I have to read this chapter, dear friends, because it gives an outline of a part of prophecy of which other parts of Scriptures are the detail. We began with the Church's having a sure and certain hope, through the never changing promise of God, of being caught up to be forever with Christ before He comes to judge the world, and we saw that the looking and longing, where the heart is truly for Christ, for His coming again, is the bright and cheering influence of the Christian's path. Last evening we saw the professing church looked at as in the world, that which is called the Church, to be at last utterly rejected of God, fearfully judged for its corruption, or spewed out of Christ's mouth as nauseous.
When we turn to the ways of God on the earth, we have seen that His direct government had always been exercised with the Jews as a center. Providential government He always exercises. He makes all things work together for good to those that love Him. Not a sparrow falls to the ground without Him who is our Father. But when we come to direct government, the immediate dealings with men on the earth according to their conduct, and the direct public interference of God to show His ways on earth, then the Jews come on the scene, and are the pivot round which those ways turn. But they extend necessarily, when fully displayed, to the Gentiles who surround them, and fill the earth, the great body of whom have now long oppressed them. Hence the same passages which refer to the Jews refer to the Gentiles also, as those who come up before God when He begins that government in which the Jews have the first and principal place on earth. These passages I will now refer to, some of which, by reason of what I have just noticed, have already been quoted in reference to the Jews.
But before doing so I must point out two classes of Gentiles to which they refer, in respect of whom there are two very distinct classes of prophecy in Scripture: that which refers to those who were enemies of the Jews when God was there with them on the earth, when He owned them, or will hereafter again own them as His people; and that which refers to those who oppress them when they are not, when God has written on them Lo Ammi, “not-my-people,” and the times of the Gentiles have begun. These are entirely distinct. We get certain powers dealt with which are outside Israel, and are their enemies—when [the presence of God and His throne are still in the midst of that people, and the representatives of whom will be found in the latter days, when God has taken Israel up again. But after the Jews turned to idolatry, and, whatever had been God's patience rising up early and sending His prophets till there was no remedy, He was obliged to give them up to judgment. He then set up Nebuchadnezzar, and the times of the Gentiles began; and they are still running on. The empire passed from Babylon to Persia, and Persia to Greece; and the Jews were slaves to the Romans when Christ came, slaves to the Gentiles. Their ecclesiastical polity was allowed to exist, but the civil power was in the hands of their oppressors. These times of the Gentiles run on until Christ executes judgment, until those who were the oppressors of God's people, when He does not own them, shall be destroyed, and those who are their enemies outside these oppressors shall be brought to naught at a time when they think they have got it all their own way; and then the Jew is set free.
In a word, Scripture shows us that the Jews are the center of God's earthly dealings; and that as regards the Gentiles there are two classes of prophecy, one referring to the enemies of God's people when He owns them, and the other their oppressors when they are turned off and He does not own them. Deut. 32 lays the prophetic ground at the very origin of their whole history, of all that is to come to pass. In the 8th verse, as we have seen when speaking of the Jews, they are shown to be the center of His ways. “When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people (peoples) according to the number of the children of Israel.”
Just connect it now with the general judgment of the Gentiles. The prophet first states that after his decease Israel would corrupt themselves; then he goes on in verse 21 to the wickedness, the fruit of which is going on now. In the 25th verse he rises above the wickedness so as not to destroy them, to show that He is God. Then he goes on to the time of His rising up to judgment, leading us to that of which we are speaking. When Israel is brought utterly low He will indeed judge His people, but He will also repent Himself concerning His servants. His hand, as it is expressed, takes hold on judgment, rendering vengeance to His enemies, for such the Gentile powers are found to be, and apostate Jews too. He makes His arrows drunk with blood, and His sword devours flesh. Yet this it is brings in the millennial blessings, when the nations will rejoice with His people, for He will avenge the blood of His servants (a thing we have not yet accomplished)—will render vengeance to His adversaries, and, mark the expression, be merciful to His land and to His people. Thus we have His people judged, His servants avenged, His adversaries brought under vengeance, yet His land and people Israel coming into mercy, and the Gentiles rejoicing with them—in a word, judgment, the Lord's adversaries destroyed, Gentiles and apostate Jews, His servants avenged, Israel restored, and the nations blessed with them, but Israel His people.
I will now turn before distinguishing the enemies of Israel owned of God, and their oppressors when given up, to the general testimony of the judgment of the nations, and then show you the two distinct. Turn to the last chapter of Isaiah (66) verse 15, “For, behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire; for by fire and by his sword will the Lord plead with all flesh.” We have the great general fact of the judgment of the nations; and if you turn to verses 6 to 14, you will see the Jews set up again. “For thus saith the Lord (verse 12) Behold I will extend peace to her (Jerusalem) like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream.” Then you get the ungodly Jews in verse 17th and thence to the 24th, the manifestation of Jehovah's glory, those that escape the judgment that accompanies it going off to the nations and announcing the appearing of that glory, and bringing back the scattered Jews to Jerusalem. I get, then, thus the great fact that the Lord comes to judge all flesh; and those He finds interfering with Israel He cuts off.
