a prince in Pharaoh’s court, and he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. Having offended Pharaoh, he had to flee from Pharaoh’s presence and spend forty years in the Midian desert before God met him at the burning bush and commissioned him to deliver His people (See Exodus 3 to 4). Moses was the seventh generation from Abraham: 17

(Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Levi, Kohath, Amram, Moses.) He was used by God to execute ten horrible plagues upon Egypt: 1. Turning the waters into blood 2. Frogs inundating the land of Egypt 3. Lice 4. Flies 5. Livestock diseased 6. Boils 7. Hail 8. Locusts 9. Darkness 10. Death of the Firstborn Having manifested the tenth plague, the slaying of the firstborn, the Egyptians gladly urged the Israelites to leave. On the night of the last plague, the nation of God celebrated the Passover. This feast consisted of each family slaying a lamb whose blood was sprinkled over the lintel and doorposts of their houses.

Therefore, when the destroying angel went through the land to slay the firstborn of every family and saw the blood, he passed over them and spared them. Thus, as the Apostle Paul clearly states in 1 Corinthians 5:7, the Lord Jesus Christ is our Passover. Is He yours? The Israelites were then brought to the Red Sea, which opened up before Moses and they crossed over on dry land, while the pursuing Egyptians were engulfed and destroyed in the waters as they returned again at the command of Moses. This event sent fear into the hearts of future generations of the heathen as far away as those dwelling in Jericho when they in turn saw the armies of the Israelites approaching their city. The mighty works of God were well known among those nations inhabiting the land of Canaan and the regions round about. After crossing the Red Sea, the nation of Israel was brought to Mount Sinai, led by a cloud by day and pillar of fire by night. Here on this mount, Moses met with God face to face. He received the Ten Commandments that have become the foundation for the laws in many nations in the world, and the backbone of society.

So important are these commandments which are engraved on the walls of the Supreme Court of the U.S.A., that we have chosen to list them verbatim (Ex. 20:3-17): 1. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. 2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me, and keep My commandments.

3. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain.

4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

5. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

6. Thou shalt not kill.

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

8. Thou shalt not steal.

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.

From a spiritual standpoint, these Ten Commandments are referred to and upheld by our Lord Jesus Christ when He states, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come 18

to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled” (Mt. 5:17-18). (See also Mark 10:19; Luke 18:20; Romans 13:8-10.)

The New Testament brings the Law up to even higher implications, as Paul quotes from the prophet Jeremiah 31:33: “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them” (Heb. 10:16). Thus, those laws that Moses received upon Mount Sinai are eternal and must be written upon the heart of every believing soul. The giving of these laws to Israel gave them prominence among all other nations: “Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the LORD my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it. Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for?

And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?” (Deut. 4:5-8). No other nation upon earth has received such visitation from the Lord and been given such sound laws and statutes, as the nation of Israel. Encamped at Mount Sinai for nearly a year (from Exodus 19:1 to Numbers 10:11-12), God spoke to them that they should move on. After they had reached Mount Sinai, ten trials followed, including those that they had experienced before they reached the Mount. These wilderness trials are as follows: 1) Opposition from the world 2) Bitter water 3) Hunger 4) Thirst 5) Idolatry 6) Complaining about circumstances 7) Unthankfulness 8) Gluttony 9) Criticism against leadership 10) Unbelief Israel failed all ten of these trials (Num.14:22-23), and because Israel refused to enter into the Promised Land at Kadesh Barnea (Num.13:26–14:45), God decreed another 38 years of wilderness wanderings.

There, the generation that had left Egypt would perish in the wilderness, and the generation that was under 20 years of age when they had left Egypt would inherit the land of Canaan (Num.14:22-34).

The Plains of Moab Forty years after their exodus from Egypt, the children of Israel arrived under the leadership of Moses at the plains of Moab, opposite the Red Sea. Here in the Book of Deuteronomy we have the account of the last sermons of Moses to the new generation before he was taken by God. The new generation that had been born in the wilderness were instructed in the law, statutes and commandments of God in preparation for their crossing over the river Jordan and entering into the Promised Land. A new leader, Joshua, was chosen by God to replace Moses, who at the ripe age of 120 laid down his life, in obedience to the will of God.

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CHAPTER 4 Entering the Promised Land The Times of Joshua Joshua was instructed to be of good courage, not as much with regards to the enemies in the land, but in doing all the will of God and in ensuring that the people of God would keep the laws of God. The Lord said to him, “Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success” (Josh.1:7-8).

Another notable miracle during the time of Joshua was the rolling back of the River Jordan during harvest time at a place called Adam, when the feet of the priests who were carrying the Ark of the Covenant entered the waters. The children of Israel then went forth over the River Jordan on dry ground (Josh. 3:717). In chapter 5:2-7, the new generation had to be circumcised before they entered the land of inheritance (Gen. 17:7-12). Once again, inheritance is connected with circumcision. If we are not circumcised in heart, we cannot obtain our spiritual inheritance.

The Lord then appeared to Joshua as the Captain of the Lord of Hosts. He gave Joshua the battle plan to capture their first city, Jericho. Later, through miracles, they defeated 31 kings who inhabited the land called Canaan. The land was then divided amongst the 12 tribes. Yet at the death of Joshua, the tribes had not fully entered into their inheritance nor subdued the Canaanites (Josh. 18:2-3). It was not until the time of David, several hundred years later, that they drove out the remaining enemies and “pockets of resistance,” subduing Zion and entering into rest.

The Times of the Judges The history of Israel is taken up now after the death of Joshua by the period of the judges. This was a time when there were basically a series of 13 judges covering a period of approximately 350 years from, 1400 B.C. to 1050 B.C.It was the sovereign intervention of God that caused Israel to emerge as a nation after this epoch in their history, for the period of judges was characterized by cycles of rebellion. The repeated cycles of rebellion caused the Lord to bring oppressors upon them. This in turn caused the people to call out to God in their distress. He would then raise up a judge (or deliverer) to bring them deliverance.

Following each new deliverance from their enemies, Israel would enjoy a period of rest and tranquillity for a season. Unfortunately, they would then forget the Lord again and the cycle would resume all over again.

“We all like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every man to his own way” (Isa. 53:6).

The cycle comprised seven steps: 1. Rest: They enjoyed peace and prosperity through obedience to God and His laws.

2. Rebellion: They forsook the laws of God. 3. Repression: Therefore, God raised up an enemy nation and sent it against them.

4. Repentance: They cried out to God in their distress and turned back to Him. 5. Ruler: God raised up a saviour who was called a judge.

6. Release: The judge was used by God to break the power of the enemy.

7. Rest: They enjoyed a time of peace and prosperity again under the rule of their judge.

It was a remarkable time in the history of God’s chosen nation, for there was no king, and every man did that which was right in his own sight (Jdg. 17:6).

There were 13 judges—some who are scarcely known, and others who are remembered throughout the history of mankind. Remarkably, the two judges who are the most well known are remembered more for their flaws than their prowess: 20

• Gideon and his fleece, who afterwards caused Israel to enter into error, and • Samson for becoming overcome by Delilah.

The Times of Samuel the Prophet There was essentially no central government of Israel at this time. Nonetheless, the Tabernacle of Moses remained in Shiloh and it was the centre of worship for the godly of the people. Regretfully, the last high priest, Eli, had sons who desecrated that holy place by their immoral and licentious conduct. God declared that He would reject Eli for not putting his sons out of the priesthood and replace him with a faithful priest, Samuel (1 Sam. 2:30-36).

Samuel was essentially a national prophet and a circuit judge who made yearly journeys throughout the land, dispensing judgment. His life was blameless, but his sons’ lives were not, and therefore, the people asked to be like other nations and requested a king. The account continues in 1 Samuel 8:6-9:

The Tabernacle of Moses “But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the LORD. And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also unto thee. Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them.” Samuel was responsible for the anointing of the first two kings of the United Kingdom of Israel, Saul and then David. This period lasted for many years.

CHAPTER 5 The United Kingdom of Israel (1050 B.C. to 930 B.C.) Three kings—Saul, David, and Solomon were the only kings who occupied the throne of the United Kingdom of Israel, reigning over all 12 tribes.

The Times of Saul In describing the ascension and choosing of Saul to be the first king, the Lord said in Hosea 13:11, “I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath.” At the request of the people, the Lord gave Israel a king, Saul, but it was in His anger. He also took away the last king of Judah, Zedekiah, in His wrath. In asking for a king, they were rejecting God from being their king (1 Sam. 8:7).

Saul was not qualified to be the anointed king, for he came from the tribe of Benjamin, of which nothing had been prophesied or spoken of in ancient times concerning a Benjamite having the throne rights, or holding the sceptre. Saul was a large man, standing head and shoulders above the average man of Israel, and outwardly he looked every part the warrior king for which Israel yearned. Even though he was selected by God, he was the people’s choice and Saul lacked certain essential qualities of kingship and leadership. For example, he was not wholly faithful to God’s commands. When God ordered him to destroy the Amalekites and their sheep and cattle, he only partially obeyed the Lord. He spared the worst one of all, their king, and all of their sheep and cattle. He was rebuked by Samuel, who said, “…Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king” (1 Sam. 15:22-23).

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Samuel laboured with Saul for a long time to admit that he had not obeyed the commandment of the Lord.

Finally he responded by saying that he had sinned “because he feared the people and obeyed them” (1 Sam. 15:24). But he continued by making this request of Samuel: “I have sinned: yet honour me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people, and before Israel, and turn again with me, that I may worship the LORD thy God” (1 Sam. 15:30).

Saul was one who sought the honour that came from man. Jesus said, “I receive not honour from men…How can yebelieve, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?” (Jn. 5:41, 45). King Saul illustrates the end of a man who was only partially obedient, and therefore rejected by God. The Amalekites, whom he should have destroyed, are a solemn warning that if we do not deal with sin in our lives, it will in the end destroy us. Amazingly, Saul was slain by an Amalekite.

There are three anointings, and those who are called, and chosen and faithful have these three anointings (Rev.17:14).

At best, Saul had only two of these anointings, but now we are going to consider the king who received all three anointings and who triumphed gloriously—David, of the tribe of Judah.

The Times of David David was of the tribe of Judah, which had been promised the kingly sceptre (Gen. 49:10). He lived in Bethlehem, which was prophesied as being the birthplace of Christ. Bethlehem means the “house of bread,” and Christ was the Bread of Life. David also fed his people with the finest of the wheat. David was a shepherd boy, even as Christ was the Good Shepherd. He became the anointed psalmist of Israel and over 70 psalms are attributed to him. He diligently watched over his flock, slaying a bear and a lion which sought to rob him of his lambs (1 Sam.17:34-35). David is principally known for the following reasons: 1. The slaying of Goliath, which released Israel from Philistine bondage (this was after he was anointed

by Samuel; his first anointing).

2. He was the captain of the armies under Saul.

3. He fled from Saul after Saul became jealous and sought his life.

4. He dwelt in the wilderness, while still fighting the battles of the Lord.

5. He lost everything at Ziklag, and then ended up regaining all.

6. Saul was killed and David went to Hebron where he was anointed the second time as he became king over Judah.

7. After seven and one half years, he was anointed the third time and became the king over all of Israel.

8. David brought Israel to Mount Zion, the holy mountain of God, called the city of David. Thus, David brought Israel into rest.

9. David was also known for his regrettable sin with Bathsheba.

10. Some 15 judgments were appointed by God upon David for this sin.

11. David found forgiveness and later received revelation concerning the temple that was to be built by his son Solomon (1 Chr. 28—29).

12. For the purposes of this book there are certain prophetic promises that were made to David, during and after his lifetime: a) Hosea 3:5: “Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the latter days.”

This promise refers to the Millennial reign of Christ when David will be king or prince in Jerusalem. b) Jeremiah 30:9: “But they shall serve the LORD their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them.” c) Ezekiel 34:23: “And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd.” d) Ezekiel 34:24: “And I the LORD will be their God, and my servant David a prince among them; I the LORD have spoken it.”

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The Times of Solomon David was succeeded by Solomon his son, whose mother was Bathsheba. This was in spite of the efforts of Adonijah (an older son) who sought to inherit a throne that was not his (1 Ki.1:5). Solomon is known for the following events in his life: 1. His quest for wisdom, which was granted by the Lord so that he became the wisest man who ever lived.

He was also granted honour, majesty and great riches (1 Ki. 3:5-14).

2. He was beloved of the Lord in his early years, and was named Jedidiah by the Lord, meaning “the beloved of the Lord.”

3. He was the builder of the Temple, possibly the most wonderful of all buildings ever built. It was started in 967 B.C., some 480 years after the exodus from Egypt (1 Ki. 6:1).

4. He was the author of three books—Song of Songs in his early life, Proverbs in his mid-life and Ecclesiastes, the testimony of an old and foolish king in his declining years. Also it is believed he authored Psalm 1.

5. The Lord, who became his enemy, declared at his death that the kingdom would be divided. The Northern Kingdom of ten tribes would be torn asunder from him, and only over the Southern Kingdom of Judah would the descendants of David reign.

6. Because of taking many wives (1,000 including concubines), his wives turned away his heart from the true worship of God into idolatry.

7. Solomon’s life is a warning of a life well started but that ended badly, as is the case with many of God’s children. May we all learn to stay upon the path of righteousness which burns more brightly unto the perfect day (Prov. 4:18).

The United Kingdom of Israel occupied a period of 120 years from about 1050 B.C. until 931 B.C., comprising the three reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon who each ruled approximately 40 years duration.

CHAPTER 6 The Divided Kingdom (930 B.C. to 586 B.C.) This book is predicated upon the fact that “the spirit of prophecy” is the declaration of Christ; it is the Almighty speaking (Rev.19:10). Isaiah 46:10 says, He “declares the end from the beginning, and causes His counsel to stand and He does all his pleasure.” Many of the promises made to disobedient Israel could only have been made by God Himself, who can bring to pass the things that He has declared.

The Kingdom of Israel Divides into North and South Now the Kingdom of Israel was divided in this manner: Solomon was a harsh ruler and upon the death of Solomon, his son Rehoboam succeeded to the throne. All of Israel led by Jeroboam came to Rehoboam and besought him to ease them of some of the heavy taxes and burdens that Solomon had laid upon them, but his rough, callous response infuriated them, and this divided the nation, as we read in 1 Kings 12:1317: “And the king answered the people roughly, and forsook the old men’s counsel that they gave him; And spake to them after the counsel of the young men, saying, My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke: my father also chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions. Wherefore the king hearkened not unto the people; for the cause was from the LORD, that he might perform his saying, which the LORD spake by Ahijah the Shilonite unto Jeroboam the son of Nebat. So when all Israel saw that the king hearkened not unto them, the people answered the king, saying, What portion have we in David? neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse: to your tents, O Israel: now see to thine own house, David. So Israel departed unto 23

their tents. But as for the children of Israel which dwelt in the cities of Judah, Rehoboam reigned over them.” Thus, Rehoboam reigned over the Southern part of Israel, in Judah, but Jeroboam became king over Northern Israel, according to God’s promise to him in the days of Solomon, in 1 Kings 11:3133, 37-38: “And he[the prophet Ahijah] said to Jeroboam, Take thee ten pieces: for thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee: (But he shall have one tribe for my servant David’s sake, and for Jerusalem’s sake, the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel:) Because that they have forsaken me, and have worshipped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Milcom the god of the children of Ammon, and have not walked in my ways, to do that which is right in mine eyes, and to keep my statutes and my judgments, as did David his father…And I will take thee, and thou shalt reign according to all that thy soul desireth, and shalt be king over Israel.

And it shall be, if thou wilt hearken unto all that I command thee, and wilt walk in my ways, and do that is right in my sight, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did; that I will be with thee, and build thee a sure house, as I built for David, and will give Israel unto thee.”

Fearing that the people would worship at Jerusalem, Jeroboam ordered two golden calves to be erected one in Bethel and another one in Dan. He commanded Israel to worship them, saying, “Behold your gods O Israel that brought you out of Egypt.” We also read in 1 Kings 13:33-34, “After this thing Jeroboam returned not from his evil way, but made again of the lowest of the people priests of the high places: whosoever would, he consecrated him, and he became one of the priests of the high places. And this thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it from off the face of the earth.”

Both kingdoms (North and South) had 20 kings each during their history. All 20 of the kings of Northern Israel were evil. The life of Jeroboam I, son of Nebat, became a byword for evil, and regretfully all those that sat upon the throne of the Northern Kingdom followed in his wicked ways to one degree or another.

The Northern Kingdom lasted only until 722 B.C. and their princes were from many different tribes and backgrounds. (For the wicked, there are many leadership changes.) The Southern Kingdom was ruled only by those who descended from David, and this kingdom lasted until 586 B.C. At this time we would like to provide a chart that compares the two royal lines of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. We will show how long each king reigned, and who was reigning contemporaneously in the other. Whilst to one degree or another, all kings of the Northern Kingdom were wicked, there were many godly kings in the Davidic lineage of the Southern kingdom, and some who were noted for their piety and godliness.

Kings Over United Israel King Saul David Solomon

Yrs. 40 40 40

Dates (1050-1010) (1010-970) (970-930)

Kingdom Divides

Kings Over Judah King Rehoboam Abijah Asa Jehoshaphat Jehoram Ahaziah Athaliah (queen) Joash Amaziah

Yrs. 17 3 41 25 8 1 6 40 29

Dates (930-913) (913-910) (910-869) (872-848) (848-841) (841) (841-835) (835-796) (796-767) 24

Uzziah Jotham Ahaz Hezekiah Manasseh Amon Josiah Jehoahaz Jehoiakim

52 16 16 29 55 2 31 3 months 11

(792-740) (750-735) (732-715) (715-686) (697-642) (642-640) (640-609) (609) (609-598)

Jehoiachin Zedekiah

Beginning of Exile 3 months 11

(598-597) (597-586)

Jerusalem Destroyed - 586 B.C. * Yrs. - Number of years reigning as king unless otherwise stated * Dates - B.C.

