02.04. The "Times of the Gentiles" and the Impending Judgments

IV THE "TIMES OF THE GENTILES" AND THE IMPENDING JUDGMENTS

I OUR fourth study leads us away temporarily from the history of the Jew to that of the Gentile. The word "Gentile" is commonly used in the Bible as synonymous with the word "nations." It distinguishes all the other nations of the world from the one nation of Israel, which God had chosen for a particular purpose in connection with the redemption of the human race. What this purpose was and is, we defined in the second chapter, entitled" God’s Covenant with Abraham."

It ought to be said here that now, and hereafter, we use the name "Israel" interchangeably with "Judah," as indicating the descendants of Abraham after the flesh. The division of the original kingdom of Israel into two kingdoms, mentioned in our last chapter, is no longer necessary to be kept in view, because in the restoration the two are again to be brought together in one (Isaiah 11:12-13; Hosea 1:11); and even now they are so blended as to be indistinguishable to the human eye.

It was God’s purpose that Israel should be an independent nation and, because of His peculiar relation to her, necessarily dominant in the affairs of earth. But this position of privilege she forfeited by her disobedience and iniquity, as indicated in our last chapter on "God’s Covenant with David." In chastisement upon her, God withdrew His directing and protecting care from her in a national capacity at a certain period in time past, and transferred the authority and power incident thereto into the hands of the Gentiles. This period was about 600 B. C., when Nebuchadnezzar was on the throne of Babylon, the record of the transfer being found in Jeremiah 27:1-22 and Daniel 2:1-49.

II This is the story of Jeremiah 27:1-22 : Judah is as yet located in her own land, but the hour of her captivity is near at hand, though she refuses to believe God’s prophet when he tells her so. In the meantime, Babylon has risen to great power in the East, and is aspiring to world-dominion, with covetous eyes upon the control of the Mediterranean Sea. Like all her successors, she realizes this to be the key to the problem. But to control the Mediterranean, Babylon must subjugate the smaller nations lying inthe path of it, which are Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and Sidon, all of which are contiguous to Judah. Last, but not least, she must subjugate Judah also. The nations thus named are not ignorant of her purpose, and at the opening of our chapter we find them, by their representatives, in international council assembled in the city of Jerusalem. Zedekiah, king of Judah, doubtless is presiding over them.

We can imagine them discussing ways and means. "Preparedness" is their theme. An alliance or a coalition is proposed by them to withstand the oncoming of the conqueror.

But, speaking after the manner of men, God seizes upon the occasion of their meeting to send His prophet to them with a message both in word and symbol. Jeremiah is to make himself "bonds and yokes," or "bands and bars," and put them upon his neck. It appears that he is to make duplicates of them also, and send them to the kings of the countries represented in the conclave. They are to be sent to them by the hands of their representatives at the conclave. And with these "bonds and yokes" is to go a message to the effect that God has made the earth and the man and beast upon it, and that He has given it to whom it seemed right in His sight. "And now," He adds, "have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant. . . . And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son’s son, until the time of his own land come. . . . And it shall come to pass that the nation and kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar. . . that nation will I punish . . . until I have consumed them by his hand."

These same words Jeremiah communicates to Zedekiah, king of Judah, saying "Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and live." The sequel we know. Turning a deaf ear to the prophet of the Lord, Judah and her king went their own way. And that way was into Babylonian captivity for seventy years. Nay, more; it was into captivity to the Gentiles from that day until this, as Daniel 2:1-49 more clearly predicts and reveals.

III

Turning to Daniel 2:1-49, we find that while the allies are conferring in Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar is dreaming in Babylon. But by morning he has forgotten his dream, and its meaning remains a mystery until Daniel is enlightened from above to reveal it to him.

He had seen a colossal metal image, with head of gold, breast and arms of silver, belly and thighs of brass, legs of iron and feet part of iron and part of clay. A stone, cut out without hands, smote the image upon its feet and brake them in pieces. Then were the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver and the gold broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors, and the wind carried them away. Then "the stone that smote the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth." The interpretation of the dream was this: The image represented the Gentile dominion in the earth from the time of Nebuchadnezzar, i.e., about 600 B.C., down to the end of this age, when Israel shall be restored to her old place, and when the kingdom of God, otherwise the kingdom of David and the son or David, Jesus Christ, shall be set up on its ruins. The four different metals of the image represented four world-empires, among which Gentile dominion would be divided in all this time. The head of gold was Babylon; the breast and arms of silver were the Medo-Persian Empire; the belly and thighs of brass were Greece, and the legs and feet of iron were Rome; not papal Rome of course, but political Rome. The two legs of iron represent the two halves into which the Roman Empire was divided hundreds of years ago; the eastern half with its capital at Constantinople, and the western half with its capital at Rome. The ten toes represent ten separate kingdoms, or nations, into which these two halves of the empire will be divided at the end of this age. The iron represents the monarchical power in those kingdoms or nations, and the clay the democratic power. The two elements "mingle themselves with the seed of men, but they shall not cleave to one another, even as iron is not mixed with clay."

"In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed." In other words, when the Roman Empire shall be found in the form indicated, ten kingdoms (partly monarchic and partly democratic), Gentile dominion as such is doomed, and the day of Israel, or rather the day of the Lord on this earth, begins. The stonestrikesthe image, indicating a collision of some kind between the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of men. Doubtless this is that judgment on the Gentile nations of the time indicated by the battle of Armageddon in Revelation 16:1-21, and foreshadowed in the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:1-46}. The collisiondestroysthe image, and brings Gentile dominion to an end. This does not mean the destruction of all the individuals on the earth, but the disintegration of those nations as nations, or the passing of the balance of power out of their hands, thus affording an opportunity for the coming in of that Kingdom of God which" shall stand forever."

QUESTIONS ON THE LESSON 1.For what does the word “Gentile" stand’?

2. How are the names, “Israel" and “Judah" hereafter used in this text-book?

3. Have you read Isaiah 11:12-13 and Hosea 1:11? 

4. What was God’s purpose for Israel and how was it forfeited by her?

5. What chastisement now falls on her and when does it begin?

6. Tell in your own words the story of Jeremiah 27:1-22.

7. Recite Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and its interpretation.

8. .If the “image" represented Gentile dominion, what did its four metal parts represent?

9. What about the application of the legs, feet and toes?

10. What is meant by God’s Kingdom being set up?