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CHAPTER EIGHT
 

THE TIME APPOINTMENT ... 'UNTIL'

(cont.)

THE FOURTH UNTIL

THE FOURTH OF THE UNTIL SERIES IN LINE

REVIEW

The Appeal and Use of History

Much has happened. That is one beauty of history, that when it happens, it is there, not merely ideational or connotational. Like an experiment, it came and passed and was done, each item. You get to consider the implications and the applications and the regrets or hopes, but like the measurement of the ammeter, it is what it is. It is there.

You may distort it, pretending that what did happen, did not, or what did not, did; but deception is here a clear work in the category of directed effort, not an inability to see. Some you may say, cannot see because distortions have become so important to so many that there is no getting at what actually did happen, at what did exhibit its experimental reality in the lab of history.

Certainly this can happen; but when vested interests and passionate programs of the mind and rebellious confluences of the rivers of desired thought are stilled by the power of God, who made history capable of happening, then truth is not still, but remains. Not only does it leave a thousand fragments, even when squashed as though it were a pumpkin, the light of day has declared it, and denial is mere arousal of passion, peculiarity or submission. God as the source of truth is the need; and His care suffices.

History is resistant to pulverisation, and comes to light not just by an intrinsic wonder, but because God is there, and you cannot deceive Him: indeed,  even a dead conscience KNOWS... and often it speaks, sometimes direclty, at other times, indirectly.

Truth in history, what happened as distinct from historiography is a wonderful thing. Blandishment of 'critical methods' which may amount to the most inaccurate modes of all, as they are often misnamed for philosophical fragmentalisation, these apart, while the actual events,  in the normal processes of integrity and comparison, consistency and persistence, exclusion of irrational surmises and invasive assumptions alike, are both sought and focussed: here is a formula that leads to a refreshingly uninhibited impact.

To make something happen is easy: you can sneeze or try to suppress it. To make something known in a given milieu is not often impossible. Events speak with ramifying echoes; powers to perform have their own integrity and their performances are often repeated; while when highly distinctive, they have a continuing testimony.

To unmake history, though this be a fiction, yet  is the work of many political systems; but they fail as do their theories, in the end. There is only one kingdom to remain, as Daniel cites from the word of God given him in Daniel 7:14. The power of the Spirit of Truth is not nestling in the mind of the devil, the unique deceiver who was so from earliest days in the very birth of fall; nor is it subject to him.

Thus Israel is back in its land. History says so. We have not yet found people to deny that 1948 was ever in the calendar. Not yet have we found those who say it was in fact spirited away by some plot or other, and only by deceit is it believed that 1948 ever existed. The holocaust may be denied, despite mountains of personal and documentary evidence; but not yet has 1948 been denied; nor has one seen denial that ships of the British Navy sought to prevent hulks, old vessels filled with escapees from the murder passion of Hitler and Co., from reaching Israel. One has not even seen a hint of this grand philosophic creation.

Israel was not in its land for around 1900 years, AS A NATION. This too, the exile, one does not see denied. It does not seem to have occurred to anyone to try this one.

When it went, as a nation, it was in the vicinity of AD 70, discourtesy of the Roman Empire in its official capacity. It wanted it destroyed; it destroyed it. The denial of this too has not yet come to light from the darkness beyond, as a palpable proposition. Maybe someone will think of it, but as Paul says, heresies have to come to exhibit the light. In other words, try it, and when it is refuted, it will have done a service,  exploding its myth by bringing it to the light (cf. II Corinthians 10:5).

So we are in happy concurrence. Israel the nation did not receive Jesus Christ; together with Rome via Pilate, it took part in His rejection and the death deemed appropriate on such a basis.

Israel some 40 years later, around AD 70 or one generation later, lost control of its city and its land; and lost its capital, this being destroyed, salt added to Roman taste.

Some 1900 years or so later, it came back to being a nation in that place. It did not retake all of it; but a significant and viable portion.

It did this against 7 nations, and its first day as a nation was in the midst of war, before it was even assembled nationally at all. Yet it won.

Here is happy history, doing what it is good at, showing occurrence, just as in a scientific laboratory, though this Lab of history, is  more personal, yet with many accompaniments, measurable and notable alike.