Kings Over Israel King Jeroboam I, the son of Nebat: Nadab, the son of Jeroboam I: Baasha, the son of Ahijah: Elah, the son of Baasha: Zimri, the servant of Elah: Tibni, the son of Ginath: Omri, the captain of the army: (overlap with Tibni) Ahab, the son of Omri: Ahaziah, the son of Ahab: Joram, the son of Ahab: Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat: Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu: Jehoash, the son of Jehoahaz: Jeroboam II, the son of Jehoash: (co-regency with Jehoash) Zachariah, the son of Jeroboam II: Shallum, the son of Jabesh: Menahem, the son of Gadi: Pekahiah, the son of Menahem: Pekah, the son of Remaliah: (overlapping years with Pekahiah) Hoshea, the son of Elah:

Yrs. 22 2 24 2 7 days 6 12

Dates (931-909) (909-908) (908-886) (886-885) (885) (885-880) (885-874) 22 2 12 28 17 16 41 6 months 1 month 10 2 20 9

Fall of Samaria - 722 B.C.

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(874-853) (853-852) (852-841) (841-814) (814-798) (798-782) (793-753) (793-782) (753) (752) (752-742) (742-740) (752-732) (742-740) (732-722)

Comparison of the Two Royal Lines Kings of Judah

Kings of Israel

Rehoboam 17 yrs.

Abijah 3 yrs.

Asa 41 yrs.

Baasha 24 yrs.

Elah 2 yrs.

Zimri 7 days Omri-Tibni 4 yrs.

Omri 8 yrs.

Ahab 22 yrs.

Jehoshaphat 25 yrs.

Jehoram 8 yrs.

Ahaziah 1 yr.

Athaliah (queen) 6 yrs.

Joash 40 yrs.

Joash 16 yrs.

Amaziah 29 yrs.

Uzziah 52 yrs.

Shallum 1 mo.

Menahem 10 yrs.

Pekahiah 2 yrs.

Jotham 16 yrs.

Ahaz 16 yrs.

Hezekiah 29 yrs. 722 B.C. - Fall of Samaria.

Manasseh 55 yrs. The ten northern tribes Amon 2 yrs. were scattered during Josiah 31 yrs. the Assyrian invasion.

Jehoahaz 3 mos.

Jehoiakim 11 yrs.

Jehoiachin 3 mos.

Zedekiah 11 yrs.

Jeroboam I 22 yrs.

Nadab 2 yrs.

Ahaziah 2 yrs.

Joram 12 yrs.

Jehu 28 yrs.

Jehoahaz 17 yrs.

Jeroboam II 41 yrs.

Zechariah 6 mos.

Pekah 20 yrs.

Hoshea 9 yrs.

586 B.C. - Jerusalem Destroyed. Judah went into Babylonian captivity.

In the next section, we will focus on the kings of Judah because they were in the line from David to Christ, whereas the kings of Israel were not in the lineage of Christ. We have included brief comments on some of these kings for edification and also for instruction for leaders.

The Kings of Judah Rehoboam (930-913 B.C.): Rehoboam lost the kingdom through refusing the counsel of the mature and wise, and listening to his own peers’ advice. He did not prosper because he did not prepare his ways before the Lord (2 Chr. 12:14). He forsook the law of God and the people went into gross idolatry and perversion. He suffered the judgment of the invasion of Shishak, king of Egypt in 925 B.C. This king allegedly destroyed 150 villages; even the Phoenician city of Byblos was believed to have been subdued by him, since a statue of Shishak was found there. Rehoboam preserved Jerusalem from pillage by presenting him with the contents of the treasure houses. Shishak, founder of the 22nd dynasty of Egypt, reigned from 945-925 B.C. His was the first of seven kingdoms mentioned in the Book of Revelation. In John’s time, five kingdoms were “fallen” or past. These were Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and Greece (Rev.17:10).

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Abijah (913-910 B.C.): He “walked in all the sins of his father.” His heart was not perfect with the Lord.

It is important to recognize generational sins that are in our forefathers, and ask God for grace to overcome them. Abijah walked in all the sins of his father.

Asa (910-869 B.C.): Asa began well, doing that which was right in the sight of the Lord. However, three years before his death, he relied upon the king of Syria for help and not the Lord (2 Chr.16:7-10). His heart had turned cold and his end was not good.

Jehoshaphat (869-848 B.C.): He was a righteous ruler who fully followed the Lord, sending teaching priests throughout his kingdom to teach the ways of the Lord. He, however, made tragic alliances with the most wicked king in Israel, Ahab, and also his two sons Ahaziah and Jehoram (see 2 Chr.19:2, 2 Chr. 20:35). This resulted in his own son Jehoram marrying Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, who later brought Judah into gross immorality and idolatry. A wicked woman can turn a husband in the wrong direction.

Jehoram (848-841 B.C.): He did wickedly because he had Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel as his wife (2 Chr. 21:6).

Ahaziah (841 B.C.): He did wickedly because his mother, Athaliah, was his counsellor. We can see from these two kings that a woman has tremendous power to influence others for good or evil. Also, these men inherited iniquities from the mistakes of Jehoshaphat. What we do affects the lives of others (2 Chr. 22:2-4).

Athaliah (841-835 B.C.): Grasping onto the throne she usurped, she murdered all the royal seed; only Joash escaped, who was hidden by his aunt, Jehosheba (2 Chr. 22:10-11).

Joash (835-796 B.C.): He began well, being instructed by Jehoiada, the high priest and husband of his aunt, Jehosheba. After his uncle’s death, he was influenced by the young princes to turn from the ways of God. Moreover, he murdered the prophet, Zechariah, son of Jehoiada, an event remembered even in the days of Jesus (Mt. 23:35). In the end, he was murdered by his own servants (2 Chr. 24:2, 17-22).

Amaziah (796- 767 B.C.): He did well, but not with a perfect heart, and in his end days, he turned from God. Let us not have areas in our lives that are unsurrendered to God. Otherwise, when we are old, those things will veer us off course (2 Chr. 25:2).

Uzziah (792-742 B.C.): Uzziah was a military genius that recovered all of the possessions that Judah had lost in past generations. His name was revered even to the borders of Egypt. However, his heart became lifted up with pride, andhe intruded into the priest’s office and offered up sacrifice and entered into the Holy Place. For his pride, he was smitten by leprosy and thrust out of Jerusalem, living in a separate house for the rest of his life. How we must live in humility and in the fear of the Lord all the days of our lives. Let us be careful not to involve ourselves in things that God has not ordained for us (2 Chr. 26:4-5; 16-21).

Jotham (750-735 B.C.): He became mighty because he prepared his ways before the Lord. He was a righteous man and walked not in the sin of his father (2 Chr. 27:2, 6).

Ahaz (732-715 B.C.): Ahaz chose to walk in the way of the kings of Israel—the ways of idolatry and heathenism. Yet during his reign, the prophet Isaiah lived and declared the wonderful works of the only true and living God. In spite of the grace that God showed to Ahaz, he continued in his wicked ways (2 Chr. 28:1-4, 22; Isa. 7:10-13).

Hezekiah (715-686 B.C.): He was noted for his goodness and for the healing granted by the Lord, accompanied by the sign of the sun going back 15 degrees. Moreover, when Hezekiah relied on the Lord, the besieging Assyrian army of 185,000 under Sennacherib were slain by an angel of the Lord (2 Chr. 32:20-21).

Manasseh (697-642 B.C.): Manasseh was a very wicked king who filled Jerusalem with the blood of the innocent, as well as the placing of idols at the head of every street in the city. Taken into Babylonian captivity, he repented and greatly humbled himself and was restored to his throne (2 Chr. 33:11-13).

However, the Lord remembered the wickedness of Manasseh’s early reign and declared in His wrath that He would bring the nation of Israel into Babylonian captivity (Jer.15:4).

Amon (642-640 B.C.): Perhaps the key thought for the life of Amon could be that when his father Manasseh had repented and walked uprightly before God, so did his son Amon. Yet he “forsook the Lord” soon after his succession to the throne. (2 Ki. 21:21-22). Is that not true of so many who start well and then leave the pathway of righteousness?

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Josiah (640-609 B.C.): Josiah was only one of two kings whose names were prophesied prior to their birth (1 Ki. 13:2), the other being Cyrus, the Persian king. We read of Josiah in 2 Chronicles 34:2-4, “And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the ways of David his father, and declined neither to the right hand, nor to the left. For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images. And they brake down the altars of Baalim in his presence; and the images, that were on high above them, he cut down; and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images, he brake in pieces, and made dust of them, and strowed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them.”

They found the book of the law when they were cleansing the Temple and it was read before Josiah, who humbled himself, whereupon God gave the following promise to him: “And as for the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the LORD, so shall ye say unto him, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel concerning the words which thou hast heard; Because thine heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before God, when thou heardest his words against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, and humbledst thyself before me, and didst rend thy clothes, and weep before me; I have even heard thee also, saith the LORD. Behold, I will gather thee to thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered to thy grave in peace, neither shall thine eyes see all the evil that I will bring upon this place, and upon the inhabitants of the same. So they brought the king word again” (2 Chr. 34:26-28).

Josiah regretfully died before his time because he involved him in a war that was none of his business. He fought against Pharaoh Necho, who had been commissioned by God to fight with the Assyrians against the armies of Nabopolassar, king of Babylon. Josiah chose to do so despite the fact that Pharaoh Necho, speaking on behalf of God, warned him not to meddle with him (See 2 Chr. 35:20-23). Pride and presumption can cause us to lose God’s intended best for our lives!

Jehoahaz 609 B.C. (3 months): Jehoahaz did evil in the sight of the Lord, and was taken away to Egypt, a type of the world, where he died. (2 Ki. 23:31-34).

Jehoiakim (609-598 B.C.): One of Jehoiakim’s sins tells it all. When Jeremiah prophesied and Baruch his faithful scribe wrote those words on parchment, Jehoiakim took a pen knife, cut up the parchment, and threw the pieces into the fire. He had a profane disregard for the Word of God. His end was pitiful, for he had a funeral accorded to a donkey and his body was dragged outside the city gates (Jer. 22:18-19).

Jehoiachin (598-597 B.C.): He reigned but three months and his epitaph could have read “the king in whom the Lord had no pleasure.” He was taken to Babylon where he was imprisoned amongst the other captive kings. After Jehoiachin had been imprisoned for 37 years in Babylon, he was released by King Evil Merodach who succeeded his father Nebuchadnezzar (2 Ki. 25:27).

In 605 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem and captured Jehoiakim, deporting him and the captives (including Daniel) to Babylon: “In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God: which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god” (Dan.1:1-2).

Zedekiah (597-586 B.C.): He was the twentieth and last king of the Davidic line. There has not been a king in Jerusalem since, until the King of king comes. Zedekiah did evil in the sight of the Lord and did not humble himself before Jeremiah who was speaking on God’s behalf. He stiffened his neck and hardened his heart from turning unto the Lord God of Israel (2 Chr. 36:12-13). Rebellion and pride are the chief sins of the human heart. Zedekiah had his eyes put out, after seeing his sons slaughtered before him (Jer. 39:6-7). This was for his rebellion against Nebuchadnezzar. The final siege and fall of Jerusalem occurred in 586 B.C.

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CHAPTER 7 The Babylonian Captivity (606 B.C. to 539 B.C.) The Babylonian Deportations and Exile Jeremiah 24:5-10 describes the Lord’s purpose for the Babylonian captivity. He does so by showing the prophet two baskets of figs. One basket had very good figs, and the other very rotten figs. The good figs represent those who would submit to captivity, allowing God to purify them from their vanities and to give them a heart to know him. The rotten figs are those who refuse captivity, and with these, there was no hope for them but to destroy them. “Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel; Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good. For I will set mine eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them again to this land: and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up. And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.

And as the evil figs, which cannot be eaten, they are so evil; surely thus saith the LORD, So will I give Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the residue of Jerusalem, that remain in this land, and them that dwell in the land of Egypt: And I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places whither I shall drive them. And I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, among them, till they be consumed from off the land that I gave unto them and to their fathers.”

But then the Lord in His mercy and compassion declares that after their punishment He will restore them to this land again: “Therefore fear thou not, O my servant Jacob, saith the LORD; neither be dismayed, O Israel: for, lo, I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and shall be in rest, and be quiet, and none shall make him afraid. For I am with thee, saith the LORD, to save thee: though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee: but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished” (Jer. 30:10-11).

The Babylonian captivity had also been prophesied by and recorded in both the major and minor prophets, an account that we will now examine.

The Prophet Isaiah Isaiah foresaw the destruction of the temple and the cities of Judah: “Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire: and all our pleasant things are laid waste” (Isa. 64:10-11).

The Babylonian captivity was foretold by Isaiah in the days of Hezekiah: “Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried to Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the LORD. And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon (Isa. 39:6-7).”

We must remember the purpose for judgments, as it is declared in Isaiah 42:23-24: “Who among you will give ear to this? who will hearken and hear for the time to come? Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? did not the LORD, he against whom we have sinned? for they would not walk in his ways, neither were they obedient unto his law. It is the Lord who sends judgment in order to bring His people to their senses and to rescue them from eternal loss.

After God uses Babylon to chastise His own nation, God will destroy Babylon who would so afflict Judea and destroy the temple. Isaiah 43:14: “Thus saith the LORD, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and have brought down all their nobles, and the Chaldeans, whose cry is in the ships.”

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Isaiah 13 also prophesies of the destruction of Babylon by the Medes and Persians, even before Babylon had become a world power, for in the days of this prophecy, it was Assyria which was the dominant power. In Isaiah 21, Isaiah again speaks of Elam (Persia) and Media (Medes) besieging Babylon until it falls. Babylon is not only of importance from a historical standpoint, and helping us to understand the ways of God amongst the nations. It also will have a significant role amongst the nations prior to the Second Coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (cf. Revelation 18).

Then the Lord, through His prophet, declares the very name of the one who will eventually bring Babylon down, and that man was Cyrus. This is an exceptional prophecy because Isaiah is prophesying that Jerusalem shall be inhabited and the temple will be built, when it was already standing. Isaiah is actually predicting the destruction of Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, and that the temple will be destroyed. Later, a man named Cyrus will release them from exile and order them to return to their homeland to rebuild their temple. Listen to the prophecy of Isaiah: “Thus saith the LORD, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the LORD that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself…That confirmeth the word of his servant, and performeth the counsel of his messengers; that saith to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be inhabited; and to the cities of Judah, Ye shall be built, and I will raise up the decayed places thereof: That saith to the deep, Be dry, and I will dry up thy rivers: That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid” (Isa. 44:24, 26-28). Here, we also see the Lord, declaring at least 150 years before the birth of Cyrus that he would defeat Babylon and how he would take the city—by drying up the Euphrates River that flowed under the gates of the great city of Babylon.

Cyrus the Persian took one third of his army upstream, and at a given time, diverted the Euphrates River.

Suddenly the waters that flowed into the entrance of Babylon went down. On the other side of this mammoth city, the river flowing out of the city dropped. Then the other two-thirds of the soldiers of Cyrus went under the gates from both ends of Babylon and took the city. Thus, after subduing Babylon, he opened the two leaved gates and beckoned the Jews to return to their homeland. All of this is prophesied, 176 years before it happened. It is God who will strengthen Cyrus and give him the victory:“Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut; I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron: And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I the LORD which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel. For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me” (Isa. 45:1-4). Babylon and her idols would be destroyed and humbled, and no more would Babylon be called “the lady of kingdoms” because of her sorceries and wickedness. (Isa. 47:5).

Now Isaiah speaks further of the deliverance of the Jews from Babylon, “Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth; say ye, The LORD hath redeemed his servant Jacob” (Isa. 48:20).

Many years later when Cyrus freed Zion’s prisoners, she is beckoned: “Shake thyself, loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion” (Isa. 52:2). Even when the Jews were set free with the gates opened wide, some remained there, comfortable in their bondage.

Additional promises of restoration of Israel are found in Isaiah 60:14, 20-21: “The sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee; and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet; and they shall call thee, The city of the LORD, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel… Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the LORD shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. Thy people also shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified.” These promises look ahead more to the Millennial age when Israel is fully restored and the Lord of Glory Himself is there.Isaiah 61:2-3 contain other promises of restoration: 30

“To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.”

Isaiah also prophesied concerning the Millennium and the New Heavens and the New Earth: “For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the LORD, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD. And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh” (Isa. 66:22-24; see also Isaiah 65:17-25).

The Prophet Jeremiah The prophet Jeremiah foretells of the coming destruction of Jerusalem by the Northern Kingdoms, principally because they had forsaken the true and living God and had worshipped the gods of stone and wood: “Then the LORD said unto me, Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land. For, lo, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, saith the LORD; and they shall come, and they shall set every one his throne at the entering of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all the walls thereof round about, and against all the cities of Judah” (Jer.1:14-15).

Jeremiah commenced his prophetic ministry in the thirteenth year of Josiah the godly king, and spearheaded the last great revival of the monarchy in the eighteenth year of Josiah, along with King Josiah and Zephaniah. However, the nation was still in a backslidden condition because the revival did not get deeply into the hearts of many. Thus, God said that He would bring a nation from afar against them (Jer.5:15-17; 6:22-23). That nation, in particular, was Babylon. The destruction of the temple is forecast in Jeremiah 7:14. Also, the destruction of Jerusalem is prophesied in Jeremiah 7:20, 34; 9:11-12, the reason being that they had forsaken the law of the Lord. Therefore the Lord responds by saying in Jeremiah 12:7, “I have forsaken mine house, I have left mine heritage; I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies.”

Then the Lord continues by appointing their judgments when He responds to their question: “…If they say unto thee, Whither shall we go forth? then thou shalt tell them, Thus saith the LORD; Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for the captivity, to the captivity. And I will appoint over them four kinds, saith the LORD: the sword to slay, and the dogs to tear, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and destroy. And I will cause them to be removed into all kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem” (Jer. 15:2-4).

Therefore, judgment is at all times very personalized and ordained and determined by the Lord. The reason for these awful judgments of being removed into all kingdoms of the earth was because of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem several generations past. Amon, who was the son of Manasseh, did evil in the sight of the Lord. Apart from Josiah, the grandson of Manasseh, the remainder of the kings of the line of Judah through David were evil (See our chart on the kings of Judah). Seven generations of kings followed Hezekiah: All of these seven were evil except Josiah.

