34 Times of the Gentiles

Times of the Gentiles

Hosea 3:3,4; Written at the end of the period of theocratic rulers just before the northern kingdom goes into captivity in Assyria. God communicates His love toward Israel and a time of forgiveness in the latter days. Yet for now, Israel refuses to repent and continues its spiritual decline in pagan worship of Baal. 
God tells Hosea to take a wife who is an adulteress and cause her to live with him without practicing her whoredoms as a sign of what God will be to the nation ‘for many days’. It was a prediction of Israel’s captivity under the authority of Gentile powers. For a time without a king, a temple or a priesthood. 
Luke 21:24; Jesus came to offer them an end of this period but upon their rejection of Him, He confirms the prophecy of Daniel of an undisclosed period of time that he calls the times of the Gentiles. 

Mosaic covenant
The law was given to show the nation to be different from other nations.

1. God alone would be their king
2. God was to choose who would be the earthly king ruling from the promised land.
3. The king was not to multiply wives, horses or riches.
4. The king’s throne was to be subject to heavenly throne of God 
1. Unlike pagan kings who claimed to be god. 
2. The pagan kings/rulers were/are puppets of Satan.
5. The nation of Israel alone was designated by God to be a kingdom of priests.
1. This designated them as mediators between God and the other nations
2. The Shekinah glory/presence of God set them apart from every other nation. 

Israel’s judgments
Theocratic Administrators: 860 years of presence in the land conditioned upon obedience to the Mosaic covenant. 
Kingdom Summary: Divided Kingdom

Kingdom Summary: Times of the Gentiles: This period begins with the captivity of Israel and it continues until the end of the church age. In our study of the Kingdom, it is important to see how the Spirit of God describes this time through the prophets beginning with Daniel and ending with the Lord Jesus Himself. 
* It is during the times of discipline that God uses His prophets in the OT to describe the coming kingdom. As we look at this description, we will see some details that set it apart as a time unlike any time since Eden.
On a map of the Assyrian Empire we see that its expansion in 720 B.C. extended into Israel. Then expanded too far into Egypt.

Ezekiel prophecies in the same period of Babylonian captivity as Daniel. In 24 chapters, Ezekiel describes in great detail, the case that God has against the nation causing her to be brought into captivity. He gave the description for the Shekinah glory to leave and for the office of Theocratic administration to be suspended. In the last 15 chapters, a detailed prediction is made for the future return of God’s glory to the temple. This will happen when they finally receive Jesus as Messiah.

1 Peter 1:10-11 The important role of prophecy is given to us. The world becomes a very dark place when the Lord’s Word is ignored and His presence is unwelcome. 

As individuals and as a church, we sometimes find ourselves in a very dark place when our sin nature pushes God away. It begins in subtle ways when we become self reliant and presume upon God’s grace. 
As we adapt to the dark ignorance of grace, we come to believe that ‘We are the way, the truth and the life…” so we become more legalistic and find a cloak for our sin.  As we adapt to the the darkness, the darkness intensifies and we become more demanding and suspicious of one another. The apostle James reminds us that wars with one another come from our lusting hearts. So God uses darkness to discipline us and look to Him for some light and hope in that dark place. So, He speaks to us through a prophetic word. The prophetic purpose is to be a light shining in a dark place pointing to God’s promises that are yet to be fulfilled.
Peter is saying that even more sure of his eyewitness testimony is the prophetic word that the Holy Spirit has provided. Our hope is in the clear picture of the coming kingdom that the prophets provide for us.

Luke 10:24 records the Lord’s word to us regarding the church’s unique position in world history. With the advantage of hindsight we see how God’s Word is perfectly fulfilled in the person of Christ. This is how the church can be the light of the world, pointing to Christ in His coming kingdom.

This (handout) timeline of the OT prophets is a useful tool to understanding the times in which these prophets spoke. 
The OT prophets describe the Kingdom Characteristic We learn from these prophets what the Kingdom will be like…

As is often pointed out, the prophets saw only the mountain tops of prophecy and they themselves wondered at the word that they were given to speak. 