Now turn to Psa. 9 and 10. They celebrate the judgment and destruction of the enemies of Israel in the land. The Psalmist introduces the whole subject in the 4th and 5th verses, “For thou hast maintained my right and my cause; thou satest in the throne judging right, thou hast rebuked the heathen, thou hast destroyed the wicked, thou East put out their name forever and ever.... that I may show forth all thy praise in the gates in the daughter of Zion: I will rejoice in thy salvation. The heathen are sunk down in the pit that they made: in the net which they hid is their own foot taken. The LORD is known by the judgment which he executeth: the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God,” verses 14-16; Psa. 10:1616The Lord is King for ever and ever: the heathen are perished out of his land. (Psalm 10:16). “The LORD is king forever and ever: the heathen are perished out of his land.” These are the two Psalms which, after speaking of the rejection of Christ as king in Zion, and His taking the character of universal headship as Son of man in Psa. 8, bring in the whole testimony of the Psalms, the state and feelings of the remnant of Israel in the last days, and the judgment which God executes upon the Gentiles.
Hence, remark, it is that we find in the Psalms these appeals to judgment and demands for it, which have often stumbled Christians, when urged by the enemies of Christianity. They are not, the expression of Christian feelings. We leave the world and go to heaven. In no sense have we to demand the destruction of our enemies in order to pass into glory. But Israel cannot have their rest on earth until the wicked are destroyed; and therefore they do demand this righteous judgment, and that is the way they will be delivered.
To pursue our subject; turn to Jer. 25. This is a remarkable chapter; but first Twill give you a few verses from the end of Isa. 24:1616From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs, even glory to the righteous. But I said, My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me! the treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously; yea, the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously. (Isaiah 24:16), but to show the connection with Israel I will read from verse 13th “And thus it shall be in the midst of the land among the people, there shall be as the shaking of an olive tree, and as the gleaning grapes when the vintage is done, they shall lift up their voice, they shall sing for the majesty of the LORD, they shall cry aloud from the sea. Wherefore glorify ye the LORD in the fires, even the name of the LORD God of Israel in the isles of the sea. From the uttermost parts of the earth have we heard songs, even glory to the righteous. But I said, my leanness, my leanness, woe unto me! the treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously, yea, the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously. Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth. And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for the windows from on high are open and the foundations of the earth do shake. The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly.” There you get the world reeling like a drunkard, under the terrible judgment of God, and (verses 21, 22) we see the judgment of the powers of evil on high, the prince of the power of the air and his angels, and of the kings of the earth on the earth; and then the LORD reigning in Zion and before His ancients gloriously.
Now turn to Jer. 25:1515For thus saith the Lord God of Israel unto me; Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send thee, to drink it. (Jeremiah 25:15), “For thus saith the LORD God of Israel unto me: Take the wine-cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send thee, to drink it.” He speaks of the various nations in that way, and then goes on from verses 29 to 33 to declare the universal judgment of the heathen, describing the terrible coming down of Jehovah in judgment upon them.
Turn now to Mic. 5 “And I will execute judgment in anger and fury upon the heathen, such as they have not heard.” But then, too, Israel is blessed and re-established in power in verses 7, 8, and that through Christ, great to the end of the earth (verse 4, 5.) “And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God: and they shall abide: for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth And this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land: and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds and eight principal men.”
Turn to Joel 3:99Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: (Joel 3:9) to 17. “Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near, let then come up. Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning. hooks into spears: let the weak say I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord; let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: (Jehoshaphat means judgment of Jehovah) for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe; come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake; but the Lord shall be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel. So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more.”
What makes this passage additionally important is, that Jerusalem is brought back to blessing and never to be trodden down again, no strangers shall pass through her any more, but the Gentiles who helped on her affliction are destroyed forever. In the time of Nebuchadnezzar, when Jerusalem was in trouble, and again when Titus besieged and took it, the Gentiles were not destroyed at all. When Cyrus sent back a remnant to Jerusalem, they remained captive, and strangers are yet in Jerusalem. Again we find here all the nations gathered together, the Gentiles destroyed and the Jews set up.
Zeph. 3:33Her princes within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones till the morrow. (Zephaniah 3:3) to end: Jehovah's determination is to gather all the nations. They are to be devoured by the fire of His jealousy. Here again, too, we find that Israel will never be cast out again. He will bring back their captivity and make them the praise among all the people. He will cast out their enemy. They will not see evil any more. Jehovah is in the midst of Jerusalem, God will rest in His love. I will turn to one more passage before I show the difference between the two classes of enemies to Israel.