Hezekiah was followed by: 1. Manasseh 2. Amon 3. Josiah: He was perhaps the greatest king of all time. There was revival during his reign. He was killed in battle against Pharaoh Necho.

4. Jehoahaz (called Shallum, Jer. 22:11). He was deported to Egypt and replaced by Eliakim, whose name was changed to Jehoiakim by Pharaoh Necho.

5. Jehoiakim (called Eliakim). He was dragged from Jerusalem, with the burial of a donkey.

6. Jehoiachin (called Coniah, and also Jeconiah, Jer. 22:24). He was taken to Babylon.

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7. Zedekiah (He was the final king of Judah, had his eyes put out and deported to Babylon.)

Judgments were pronounced upon Shallum (Jehoahaz) and Jehoiakim, kings of Judah and sons of Josiah: “For thus saith the LORD touching Shallum the son of Josiah king of Judah, which reigned instead of Josiah his father, which went forth out of this place; He shall not return thither any more…

Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah; They shall not lament for him, saying, Ah my brother! or, Ah sister! they shall not lament for him, saying, Ah lord! or, Ah his glory! He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem” (Jer. 22:11, 18-19). Likewise, Coniah (Jehoiachin), is condemned (Jer. 22:24-30; 52:31). He was a prisoner in Babylon 37 years.

Thus there were three deportations from Jerusalem to Babylon: The first deportation (606 B.C.): This was in the fourth year of Jehoiakim. Daniel the prophet was taken captive at this time when still a young man. He later became adviser to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Darius, king of the Medes and finally Cyrus king of Persia.

The second deportation (about 597 B.C.): It occurred under Jehoiachin when he was removed from his throne and replaced by his uncle who took the name of Zedekiah. The prophet, Ezekiel, was deported at this time and in his prophecy, dates are estimated from the time of the reign of Jehoiachin (See Ezekiel 1:2).

The third and final deportation (586 B.C.): This was when Nebuchadnezzar finally sacked Jerusalem and the Temple in the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. During this time, the Jews settled in Babylon and its suburbs and led a reasonably comfortable life, being treated well by their captors.

During the time of the deportations, and from the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah, Jeremiah had been a faithful witness to the kings, priests and to all the people of Jerusalem. Thus, the Lord had raised up three men—Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel (all major writing prophets), during this period of judgment known as the Diaspora or dispersion of Israel into Babylonian captivity.

The people found solace in the prophecy of Jeremiah, who declared that the captivity would last 70 years (Jer. 25:12). It was this prophecy of Jeremiah that Daniel was reading in Babylon during the first year of Darius the Mede who had captured Babylon in 539 B.C. (Dan. 9:2).

CHAPTER 8 The Medeo-Persian Empire (539 B.C. to 331 B.C.) With the fall of Babylon in 539 B.C. to the Medes under Darius the Mede, the Babylonian Empire effectively came to an end. Upon the death of Darius, Cyrus of Persia took the kingdom in 536 B.C. Thus, with the ascension of Cyrus the Persian came the beginning of the Persian Empire, which reigned over all the nations of the world from India unto Ethiopia (Est.1:1). It lasted from 539 B.C. until Darius III was defeated by Alexander the Great in 331 B.C. when the Grecian Period commenced.

Clearly Foretold It was during the time of the Medeo-Persian Empire that the Jewish exiles returned to the Promised Land.

This is called the “Restoration Period.” The Restoration Period is rooted in the promises that God made to Israel many years before the events took place. Thus, we need to look at the sermon of Moses upon the plains of Moab to realize that all these events the happened to the children of Israel were clearly foretold

by God many centuries before they occurred. We quote verbatim the following excerpts from the prophecy of Moses: “Because thou servedst not the LORD thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things; Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the LORD shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee. The LORD shall bring a nation 32

against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand; A nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favour to the young: And he shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy land, until thou be destroyed: which also shall not leave thee either corn, wine, or oil, or the increase of thy kine, or flocks of thy sheep, until he have destroyed thee. And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land, which the LORD thy God hath given thee” (Deut. 28:47-52).

He then continues, “And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone. And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the LORD shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind: And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life” (Deut. 28:64-66).

While the Babylonian captivity was foretold, so was the Restoration: “That then the LORD thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath scattered them” (Deut. 30:3).

The books of Haggai and Zechariah were written in this period. They covered the chronological and historical period from the reign of Cyrus the Persian until Ahasuerus. We will now seek to study and interpret these books in their historical order, and see the marvellous way in which the Almighty protected and governed His people during the time of the Persians.

Cyrus’s Edict We must start with the Book of Ezra. which opens with the decree of Cyrus the Persian. Cyrus permitted the Jews who so desired to return to their homeland in Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple: Let us start with Ezra 1:1-4: “Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The LORD God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the LORD God of Israel, (he is the God,) which is in Jerusalem. And whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, beside the freewill offering for the house of God that is in Jerusalem.”

As we have already mentioned, this had been prophesied by the prophet Isaiah about 176 years earlier, in Isaiah 44:28: “That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid.” Not only did Cyrus proclaim this edict, but he also provided the necessary furnishings: “Then Tatnai, governor on this side the river, Shetharboznai, and their companions, according to that which Darius the king had sent, so they did speedily. And the elders of the Jews builded, and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo. And they builded, and finished it, according to the commandment of the God of Israel, and according to the commandment of Cyrus, and Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia. And this house was finished on the third day of the month Adar, which was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king” (Ezra 6:13-15).

Then in a later search for the official decree of Cyrus during the reign of Darius, the measurements of the temple were found. We read about this event in Ezra 6:3-5: “In the first year of Cyrus the king the same Cyrus the king made a decree concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, The Medeo-Persian Empire Let the house be builded, the place where they offered sacrifices, and let the foundations thereof be strongly laid; the height thereof threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof threescore cubits; With three rows of great stones, and a row of new timber: and let the expenses be given out of the 33

king’s house: And also let the golden and silver vessels of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took forth out of the temple which is at Jerusalem, and brought unto Babylon, be restored, and brought again unto the temple which is at Jerusalem, every one to his place, and place them in the house of God.” Thus, the prophecy of Jeremiah 25:12 was fulfilled in 536 B.C, with the proclamation given by Cyrus for the Jews to return and rebuild the temple. Cyrus truly was one of God’s shepherds caring for His people.

In fact, secular historians such as Heroditus declared that, “Cyrus was a worthy model for any ruler of men.” While there had been three distinct deportations, there were also three distinct returns from Babylon: 1. The first return was led by Zerubabbel in 536 B.C., who laid the foundation of the temple according to the edict of Cyrus in Isaiah 44:28. Then 16 years later, after much opposition, during the reign of Darius I, king of Persia, the temple was completed. Haggai and Zechariah were with them, helping them.

2. The second return occurred under Ezra in the seventh year of Artaxerxes in 457 B.C. This return was about eighty years after the first return.

3. The third return was led by Nehemiah in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes in 444 B.C. Now let us pause for a moment in this historical narrative of the nation of Israel. Has any other nation received such words from God, declaring their captivity and the length of that captivity, with the assurance that it will last for exactly 70 years? The Lord even named the man who would deliver them, Cyrus, and by what means he would use to deliver them. Has there ever been a nation like that in the world? No, not one.

Israel is uniquely God’s own precious people and nation.

The Book of Ezra and the First Return The first return from Babylon was led by Zerubbabel and Joshua the High Priest. They laid the foundation of the temple and then were opposed by the people of the land, but after 16 years the prophets Haggai and Zechariah stirred up the people of God to resume building. Then the King Darius was consulted, who finding the decree of Cyrus, gave the following order: “Moreover I make a decree what ye shall do to the elders of these Jews for the building of this house of God: that of the king’s goods, even of the tribute beyond the river, forthwith expenses be given unto these men, that they be not hindered.

And that which they have need of, both young bullocks, and rams, and lambs, for the burnt offerings of the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, and oil, according to the appointment of the priests which are at Jerusalem, let it be given them day by day without fail: That The Medeo-Persian Empire they may offer sacrifices of sweet savours unto the God of heaven, and pray for the life of the king, and of his sons” (Ezra 6:8-10).

We are told that the house was finished: “And the elders of the Jews builded, and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo. And they builded, and finished it, according to the commandment of the God of Israel, and according to the commandment of Cyrus, and Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia. And this house was finished on the third day of the month Adar, which was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king” (Ezra 6:14-15).

The Book of Esther At this juncture in the chronology of the history of Israel, there is a lapse in the Book of Ezra of about 60 years. (Between Ezra 6 and 7, there is a gap of 59 years of unrecorded history). The Book of Esther takes up the narrative of the history of Israel during this time, in the reign of Ahasuerus (or Xerxes) as he is known in secular history. This is the fourth king of Persia prophesied to come by Daniel in chapter 11:2: “And now will I shew thee the truth. Behold, there shall stand up yet three kings in Persia; and the fourth shall be far richer than they all: and by his strength through his riches he shall stir up all against the realm of Grecia.”

Ahasuerus was the richest of all the Persian kings, and he reigned over 127 provinces, from India to Ethiopia. He stirred up Persia against Greece but was soundly defeated by them. He then, according to the historian Heroditus, devoted himself to the affairs of his harem. His Queen Consort, Vashti, disobeyed him and was replaced by Esther, a young Jewish girl. In the providence of God, she was responsible for saving 34

her people from annihilation by the king’s wicked counsellor Haman. The reign of Xerxes covered the years of 485- 465 B.C. All of this took place between chapters 6 and 7 of the Book of Ezra.

The Book of Ezra and the Second Return under Artaxerxes (465-423 B.C.) Then a new king, Artaxerxes, ascended the throne. The son of Xerxes and would obviously have been favourably influenced towards the Jews by Esther, who could well have been the Queen Mother during the first part of his reign. In the seventh year of his reign (457 B.C.), Artaxerxes sent Ezra from Babylon to Jerusalem to teach God’s Word. He said to Ezra, “And thou, Ezra, after the wisdom of thy God, that is in thine hand, set magistrates and judges, which may judge all the people that are beyond the river, all such as know the laws of thy God; and teach ye them that know them not. And whosoever will not do the law of thy God, and the law of the king, let judgment be executed speedily upon him, whether it be unto death, or to banishment, or to confiscation of goods, or to imprisonment” (Ezra 7:25-26). It would be amiss here not to consider the spotless life of Ezra who is surely a model for any teacher. We are told that Ezra is called “a ready scribe in the law of God,” meaning that he had the ability to interpret the spiritual sense of the Scriptures. Ezra had “prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord and to do it and to teach in Israel the statutes and judgments of God” (Ezra 7:6, 10). Ezra returned Israel to the true worship and the teaching of the Scriptures, and this restoration lasted until the fall of the temple in A.D. 70.

As teachers of God, it is this that we should seek to emulate— that we bring the churches and the people back into New Testament worship, giving them a vision of the glorious last day Church, a vision that will hold them on course until Jesus comes again. Furthermore, we should focus on teachings that will enable them to endure the persecutions of the end times, and to remain true to the end. One of the aspects of the life of a minister is to lay good foundations so that his work and fruit will remain long after his death, and though he is dead, his life and words still speak (cf. Heb.11:2).

Two or three of those who achieved this distinction come to mind as I write. The first, of course, is Ezra, called the Second Moses by the people of Israel; he is revered through all succeeding generations. He laid, as we have already stated, the foundations upon which worship and the teaching of the law was promulgated for some 400 years. He laid a foundation of true holiness and a teaching ministry that included the writing of the Books of First and Second Chronicles. I have noticed that those who contribute much to the Church are, generally speaking, writers who leave their teachings in book form for the generations to come. Then there is John Wycliffe who, in his early years, was a brilliant student at Oxford University and a theologian of distinction later. However, his true gift to the future generations lay in the fact that after a distinguished career at Oxford, he went to a relatively insignificant parish church in Lutterworth, Leicestershire, England. He had already translated the Bible into the English (A.D. 1383) to fulfil his desire that every plough boy would be able to read the Scriptures. He raised up a movement which from the mid 14th century lasted until the English Reformation, and yet according to some scholars, traces of its influence are found in much later denominations such as the Baptists.

These Lollards commissioned by Wycliffe went out two by two, and were essentially itinerant preachers who proclaimed the Gospel to all, both small and great. They had an enormous impact upon society as a whole and had adherents even amongst the so-called gentry or upper class of that day. They were essentially anticlerical and Bible-based preachers. They were not raising up a denomination per se, and therefore, could proclaim the truths of the Scriptures wherever they went, and one and all from all denominations could receive the truths that they proclaimed.

The Restoration Temple in the time of Ezra Returning to the narrative of Artaxerxes’ instructions to Ezra, this was the year 457 B.C., and (as we shall see later) it is one of great significance, since it is linked with a prophecy that has governed Israel from then until now, and will do so even unto the Second Coming of our Lord and Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.

So in the days of the kings of Persia, the Lord turned the hearts of these kings Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes 35

(Ahasuerus), and Artaxerxes to bless Israel and give her a place to live again in her own land, thus preserving the nation during this period in the history of mankind.

The Book of Nehemiah and the Third Return In the twentieth year of the reign of Artaxerxes (about 445 B.C.), Nehemiah was sent to Jerusalem to rebuild the wall of the city. Nehemiah was appointed the governor of Jerusalem and governed with integrity as we read in Nehemiah 5:14-15: “Moreover from the time that I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year even unto the two and thirtieth year of Artaxerxes the king, that is, twelve years, I and my brethren have not eaten the bread of the governor. But the former governors that had been before me were chargeable unto the people, and had taken of them bread and wine, beside forty shekels of silver; yea, even their servants bare rule over the people: but so did not I, because of the fear of God.” Thus Nehemiah governed for 12 years before returning to see the king in the thirty-second year of his reign (about 433 B.C.). He then returned to Jerusalem, having obtained permission from the king so to do.

The Book of Malachi, however, shows the spiritual condition of the people in those days—one that was very lethargic, and also the decay of the home and family. But Malachi’s prophecy contained many wonderful promises concerning the First Coming of the Lord, as well the Second Coming, when both Moses and Elijah will become the two witnesses mentioned in Revelation 11. (See also Malachi 4:4-6.)

CHAPTER 9 The Ministry of the Prophet Daniel At this point, we must now break into the chronological sequence of events and go back more than a century to study and consider the ministry of the Prophet Daniel. The prophecies of Daniel are extraordinarily understandable since they were given by a God who is all knowing, who sees the end from the beginning, and what He decrees comes to pass. Let us consider some of these prophetic declarations of Daniel.

Prophecies Concerning the Babylonian Empire It was Daniel who was summoned to the last feast of the Babylonian king, Belshazzar, who impiously drank from the sacred vessels of the temple sanctuary that had been brought to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar.

There, as recorded in Daniel 5, he pronounced the end of the empire, which happened that very night when it fell to the besieging armies of the Medes and Persians. He said to Belshazzar: “O thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom, and majesty, and glory, and honour…But when his heart was lifted up, and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him… And thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this… hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou, and thy lords, thy wives, and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified: Then was the part of the hand sent from him; and this writing was written. And this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians” (Dan. 5:18-28).

God had even declared that a spirit of drunkenness would cause their downfall, and that the Medes would be the principal enemy that would defeat them (Isa. 13:17; 21:1-10). This prophecy was given at least 150 36

years before its fulfilment. Now, has there ever been another country so gathered by the prophetic mantle, as was and is the nation of Israel? There is no other country that can make that claim.

The Bigger Picture: Prophecies Concerning the Governing Powers (from Babylon to the Future) Daniel was also blessed with other remarkable revelations concerning the future of Israel intertwined with the emerging powers that would govern the world of that day.

In Daniel 2, he was shown the order of the dynasties through the interpretation of a vision given to Nebuchadnezzar. In this vision, Nebuchadnezzar saw the statue of a man who had: 1. The head of gold meaning Babylon, 2. The chest of silver signifying the Persians, 3. Loins of brass speaking of Greece, 4. Legs of iron speaking of the Roman Empire and 5. Feet and toes of iron mingled with clay, speaking of the rise of ten kingdoms in the last days just prior to the coming of the Antichrist.

However, Chapters 2 and 7 are related.In Daniel 7, Daniel records a vision of four great nations who took the form of animals.

These nations are in the same order of the statue in Daniel 2: 1. Therefore the lion with eagle’s wings represents the kingdom of Babylon. Proof of this may be seen by lions with eagles wings embossed upon the walls of that city, even until this very day.

2. The next is a bear, which represents Persia.

3. The third is a leopard, which is very important, for this gives us understanding concerning the nationality of the Antichrist as depicted in Revelation 13. Thus the third kingdom is Greece.

4. The fourth beast is terrifying and represents the fourth kingdom—Rome.

The Order of Dynasties We have the advantage of living in the millennium of two thousand, and having the possibility of interpreting according to history that has gone before us—a privilege that those living in the days of Daniel were not so blessed.

This Fourth Beast: Now, we should consider this fourth and last beast, since it tells us much concerning our days and those things that are about to happen. This beast had ten horns and those ten horns represent ten kings and kingdoms that will arise in the confines of the Old Roman Empire in the final days before the Lord returns. The authority for such an interpretation is provided by the following verse: “And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast” (Rev. 17:12).

Now these ten kings must first arise, and they are followed by an eleventh little horn who is the Antichrist.

Of this Antichrist, we will speak more fully, but suffice it to say it is important that we have the following information concerning him.

1.) Greek Nationality: He is of Greek nationality as is proven from Revelation 13:1-2: “And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.” He is likened unto a leopard, and from Daniel 7, we have seen that the third beast, Greece, is likened unto a leopard. Therefore, we may state upon the authority of God’s Word that the nationality of the Antichrist is Greek.

2.) Arises After the Ten Kings: We also understand from the following Scriptures that the ten kings or kingdoms in the area of the Old Roman Empire must first come before the Antichrist will arise, and we quote: “Then I would know the truth of the fourth beast, which was diverse from all the others, exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and his nails of brass; which devoured, brake in 37

pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet; And of the ten horns that were in his head, and of the other which came up, and before whom three fell; even of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows. I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; Until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom. Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces. And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings. And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time. But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end. And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him” (Dan. 7:19-27).