As we have seen, Leviticus 26 foretold the expulsion of Israel from its land, as one in a chain of sequential provocations to God, an ultimate in His discipline. In parallel, Deuteronomy 32 shows that as Israel put foolish gods in the place of the proved and true one, their only Rock, so He would make them envious of foolish nations. How riotous and mercless have many of these been, culminating in a death factory concept to help things alone, gold being extraced from teeth, and pulp used for soap. It was very thorough. It made history of centuries of wickedness, heartless oppression against Israel.

Similarly in predictive format this time,  Ezekiel 37 shows Israel dispersed throughout the whole world, prior to restoration to itsland, where it is made both alive and vigorous, before God acts decisively (as in Isaiah 66, Micah 7), in a situation soon leading straight on to the rule of the Messiah on this earth.

So they went, Israel  lost its land and far worse, was given up by God, since it wanted it so, in its innovations of spirit, and imagination of mind! It took instead, indeed,  a whole series of systems of beliefs which amounted to blindness, as Romans 11 notes.

THE FOURTH UNTIL

Now let us turn to Luke 21:24. The crux of our interest here is this. In Romans 11, we find that BLINDNESS is to depart from Israel as a nation when the FULNESS of the Gentile times has come. That fulness has yet to come. It closes in like a wolf pack as Israel reflects on the miracle of its survival and the methods of revival, on the only way on and out before aggravated powers of pestilence and hatred, surrounding them in layers of deception and power, with intent to destroy,  make their vital move to destroy, subject, subjugate, in whatever order.

This is the stated intent of some groups. However in Isaiah 51, just before the expression of the divine salvation available in the Messiah, so famously written in Isaiah 52-53, we read of the inclination coming: the Lord is going to take OUT from the hand of Israel, the cup of bitterness and distress and put it, instead, into the hands of those who in triumphant lordliness or aggressiveness, have tried to make of Israel, a place to walk over, asking her in reckless disregard of all humanity, to lie down so that the walk might go on and walk upon her.

That ? It is to be reversed, in that  the cup of subjugation and horror is to be taken, given to those who did the tormenting. It is their inheritance; they have worked for it; and it is not being denied to them!

Thus they come to an end, these times of the Gentiles. They were so glorious for some, who have joined in the song of triumph to the Messiah in view of His achieved salvation (as in Isaiah 24:16, that masterpiece of abbreviation and impact, rather like Zechariah 11, where the price paid for Christ is deemed a fine one, even 30 pieces of silver). Yet these same times of the Gentiles were so odious in others, who have used them to prosecute their taste for emptiness, vanity, gods not there and forces misused as if the whole thing were a game, based on evasion, used with abandon.

In Romans 11, we have already seen that when their FULNESS, the last particles, have come in, on to the tarmac of history, then Israel will be delivered from her self-imposed blindfold, and will  see  spiritual truth with a clarity that wins, a charity that delights, with a security which is sure. This conversion has yet to be.

In Luke 21:24, we see a preliminary action. Here they are dispersed UNTIL the times of the  Gentiles are fulfilled. The difference is that this one deals with the bold outline (Luke); the other deals with the acute details (Romans). It is like a glass: you fill it ? well nearly fill, for if it is to the top, it may spill. But if you want a real filling, then you add more till the work is truly finished, and a fulness results. The national conversion to come, it is the utter fulness; the return to Jerusalem, it is the completion en bloc.

So here. Israel has given birth as in Micah 3, having been given up till then, as a nation. This means the times of the Gentiles are done. History has seen this happen. They came back unofficially. They were assaulted very officially; they won, equally officially, and became a nation, very realistically. They are back. Luke 21:24 is fulfilled.

As to those who have assaulted them, and do, their rampaging is at odds with itself, their posturing is blighted, their weakness is dug in great furrows in the sand, visible even from the air. They travail with words, and fail with deeds. Matathir is right, how come the Islamic millions have failed for more than half a century, to drive them out!

That is not in the book of the Lord. That part is over. That warfare is accomplished. They are there.