Hag. 2:55According to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, so my spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not. (Haggai 2:5) to 9, “According to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, so my spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not. For thus saith the Lord of hosts: yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land, and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts. The glory of this latter house [properly, the latter glory of this house] shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts.” The apostle quotes this passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews, showing that it has not yet come. “See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven.” He is urging them not to rest on earthly and created things, showing that that time of universal shaking of the first and changeable creation was yet to come, declaring that all would be shaken and pass away.
Let us now take a review of Scripture as to the two classes of Israel's enemies of which I have spoken.
The chief enemy of Israel, while Israel was still owned of God before the captivity of Babylon, was the Assyrian. There had been others, as Syria, but Syria succumbed to the Assyrian. Egypt then sought to fill the scene of the world and came up, conquered Judea, and met the power of Babylon at Carchemish; but its power was broken, and Nebuchadnezzar became the head of gold over the whole earth, and the times of the Gentiles began, which are still running on, and will, till the Lord takes His great power and reigns. No doubt the Jews came back, or a small remnant of them, from Babylon, to present Messiah to them. But they were so wicked and perversely idolatrous that God had given them up to captivity, and, even when in their land on their return, they were subject to the Gentiles. God's glory and His throne were no longer amongst them. When they came back, they never got the Shekinah; the Shekinah was the cloud that manifested the presence of God. They had no longer the ark, or the Urim and Thummim What constituted the witness of God's presence was gone, and these things were never restored. These are the times of the Gentiles still; the four beasts constituted the times of the Gentiles. And this, as to the earth, was of the last possible importance. The throne of God ceased to be on the earth.
Prophecy, indeed, remained till the outward order was restored; but it is remarkable that the post-captivity prophets never set aside the judgment pronounced in Hosea— “Ye are not my people.” They never call the Jews God's people in their then standing, doing so only when they prophesy of that future day when they will be restored to the divine favor which is yet to come.
Finally, when Christ came, He was rejected, and sat down on His Father's throne, and the divine power and glory is wholly above, the object of faith to the believing soul. The people whom God had called, and who had God's throne among them, were wholly cut off, though preserved.
Well, the throne of God had ceased on the earth at the beginning of these times of the Gentiles; and therefore, in Daniel you never get the God of the earth, but the God of heaven, because He was not there with them. The departure of God from the direct government of the earth with Israel for the center, His throne being in their midst, sitting between the cherubim, as it is said, and His return to the government of the earth, are of immense importance.
In Ezekiel we see His judgment on Jerusalem. God comes (Nebuchadnezzar being the instrument), God comes on the cherubim in the way of providence (those wheels which were so high they were dreadful), spares His own whom He has marked, and gives up the rest to destruction. He executes judgment, leaves them, and goes into heaven. The Gentiles are left to rule, subject to God's providence and final judgment; Israel, and God's throne in their midst, is set aside.
Four great empires arise successively—Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. The Roman Empire, while devastating everywhere, does not succeed in getting all nations under its power, but continues the great power of the world till the judgment, though in a special form.
Then the Assyrian comes on the scene again at the close; that is, geographically what is now Turkey in Asia and part of Persia, but in the last days Assyria will appear on the scene in the Russian power, according to the testimony of Ezek. 37; 38 (a passage applied to this power one hundred and fifty years ago by the elder Lowth before the present question arose). And the world, as connected with Israel and God's ultimate purposes on the earth, is divided into Western Europe, and the basin of the Mediterranean; the Roman Empire, and Eastern Europe or the Russian. These two are never confounded in Scripture. The Assyrian was the power that warred against Israel when God owned them, and the other the power that oppressed and held them captive when they were not owned.
Now in Isaiah and the pre-captivity prophets you get the Assyrian all through, the beast being scarcely mentioned (once “the King,” so as to complete the scene; and even that, I apprehend, is a subordinate ally of the beast). Whereas in Daniel you do not get the Assyrian, unless, possibly, obscurely in one chapter, and then not as such, the same thing being true of Zechariah, save that all nations are mentioned in both in a general way, as brought as sheaves to the floor when rising up against Jerusalem. Thus far I have been speaking of the general judgment; now, having distinguished between the beasts and the Assyrian power of the latter day, we have to cite those which apply to them distinctively.
Turn to Daniel, you get fully the beasts, but not the Assyrian. Let us examine first the chapter I read. Here we have Nebuchadnezzar the head of gold, the Persian Empire denoted by silver, the Grecian by brass, the Roman by iron, while the iron and clay represent the present state of things. Then after these last were formed, a stone is cut out without hands (God's sovereign work), smites the image all becomes as the chaff of the summer threshing floor, and no place is found for them; and then the stone which smote the image became a great mountain which filled the whole earth.