Thus, Daniel has revelation of the Antichrist and the timing of his appearance upon the world scene, which is just prior to Christ’s Second Coming and the Millennium. The future of Israel is taking shape some 2,500 or more years after the time of Daniel.

After the Babylonian empire fell and the Media-Persian empire came into power, Daniel understood by the prophecy of Jeremiah that the 70 years of captivity was at its end (Dan. 9:1,2). Thus, Daniel began to intercede for the restoration of his people to their homeland. During that time of intercession, God gave Daniel the prophecy of 70 weeks. Each week was seven years, a total of 490 years. These 70 weeks would bring Israel all the way to the In Daniel 9:24-27, it says, “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.”

Now the interpretation of these 70 weeks is that each week represents seven years, and therefore, we are looking at a time period of 490 years: Its commencement: The commencement of the 70 weeks starts with a king giving a command “to restore and build Jerusalem” (Dan. 9:25). This could not have been the decree of Cyrus in 536 B.C., for his command was to return to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple. Eighty years later the city and walls were still in deplorable condition.

Therefore, this particular decree that starts the 70 week period has been determined to be 457 B.C., in the seventh year of Artaxerxes. At this time Ezra was sent to teach the law, and soon after Nehemiah was sent to restore the walls and city. Therefore, although the revelation was given to Daniel in 536 B.C. (in the first year of Darius the Mede), the 70 weeks do not actually commence until about 80 years later, in 457 B.C. by the decree of Artaxerxes.

These 70 weeks are divided into three sections, as seen below: 1. Seven weeks: This was a time when the walls and city were being built in troublous times. Seven weeks speak of a period of 49 years during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah when Jerusalem was being rebuilt and everything set in order.

2. Sixty-two weeks: The next period is 62 weeks (three score and two weeks), which works out to an 38

additional period of 434 years after the rebuilding the city and walls—a total of 69 weeks or 483 years from the commencement of 70 weeks (457 B.C.).

This brings us unto the first coming of Messiah, who was baptized in the Jordan River in A.D. 26, thus beginning His ministry. Therefore, from 457 B.C. to A.D. 26 is 483 years.

The number 62 is very interesting because it is the number of the coming of Christ.

There were 62 generations from Adam to the coming of Christ: 10 generations from Adam to Noah 10 generations from Noah to Abraham 14 generations from Abraham to David 14 generations from David to Babylon 14 generations from Babylon until Christ. We learn this from Matthew 1.

A total of 62 generations in all.

After Messiah came the first time, he was “cut off,” rejected and crucified. Thus, Jerusalem was destroyed once again, this time by the Roman prince, Titus. “…And unto the end of the war, desolations are determined” upon Jerusalem (Dan. 9:26b). Jerusalem would only have wars and desolations until its final cleansing when Christ comes again. When Christ was rejected, the kingdom was taken from Israel and given to a nation bearing fruit, and that nation is the Church. Therefore, there is a large gap of time between Christ’s first coming (the sixty ninth week), and the seventieth week, which brings us up to the Second Coming. That gap of time is called the Church Age. We will now continue to develop the time of the seventieth week, which is the time of the Antichrist, who will appear in our days. It is also a seven year period that cleanses Jerusalem and prepares her to receive her Messiah at His Second Coming. (Please see chart).

3. The Seventieth Week (the future): This last week will begin with the covenant signing between the Antichrist and Israel for a period of seven years, which shall be broken in the midst by the Antichrist forbidding the offering of Jewish sacrifices at a rebuilt temple of the Last Days in Jerusalem. This will culminate the Great Tribulation (the last three-and one-half years of the Church Age), and will bring us to the Second Coming of Christ, and Israel’s total restoration.

Prophecies Concerning the Fall of Persia to Greece Daniel is also given understanding of the outcome of the Persian Empire and its fall to Greece as we see in Daniel 11:2: “And now will I shew thee the truth. Behold, there shall stand up yet three kings in Persia; and the fourth shall be far richer than they all: and by his strength through his riches he shall stir up all against the realm of Grecia.”

These three kings of Persia are Cyrus, Cambyses and Smerdis, whilst the fourth is Xerxes or Ahasuerus as he is known in the book of Esther. He led a Persian campaign against the Greeks, raising an army of 2,500,000 with 3,000 ships.

Initially, he was successful destroying Athens and burning the Acropolis. But he suffered a crushing defeat

by Thermistocles, who defeated the Persian Navy in the battle of the Bay of Salmis, and then without naval support, his army was defeated at Platae in 479 B.C. Thus, Ahasuerus had to retreat back into Persia.

However the Greeks had a smouldering anger within them which lasted for centuries. This accounts for the attitude of the king of Greece when he came against Persia about 150 years later.

Daniel is shown the battle between Greece and Persia in Daniel 8, where in a vision, a ram that had two horns is defeated by a he-goat, which had a notable horn between his eyes. The interpretation is given to Daniel that the ram with the two horns represents the Medeo-Persian Empire. The he-goat is Greece.

Let us remember that this vision is given in the first year of Darius the Mede in about 539 B.C., and the event recorded in the vision will not occur until about 331 B.C. Can any man forecast with any degree of accuracy the events of just a few years in advance? No, not one! Therefore, it is God who is bringing comfort to His chosen nation by showing them world events that will occur centuries in the future. Surely, God is all-knowing, and all-powerful. Not only does He know the future, He also controls the future.

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Daniel is told that the he-goat represents the first king of Greece who, in anger, defeats the Persians. The end of that first king of Greece, whom we know by the name of Alexander the Great, would have his kingdom divided into four kingdoms. This is because Alexander died very young, and his kingdom was divided up amongst his four generals, because he had no children. Alexander is also the ruler mentioned as the mighty king in Daniel 11:3-4: “And a mighty king shall stand up, that shall rule with great dominion, and do according to his will. And when he shall stand up, his kingdom shall be broken, and shall be divided toward the four winds of heaven; and not to his posterity, nor according to his dominion which he ruled: for his kingdom shall be plucked up, even for others beside those.�

CHAPTER 10 The Grecian Period (331 B.C. until 63 B.C.) As we have mentioned earlier, Daniel was shown that the first king of Greece would defeat the Persian powers, as we read in Daniel 8. He is the angry he-goat who stamps underfoot the ram, representing the Mede and Persian Empire. This was fulfilled when Alexander the Great defeated the Persian Empire under Darius III, and became literally the ruler of the known world at that time. More books are written about this period of history than at any other time, and for a very good reason, as it changed the world.

Most importantly, when we consider the coming Antichrist, we shall see that Alexander fulfils so many of the characteristics of this most wicked of all men. Therefore, we need to examine in some detail the life of Alexander the Great, the first king of Greece, because of his role in the signing of the covenant in the last week of the 70 weeks that govern Israel, a period from 457 B.C. until the last seven years. There are many very substantial proofs that Alexander will be the Antichrist that will ascend from the pit in the last days.

Alexander the Great As we have said, many are the books written concerning Alexander that have been well searched out, and to repeat a detailed history of his life would be tedious for you, gentle reader. We are only focusing on various experiences and some of his battles so that they can be firmly implanted in the minds of our readers with their relevance for the Last Days.

One of the notable facts concerning his life is that he accomplished victory after victory against his foes, overcoming them and not suffering defeat himself. This was done in a very short space of time. He is called in Scripture the first king of Greece, for until Alexander, Greece had been composed largely of independent city states with their own forms of government.

Alexander united them into one nation at the very early age of 20 when he succeeded his father Philip, king of the province of Macedonia. After uniting Greece, he started on his quest to liberate nations from the control of Persia. Now according to the historian Josephus, Alexander testified that the high priest in Jerusalem had appeared to him in a dream and assured him that he would indeed govern the known world at that time. This gave Alexander the assurance of victory against his enemies, and when he did eventually arrive at Jerusalem from Egypt, he treated the Jews with kindness and generosity, granting them many of their requests. Some of these included not having to serve in his army on the Sabbath day and being permitted to continue temple sacrifices. The Jews responded to Alexander’s favourable gestures towards them by referring to him as the Second Cyrus in memory of the king who had made the decree permitting them to return unto Jerusalem in 536 B.C. When Alexander had ravaged the nations from Greece to Egypt and then came towards Jerusalem, all were fearful in the holy city. However, the Lord spoke to the high priest, Jaddus, telling him and his priests to put on their ceremonial regalia and walk down to meet Alexander as he came to the city. This they did, and to the surprise of all his generals, Alexander fell down and knelt before the high priest. He then explained that he was not bowing before the high priest but before the God 40

whom he represented. “For,” said Alexander, “This was the priest who appeared to me when I was still in Greece and promised me that I should be victorious over all the nations with whom I fought” (Josephus, A.D. 93, Book XI, Chapter 8).

Now as we return to Revelation 13 and examine the description of the Beast, we find other significant descriptions of him: 1. Feet of a bear: His feet are those of a bear. The bear, according to Daniel chapter seven, is the symbol of the second of the four kingdoms, which is Persia. The Antichrist is therefore one who will walk over and crush Persia. This we know Alexander accomplished in 331 B.C. when Darius III, fleeing from the battle of Guagamela, was conspired against by his servants and left to die on the road side in a cart.

2. Mouth of a lion: Then we also see that the mouth of Antichrist is like that of a lion. The lion, we have already determined from Daniel 7, is the symbol of the first beast, which is Babylon. Therefore, the Antichrist is one who spoke from Babylon, which Alexander certainly did, for he later died in that city in a drunken stupor.

3. Same age as Christ: Now another factor concerning Antichrist is that he must, in order to confuse if possible the very elect, be of the same age as the Christ, who was around 33 years of age when he was crucified. Alexander was 32 years and eleven months old when he succumbed to his sicknesses.

4. Great Orator: Another factor concerning the Antichrist is that he will be an orator of extraordinary skill.

This indeed was the case with Alexander, who was the most famous pupil of Aristotle, who was the pupil of Plato, who in turn was the pupil of Homer. Alexander was required to recite Homer’s Iliad by heart.

Another fact that should not be omitted is that these philosophers were homosexuals, as was Alexander— a truly vile man.

5. Ruled over seven countries: Another feature of the Antichrist in Revelation 13:1-2 is that he had seven heads, speaking of seven countries over which he must rule. These countries must have been associated with Israel and have afflicted her. We know that the following nations fulfil this requirement: · Egypt: Firstly, there was Egypt under their king Shishak, who invaded Israel when Rehoboam was king of Judah. · Assyria: Secondly, there were the Assyrians under successive kings, who plundered and deported the northern ten tribes of Israel. · Babylon: Then there were the Babylonians under their principal king, Nebuchadnezzar, who carried out three deportations during the reigns of Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin and the sacking of the temple and city of Jerusalem during the reign of the twentieth king of the Davidic line, Zedekiah. · Persia: The Persians then ruled over Israel from 536 B.C. until 331 B.C. · Greece: The next empire was the Grecian period with the first king, Alexander the Great. This Grecian influence extended through the kings of the south and the kings of the north until the Roman Empire emerged in all its power and glory.

The first five empires were ruled over by Alexander. He did not live in the Roman era (the sixth empire) but he will come up from the ten kings (a kingdom that will rise in our times in the area of the old Roman Empire.) This will be the seventh kingdom.

Now looking at Revelation 17:10, it says, “And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.” We are told that there are seven kings, of which five are fallen at the time of writing the Book of Revelation. The five which had fallen would be Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia and Greece, and the one which existed at the time of the Book of Revelation is Rome. Then there is one which is to come, which will be the Antichrist reigning for a short time.

However, we are further told that the Antichrist is one of the seven, yet also the eighth. The Antichrist cannot be from Rome, for that empire “is,” meaning that it existed at the time when the Book of Revelation was written, and we are told that he “was not” (Rev. 17:11). Therefore, it points to one who was from one of the previous five kingdoms, namely Greece.

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The Northern and Southern Kingdoms From the Greek kingdom of Alexander arose two principal kingdoms. To the north of Israel was Syria, and to the south of Israel was Egypt. These two kingdoms were often warring against one another. Thus, they are referred to by Daniel as “the king of the north” or “the king of the south.” Therefore, we have these two kingdoms: 1. The Southern Kingdom with its capital in Egypt, which was reigned over by one of the four generals of Alexander, Ptolemy, and 2. The Northern Kingdom, which was reigned over by another general, Seleucus, who was from the area of Syria. Daniel 11:5-20 gives a detailed description of the wars between the kings of the south and the north spanning a period from about 323 B.C. to 188 B.C. Daniel 11 prophesies of the future of Alexander’s kingdom after he died, until the time of Antiochus Epiphanes IV. History has a detailed account of the wars between the kings of the South (the Ptolemies who governed Egypt), and Syria which was governed by the Seleucids. In 198 B.C., the Seleucids finally brought an end to Egyptian control of Israel (Niswonger, 1988, Chapter 1): “In the Seleucid-Ptolemic contest for the control of Syria, Palestine frequently served as the battleground.

The Ptolemies and later Napoleon himself regarded Palestine as essential for the defense of the Nile. At Panium (Paneas), in the New Testament era called Caesarea Philippi, just south of Mount Hermon, the armies of Antiochus III finally routed the force of Ptolemic general Scopas in 198 B.C. With this engagement, the land of Israel passed into the hands of the Seleucid rulers.”

Thus, in a remarkable way through the spirit of prophecy, which is the testimony of Jesus, God has provided His people Israel with the knowledge of things that would come to pass. This was so that they, through the comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope and assurance that their Heavenly Father was tenderly watching over their country and nation, giving them an expected end by the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ when His feet would stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives.

The Little Horn in Daniel 8 (Antiochus Epiphanes IV) One of the Seleucid rulers was Antiochus Epiphanes IV, a king who caused great sorrow to the Jewish state, and was responsible for bringing in another period in the story of the nation of Israel. Antiochus IV was called “the little horn” of Daniel 8, and therefore a historic type of the little horn—the Antichrist of Daniel 7, who is yet to come. Daniel 8:9-14 says, “And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land. And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them. Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down.

And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practised, and prospered. Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.”

These verses tell us that this Syrian king would be responsible to take away the daily sacrifice and would trample underfoot the holy temple and cause the truth of the laws of God to be cast down for a period of 2,300 days. It is the only mention in Scripture of such a time period and therefore, it refers to one specific period in the history of Israel. We have the advantage of living after this period and so we can see the interpretation of this prophecy. It was accomplished by Antiochus on August 15, 171 B.C. Antiochus had sought to come against Egypt. However, Rome, also had her eyes upon Egypt and therefore, we read that the ships of Chittim (or Rome) troubled him. The Grecian period came to an end when the Roman senator challenged Antiochus. (Rome at this time was a republic, but in 27 B.C., it became a monarchy under Octavius Augustus Caesar.) Making a circle in the ground, the senator told Antiochus that before he 42

came out of that circle, he would have to decide whether or not he would leave Egypt, or challenge the might of Rome. Thus, this one gesture signified the end of the real power of both the kings of the South, Egypt, and the North, represented by their king Antiochus.

It was then that Antiochus was obliged to leave the conquest of Egypt and return to his homeland, but he did so in a terrible rage. He entered Jerusalem, seeking to speed up the hellenization (or the imposing of the Greek culture and language) upon Jerusalem and, in fact, the whole Jewish nation. Prior to that, the Seleucids had traditionally allowed the Jews to practise Mosaic law. But Antiochus not only revoked the religious independence of Israel, he also began a policy of religious oppression (Niswonger, 1988, Chapter 1) He erected a statue to Zeus, a god of Greek mythology, and sacrificed a pig upon the temple altar. Thus the following scripture in Daniel 11:29-31 was fulfilled: “At the time appointed he shall return, and come toward the south; but it shall not be as the former, or as the latter. For the ships of Chittim shall come against him: therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and have indignation against the holy covenant: so shall he do; he shall even return, and have intelligence with them that forsake the holy covenant. And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate.”

This created an uprising of pious Jews, led principally by the family of Mattathias Hasmon through one of his sons, Judas the Maccabee (meaning “the hammer”). The five sons of Mattathias launched a guerrilla campaign against the Seleucid garrisons and their Jewish supporters. In two years (166-164 B.C.), they drove all the Greeks out of Jerusalem. In the temple they purged it of all Greek sacrilegious forms and rededicated it to Jehovah at a solemn service known even today as the Feast of Hanukkah or Dedication.

Judas Maccabaeus cleansed the temple on Dec 25, 165 B.C. There are exactly 2,300 days between these two events, thus fulfilling Scripture even to the very day. How is it that anyone could doubt the veracity of Holy Scripture when one knows such truths? Only God could know that after a period of some 400 years these events would take place, and that He could reveal them to Daniel, who was living all those years prior to the fulfilment of these events. God was watching so carefully over His chosen people Israel, comforting them with the knowledge that there would be an end to the desecration of the sanctuary, even to the exact day of its cleansing. For those who are living in what is termed “the last days,” it gives comfort and assurance that the prophetic word that governs our times will be perfectly fulfilled by a living God, just as He did for those living more than 2,000 years before us. Surely, the testimony of Jesus, around which the whole of prophecy is centred, is true.

Now for us, the importance of Antiochus Epiphanes IV is that he is a type of the Antichrist who is yet to come. Although Antiochus is called the “little horn,” he is not the same as the little horn that is to come up in the end days, as described in Daniel 7. (cf. Dan. 7:8). This little horn is the Antichrist himself who comes up after the ten horns of the fourth beast have arisen.

Comparison with the Little Horn of Daniel 7 (The Antichrist) Therefore, we need to understand that the little horn of Daniel 8 is governed by the number 2,300 days.

However, as we shall see, the little horn of Daniel 7 (the Antichrist of the last days), is governed by the number three-and-one-half years, 42 months, or 1,260 days. The similarity of the two horns will be appreciated a little later as we study the Antichrist, since both take away the daily sacrifices and cause abominations to be set up in the holy place, God’s Temple. Antiochus, the little horn of 171 B.C., sacrificed a female pig according to historical accounts. He also set up a statue to Zeus, a heathen Greek deity; whilst the Antichrist will have a statue made to himself by the false prophet, as Jesus said, standing in the Holy Place (Rev.13:14-15; Mt. 24:15-16). It is awesome to contemplate that many years before these events, God in heaven, had determined the length of their abominations, as well as their ends, and declared and decreed them for the comfort and consolation of His people Israel.