Isaiah’s prophecy was given after Assyria took Israel captive but before Judah falls. In Isa. 9:6 He predicts the coming Messiah that will be both rejected and received as King. The words must have been particularly vexing to Isaiah. It is amazing to me how the Spirit of God can reveal God’s purposes over many centuries in a few verses.

Hebrew poetry is done in parallelisms. They can be completive parallels, where one phrase completes another (e.g. 53:7; He is taken as a lamb to the slaughter….) or they can be contrastive parallels such as we have here.
We are familiar with this passage, often repeating it during the Christmas season but look at the mystery that it presented to Isaiah that we now understand today as fulfilled in Jesus Christ…

Daniel is the first of the prophets to begin that period that the Lord calls ‘the times of the Gentiles”. It is defined as a period where there is no Shekinah glory. The land, the temple and the rulers are placed under Gentile authority. As we know, Daniel was taken captive to Babylon as a boy and given a new name. He and his companions were being trained to serve in the palace of the king of Babylon. 

One night the king has a dream that he wants to know what it means. His wizards could not tell him what the dream was or what it meant so they were all going to be put to death, including Daniel and his companions.

Daniel calls upon the Lord in prayer and fasting and he is told the dream and its interpretation. He shares this with the king and the wise men of Babylon are spared. 

Daniel’s prophetic utterances were recorded alongside of the ancient prophecies of Balak. Future wise men from Babylon would learn from these writings that a star shall come out of Jacob and a sceptre arise from Israel. That king will establish an unshakeable kingdom. They would be led to follow a star to Israel where they would meet and worship He who is born King of kings

In this dream, King Nebuchadnezzar is given a vision of a statue made of metals of decreasing value and 

utility. They describe each successive empire that God will use to rule over His people until a smiting stone from heaven falls to crush the feet of the image and cause the image to turn to dust and blow away. 

Daniel describes that smiting stone as growing larger until it fills the whole earth. We understand that stone to be Christ Himself when He comes in His Kingdom to rule and reign over the whole earth.

Six empires are predicted in Daniels vision.

Daniel has other visions of the same four kingdoms. In Ch. 2 it is from the perspective of the Gentiles but in chapter 7 it is from the perspective of the captive Jews that these empires appear as ferocious beasts.
Babylon represented by the ferocity and swiftness of the lion; 
Persia represented by the brute force and power of the bear overcoming the lion; 
Greece overcomes the bear with the leopard like swiftness of Alexander the Greats conquests; Daniel ch. 8 predicts this great conflict as like a battle between a ram and a goat. At his death, the empire was divided between his generals with two gaining the preeminence (Ptolemy and Seleucid)
Rome follows with its iron rule to subjugate and unify the peoples of the Mediterranean Europe and Africa, ultimately dividing itself between two capitals (Rome and Constantinople). 
The feet and toes part of iron and part of clay represent the final form of oppressive Gentile power over the whole earth with ten kingdoms under the authority of antichrist.
That short lived empire will be crushed at the return of Christ to the earth.
Merril Unger; the fallacy of trying to find fulfillment of these prophecies in the church.
Takeaways:

1. Israel is under the discipline of judicial blindness from the time of their Babylonian captivity until Christ returns to establish His kingdom, ruling the whole earth from Jerusalem.
2. Believers are brought under judicial blindness when we become self reliant and used to the darkness.
3. If the church is to be as a light shining in a dark place, we must not continue in darkness about the prophets predictions for Israel, confusing them with God’s plan and purpose for the church.

As we begin to explore how the OT prophets describe the kingdom, we should also consider briefly the Royal Psalms that also speak prophetically of the coming reign of Messiah. I encourage you to read through these psalms. In particular we are going to look at Ps 110 as a sample of these prophetic royal psalms.
Dwight Pentecost: Daniels prophecy is yet future

 

Psalm	Author	Royal Topic
Psalm 2	David	King’s coronation
Psalm 18	David	King’s battle victory
Psalm 20	David	Prayer for king for battle victory
Psalm 21	David	Praise by king for battle victory
Psalm 45	Sons of Korah	King’s wedding
Psalm 72	Solomon	Prayer for the King’s dominion
Psalm 89	Ethan the Ezrahite	Davidic covenant
Psalm 101	David	King’s charter
Psalm 110	David	Priestly kingdom
Psalm 132	David	Place of the King’s Throne