There is not here, remark, a trace of influence exercised over the previous component parts of the image so as to produce a change of character. The notion is that Christianity will spread and pervade these countries. Now the stone does not grow at all till they are entirely destroyed. There is no influence exercised, no modification takes place, no change at all is spoken of here. The little stone destroys all before it increases. It is the stone which has smitten the image which grows.
What we have got here is the coming of Christ's kingdom in judgment, and a total destruction of the empires which preceded its action. That action was on the last, and more particularly on the toes of iron and clay, the last form which this image took, looked at in its geographical distribution on earth, and the condition of its parts, partly strong, partly broken. What gives its specific character to the figure is, that the stone does not grow at all until it has clone all these things, and after it has finished its work of judgment and destruction, grows to be a great mountain.
What is going on now is not this. Christ has ascended up on high and He waits, in the spirit of grace, sitting on the right-hand of His Father's throne, while the saints, His co-heirs, the church is gathering out of the world; until at the moment known to God alone, He rises up from the Father's throne, then to take to Him His great power and reign, His enemies being now put under His feet.
Turn now to the interpretation itself, which is perfectly clear on this point. Power in the world is entrusted to man in the person of Nebuchadnezzar; three empires succeed his, and at the end, though there be a strength in the last which breaks in pieces and subdues all around it, yet a conflict of principles characterizes its latter form (I have little doubt the Teutonic and Latin elements); and it is partly strong and partly broken. But then the close comes, verse 44: “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms and it shall stand forever.”
You will remember, beloved friends, that on the last evening we saw the general outline of God's dealings with the Gentiles, in connection with His chosen earthly people, the Jews: (the Jews being the center of all God's earthly dealings) First, that at the restoration of the Jews there would be the judgment of the Gentiles, the nations being divided into two classes, those that were enemies to God's people when God owned them and had His throne in their midst; and those who led them captive and oppressed them when God did not own them. Both will be cast out from the seat of power. It is evident that, as regards the world, it is an all important fact, God's taking His throne from it. When that took place, He was no longer the God of the earth, though He over-rules all things providentially, but does not exercise direct government as in Israel when His throne was there. Hence Daniel calls Him the God of heaven, and it is not until He comes to judge the world that He takes his name of God of the earth, Lord of the whole earth (see Zech. 14). The time during which God gives up His throne on the earth is called “the times of the Gentiles.” During these times the Jews who were taken captive and made slaves to Nebuchadnezzar have ceased to be God's people as a present position, and are always subject to the Gentiles, and the times of the Gentiles run on till He comes to take vengeance. Then He takes them up again, casting out, as we saw before, those who oppressed them when they were not owned, and those who were enemies when they were owned and His throne was in their midst.
The distinctions of these two classes is important to us because we are in the times of the Gentiles. In the prophecies there is never the slightest confusion between the two. The Assyrian, and finally Gog, is the great enemy of Israel when the people is owned, the four beasts or Gentile empires their oppressors when they are not. The prophets up to the captivity and Ezekiel speak of the former, Daniel and Zechariah of the latter, to which (when we come to the New Testament) we must add Revelation. The whole New Testament history is under the last beast.
The first, fullest, and most general account of these is in chapter 7 of Daniel, which we have read. If we turn to it now for a moment, we shall see that it is divided into portions by the term: I saw in the night visions. First we have, verses 1-6, the fact of the four great empires and a brief account of three. The next division, beginning with verse 7th to the 12th, a particular description of the fourth beast, and then a throne set up and judgment. Verse 13 begins another division in which the kingdom is given to the Son of man After this we have the explanation given to Daniel by the angel, in which the condition of the saints under the beasts and particularly the last beast, and, finally, under the Son of man, is given. They are beasts as having lost their intelligence towards God, not owning Him, and doing their own will in ravening power as far as they can. Of this the madness of Nebuchadnezzar was a figure.
The three first great empires are Babylon (the head of gold); the bear, Persia (silver); the leopard, Grecian (brass). On these I do not dwell they are past. The fourth beast, described as we have seen apart more particularly, is the Roman; you find him represented as fierce and powerful, tearing and devouring—not simple conquest, but putting all down under it, treading down what it did not devour; and where has not Western Europe sought to place its power? But which is far more important still, we find direct antagonism to God.
Verses 7-8, “After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth; it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots, and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.” You will remark that there is a special power here (a horn, the symbol of power or a kingdom); before it three of the kingdoms fall. Its general character is given here. We shall see the details farther on. It has eyes of man: eyes here mean intelligence, insight into things. His mouth speaks great things, saying, Who is Lord over us? Nor is this all—that his lips are his own, as the psalm speaks; but he will not allow of God.