Transition between Empires Antiochus V, successor to his father Antiochus IV, executed Menelaus who had persuaded his father to 43

cause the Jews to give up their traditional worship and brought all the ensuing problems upon the people.

During this time, the Seleucid Empire (Syria) was less than stable, and Rome’s power and influence in the Greek world was increasing. Therefore, the Jews believed that they needed powerful friends. The Hasmonean family (the family of Mattathias Hasmon) responded in 161 B.C. by signing an alliance with Rome in which they were treated by Rome as the ruling family of an independent state. In 142 B.C., Simon Maccabee became ethnarch and ruler as well as high priest. After making a treaty with Demetrius II, one of the rival contenders for Syrian throne (the Seleucid empire), Simon procured political independence for Judea for the first time after 440 years. Simon was the last of the Maccabean brothers. When Simon was assassinated in 135 B.C., he was succeeded by his son John Hyrcanus, who reigned between 134 to 104 B.C. He actually called himself Jonathan the king. He was convinced that it was God’s will that he should restore the Davidic kingdom, believing that the whole of Palestine was the divine inheritance of Israel. In so doing, he trampled down Samaria. His son, Alexander Jannaeus, who reigned from 103 to 76 B.C., was an extremely cruel man and slaughtered even Jewish opponents. He invaded the Decapolis and pushed north into Galilee and Syria.

At this time, the religious parties of the Sadducees, who were descendants of Zadok, (David’s high priest) and supported by the wealthy, formed the governing body—the Sanhedrin, which was composed of a group of elders that were responsible to discharge the religious and legal duties of the ruler. They had a rigid adherence to the Mosaic law and they believed all rule of law should proceed from the Temple. They became the natural allies of the Hasmoneans. It was at this time that a group of pious Jews called the Pharisees (the separated ones) arose. These rejected the royal religious system of the Saduccees, and placed religious observances above Jewish nationalism. Alexander Jannaeus died through an infection brought on by hard drinking. His widow Salome reigned in his place until 67 B.C. Before her death, she left no discernible heir. The Hasmonean state flourished in an age between empires. It was able to expand when the Seleucid nation was in a state of hopeless decay, but before Rome had grown strong enough to replace the Greeks. Hyrcanus II was one of the claimants to the throne of the Hasmonean state. He had a chief minister called Antipater, a half-Jew and half-Helleniser, who had been forcibly converted by the Hasmoneans. In 63 B.C., a notable Roman general, Pompey, seized control of the anarchic Seleucid empire, establishing Syria as a province of Rome. At this time, Antipater made terms with Pompey, and Judea became a Roman state. Antipater did wield considerable influence because of his close connections with the Roman leaders, and for all practical purposes, he ended the Hasmonean dynasty.

CHAPTER 11 The Roman Period (63 B.C. to New Testament Times) The Final Demise of the Greek Empire We have seen that for Israel, Rome, the fourth world empire, had been ushered in when Pompey became master of Jerusalem, in 63 B.C.. When the last of the Ptolemic rulers (Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt) committed suicide, and Egypt was appropriated by the Roman Emperor Augustus Octavius Caesar in 29 B.C., everyone become conscious that the Roman Empire (the fourth empire) had the ascendancy. The stage was now being set for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Octavius was the great nephew of Julius Caesar (who had defeated Pompey). Caesar had designated Octavius to become the ruler of the Roman republic. With the murder of Caesar by Brutus, Octavius, then a youth of only 19, along with Mark Antony and Lepidus, formed what is known as the Second Triumvirate. However, there was a falling out and a battle between Antony and Octavius whereby the senate of Rome of its own accord swore an extraordinary oath of loyalty to Octavius. The senate outlawed Antony and declared war on Cleopatra, but they were defeated by Octavius’ general, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, at Actium. Octavius advanced on Egypt, threatening to take Cleopatra in chains to Rome. Antony committed suicide in Egypt, and Cleopatra 44

shortly thereafter. She chose to be bitten by an asp and died in all her regalia, surrounded by just two of her faithful maids. Octavius then reigned as the emperor of Rome, from 27 B.C. to A.D. 14.

The Roman Period Antipater’s son, namely Herod the Great, was the one who through genocide sought to kill the baby Jesus.

We read of this in Matthew 2:16-18, “Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.”

Herod was one of the worst men who ever lived. He always ensured that he was aligned with whoever was in power in Rome. When Mark Antony flourished, Herod was his friend, but when Antony was defeated by Octavius, he sped to Rome. There before the victor, he took off his crown and laid it at Octavius’ feet. He told Octavius that he had been true to his benefactor, Antony; but he said that “he was ready to be as true to another friend and benefactor, and delicately intimated that he could be as grateful to Augustus, should he re-confer his crown and kingdom upon him.” (Abott, (1881) p. 962).

Octavius restored the diadem to Herod with his own hand, and he also restored to him the whole of Palestine. Herod became one of Rome’s most trusted servants, and in a certain sense, he was rewarded by them richly, and with their backing, extended the kingdom even beyond Hasmonean boundaries, ruling it with far greater skill and security.

Herod, however, was possessed with a passionate jealousy, which caused him to execute members of his own family on the slightest suspicion, whether founded or not. He was a remarkable builder and he lavished his considerable wealth upon buildings of charity in many parts of the world, particularly on those Jews of the Diaspora. However, his greatest work was the rebuilding of the Temple, one of the most magnificent buildings, if not the most magnificent building in the known world at that time. It was certainly larger than the original temple of Solomon. Hence, the desire of the disciples to show Jesus those magnificent stones as recorded in Matthew 24 and Mark 13.

The Life, Ministry and Death of the Lord Jesus Christ The whole of the purpose of Jewish history centres upon their relationship to Jesus Christ who is the Son of God. But they crucified their Saviour, saying to the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate, “Crucify Him, and His blood be on us and on our children” (Mt. 27:22-25). The sufferings of the Jewish nation hereafter were the direct result of that statement. The Scriptures portray the life, ministry and death of the Son of God from his conception in the womb of the virgin Mary, until His resurrection some three days and nights after His death upon the cross.

That the scribes and Pharisees understood their Saviour was to be born is adequately made clear when Herod asked them where the King of the Jews should be born. Without hesitation, they responded, “…In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet, And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel” (Mt. 2:5-6, see also Mic. 5:2).

The Jewish Scriptures were filled with prophetic verses proclaiming the coming of the Lord and expounding the reason for His ministry—to become their Passover Lamb that would take away the sins of the world (For example, see Isaiah 53). Yet the Jews did not know the day of their visitation, and consequently rejected the Cornerstone of the spiritual temple as it is written in Mark 12:10-11: “Have ye not read this scripture; The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner: This was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?” Therefore, God had already warned them that they would reject Him, which they certainly did. John 1:11 says, “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.”

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The reason for this is found in Matthew 13:11-15: “He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.”

When Jesus was in the Via de La Rosa, the road of grief on the way to Calvary, He said to those who were weeping for Him, “…Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children” (Lk. 23:28). Then Jesus spoke of the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem, which came to pass in A.D. 70 by the Roman armies under Titus, who put down the Jewish rebellion.

The Jews’ Rebellious Nature We should comment here upon the attitude of the Jews, whereby through their rebellion, they suffered greatly. God Himself spoke to them concerning this fault in their nature: “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment” (Isa. 1:2-6).

Previously, the Lord had reprimanded them even before they crossed over Jordan: “Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Understand therefore, that the LORD thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiffnecked people” (Deut. 9:5-6).

Therefore, it was the inherent nature of the Jewish people to be rebellious. For this they suffered greatly throughout all of their history. From the wilderness, to the time of the Judges, to the time they demanded a king to be like all the other nations, to the division of the nation into north and south, unto the dimming days of the monarchy under king Zedekiah, Israel constantly rebelled. As a result, we see historically the ultimate destruction of both the temple and the city of Jerusalem. For the most part, those Jews of the Diaspora (estimated to be six million in the Roman Empire) were treated well, and were very content with their lot. The Roman rulers tolerated their religious and ceremonial attire and customs. With a few exceptions such as the Kitos war, the diasporic Jews did not cause any trouble for their rulers. On the contrary, the Jews who had their residence in the land of Israel, and in particular, those who lived in Jerusalem, the propensity to rebel was especially true. We will look at these in more detail in the next section.

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Part II Israel’s Present From Messiah to 1948

CHAPTER 12 The Early Church Age Two Seeds of Abraham Let us start by giving an explanation of the two seeds of Abraham that dominate this period. In Genesis 13:14-16, it says, “…Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.”

Then in Genesis 15:18-21, we read, “In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates. The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”

This refers to natural Israel but the Lord also gave Abraham the promise of a spiritual seed when later He said, “…Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness” (Gen. 15:5-6).

Here are the two seeds of Abraham: His natural seed—the Jews: As the dust of the earth for multitude.

His spiritual seed—believers in every nation: As the countless stars of heaven Thus, the terrestrial nation of Israel is the natural seed of Abraham, but the Church is the spiritual seed of Abraham. We will now consult the writings of the Apostle Paul on this subject so that the things we believe are firmly rooted in the Scriptures. In Galatians 3:29, it says, “And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

Israel’s Blessings The blessings that were given to natural Israel are found in Romans 9:4-5: “Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.”

We would like to consider the uniqueness of Israel as a nation at this time by referring to the following scriptures: “For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?” (Deut. 4:7-8) “For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it? Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live? Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? Unto thee it was shewed, that thou mightest know that the LORD he is God; there is none else beside him. Out of heaven he made thee 47

to hear his voice, that he might instruct thee: and upon earth he shewed thee his great fire; and thou heardest his words out of the midst of the fire. And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and brought thee out in his sight with his mighty power out of Egypt; To drive out nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance, as it is this day” (Deut. 4:32-38).

“For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth. The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt” (Deut. 7:6-8).

“Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the LORD thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness the LORD hath brought me in to possess this land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD doth drive them out from before thee. Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Understand therefore, that the LORD thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiffnecked people” (Deut. 9:4-6).

“Only the LORD had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day” (Deut. 10:15).

Israel Cut Off for a Time However, natural Israel has been cut off for a time. This is clear from Romans 11:15 where Paul states that they are cast away, and through their fall, “… salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy” (Rom. 11:11). In Romans 9:31-33, we see that for this time, Israel is cut off from the promises of God because of their unbelief, for they sought righteousness through the law, and not through faith and stumbled at Christ.

However, Paul makes the point that not all the people of Israel are cast off, but there is a remnant according to the election of grace as he writes, “I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life. But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace” (Rom. 11:1-5).

Therefore, as Paul says, he was a Jew who had obtained mercy, and likewise other Jews as well. The Early Church was made up of Jews and Gentiles, Peter being the apostle to the Jews and Paul to the Gentiles. Then the Apostle Paul addresses the Church in Romans 11:25-29, “For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief: Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.” That is why the spiritual seed of Abraham love the natural seed, Israel, but that love is not always returned by the natural seed towards the spiritual seed. The Apostle Paul makes it very clear that in the fall of Israel, salvation is come unto the Gentiles (Rom. 11:11). But when the fullness of the Gentiles is come in, then the spiritual blindness 48

will be removed from Israel, and all Israel shall be saved (Rom. 11:25-26). The Lord said in Jeremiah 33:25-26: “…If my covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth; Then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David my servant, so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will cause their captivity to return, and have mercy on them.”

The natural and the spiritual seed will flow together when Christ returns upon the Mount of Olives and the Jews will see their Saviour, the One whom they crucified.

Jewish Revolts in the Time of the Roman Empire After the death of Herod the Great in 4 B.C., the kingdom was divided among his sons (Lendering, n.d. ¶ 15): · Herod Antipas who ruled Galilee and the east bank of the Jordan as a tetrarch; · Philip who was tetrarch of the Golan heights in the north-east; and · Archelaus who became the ethnarch (‘national leader’) of Samaria and Judaea.

Uprising of Theudas in Acts 5 There were uprisings by the Jewish people around this time, as recorded in Acts 5: 34-37: “Then stood there up one in the council, a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, had in reputation among all the people, and commanded to put the apostles forth a little space; And said unto them, Ye men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what ye intend to do as touching these men. For before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be somebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered, and brought to nought. After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the taxing, and drew away much people after him: he also perished; and all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed.”

One possible reason for the uprising was the issue of taxes (Harding, 2003, p. 309): “This Judas had enlisted the support of Pharisee Saddok (See Antiquities 18:4-10). Josephus ascribes the teaching of the “Fourth Philosophy” to both Judas and Saddok. It was not lawful, they taught, to pay tribute to Rome and to tolerate “mortal masters” after having God as their Lord (Jewish War 2.118; Antiquities 18:23). According to Josephus, the Fourth Philosophy adopted policies of direct action against the Roman overlords and their Jewish collaborators, and were to be sharply distinguished from other Jewish groups.” As a result of these uprisings, the Romans were obliged to impose direct rule.

Uprising in time of Felix There was another rebellion in the time of Felix the procurator from A.D. 52-60 (Harding, 2003, p. 309): “Outbreaks of banditry infested the country during the procuratorship of Felix (52-59) (Josephus, Jewish War 2.238) The situation has rightly been described as a wholesale peasant rebellion against the Romans, the bandits able to find support, sympathy and protection at will…The sicarii originated during Felix’s procuratorship. The name is derived from the Latin sica, a dagger. Their practice was to mingle with the crowd and assassinate Jewish collaborators…”

The First Roman-Jewish War Then there was the great uprising of A.D. 66 by the Jews. In A.D. 70, the Roman emperor Titus destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem. The reason for the revolt beginning in 66AD was the desire to throw off the Roman yoke and bring in home rule for the Jews (Buseck, n.d., ¶10).

“But in 66 A.D. as the Jews undertook the Great Revolt against Rome, a group of Sicarii commanded by Menahem Ben-Yehuda of Galilee captured Masada from the Roman garrison stationed there. The Sicarii were a group of Zealot extremists determined to fight against the Romans to the death — they were named after the “Sica,” a dagger that they carried. During the years of the Revolt, Masada became a refuge for 49

more Zealots who fled with their families, as well as for other desperate elements such as the Essenes.

Following the murder of Ben-Yehuda by his opponents in Jerusalem, his surviving followers fled to Masada — among them was Menahem’s nephew Elazar Ben-Yair, who later became the commander of the fortress. After the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D., the last rebellious members reached Masada.”

Finally, the Jews who had taken refuge at the rock of Masada and killed each other, rather than surrender (Harding, 2003, p.309): “The deeds of the sicarii provoked great terror, as Josephus reports. Under their leader Menahem, they made a bid for the leadership of the revolt of Jerusalem in the early days of the war. However, Menahem was killed and his followers ousted from the city. They retreated to Masada, which they had captured at the beginning of the revolt. They held out until the successful Roman siege of 73 /74 CE (or A.D.).

According to Josephus, Menahem was a son of Judas the Galilean).”

It was to this that Christ spoke when He said to the daughters of Jerusalem in Luke 23:28, “Weep not for Me, but for your children.”

The Destruction of the Temple In Matthew 24, when shown the magnificent stones of the temple, the Lord stated, “…See ye not all these things? verily say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (Mt. 24:2).

In the First Jewish War between A.D. 67 to 70, Jerusalem was taken by Roman legions under Titus, who later became the tenth Roman Emperor. They surrounded the city. This had been prophesied by Christ when He said in Luke 21:20-22, The Early Church Age 161 “And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.”

The Christians were alerted by prophecy that they were to leave the city just prior to its destruction and were preserved. The Jews suffered terrible tortures here and in Gamla (also called the Masada of the north), where some 4,000 men were killed. Thus, the words of Jesus were fulfilled on the way to the cross when He said to the weeping women: “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us. For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?”(Lk. 23:28-31).

Then a council held by the Roman command determined by majority vote not to destroy the Temple. But the words of Christ prevailed, since the very next day, a Roman soldier hurled a burning brand into the Temple chamber itself and the Temple was consumed by the fire in A.D. 70. The historian Josephus describes this event (as cited in The Romans Destroy, 2005, ¶7): “...the rebels shortly after attacked the Romans again, and a clash followed between the guards of the sanctuary and the troops who were putting out the fire inside the inner court; the latter routed the Jews and followed in hot pursuit right up to the Temple itself.

Then one of the soldiers, without awaiting any orders and with no dread of so momentous a deed, but urged on by some supernatural force, snatched a blazing piece of wood and, climbing on another soldier’s back, hurled the flaming brand through a low golden window that gave access, on the north side, to the rooms that surrounded the sanctuary. As the flames shot up, the Jews let out a shout of dismay that matched the tragedy; they flocked to the rescue, with no thought of sparing their lives or husbanding their strength; for the sacred structure that they had constantly guarded with such devotion was vanishing before their very eyes.” For his capture of Jerusalem, Titus was awarded a triumph. The Arch of Titus was erected to commemorate the victory. It has upon it carvings of the candlestick, symbolic of the seven spirits of God, and it remains unto this very day.

The Second Roman-Jewish War The Second Roman Jewish war, also known as the Bar-Kokhba Revolt (from A.D. 132-135) was preceded by many clashes, but finally broke out into a formal rebellion due mainly to two factors (Schoenberg, n.d.): 50

· Firstly there was the misrule of Tinnius Rufus, the Roman governor of Judaea and · Secondly, there was also the edict of the Emperor Hadrian who banned the religious rite of male circumcision.

The intention of Hadrian to build a temple to Jupiter upon the site of the destroyed Temple of Herod had also a significant part in rallying the people to rebel. The war ended with the slaying of the leader, Bar-Kokhba.

The Origins of Palestine Prior to A.D. 135, the Romans had always referred to the Holy Land as Judea and Galilee. It was only after the crushing of the revolt of Bar-Kokhba that the emperor Hadrian changed the name to Palestine.

