Foreword

Peace and Safety!(1 Thessalonians 5:3) Peace among nations, and safety for the individual from terrorism and violence - can anything approaching this be expected in the closing days of the twentieth century?

The major powers of the world keep their eyes on the Middle East and make efforts to impose their own solutions upon Israel, while the Israelis, on their part, are all too conscious of the final intentions of the surrounding Arab nations. Hopes are raised, and hopes are dashed, as leaders wrestle with the impossible situation, but all the while the world remains totally unconscious of the fact that all the major events of recent history - from 1914 onwards - have been perfectly timed by Almighty God, 'according to the plan of the ages which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord' (Ephesians 3:11 lit. trans.).

Does the Bible hold the key then, and unlock the pattern of our modern history? Did God foreknow it? Every true believer in Jesus accepts the fact that 'known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world.' And the timing of His works? Well, that will be seen by all who pursue through the coming pages and check the facts and figures with the Bible for themselves.

When I pick up the Jerusalem Post I generally glance at its humorous cartoon strip, captioned 'Dry Bones' which touches on current topics, but I used to wonder why they gave the Strip this peculiar title, until the obvious struck me - Israelis also know Ezekiel, chapter 37!

If ever their nation needed enlightenment about the 'dry bones' of this chapter, that moment has surely come in their amazing history. Truly enough, some of their leaders are taking a new interest in the Bible, and it was reported that during the Middle East War of 1973, many young Israeli soldiers made urgent calls for anyone who had understanding of the prophecies, and eagerly grouped around individuals who could offer some valid explanation as to why they had so suddenly been plunged into the bloodiest and most devastating assault Israel had ever experienced. Observers certainly rated the tank battles of that Yom Kippur War as of greater intensity than those of any preceding conflict in history.

In Ezekiel 37 we have a picture of a nation long dead. The bodies had disappeared, and the bones had come apart and been scattered. But each bone told a story. Only after the disjointed skeleton of each of the dead could be re-assembled perfectly - and this, of course, with all the skeletons - could the 'sinews and flesh come upon them' and after that the 'skin.' But still, says the prophet, 'there was no breath in them.'

In these first 14 verses we have God's own 'Strip Cartoon' - a marvellous picture of the rise of modern Israel, which the whole world has witnessed in living memory. But the one feature which apparently neither Jew nor Gentile has observed has been the perfect bringing together of the 'bones,' that is, the exact time-measurements of Israel, as these are concealed, and now revealed in the pages of the Bible.

It is important to be very explicit about this aspect of the 'bones.' When David wrote in Psalm 22:14, 'all my bones are out of joint,' most Christians recognise that, with the foreknowledge of the Spirit of God, he was voicing the words of the Messiah, after the tree on which He was impaled had been dropped into the hole dug for it on the Mount of Calvary in the year AD 33. And in verse 17 of the same Psalm we have the words, 'I may number all my bones.'(literal translation).

After He had manifested Himself in resurrection, however, the Messiah of Israel declared,'A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have'(Luke 24:39). And He showed them His hands and His feet .

As the wind of the Spirit blows across this war-torn earth in the last days of our Gentile age, multitudes are being conditioned to 'see' the Messiah. And as they see Him freshly in the Scriptures, these will also perceive that His 'bones' are all in joint. No longer will the days and months and years of the Bible record remain meaningless, especially to Jews, for it is these measurements - these 'bones' - that will be found to have perfectly survived in the sepulchre of Time, so that now we may behold the true outline of history. Yes, it is His story, and the story of the people of Israel (for are they not His people - 'the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand'?) (Psalm 95:7)

He is the One Who 'has the key of David,'(Rev. 3:7, see also Isaiah 22:22) and we believe this key has now turned in the lock of Bible history so that we, both Jews and Gentiles, may know the truth, the truth that 'shall make us free.' For to hold to tradition, and not truth, will leave us in bondage. Jesus said, 'Ye shall know the truth.'(John 8:32) Hallelujah!

The Bible has remained a sealed book, as far as the 'plan of the ages' is concerned, right down the long course of history. It is not only the Book of Daniel that has remained 'closed up', but the whole of the true historical record from Genesis onward which has remained sealed 'until the time of the end.'

This statement might be hotly challenged if it is not at once explained that it is in the realm of exact time-measurement that the Bible has remained sealed. The reason for this should become self-evident as the contents of the book unfold.

Time, of course, is inseparable from History, for one cannot have time without history, or history without time.

An illustration of the sheer impossibility of human minds being able to obtain an accurate total of the time - even between Israel's Exodus from Egypt and the Crucifixion of Christ - has been sent us by a friend in Khartoum, and it discloses the following facts: It is a list of seventy-five different efforts to fix the year of the Exodus, beginning with 1792 BC (Samaritan Text) and ending with the date of 1168 BC (Lipman). These various assessments by scholars made over the past four centuries show an overall difference of more than six hundred years; and so, apart from God's intervention to grant revelation on how to measure time in His Word, for anyone to come forward now and say, 'This is the true date of the Exodus' might meet with some scepticism! Clearly God had no intention of allowing this part of His Word to be unveiled by the wit and wisdom of man.

It remains true that: 'the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God ... but the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned' (I Cor. 2:11&14). And in no part of the Bible's revelation is this more true than in the realm of time-measurement, or what is called Chronology.

The reason God has allowed this knowledge to be 'sealed up' is because it is now intended to throw a brilliant light upon world events in the 'the time of the end'(Daniel 12:4) - that is, in these latter years when He has been restoring the nation of Israel to its land.

The Church and the world did not need an accurate knowledge of history in relation to the purposes of God in the time of Luther or Wesley, but now that Israel's position in the Middle East is making 'Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people'(Zechariah 12:3) - on account of the attitude of Israel's Arab neighbours and their 'oil weapon' - it is another matter.

There is urgent need for all who are 'children of the light' to know about it when the Spirit of God throws light on obscure parts of His Word, but it is also certain that the 'powers of darkness' will make their heaviest assault on any revelation likely to establish the absolute veracity of the Holy Scriptures.