Now they are back, as they in fact are in history,retored,  visibly and objectively sitting in Jerusalem, or standing if they prefer, since the city is their own since 1967. Accordingly, the  Gentile season is fulfilled. Look for the apostacy for the end times as in I Timothy 4, II Timothy 3-4, II Thessalonians 2, and its details as in Matthew 24 and Luke 21. You find it ? Good, that goes with it (cf. News 121, 122). In that inglorious time, when the Gentile era finds its termination notice looking it straight in the face (just as Israel found it, millenia ago), you might see inverted morals, same-sex marriage, churches changing the Bible and still using the name of Christ, new christs and the like. That would be history showing the prediction, like a precipitate in an experiment. It was supposed to happen; and then it did, this time in the Lab of history.

Indeed, this sort of thing, this departure from God, the Lord, His morals, His ways, false churches spewing out like a drain in a flood, there is a spreading of spiritual error as a pandemic. It is so. That is there as prescribed for the laboratory of history. It is now part of the testimony of this lab work called history. God knows the end from the beginning and brings it out in its time (Isaiah 46:10). He has the glorious power to make freedom and yet know how to bring through it, the testimony desired. Intelligence is like that, given power: it looks for WAYS of accomplishment various and mutual objectives. When it comes to God, He simply does it.

But you say, what of this great conversion to Jesus Christ to come in Israel ? THAT, we read in Romans 11:25, is for the FULNESS of the times of the Gentiles, a last touch, a final addition, an instant performer, not a generic sweep.

The passage from the lips of Jesus the Christ, found in Luke 21:24 is not for the FULNESS of Gentile times, their innings, but just for its fulfilment. Romans talks of the finale spiritually for Israel, a great thrust of conversion to Christ in that nation, in the setting shown in Zechariah 12, with milling nations butting in, surrounding, interfering, warring. Christ, however,  speaks of the basic drive, the nature of the thing apart from its final finesses. It concerns the RETURN. His words are most clear. WHEN JERUSALEM is no longer under Gentile dominion, control, then the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. They are at the last gasp. This indicated on the map of history, in Romans 11 we find the actual transition moment, its spiritual impact, its remarkable results, and the praise ot God of the apostle, for bringing the believers both Jews and Gentiles, through so many vicissitudes, to common accord and place in the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The rescue of Jerusalem from Gentile dominion ? Why, THIS sign has already come. We are now in the region of the last touches, Israel back, a nation, many pouring in, but their spiritual estate not yet at Stage II, as noted in Ezekiel 37 and Zechariah 12 and Isaiah 32, when the Spirit of God descending in power into their hearts, their spiritual eyes are opened. It is then that  they understand as a nation at last. This last part is not yet.

That is the fulness of the season in views, the times of the Gentiles, as in Romans, and so it is yet to come. The initial fulfilment is as plain as the revolution in Syria.  They are BACK after some 1900 years, have their city;  and tjey have tirumphed staggeringly against stunning odds, and that repeatedly. Indeed, it has even been in the face of the powers of the whole Islamic world and others indeed, so that being back, they have stayed back, and not been driven, as some enemies have desired, Nasser among them, into the sea.

Thus far it is history. History helps. It declares things better than does a loud-speaker, for it reaches the mind, and speaks for itself. If it is contorted or distorted by the mind, well disease does do such things, whether to the mind, body or spirit of man. He is susceptible to much, and unless he is to be found on the ROCK which is Christ, he can waver and quaver and distend and amend or contend; but in all, he can be somewhere or nowhere, to taste, in a bundle of uncertainties, or often not even that! He may subsist in simple spiritual confusion, delusion and contusion of heart, bruised and buffeted, dimly unaware, simply carrying on...

We now are at Y in the historical alphabet, before Jesus the Christ returns to govern as in Revelation 20, Isaiah 65,  Micah 4 with 7, Jeremiah 23, Psalm 2 and 72, 67-70 and so on and on.  Z is to follow. Now Y is saying: Israel is back and victorious and surrounded by many nations who menace, interfere, harass. It is all so. In this history event, Z, it is far from a sign for sleeping. AWAKE SLEEPER, says Paul (II Cor. 6:1ff). If awake, WAIT on the Lord, for His has a purpose in all He does, and He knows the path of His people, each one. Rely on Him, as Rock, as mentor of history, saying, then doing; and in so doing, rejoice in such a Saviour as this, who works all things after the counsel of His own will (Ephesians 1:11).

Since He is good; that is exceedingly good.

UNTIL He comes then, for now, adieu.