He derived this from the ancient enemies of Israel, the Philistines, and latinized it to Palestine, hoping thus to erase the name of Israel. The original Philistines came from the islands of the Adriatic Sea and were not Arabs but Europeans. Thus, as a firmly established hater of the Bible and of the Jewish people, the emperor Hadrian also changed the name of Jerusalem to Aaelia Capitalina, and replaced the shrines of the Jewish Temple and the Sepulchre of Christ with temples to pagan deities. He excluded the Jews from the city of Jerusalem, and made many decrees against the Jewish religion, forbidding Torah study, Sabbath observance and circumcision.

Main Reason for Jewish Revolts The prime reason for these revolts can be found in the conversation of the two disciples upon the road to Emmaus: “But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to day is the third day since these things were done” (Lk. 24:21). In the minds of pious Israelites, the coming Christ was He that would come as the all-conquering hero to rule and reign in Jerusalem—at least over the territory that had been promised to Abraham, if not the whole world. But in the mind of Jesus the matter was quite different.

The Ten Trials There followed in Revelation 2:10 a warning by the Lord to the church in Smyrna: “…ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” What applied to the Christians often applied also to the Jews. This is interpreted by some historians as referring to ten Roman Emperors who conducted policies of oppression against Jews and Christians. The Romans, viewing Christianity as a Jewish sect, made no difference between them at the onset (See Schaff, 1882, ¶3 and Hutagalung, n.d.).

These Roman Emperors could be listed follows: 1. Domitian (A.D. 81-96): He was one of the cruellest of rulers, insolent and arrogant, and one who pressed the Jews to pay the Temple tax well after the Temple had been destroyed.

2. Trajan (A.D. 98-117) 3. Hadrian (A.D. 117-138) 4. Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 161-180) 5. Septimius Severus (A.D. 193-211) 6. Maximinus (A.D. 235-238) 7. Decius (A.D. 249-251) 8. Valerian (A.D. 253-260) 9. Aurelian (A.D. 270-275) 10. Diocletian (A.D. 284-305) The next Emperor was Constantine who converted to Christianity and the persecutions of both Jews and Christians ceased, although the Jews lost many rights when he published the Edict of Milan. This edict extended religious tolerance to Christians, but the Jews were no longer permitted to live in Jerusalem, or to proselytize.

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CHAPTER 13 Islam and the Crusades The Islamic Error Mohammed was born in approximately A.D. 570 in Mecca. In the year A.D. 590, he entered the service of a merchant widow by the name of Khadijah, whom later he married. They had two sons, neither of whom survived, and four daughters.

In about A.D. 610, he retired to meditate on Mount Hira, a cave outside of Mecca. There, he supposedly received a message from an angel, which in effect started the religion of Islam. Islam is the total submission to the will of Allah and was revealed to Mohammed in its perfect form. Mohammed, however, could neither write nor read, and the Koran, their holy book, was written some 200 years after his death.

Violently opposed by the men of Mecca, Mohammed completed the conquest of Mecca in A.D. 629 and the whole of Palestine by approximately A.D. 633. He accepted the Jewish God and their prophets, and the Koran was an Arabic substitute for the Bible. An oral law applied to religious courts.

Like the Jews, he had initiated a strict dietary code. The Christians rejected Islam because of a basic difference between the two religions; whilst Islam accepts Jesus as a prophet, it rejects the Christian belief that He is also the Son of God and Saviour of the world. The Jews, on the other hand, hated the Islamic religion because they viewed it as an Arabic form of Judaism, which they refused to accept. A further point of differentiation was that the Moslems believe that the promises of God come through Ishmael, whereas the Jews and Christians believe that the promises came through Isaac.

As such, the Moslems sensed the rejection of God, as did Ishmael.

Thus, Islam became a separate religion when Mohammed realized that neither Christian nor Jews were willing to accept his version of an Arabic version of Judaism. He then altered the Sabbath to Friday and changed the focus of prayers from Jerusalem to Mecca. Quickly, Islam created a practice of forcible conversions. The Jews found themselves engulfed by this wave of Islam (Johnson, 1987, p. 167).

The Crusades These were expeditions that were undertaken to deliver the land of Palestine from Moslem oppression by a holy vow so that all holy places were liberated from the enemy. There were principally nine crusades from A.D. 1095 to1272.

The First Crusade (A.D. 1095-1099) The first Crusade, provoked by the Islam expansion that came perilously close to Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, was organized through the guidance of Pope Urban II in A.D. 1095. He made the appeal at Clermont, France, saying that no one should undertake the crusade except for the most exalted of motives.

The response from the large crowd was overwhelming, and enthusiastically they all declared that this was the will of God. As a result, several large contingents of warriors set out in the following year by land and sea to recapture the cities overrun by the Moslems. This proved to be partially successful. Yet there was also a lot of anti-Semitism manifested, in that Jews were slaughtered by some groups, notably by Count Emicho in several Rhenish towns where the Jews were literally massacred. So the Jews were not always the beneficiaries of the Crusades.

The First Crusade succeeded in capturing Antioch and then went on to Jerusalem, which the Moslems surrendered to the Christians on July 15th 1099. Hundreds of men, women, and children of Muslim and Jewish heritage were slaughtered, and again the crusade did not prove a happy event for Jewry.

One historian, commenting upon this period states that the first crusade unleashed a tide of hatred, periodic violence and progressive restrictions on Jewish activities in the Rhineland. One should add that Jewry, on the other hand, regarded Christianity with thinly veiled contempt.

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The Second Crusade (A.D. 1145-1148) This was an unmitigated failure because the Moslems defeated the armies of the crusaders, causing them to return to their own western lands, due principally to the success of the new Moslem leader, Saladin.

The Third Crusade (A.D. 1187-1192) This was a success for the crusaders who fought principally under the leadership of Richard Coeur de Lion. There seems to have developed a certain mutual respect between Richard and Saladin, and they signed a three year peace treaty in September 2, 1192. However, the Crusade failed in this one respect— Jerusalem was not retaken.

The Fourth Crusade (A.D. 1198 –1204) In this crusade, the Crusaders were originally bound for Egypt. However, they were persuaded to divert to Constantinople to restore the dispossessed emperor of the Byzantine Empire in return for certain rewards.

When they had succeeded in so doing, the reinstated emperor failed to deliver the promises.

The crusaders responded by taking Constantinople by assault and plundering untold treasures of gold, silver, holy relics, literary classics and works of art amidst pillage and rape. Thus this crusade had for its fruits the total schism of the Catholic West and Orthodox East in 1204 due to the intense sense of betrayal it had installed in their co-religionists due to the capture and destroying of Constantinople by the crusaders (The Fourth Crusade, n.d.).

The Fifth Crusade (A.D. 1213-1221) The strategy of attacking the Muslim base in Egypt by Richard the Lion Heart had now been accepted by crusaders as the way to eventually taking Jerusalem. At first, they succeeded and the Moslems offered to surrender. However, due to military blunders, the Crusaders lost their advantage, as well as the possibility of taking Jerusalem, and were now forced to retreat with nothing.

Their Effect The effect of the crusades was that they slowed the advance of Islamic power. Without centuries of crusading, it is difficult to see how Western Europe could have escaped conquest by Moslem armies.

As for the Jews, the effect of these crusades was that they were persecuted at times by the very ones who should have protected them. In general, the Jews suffered expulsion from Jerusalem and the Holy Land at times, and sometimes even martyrdom.

In the First Crusade, the leaders reasoned that if they were fighting the Moslem infidel, then they should also fight against the Jews who had said, “Crucify Him. His blood be upon us and our children.” They gave the Jews the option to convert or face death. Thousands of Jews perished and whole families chose to commit suicide rather than convert to Christianity. The massacre of the Jews in Rhineland, Germany has been suggested by several authors to have been the seed source, even of the Nazi Holocaust. Certainly one can find strong prejudices against the Jews later in German history. For example, it was during the Black Death when they were burned alive, together with their houses. There was widespread distrust of the Jews in Europe, and when the Moslems had gained virtually all of the Iberian Peninsula, the Jews were suspected of having aided them. It must be understood that one of the prime businesses in which the Jews were involved in was money lending. At times, the Jews tended to require inordinate usury rates and these transactions did heighten the animosity between the Jews and Gentiles. Some countries enacted laws to protect their people from these obligations. The Lord Himself railed against this system of money lending and charging high prices for sacrificial animals in the Temple. During His time, the chief culprit seems to have been the High Priest, Annas, of whom the Talmud said, “Woe to the family of Annas! Woe to the serpent- like hisses” (International Standard, n.d., ¶2)

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CHAPTER 14 The Middle Ages to 1948 The Black Death The Black Death was a plague that ravaged Europe between the years A.D. 1347 and 1351 and had later outbreaks up to the year A.D. 1400. Thought to have originated in China and Inner Asia, it was transmitted to Europe in A.D. 1347 when a Kipchak army (a nomadic Turkic people) besieging a Genoese trading post in the Crimea, catapulted plague-infested corpses into the town. A rough estimate is that 25 million people died in Europe during the Black Death.

At this time, anti-Semitism was already on the rise in Europe. It reached fever pitch when many believed the Jews were poisoning wells and causing the Black Death. The Jews lived apart from Christians in separate quarters and were in effect were quarantined so that they had high rates of survival. Jews were burnt alive in their homes. Thousands of Jews in at least 200 towns along the Rhine were butchered and burnt (Halsall, 1998, ¶2, 15-16): “On St Valentine’s Day (14th February 1349), they burnt the Jews were burnt on a wooden platform in their cemetery… Everything that was owed to the Jews was cancelled and the Jews had to surrender all pledges that they had taken for debts. If they had been poor and if the feudal lords had not been in debt to them, they would not have been burnt…. Thus were the Jews burnt in Strasbourg and in all the cities of the Rhine... In some cities the Jews themselves set fire to their own houses and cremated themselves.”

The resulting impact on the Jews was that: “The sheer loss of numbers, the disappearance of their wealth and the growing hatred of the Christians brought German Jewrys to a catastrophic downfall. They did not again play an important part in German life till the seventeenth century. The highest casualties were in Germany and few Jews were left in that country by the time the plague ended.”

The Ghettos The term “Ghetto” originated from the name of the Jewish quarter in Venice, established in A.D. 1516, in which the Venetian authorities compelled the city’s Jews to live. The Austrian Emperor Charles V and various local authorities ordered the creation of other ghettos for Jews in Frankfurt, Rome, Prague and other cities in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Ghettos were renewed by the Nazis essentially to provide temporary places for Jews who were awaiting transport to the Crematoriums of Auschwitz and other places of mass execution (Ghettoes, n.d., ¶1,3). Living conditions were abominable and many died of starvation (Jewish Ghettoes, n.d., ¶8). So bad were these situations that Field Marshal The Middle Ages to 1948 175 Goering wrote at an end of a report on the arrangements to solve the Jewish situation, “In general I must say once again: I should not like to be a Jew in Germany” (Discussions by the Authorities, 1938, ¶27)

The Holocaust The word “Holocaust” means a burnt sacrifice offered whole unto God since the bodies of the victims of the concentration camps were burnt by fire.

It was the avowed intention of Adolf Hitler to deal with what he termed “the Jewish question” by exterminating the Jews. He came legally to power on January 30, 1933 and the assault on the Jews began on April 1st by the boycotting of Jewish businesses. Then a week later all Jews were dismissed from the Civil Service. However, in his Mein Kampf (published 1925-1927), Hitler developed the idea of the Jews as an evil race seeking world domination. Even in 1919, Hitler had written that national Anti–Semitism must lead to the final objective of the removal of the Jews altogether. The Jews claim that Nazi Anti-Semitism is rooted in religious Anti- Semitism and enhanced by political Anti-Semitism, to which the Nazis added racial Anti-Semitism. The effects of the Holocaust upon the Jews in Europe were devastating (The Holocaust, n.d., ¶3).: “In 1933, the Jewish population of Europe stood at over nine million. Most European Jews lived in countries that Nazi Germany would occupy or influence during World War II. By 1945, the Germans and their collaborators killed nearly two out of every three European Jews as part of the “Final 54

Solution,” the Nazi policy to murder the Jews of Europe.” There are, of course, serious and profound theological questions concerning the Holocaust. All leaders are appointed by God as Paul tells us in Romans 13:1. Therefore, Hitler was appointed by God. The Holocaust could not have taken place without God’s foreknowledge and permission. The Jews were undoubtedly experiencing the wrath of God in their generation for not accepting Christ as their Saviour. God said of the Jews, “But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people” (Rom.10:21).

However the attitude of the Gentiles should have been to protect the persecuted Jews from their Nazi oppressors, which by and large, the Gentile governments did not. Their protection came from such saints as Corrie Ten Boom, risking their own lives to save individuals.

Part III Israel’s Future From 1948 to the End of Time

CHAPTER 15 Statehood in 1948 and Beyond The Road to Statehood The establishment of the Jewish state is prophesied in Jeremiah 30:1-3: “The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, Thus speaketh the LORD God of Israel, saying, Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book. For, lo, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the LORD: and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.”

Other scriptures on the establishment of the Jewish state are: “Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children” (Isa. 66:8).

“And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth” (Isa. 11:11-12).

The Role of Britain The long road to statehood can be seen from the 19th century onwards with Britain’s very sympathetic attitude toward the Jews and its general concern for the treatment of the Jews in other countries. Jews were treated with respect and they held very influential positions in government, as did their supporters.

Whilst we do not want to lose the perspective that it is the Lord who governs men’s hearts and turns them whithersoever He desires, the concern for a Jewish homeland was in the hearts of men like Lord Palmerston, prime minister of England. He was influenced by his step father-in-law, the Earl of Shaftesbury, who felt that without a Jewish homeland centred in Jerusalem, the Second Coming of Christ could not come. From Queen Victoria onward, there was a strong attachment to the Jewish cause. However, one of the most influential proponents of Judaism was Benjamin Disraeli, a Jew by race and Christian by faith, who also became British Prime Minister. Speaking as a pastor, I find Disraeli’s comments most enlightening when he 55

blamed the Jews for not recognizing that Christianity was completed Judaism. The Jews owe Statehood in 1948 and everything to the Church. It has kept alive the memory of its great characters and has diffused its literature throughout all the world. Disraeli was frustrated with the refusal of his people (the Jews) to recognize that the Church that was founded by the Jewish people, as reflecting God’s own feelings towards His chosen race. God doles out severe punishments throughout the ages to seek to turn them to the truth. Thus, before Christ returns again, there will be the Great Tribulation, which will seek to bring people to repentance, but without much success, except that the defenders of Jerusalem do repent (Zech. 12:814). The pathway to statehood plodded on, bitterly opposed by the Arabs who did not want an Israeli state on the land that they considered belonging to them and them alone. Initially, the Islamic Ottoman Turkish Empire governed the area, and this first had to be defeated by the British commanded forces of General Lord Allenby. A remnant of this victory is the existence still of the Allenby Bridge that spans the River Jordan between the Kingdom of Jordan and Israel. General Allenby, a Christian, refused to ride triumphantly into Jerusalem upon his horse, and in deference to His Saviour, walked into the city that his forces had liberated. Then followed the British Mandate, approved by the League of Nations, where those in Palestine favoured the Arab cause, whilst in London, the seat of British government, the Jewish cause was favoured. Controlled immigration by the Jews was inaugurated, but in the end, the situation was untenable for the British, and they decided to lay down their mandate to the Jews to form their own state.

These events are somewhat tedious to all save scholars, but since the goal of this book is to show God’s hand in guiding and bringing to pass His pre-determinate will for His nation, we have omitted much of the details concerning the seemingly endless white papers that flowed from London on the subject, with the opposition often from both Jews and Arabs, for who could satisfy two such differing parties?

Statehood became a reality in 1948 when the British mandate ceased, and the hand of God was manifested in the protection of his fledgling state. The land of Israel then passed into the hands of the United Nations (Jerusalem Partition Plan, n.d.): “On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly recommended Palestine be partitioned into two states–Arab and Jewish. The plan called for Jerusalem to become a corpus separatum, an international city administered by the UN, for an interval of 10 years, after which the city’s status was to be re-determined in a referendum. While Jewish leaders reluctantly accepted this, Arab leaders rejected the entire plan, including Jerusalem’s internationalization. Arab delegates to the UN declared the partition invalid. Deadly Arab attacks on Jewish Statehood in 1948 and Beyond 183 residents of Palestine increased, and Arab forces blockaded the road to Jerusalem. When Israel declared Independence in May 1948, five neighbouring Arab countries invaded the new state.”

The Arab–Israeli Wars The first war took place the day after the proclamation of statehood by Israel on the May 14, 1948. Arab forces from Egypt, Transjordan, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon occupied the areas in southern and eastern Palestine that were not apportioned to Israel by the United Nations. They then proceeded to capture East Jerusalem. On May 28, 1948, the Jewish Quarter of the Old City fell to the Arab Legion.

Between February and July, 1949 agreements were made with each of the Arab states and a temporary frontier was fixed between Israel and her neighbours. Israel, however, was able to occupy all of the Negev up to the former Egypt- Palestine frontier (Jerusalem 1948, n.d., ¶2). “Western Jerusalem became Israel’s capital city, while eastern Jerusalem, including the holy sites, was occupied by Transjordan, which in 1949 became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The city was essentially divided between two armed camps separated by barbed wire, concrete walls, minefields and bunkers.”

The Six Day War – June 5-10, 1967 This war was very personal to the author in that at that time he was on the faculty of a certain Pentecostal Bible College. One section of the faculty declared that the nation of Israel was no longer in God’s plan, whilst the author was with the other side declaring that eventually God would raise up Israel in the Last Days. Travelling down the East Coast of the U.S.A. just prior to this war, the Lord spoke to the author and said, “I am going to do something that will cause all true hearted to know that I am not finished with natural 56

Israel.” I think that war started a few days later. God has not finished with natural Israel. Praise the Lord.

We were in Israel sometime after that war and there we heard of the mighty miracles that God did for His people. For example, Arabs were firing rifles at an oncoming host of angels that were coming before the Israeli forces. The following are excerpts from news articles showing the odds that were against Israel and how God intervened.

