Today is a day when man's knowledge has come perilously near to the full in many fields, and, most will agree, where the means of mass destruction are concerned, man, indeed, heartily wishes that he did not know so much!
In several directions, human knowledge has certainly 'overflowed its banks' and the 'tree of knowledge' (Genesis 2:9) has never spread its branches over the race with such proliferation. However, we can praise God that those who are wise have already listened to the advice of Isaiah 2: 22, when he says, 'Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils. For wherein is he to be accounted of?'
But, because of the danger of knowing too much on the human level, many Christians have taken refuge in not knowing, and, for instance, have regarded it as extreme presumption if anyone should confess to any positive knowledge of the true timing of the many events connected with the First Advent of our Saviour into the world. For one thing, they believe it is utterly out of the question for God to have restored this lost understanding, and for another, they feel any recovery of it would only fill their heads with 'knowledge,' when what the world really stands in need of today is 'love.'
However, there is another angle of view, and that is: does God Himself desire His Church to 'know the truth'(John 8:32) concerning Jesus in the present hour? It may help us if we see the result of this lack of knowledge in the case of Israel, when Jesus was here in the flesh. He was manifestly here as 'the Bridegroom' (see John 3: 29) but Israel did not know it, and in Luke 19: 41-44 we find that one thing - the one vital thing - was hidden from the Jewish nation when they crucified their Messiah, for on the eve of His death He had to warn them that a terrible destruction lay close ahead for their holy city - in fact, for their whole nation, for one sole reason - 'because', He said, 'thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.'
It was the same in the days of Noah when, as Jesus reminded His disciples in Matthew 24: 38 & 39, 'they knew not until the flood came, and took them all away,' and He added, 'so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.'
However, the 'children of light'(1 Thessalonians 5:5) are said to be in a different category, and not to be in darkness about the actual coming of the Lord. It is the purpose of this present writing to disclose that the Scriptures do contain an actual 'knowledge of the times' which could only be unlocked at the ending of this age. This is the 'hidden' part of His Word which God now intends to unveil, for it contains a glorious revelation of His Beloved Son 'by Whom also He made the ages' (Hebrews 1:2 - lit.Gk).
For centuries past God has called aside some of His servants to study His 'ways.' We are informed in Psalm 103: 7 that God 'made known His ways unto Moses, His acts unto the Children of Israel' - so it is clear from this that God's 'ways' are in the main 'hidden' from His people; but to some it is needful that He should reveal them; for, as Amos 3: 7 says, 'Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but He revealeth His secret counsel unto His servants the prophets.'
Over a century ago a servant of God who was also an eminent astronomer, Dr.
H. Grattan Guinness, became convinced that God was fulfilling the time prophecy
of Daniel 4. Studied in the light of the previous three chapters of Daniel, this
vision obviously takes on an importance far in excess of that which has been
assigned to it by the general run of interpreters.
God had finished with the
original line of the kings of Judah after bearing with their failure and
unfaithfulness for over four hundred years, and now was determined to use a
succession of pagan Gentile empires, as described in Daniel 2. He saw to it,
however, that the great Babylonian king took captive four princes of Judah -
Daniel and his fellows - as he subjugated Jerusalem in 607 BC. These four men he
was soon caused to set over the whole province of Babylon, so that the
government of the first of the four empires was on a righteous foundation. Later
he established Nebuchadnezzar as supreme among the surrounding nations such as
Egypt and Tyre, so that his kingdom would be unchallenged and without
competitors in the Middle East.
After appointing him as 'head' of this
Gentile succession, God gave Nebuchadnezzar a vision which was two-fold. Like
Adam, the head of the human race before him, he would fall through pride, and
secondly, the duration of his fallen state had been decreed by God. Clearly, on
the basis of 'each day for a year' the seven times (that is 7 times 360
days) (see Note 1) would pass over
the great king and his kingdom until the time came for the kingdom to be given
up to One called 'the lowest' or 'most abased' of men. (The whole chapter should
be carefully read).
It is obvious that God identified Nebuchadnezzar with the
Gentile empires following him, in the line of Persia, Greece and Rome, for Rome
was ultimately to see Jesus, hanging bloodied and naked, outside Jerusalem; but
after the final count the same Jesus will be manifested 'in
power and great glory', as he returns to establish a Kingdom which 'shall stand for ever' (Daniel 2: 44).
Dr. Grattan
Guinness studied the history of the Captivity of Judah and measured off eras of
2,520 years from the many consecutive starting points in Biblical history when,
first Israel, and then later Judah were swept away into captivity to Assyria and
Babylon. On the strength of his findings he confidently pointed ahead to the
years 1917, 1923 and 1934 as bound to see movement relating to the restoration
of Israel to her land. (If he had measured the last period of 2,520 years from
the siege of Jerusalem in 588 BC when God actually gave up Judah to judgment -
see Ezekiel 24 - he would have made the closing year of the series 1933, and not
1934).
As the result of these predictions, which were widely read over the
previous thirty years, many thousands of Christians watched through the days of
the First World War and then, surely enough, in 1917 came the first real sign
that the time had come for God to do two things: firstly, to begin to restore
the land of Israel to His ancient people, and, secondly, to allow a power to
come into being which would in the end bring the great Gentile civilisation of
the West tottering to its fall. For in the winter of 1917 - as is well known -
the Muslem domination of the Holy Land and Jerusalem ceased, and the famous
Balfour Declaration was given by the British Government partly for the English
Zionist leader, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, to Lord Rothschild. At the same time, the
Bolshevik Revolution swept away the last of the Czars and Communism became a
force which would presently dominate over vast areas of the earth.
In 1923
the passing into operation of the Palestine Mandate, under which Gt. Britain was
the Mandatory power, formed a fitting end to the 'seven times' or 2,520 (see Note 1) years from 598 BC, when the
surrender of King Jehoiachin to Babylon virtually terminated the true Kingdom of
Judah.
As far as was then known, only some ten years remained to complete the
predetermined era of 2,520 years which began with the fall of Judah in the days
of Nebuchadnezzar. But the hand of God had designed that these 'seven times' of
years should run their course from yet later starting-points in Babylon's
history - not alone related to the going into captivity of the people of Judah -
and these we were to learn as time went on.
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