Introduction

On 30th August 1970, at a large Sunday evening gathering which my wife and I were attending in the USA, an incisive prophecy stilled the congregation. It ran as follows:

'I will send thee forth, and you will see where I will send thee; by a way, and for a purpose thou hast not conceived. For I am with thee, and thou shalt know this because I shall show it to thee very clearly.

'I will cause thee to meet those whom thou hast never met, and come in contact with those whom thou hast never heard. They shall tell thee, even as the people told King Saul before he became king, where the asses were. Therefore, be on the alert .. and seek .. and know .. and follow .. and I will show thee. 'The things that are hidden must be brought to light. Things that have not been discerned must be revealed. And it is in the power of thy hand to do it, saith the Lord.'

As the speaker, a well-known Bible expositor, ended the prophecy, he added, 'This is for someone in the meeting, and not for all. The person will know for whom it is. Be like Mary, and ponder these things in your heart. This is the word of the Lord. When I started to speak I had not the faintest idea what the Lord was going to say.'

When the meeting ended, a lady threaded her way across the room to my side. 'That was for you,' she emphasised. I thanked her for the confirmation of what I already knew in my heart that the Lord had spoken with reference to a matter which for many years had been deeply hidden, and the very nature of which was that it had to be written, and not spoken - hence the closing phrase, 'it is in the power of thy hand to do it.'

All who have had any acquaintance with the movement of the Holy Spirit of God in recent years will know that there are occasions when the Lord speaks by means of prophecy for the specific purpose of revealing His mind to one or more of His children - in the same way, no doubt, as was common practice when the New Testament was written. The restoration of charismatic 'gifts' has been experienced by so many thousands of believers in Jesus by now that it has almost ceased to be a noteworthy phenomenon among the people of God.

Hundreds of books and articles have appeared in the past decade, telling of the wonderful works of God in healing sick minds and bodies, in deliverance from bondages of many kinds, with the consequent changing of lives, often from near despair to radiance and restored usefulness to God and man. Surely, it is difficult to ignore the fact today that God is moving by His Spirit, moving through all the earth. However, the question has been raised: Is there much which is still hidden - matters, perhaps, to do with 'the deep and secret things' (Daniel 2:22) and the purposes of the Almighty - about which He, in love, would now have His children to know?

The part of the interpretation about 'the asses' had at once alerted the writer to realise that God was referring in a veiled way to certain of His children who would not only seek to enter into 'the understanding of the times' - like the men of Issachar in I Chronicles 12: 32, the tribe likened, in Genesis 49: 14, to 'a strong ass' - but would also, as true disciples of the Master, bear the burden of opening their homes to us while our stay lasted in the United States. So it was wonderful shortly after this to be led to find Christian families who, for the following year or more, were to take a deep interest in our work and minister to our every need while most of the writing was being completed. The Spirit's leading was perfect, and before we left Florida in November 1971 we found that God had borne witness with several that a new revelation to do with time in the life of Jesus had, indeed, been made available to men which would eventually uncover all those priceless secrets 'concerning Himself' (Luke 24:27) which have been lost over the past centuries.

The story to be told relates to figures, numbers, dates and years. After all, it is the story of time - God's perfect patterning of time at the beginning of things in Genesis, and time now at the end of things, when no one can peer ahead into the future with any certainty. Time embraces all history, all the works of God and all the doings of men and, as we are told, twenty-eight times in Ecclesiastes 3, there is 'a time' for every purpose under heaven. Small wonder then if God should in the end require the perfect timing of His works to become known with absolute accuracy - for by this means He can reveal to our present needy generation how vast has been His patience and His mercy to the race of Adam, and at the same time how certain His acts of retribution upon those who fail to fear His Name, and do despite to the Spirit of grace.

Above all, He can now reveal Jesus - not the Jesus of the world's distorted imagination - Jesus 'the song of the drunkards' (Psalm 69:12) - but His Own Son, the One Who, 'after six days' took His disciples up into a high mountain apart, 'and was transfigured before them.' This is the One Whom the Father would for a brief moment unveil, so that His present-day disciples might awaken and 'see His glory.' Then, the three on the mount overheard Jesus conversing with the representatives of the Law and the Prophets - Moses and Elijah - concerning His coming 'exodus', which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now, however, the same Blessed One has much to reveal from the Scriptures concerning the forthcoming exodus of 'the Church, which is His body' - a church which He still finds 'heavy with sleep', as He did the disciples on the Mount. (See Matthew 17: l-8 and Luke 9: 28-35).

Let it be said at the start that these findings are not the work of one man, but of several called of God to study these things. However, the writer has found it necessary to obey the word of the Lord, as quoted at the beginning of this Introduction, and to attempt to produce at least a bare outline of 'the things' which hitherto 'have not been discerned.' This 'bare outline,' is in fact, what has always been missing from the multitudinous efforts to delineate the true history of the past six thousand years, for it is the 'outline' which reveals 'the pattern' of God's own handiwork in His plan of the ages.

But in the scope of a few pages - all that a busy world has time for in the present day - 'a bare outline' is all that can be attempted, and the words of Habakkuk 2:1-3 appear to suggest only a very limited unfolding of an absolutely limitless subject. 'Write the vision, make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it' - this could hardly apply to an encyclopaedia! But an outline which on the surface, can be seen to bear the hall-mark of being undeniably of Divine design will demand the close attention of all who revere the Word of the Living God.

Therefore, I do ask that any faults and failings due to an inexperienced writer be overlooked in favour of the facts about to be uncovered. One soon forgets the archaeologist's workmen when surveying the ancient structures their picks have brought to light. 'At last,' we say, 'we have the truth, covered up as it has been with centuries of debris and the later building of men. Now we can see the foundations that were originally laid.'