CBN NEWS “Israel found itself outnumbered and out-gunned on three fronts, Egypt to the south, Jordan to the west and Syria to the north. The Soviet Union had poured $2 billion worth of arms into the Arab nations. Israel’s enemies brought twice as many soldiers, three times as many tanks and four times as many airplanes to the battlefield.” “The people were in panic, people were talking about the imminent destruction of the State of Israel, of a war in which there will be an enormous number of casualties; at least 10,000 people will be killed,” Ret. General Shlomo Givas said. Rabbis in Jerusalem anticipated so many deaths they actually designated all of the public parks in Jerusalem as cemeteries. Two weeks before the war, Egypt replaced all of its commanders in Sinai with officers unfamiliar with the terrain. On the morning of June 5, Jordanian radar detected the Israeli air force taking off. They sent a red alert to Cairo but the decoding officer used the wrong day’s code and failed to decipher the vital information. The warning never came. Instead, the Israeli Air Force decimated the Egyptian Air Force on the ground, the key to the outcome of the war.

Author Sarah Rigler, who’s written about the Six Day War, believes that series of Egyptian mistakes revealed the work of an unseen hand. “You can say, what a lucky coincidence or you can see the Divine Hand,” she said. “You can see God arranged all these things to happen the way they did because He wanted the Israeli strike to succeed. He wanted us to win. He wanted us to regain our holy places.”

To some, the confusion in the Egyptian command just before the war evoked memories of the biblical history of Gideon routing the enemies of Israel. Instead of annihilation, Israel won one of the most decisive victories in military history” (Mitchell, 2007, ¶12-24).

FIJI TIMES “During the 1967 six day war, Gershon Saloman lay badly wounded and saw Syrian soldiers moving into their area shooting wounded Israeli soldiers. They were about to shoot him, when all of a sudden they fled the area leaving their weapons behind. The Syrian soldiers later reported to UN officers that they saw “thousands of angels” surrounding the wounded soldier and that was why they ran away” (Sitveni, 2008, ¶10) TULSA WORLD “Salomon was a 19-year-old Israel Defense Force officer fighting Syrians in the Golan Heights some time before the 1967 war in Israel when his unit came under heavy fire in an ambush, he said in a Tuesday telephone interview. Attempting to pick up a downed Israeli soldier, Salomon was run over by a tank in the confusion.

He awoke to find himself paralyzed and surrounded by Syrian soldiers about to “take their revenge” by shooting him. “At this critical moment, when I met God in the field of battle, suddenly I could see around me, surrounding me, a light that I never saw in my life,” he said. The Syrian soldiers saw the light and turned and ran. “In the same moment, God was appearing in my life. I felt like a stream of fresh water coming through my dead body — it was more dead than alive — and I felt like God was speaking to my heart and telling me: ‘Gershon, you are not alone in the field of battle. I am with you. So be your hands strong. I still did not finish with you.’ “ A few weeks later, after he came out of a coma in the hospital, military officials investigating the battle told him they asked the Syrians why they had run away. The officers told Salomon that the Syrians said they wanted to kill him, but when they were about to shoot him they saw thousands of angels around him and fled” (Sherman, 2007, ¶5-12 ) God did exceptional things and revealed them before they came to pass to His people, especially the Christian community in Israel. There was a saying at that time amongst godly pastors who believed in the Second Coming of Christ. “Why a six day war?” The answer would come back, “Because our God only works for six days and He rests on the seventh.”

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The Yom Kippur War It is to this particular war that the author was referring in his preface as being the one that the Lord was speaking to him about when he was asleep in a hotel on the Mount of Olives in September of 1973.

Yom Kippur (or the Day of Atonement) is the holiest day in the Jewish Year. It is the day when the ceremony called for the taking of two goats by the high priest. The casting of lots determined which goat would be slain and the other goat received the sins of the children of Israel put upon him by the laying on of the hands of the High Priest. It was the only day of the year when the high priest could go within the veil and make atonement for the nation. It was a day of fasting and of afflicting the soul. Thus, it was the day much revered by all pious Jews and the day on which the Arabs sought to attack Israel, rightly thinking that they would be unprepared for military response.

However, it is the Lord who appoints the times of all things, and this war on the Day of Atonement was to be a sign to all who would hear that the Lord was going to cleanse His Church, as well as deal with sin in high places in the realm of governments. This is evidenced by the change of 35 heads of state in a period of approximately 18 months. Among these were: Richard Nixon, President of U.S.A. Georges Pompidou, President of France Statehood in 1948 and Beyond 189 Franz Jonas, President of Austria Constantine II, King of Greece From the point of view of Israel, God said there would be no further peace, but only continual conflicts.

For the Church, the message of purity, of being cleansed of inner sin and of being crucified with Christ became the predominate messages amongst the pious. Again, in the Yom Kippur war there are accounts of angelic protection, such as the following: FIJI TIMES “An Israeli military historian recorded that during the 1973 Yom Kippur war, an Israeli soldier in the Sinai took captive an Egyptian column and led them to where the Israeli troops were. The Egyptian commander was asked why he and his men gave themselves up to the lone Israeli soldier. He responded with surprise; “One soldier? There were thousands of them.” He said that as they neared the Israeli lines, the “soldiers” began disappearing. The Israeli soldier reported that he was by himself when the Egyptian commander and his men surrendered to him. He was totally unaware of the “thousands of soldiers” the Egyptian soldiers saw with him, since he himself did not see them. Psalm 91:10- 11 promises that “No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling, For He shall give his angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways.”

Bill McKay, a film producer who investigated miracles surrounding Israel’s existence and has produced a documentary called In search of a miracle- Against all Odds, said that military experts are puzzled as to how the Israelis won wars they should have lost. Israel’s victories just do not make any sense to them.

The documentary shows an eye witness account; Commander David Yinni, during the 1973 Yom Kippur war, preparing to retreat from the Syrian army, when he realised that he and his men were trapped in the middle of a minefield. He ordered his men to clear the mines using their bayonets, crawl on the ground and dig 30 inches deep, carefully disengaging the mines. The slightest mistake and they were in peril of being blown up. One of his men prayed. Suddenly, a windstorm came upon them. It was so strong that it lifted up their tanks and rocked them. By the time the storm moved on, it had literally blown 30 inches of topsoil off.

The Israeli soldiers could see every single mine and quickly made their escape. God’s protection over Israel is also for nations and people who believe in Him and worship Him as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.” (Rabuka, 2008, ¶11-14)

The Present Moral Condition of Israel My wife and I had been travelling through certain parts of Asia. There, we became tired of merchants seeking to defraud us, and so when we were flying into Tel Aviv, Israel, we thought, “We are going to God’s nation and they will be different.” However, the Lord dropped the following Scripture into our 58

hearts about Jerusalem: “And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified” (Rev.11:8). Today, these are the two spiritual names given to Jerusalem—Sodom and Egypt. Truly Sodom, which was known for fornication and homosexuality, is openly portrayed today by in the lifestyle of the inhabitants of the city of God. Egypt, which speaks of worldliness, is manifestly seen everywhere in Jerusalem today. The Lord said of Israel in Amos 3:2, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.” One comment of a godly pastor after having just visited the Holy Land was that the social and religious life of the inhabitants was deplorable and that only the Great Tribulation would purge the land of sinfulness.

Observations of a Dutch Member of Parliament The Dutch Member of Parliament, Geert Wilders, Chairman of the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands disclosed some very disturbing facts in an interview that he gave in 2008 in the Four Seasons Hotel, New York. Among these, he cited the tremendous growth of the Moslem population in Europe and the goals of these immigrants. In France, they see their loyalty to Islam more than their loyalty to France. The concern that Wilders expresses is that Muhammed, their prophet, is an example to all. Here is how Wilders describes him: “His behaviour is an example to all Muslims and cannot be criticized…. But Mohammed was a warlord, a mass murderer, a pedophile, and had several marriages – at the same time. Islamic tradition tells us how he fought in battles, how he had his enemies murdered and even had prisoners of war executed. Mohammed himself slaughtered the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza. He advised on matters of slavery, but never advised to liberate slaves. Islam has no other morality than the advancement of Islam. If it is good for Islam, it is good. If it is bad for Islam, it is bad. There is no gray area or other side…Now you know why Winston Churchill called Islam “the most retrograde force in the world”, and why he compared Mein Kampf to the Quran…” Wilders goes on to explain why he supports Israel: “I see defending Israel as a matter of principle. I have lived in this country and visited it dozens of times. I support Israel. First, because it is the Jewish homeland after two thousand years of exile up to and including Auschwitz, second because it is a democracy, and third because Israel is our first line of defense. On the contrary, the end of Israel would give enormous encouragement to the forces of Islam. They would, and rightly so, see the demise of Israel as proof that the West is weak, and doomed. The end of Israel would not mean the end of our problems with Islam, but only the beginning. It would mean the start of the final battle for world domination” (America as the Last, 2008, ¶ 22, 29, 32) We might say, however, that the Lord will not abandon His people and Israel will remain until Jesus comes again.

The Way of Salvation We have seen that notwithstanding the first coming of their Messiah, Israel has sought salvation by the works of the law, and not by faith in Christ, whom they reject (Rom. 9:30-32).

The Lord Jesus Christ clearly stated in John 14:6: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father , but by Me.” We must understand that the way of salvation is through Christ and Christ alone, and not by our works of righteousness, which are as filthy rags in the sight of God (Isa. 64:6).

In order to receive the righteousness of God, it is necessary that we come to Christ by: 1. Acknowledging that we are sinners, 2. Confessing our sins, and 3. Inviting Jesus to come into our hearts so that we are born again, for except a man be born again, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God (Jn. 3:3).

Then we are to walk in holiness, guided by daily Bible reading, praying and attending church regularly, always doing that which is right in the eyes of God and man. Even as we walk in the light, as He is in the light, the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sins (1 Jn. 1:7). Gentle reader, do you have that inward assurance of an eternity in heaven that comes from being born again?

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CHAPTER 16 The Last Days The purpose of the last day events may be summarized as follows. Firstly, there will be a worldwide revival—a harvest that will show forth the glory of God and His so-great salvation to all mankind. Thus, those that love righteousness will receive the light. For those who reject the light, the Antichrist will appear and they will accept him. They will receive the just damnation of those who receive his mark or the number of his name. Therefore, in the last days, there will be a clear demarcation between the righteous and the wicked.

Revival In many places in the Scriptures where the end times or the latter days are mentioned, there is a promise of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Let us examine some of these:

A Latter Day Outpouring “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit. And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call” (Joel 2:28-32). When this comes to pass, it will be the time when the Lord will bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem (Joel 3:1). So these verses are not only relevant for the first outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, but also for a last day outpouring. There is a strong allusion to a latter day outpouring when the Apostle James refers to the Husbandman (a reference to the Lord) waiting for both the early and latter day outpourings (Jas. 5:7). There are two rains in Israel, a light early rain in November to soften the ground of sowing, and a heavy latter rain in April to bring the harvest to ripeness. Thus, at the end of the Church Age there is the heavy outpouring of the latter rain that will bring the “precious fruit of the earth” (His people) to maturity.

Glory in Darkness In Isaiah 60:1-2, the prophet Isaiah, foretelling a time of ensuing darkness during the end times, also promises that the glory of the Lord shall also be revealed in those days.

Then it is evident that the Church will know a greater measure of His power and glory as we read in Ephesians 5:25-27: “Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.”

Another scripture is found in the prayer of the Apostle Paul, which certainly has not yet been fulfilled: “That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen” (Eph. 3:16-21). There is a maturity, a depth, yet to be seen in God’s people in our days.

Returning to the theme of Isaiah 60:1-2, God promises that in the last days, His glory will be seen upon his saints. We read also in 2 Thessalonians 1:10, Christ “shall come to be glorified in his saints, and be admired in all them that believe.”

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Gospel Preached to All In Matthew 24:14, the Lord Jesus, in His dissertation on His Second Coming, refers to the Gospel being preached in all the earth before the end comes. Our God is going to give all the world an opportunity to see the truth, and all who love the truth will turn unto Him. Praise the Lord. On the other hand, all those who love unrighteousness will accept the Antichrist, according to 2 Thessalonians 2:8-12: “And then shall that Wicked [one] be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”

The Appearance of the Antichrist That the appearance of the Antichrist follows the great revival of the Last Days is substantiated by our Lord in His discourse upon the Mount of Olives. He states in Matthew 24:14 that after the gospel shall be preached in all the world, then shall the end come. Immediately, He speaks of the Abomination of Desolation standing in the Holy Place: “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains” (Mt. 24:15-16). This abomination is an image to the Antichrist made and erected by the orders of the False Prophet in the temple (Rev.13:14).

The Rebuilding of the Temple at Jerusalem Before we can continue, there is a truth and fact that must be established. The Temple of Herod, or (as the Jews liked to call it) the Second Temple, was destroyed according to the prophecy of Jesus by the Romans in A.D. 70. Yet, Jesus speaks of the Abomination of Desolation being erected in the Holy Place.

Therefore, this is a reference to the fact that the temple must be rebuilt in Jerusalem. This Abomination will start in the temple, and it is the beginning the Great Tribulation—the last three-and-a half years before Christ returns.

This is substantiated by the Apostle Paul, who states that the Antichrist will sit in the temple of God, claiming that he is God (2 Th. 2:4). Moreover, in Revelation 11:1-2, the Apostle John is told to measure a temple that will exist in the Last Days in Jerusalem, and which will be given over to the Gentiles for 42 months. Therefore, one of the features of the Last Days before Jesus comes must be the rebuilding of the temple. Now we return to the person of the Antichrist who, according to Paul, must be revealed before the coming of the Lord (2 Th. 2: 3): “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.”

Identifying the Antichrist The question that we must ask ourselves is, “Who is the Antichrist, and what do the Holy Scriptures teach us concerning him that we might identify him and know who he is?”

The first point that we should understand is that the Book of Revelation basically speaks of the triumphant Christ who comes from heaven and is designated as the One “Which is, which was, and which is to come” and that He will come in the clouds, and that every eye shall see Him (Rev. 1:4, 7).

Then the Book of Revelation speaks of the Beast or Antichrist who “was, and is not and shall ascend from the bottomless pit and will go into perdition…” (Rev.17:8). Therefore, as with Christ so it is with the Antichrist—both had previously lived prior to the writing of the Book of Revelation, which was given to John during the reign of the Roman Emperor Domitian (A.D. 96), and both return from the grave.

However, Christ comes from heaven and the Antichrist comes up from the bottomless pit.

Israel and the Antichrist: The relationship between Israel and the Antichrist is clearly stated by our Lord when He says in John 5:43, “I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.” In effect, our Lord is saying that Israel will receive the 61

Antichrist, and that the Antichrist will use his own name that he had when upon earth, so all will readily identify with him. Thus when Alexander appears again using his own name, the Jews will receive him with joy as they did in times past. He will permit them to practice their own laws and sign a covenant for seven years to that effect, and resume the sacrifices that Moses ordained. Halfway through the seven-year covenant, the Antichrist will break it and forbid Jewish sacrifices, as we have already seen in Daniel 9:27: “And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the [desolator].” The Jews will then be aware of the fact that the Beast is not their Messiah. This will begin the time of the 42 months of the Antichrist’s rule of rebellion against the Lord.

The Ministry of Moses and Elijah There is a promise in the Word of God that is highly cherished by the Jews, and that is regarding the coming of Elijah the prophet, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.

This is clear from the following scriptures: “Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse” (Mal. 4:4-6).

The Lord also confirmed the coming of Elijah when He was asked: “Why say the scribes that Elias must first come? And he answered and told them, Elias verily cometh first, and restoreth all things; and how it is written of the Son of man, that he must suffer many things, and be set at nought” (Mk. 9:11-12).

Then in Revelation 11:3-12, we read of the two witnesses, “And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.

These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth. And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed. These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will. And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves. And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth. And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.” We are told that the two witnesses are the two olive trees that stand before the Lord of the whole earth. Therefore, they were doing just that at the time of Zechariah in 500 B.C.: “Then answered I, and said unto him, What are these two olive trees upon the right side of the candlestick and upon the left side thereof? And I answered again, and said unto him, What be these two olive branches which through the two golden pipes empty the golden oil out of themselves? And he answered me and said, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my lord.

Then said he, These are the two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth” (Zech.

4:11-14). Then we see in Matthew 17:1-3 that the two prophets who stood before the Lord of the whole earth upon the Mount of Transfiguration were Moses and Elijah: And [He] was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him” (Mt. 17:2-3) 62

The identity of the two witnesses may also readily be determined by the manifestation of power that they display. They have power to shut heaven that it rain not; this was the power demonstrated by Elijah (1 Ki. 17:1). They had power to turn water into blood—and that was the power demonstrated by Moses (Ex. 7:19-20), and so the two witnesses are Moses and Elijah. Thus, the Lord will send the two greatest prophets whom the Jews revere, and they will to seek to convince Israel of the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is the very Messiah for whom they search. Yet the Jews will reject their own prophets and rejoice when the Antichrist slays them. However, after three and- a-half days when they are resurrected and taken into heaven, they will be filled with awe and fear. After 7,000 are slain by a great earthquake, the remnant give glory to God. Thus, we see the compassionate persevering love of GOD in seeking to save the souls of mankind.

The Abomination of Desolation in the Holy Place In His dissertation upon the Mount of Olives, when asked by His disciples when His Coming would be, Jesus emphasized a very important happening or event. It was the erection of the abomination in the holy place of the temple that must be rebuilt in the last days. What is the abomination in the temple that will cause the wrath of God to be poured out upon the earth? As we examine the passage detailing the ministries of the Antichrist, as well as the False Prophet (who will also come up from the dead after the appearance of the Antichrist), we read this statement in connection with the False Prophet: “And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.

And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live. And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed” (Rev. 13:11-15). The abomination that will be erected in the Temple is therefore the image of the Beast.

The Great Tribulation This Great Tribulation is referred to in Jeremiah 30:3-9: “For, lo, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the LORD: and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it. [This happened in 1948]. And these are the words that the LORD spake concerning Israel and concerning Judah. For thus saith the LORD; We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness? Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it. [Jacob’s Trouble is the Great Tribulation]. For it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him: But they shall serve the LORD their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them.” When Jesus comes again, He will break the yoke of all Israel’s enemies, and even king David will be resurrected and be there in Israel during the Millennial reign of Christ. The timing of the Great Tribulation is very precise and clear. Jesus tells us in Matthew 24:15-21, “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains: Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath 63

day: For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.”

Thus, the Great Tribulation will not come until the image of the Beast is installed in the temple at Jerusalem.

But when it does come, it will unleash the most terrible judgments upon mankind, and especially upon the Jews. The counsel that Jesus gave to those who would be living in Jerusalem in those days was that they who are in Judea should flee to the mountains. Jesus tells them to flee to the mountains. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that to a certain extent, the Great Tribulation will be somewhat localized, for those in the mountains will be protected. We are also told that those days will be shortened for the sake of the very elect, which shows that the Church will go through the tribulation. We should understand that the Great Tribulation is actually a foretaste of hell. In His infinite kindness, the Lord is seeking through the pain and trials of the tribulation to get people to repent. A key verse for us in this time could well be Luke 21:36: “Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.”

After the Great Tribulation, another sombre and terrifying sign in the heavenlies takes place—the sun, moon and stars no longer give their light. The Lord Himself clearly states in Matthew 24:29, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.”

This is a direct quote from Joel 2:30-32, which says, “And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call.”Again, all these things shall come to pass before the Second Coming of the Lord. All these are for the purpose of seeking to warn men of the eternal state of the wicked.

CHAPTER 17 Christ’s Second Coming and the Millennium The Coming of the Lord in the Skies The Lord specifically says that after the signs in the heavenlies, “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Mt. 24:30-31).

This is also the last trumpet spoken of by the Apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:14-17: “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

This day is known only unto the Father, not to the Son or to the angels. Therefore it is blasphemy to seek to predict the day of His Coming, for it is a hidden truth according to the pleasure of the Father and is not to be enquired of by mortal man.

It is now that the Marriage Supper of the Lamb takes place, as we read in Revelation 19:7: “Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.” I once heard a preacher who stated that he had had a vision of the marriage supper of the Lamb. It was like a very large banqueting hall with chairs of gold, and each place had the name of the 64

one who had been chosen to sit there. He found his and next to him, he found the name of his friend. He promptly phoned his friend, and said, “We will make it.” As we understand from others, each chair has the name of its occupant engraved. But sometimes some of these chairs have to be removed because their prospective occupants have left the paths of righteousness. This is a very solemn warning to us that we should take care to practise patient continuance in well doing (Rom.2:7).

The Battle of Armageddon Here now we see the sequence of events after the Marriage Supper of the Lamb: “And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS” (Rev. 19:11-16).

Then we see the army of heaven descend, led by the Lord on white horses to meet the Beast and the False Prophet at the battle of Armageddon. The Battle of Armageddon takes place north-east of Jerusalem in the plain of Jezreel. There, the Lord defeats the Antichrist and False Prophet (Rev. 19:11-21). There is then the great supper of God for the fowls of the air that shall consume the flesh of the slain at the Battle of Armageddon: “And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great” (Rev. 19:17-18).

Here, the Unholy Trinity shall be judged. The Beast (who is the Antichrist) and the False Prophet shall be hurled into the Lake of Fire, whilst Satan shall be cast into the bottomless pit for 1,000 years: “And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army. And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh” (Rev. 19:19-21).

The Battle for Jerusalem by Arab Armies There is another aspect of the Second Coming that is entirely devoted to Israel. We find in this in Joel 3:12: “In those days and at that time, I will bring back the captives of Judah and Jerusalem. I will gather all the nations. I will bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat. I will judge them there.

They scattered the Israelites, the people who belong to me, among the nations. They divided my land.” The Lord proclaims war for those who have come down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. There follows the siege of Jerusalem. This account is proclaimed also in Zechariah 12:1-3: “The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.”

This is confirmed by Holy Scripture in Zechariah 14:1-3: “Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be ivided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to 65

battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.”

One of the results of this siege that the author saw in that vision accorded him upon the Mount of Olives, was that Jerusalem would be broken into by the Arab armies, which appeared to be in the northern parts of the city. However the defenders of Zion to the south were remaining steadfast. Thus, there will be initial success on the part of the Arab armies that lay siege to Jerusalem. After the Arab armies think that they have won the war and captured Jerusalem, there will still be the defenders of Zion, who will be hanging on in earnest hope that their Messiah will come.

The Lord Descending Upon the Mount of Olives Immediately after those events, the Lord will descend upon the Mount of Olives which lies to the east of Jerusalem and faces it, separated by the valley of Jehoshaphat. The following conversation takes place between the Lord and the defenders of Zion when His feet stand upon the Mount of Olives: He will say, “I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever. If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me. I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy” (Deut. 32:40-42).

The defenders of Zion will joyfully respond, “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the LORD; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation” (Isa. 25:9).

Then Zechariah 13:6: “One shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.” Thereupon there will be a great mourning in Israel, as they realize that it was they who crucified their Messiah: “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn” (Zech 12:10).

Then there will follow the terrible slaughter of all those who came against Jerusalem, for it says in Zechariah 12:9 that the Lord will destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. It would appear that one of the first things that Israel will accomplish is the burial of those who came against them. This will take seven months, as we read in Ezekiel 39:11-16: “And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will give unto Gog a place there of graves in Israel, the valley of the passengers on the east of the sea: and it shall stop the noses of the passengers: and there shall they bury Gog and all his multitude: and they shall call it The valley of Hamongog. And seven months shall the house of Israel be burying of them, that they may cleanse the land. Yea, all the people of the land shall bury them; and it shall be to them a renown the day that I shall be glorified, saith the Lord GOD. And they shall sever out men of continual employment, passing through the land to bury with the passengers those that remain upon the face of the earth, to cleanse it: after the end of seven months shall they search. And the passengers that pass through the land, when any seeth a man’s bone, then shall he set up a sign by it, till the buriers have buried it in the valley of Hamongog. And also the name of the city shall be Hamonah. Thus shall they cleanse the land.”

The topography of the country of Israel will apparently change, with the Mount of Olives splitting into two mountains—one to the north, and the other to the south with a valley between (Zech. 14:3-4).

The Millennial Reign The Land of Israel during the Millennium The national boundaries of Israel in the Millennium are described in detail in Ezekiel 47:13-21. It is bordered on the east by the River Jordan and on the south by Kadesh, with the western border being the 66

Mediterranean Sea. In the Millennium, the land of Israel includes Damascus on the east. This old enemy of Israel will become the possession of Israel, which it was during the time of Jeroboam II according to 2 Kings 14:28 and during the reigns of David and Solomon. This is confirmed in Zechariah 9:1 as we read: “The burden of the word of the LORD in the land of Hadrach, and Damascus shall be the rest thereof: when the eyes of man, as of all the tribes of Israel, shall be toward the LORD.” Therefore, the land of Israel today is small compared to the area it will possess during the Millennium. The land will also be divided horizontally from east to west equally, as it says in Ezekiel 47:14, “And ye shall inherit it, one as well as another [In the Amplified Bible, this phrase reads, “And you shall divide it equally”]: concerning the which I lifted up mine hand to give it unto your fathers: and this land shall fall unto you for inheritance.”

The City of Jerusalem During the Millennial reign of Christ, the city of Jerusalem will be the centre and capital of all activity, since the King will be in residence there, for the name of the city shall be “Jehovah Shammah,” meaning “the Lord is there” (Ezek.48:35).

The city of Jerusalem in the Millennium will be much different from that which we know today. The actual measurements are clearly given. It is four-sided, with each side being of 4,500 measures. There are suburbs around the city of 250 measures on each side. The perimeter of the city will be 1,800 measures, speaking of strength. To assist our readers in appreciating the position and the plan of the city, we have maps to help you. Thus, the city of Jerusalem will be built on dedicated land. It will be situated between the inheritances of Judah, who will have the seventh strip from the north, and Benjamin, who will have the eighth portion with Simeon. This is the first time in history that Simeon will have his own inheritance.

Issachar will have the tenth portion, Zebulon the eleventh, and Gad the twelfth portion in the far south of the land. (Ezek. 48:7-8; 23-27). Virtually all of Ezekiel chapters 40-48 are a picture of Israel in the Millennium.

The Temple of Ezekiel The description of the Temple is given in great detail in Ezekiel 45 onwards: “Moreover, when ye shall divide by lot the land for inheritance, ye shall offer an oblation unto the LORD, an holy portion of the land: the length shall be the length of five and twenty thousand reeds, and the breadth shall be ten thousand. This shall be holy in all the borders thereof round about. Of this there shall be for the sanctuary five hundred in length, with five hundred in breadth, square round about; and fifty cubits round about for the suburbs thereof. And of this measure shalt thou measure the length of five and twenty thousand, and the breadth of ten thousand: and in it shall be the sanctuary and the most holy place. The holy portion of the land shall be for the priests the ministers of the sanctuary, which shall come near to minister unto the LORD: and it shall be a place for their houses, and an holy place for the sanctuary. And the five and twenty thousand of length, and the ten thousand of breadth, shall also the Levites,the ministers of the house, have for themselves, for a possession for twenty chambers” (Ezek. 45:1-5). The law of the house is “Holiness unto the Lord,” for the reign of Jesus will be one of righteousness and holiness. Now there are three principal feasts among the seven feasts of the Lord that were inaugurated when the Lord gave the law to Moses on Mount Sinai. They were: The Feast of Passover: This feast governed the Israelites under the Age of the Law and it was fulfilled

by Jesus when, as the Lamb of God, He was crucified on the Feast of Passover in about A.D. 30.

Spiritually, the Feast of Passover is the salvation experience. The Feast of Pentecost: This is the next of the principal feasts. It governs the Church Age. Spiritually, it speaks of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost as recorded in Acts 2.

The Feast of Tabernacles: According to Zechariah 14, the Feast of Tabernacles will be the primary Feast of the Millennial Age. However, when the Feast is celebrated, blood sacrifices have to be offered. The Israelites will return to the sacrifices that they were commanded to offer during the Age of the Law, which often they did not keep.

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Life in the Millennium The Millennium will be a time of peace when the swords shall be beaten into ploughshares. It will be an age of iron rule when the laws shall be rigorously enforced, but it will also be a reign of righteousness.

Isaiah 65:20-25 says, “There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed. And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the LORD, and their offspring with them. And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the LORD.” At this time the first resurrection takes place. This is comprised of people who have triumphed in the time of the reign of the Antichrist.

These refused to take his mark or worship his image and were beheaded for the witness of Jesus (Rev. 20:4). Then there are also those who qualified because they were “blessed and holy” and had fulfilled the criteria set forth by Paul in Philippians 3:10-11: “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.” These overcomers shall be priests of God and of Christ after the order of Melchizedek, and they shall reign with Him for a thousand years. Therefore, they are those who have been made into king and priests, as John declares in Revelation 1:6; 5:9-10). During the Millennial reign of Christ upon earth, Satan is confined to the bottomless pit as we read in Revelation 20:1-3, “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.”

Although Satan and his hordes are in the bottomless pit, nonetheless, the sin nature remains in the hearts of mankind. In the time of the Millennial Reign, the population will have adequate warnings that sin will take them down into the pit, and they will actually see the damned with their own eyes enduring eternal torment: “And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD. And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh” (Isa. 66:23-24).

Notwithstanding, there will not only be those who sin in the Millennial reign, but whole nations that will rebel against the Lord. Zechariah 14:16-19 tells us: “And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD Christ’s of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain. And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain; there shall be the plague, wherewith the LORD will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles. This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.” It is for this reason that the Millennial reign is to be governed by a rod of iron, and we quote from Revelation 2:26-27: “And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.” The necessity of ruling the nations with a rod of iron can be appreciated, for when Satan is released at the end of the 1,000 year reign, he will persuade a multitude of the heathen to follow him and come against Jerusalem: “And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they 68

went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city…” (Rev. 20:7-9).

While the actual Millennial reign of Christ will terminate in an act of rebellion, fire will descend from heaven and destroy the attackers and the saints shall be preserved. We read about this in Revelation 20:9-10: “…And fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”

The final lesson we learn at the end of the thousand year reign of Christ, is that most of mankind still loves darkness rather than light. For as soon as Satan is released from hell, a large percentage of the human race follows him, and comes against Jerusalem. It is a repeat of Armageddon, one thousand years earlier.

Because nothing unclean can enter the new earth, Satan is still needed to test mankind. When God is finished using him to test the nations, he will be hurled into the lake of fire and will be tormented forever and ever (Rev. 20:10).

CHAPTER 18 New Heavens and Earth The Great White Throne of Judgment The end of this creation terminates with the Great White Throne judgment as we read in Revelation 20:1115: “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”

This will be the time when all will be judged and either stand upon the right hand of Christ or His left hand.

Those on the right will enter into eternity with all the joys and pleasures of God’s eternal kingdom, while those on His left hand shall be blown away into the Lake of Fire to be tormented forever and forever.

Thus, will the creation as we know it today terminate, followed by the new heaven and the new earth.

The New Heavens and the New Earth Israel This book is a history of the nation of Israel, and we see that even in the new creation, remembrance is made of Israel as we contemplate the New Jerusalem: “And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal; And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel: On the east three gates; on the north three gates; on the south three gates; and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof. And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal. And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of 69

the angel. And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass. And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones.

The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald; The fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; he tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass. And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof (Rev. 21:9-23).

In the New Creation, the names of the 12 tribes of Israel will be honoured, and they will have their names engraved in the 12 gates of the New Jerusalem. Moreover, the prime city will be Jerusalem again, honouring the nation of Israel. Thus, shall the prophetic promise of the Lord to Israel be fulfilled.

The Righteous Nations The righteous nations are those nations from the previous dispensation of the Church Age and the Millennium who have qualified to remain. When we study carefully the teachings of the Lord Jesus upon the Mount of Olives, we realize that when He returns, He will divide the nations, the good from the bad, the sheep from the goat nations (Mt. 25:31-46). The factor that decides whether a nation is a sheep or goat nation is the way they treat the afflicted, the strangers, the naked, the hungry and the thirsty. With the new heaven and the new earth, the previous sorrows of the former creation will be forgotten, and behold He will make all things new: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.” May we, by His grace, qualify to be in the new creation and fulfil the work that He has ordained for us to do in this present life.

EPILOGUE Dear reader, after having carefully read and studied the context of this book, we believe that we have made certain facts concerning Israel abundantly clear—it is certainly the nation that God has chosen for Himself, both for now and throughout all eternity.

Israel was conceived by a miracle, through the promises that the Almighty made to Father Abraham. He gave to Abraham the following promises that he would be a father to many nations, and that in him would all nations be blessed. Furthermore, God promises that through his seed He would bless him and multiply him, and give for his inheritance the land that we now call Israel. Abraham had a miracle son, Isaac, when he was 100 years of age, and his wife Sarah was 90 years old. Then Isaac had two sons—Jacob and Esau. Jacob obtained the birthright and received the promises made to Abraham, and in turn had twelve sons, one of whom was Joseph, who later became the prime minister of Egypt. Under Joseph, they sojourned in the land of Egypt until the time came for them to be brought out by the mighty hand of God, who manifested His power against Pharaoh, king of Egypt, through the ten plagues. Then under the leadership of Moses, God caused the children of Israel to pass through the Red Sea on dry land, after which the waters swallowed up the pursuing Egyptian armies. He then led them by the cloud by day and the fire by night, and through the wilderness unto the river Jordan. During this time, God nourished them each morning by giving them manna to eat. At the River Jordan, there was a change of command and Joshua replaced Moses, who was buried by God. Under Joshua’s leadership they crossed over the River Jordan at flood time and entered into the land of Promise. Here, God caused them to triumph over Jericho, whose 70

walls fell down as the children of Israel marched around it 13 times and then gave a mighty shout. Then, through the guidance of God, they defeated some 31 kings and entered partially into their inheritance.

However, at the death of Joshua, they had not fully possessed their promised inheritance. The land was not entirely conquered, and after the period of the Judges, David ascended to the throne of Israel to completely subjugate all the enemies in the land. David, being a prophet, priest and king, was God’s channel to speak of the coming Christ—His sufferings and His ultimate reign of glory. Furthermore, David was promised that Christ the Messiah would be of his lineage and be his Son, although also being his Lord.

Therefore, we submit that there is no other nation that can have such a history and such promises. No other nation has. From Moses onwards, their history had been carefully and meticulously prophesied. There followed after David four major prophets—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel, who not only declared Israel’s future, but also God’s plans for her, right until the Second Coming of the Messiah. This included such notable events as the Babylonian Captivity, the destruction of the temple and its rebuilding under the express command of Cyrus, king of Persia, naming him some 150 years before his birth.

Then Jesus declared the destruction of the Second Temple and its later rebuilding to fulfil the requirement that the Antichrist would sit there. He also declared that the Abomination of Desolation would stand in the holy place, which would cause the judgements of the Great Tribulation to commence.

Even during the Millennial reign of Christ upon earth, Jerusalem will be rebuilt to the exact specifications as given to Ezekiel the prophet some 500 years before the first advent of Christ. The temple, likewise, will be built to the specifications given to Ezekiel at the same time that he received Jerusalem’s measurements.

We reiterate that there is no other nation upon earth or in the history of mankind that has had its future so foretold. Israel is manifestly the nation of God. Amen.

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Divine Intervention. Retrieved March 12, 2010 from http://www.fijitimes.com/print.aspx?id=104343 Schaff, Philip. (1882). History of the Christian Church, Volume II, Ante- Nicene Christianity A.D. 100-325. Retrieved March 12, 2010 from http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc2.v.iv.iv.html Schoenberg, Shira. (n.d.).

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Saved by the Light: Man Says Battlefield Miracle Set His Path to Rebuild Temple. Retrieved March 12, 2010 from http:// www.tulsaworld.com/news/ article.aspx?articleID=070825_1_A10_spanc24770&allcom=1&sortcom=r The Holocaust, Holocaust Encylopedia, (n.d.). Retrieved March 12, 2010 from http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/ article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005143 The Fourth Crusade—Sack of Constantinople, The Latter Rain Page (n.d.). Retrieved March 2010 from http://latter-rain.com/ ltrain/curfor.htm “ The Romans Destroy the Temple at Jerusalem, 70 A.D,” (2005), EyeWitness to History, Retrieved March 12, 2010 from http:// www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/jewishtemple.htm

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