5. The Nations of the Earth

In the previous chapter we noticed that God has definitely promised the land to His people the Jews. The Messiah shall there reign over them in Jerusalem and the Holy City shall be the centre of praise of the whole earth. By reason of their rejection of the Messiah when He came God has necessarily set them aside from His purpose for the time being, but Paul clearly teaches in his epistle to the Romans that they are to be grafted in again and that will be when they are reconciled to the Pierced One when He intervenes on their behalf on Mount Olivet. In the meantime, as Paul in the same chapter teaches, “through their fall salvation is come to the Gentiles.” 1 From the time that the Jew was set aside the apostles went forth to the Gentiles preaching the gospel of faith in Jesus Who died for them at Calvary, and so from both Jew and Gentile there was called out, and is still being called out, the company of the true church for which our Lord will come in the air. With this company, as we have seen, He will proceed to the earth when “every eye shall see Him” 2 in manifested glory. It will be a wonderful time for the church which is in glorious union and for Israel reconciled in a day to the Messiah once rejected. But what of those who have rejected Him? There are no loose ends in God’s purpose and from the moment that He comes He will deal with every condition of the human race. As certainly as He will be visible to every eye so every individual will be visible to Him. Our Lord has declared: “Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” 3 Jerusalem is not therefore for ever to be under the domination of the Gentile races. There will be a day when Jerusalem will be more independent than London! It will be the centre of an empire impregnable in a way that no empire in the world has ever been! The incredible is destined to be unveiled before the eyes of the world and the Gentile nations, now turning their backs on the Bible, have great need to know from its pages what God has declared concerning them. Woe betide the preacher in that great day who has hid from the Gentile nations the thing that God is going to do. What then is the testimony of the Scriptures?

First let us consider Daniel 2. Many Christians are very nervous of this prophecy. I remember a person being in our house one weekend. She was an Anglican, and as a faithful member of that communion she attended the parish church on the Sunday morning. Imagine my surprise on returning from our own service in the Baptist Chapel she greeted me with the assurance that a great load was taken off her mind. I really wondered what had happened. However, she explained that the rector had assured them that morning that they need not trouble themselves in the slightest about the book of Daniel. It was doubtful if such a person ever existed, and in any event the stories of the book were a collection of myths circulating around a mythical individual. She was intensely relieved. But supposing the rector was wrong? Supposing that when our Lord spoke of Daniel the prophet He was right? 4 And of the two who shall the ordinary Christian believe? Let us therefore take the book as we have it, and if we are wrong we shall be wrong with our Lord, and we shall certainly be in very good company. In this chapter from Daniel, then, we find the record of a dream which Nebuchadnezzar had dreamed. It troubled him very much because somehow he felt it was a significant dream and yet he was quite unable to recall even its salient features. Daniel alone was able to do this for him and he disclosed to him the content of the dream. The very fact that Daniel was able to do this made its own deep impression upon Nebuchadnezzar. He was conscious that in Daniel was a ministry of an exceptional kind. Nebuchadnezzar had seen an image of a man of gold, silver, brass and iron. Its feet were partly iron and partly clay. It represented what our Lord Himself called a period as “the times of the Gentiles.” Daniel, having, by divine revelation, come into possession of the content of the dream, we must believe that his interpretation was likewise of God. Hence he declared to Nebuchadnezzar: “thou art this head of gold.” 5 That is a clue right at the beginning which tells us how the image is to be understood. Are we wrong then in supposing that the four empires symbolised in the image were Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome? These are the empires which comprise the times of the Gentiles, times which, as a matter of history, began with Jerusalem being trodden down by Nebuchadnezzar, times which are to end, declares our Lord, with the liberation of Jerusalem. It shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, not for ever but “until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” That those times are not yet consummated is clear from the fact that Jerusalem is still under Gentile control. We are therefore living in a period which no historian has indicated in an history book, a time which no geologist has mentioned, but a time significantly named by our Lord Himself with all His authority as God manifested in the flesh, “the times of the Gentiles.” 6 You will notice the progressive inferiority of the metals in the image and finally the weakness of the mixture of iron and clay for these parts shall not cleave one to another.

It is at once interesting and important to notice, however, that Daniel also had a vision of these empires. He did not see them as Nebuchadnezzar saw them. To the latter the symbol of the image was most attractive. It is possible that a replica of the image of his dream was the object of worship in Daniel 3. To Daniel, however, these empires were seen under the imagery of wild beasts. Their description can be read in Daniel 7. The last of the four beasts was the cruellest of them all and the strongest. How differently the man of God saw these empires from the man of the world! This is God’s view of our boasted education, civilisation, evolution and culture. Only a few years ago there were even Christians who could see the undoubted onward progress of the race. They repudiated the gloomy outlook of the Second Adventists. But who is right? What is there at the heart of a nation like Germany when helpless Jews can be persecuted as Hitler is persecuting them today? We read that in these pogroms “women clapped their hands with glee” as they saw individual Jews being maltreated. Only the most ardent and purblind optimist would now have the audacity to speak of evolution and civilisation. If this is evolution what was the abysmal condition of the race in the first instance? It is surely a piece of sophistry for religious leaders today to be talking of all the good that is in the world. What have they to say in the name of God concerning the revealed condition of the human heart as we see it in Europe today? It certainly needs much more than improvement; nothing can save it but redemption through the blood of Christ into newness of life. It is important to notice, therefore, that Daniel saw the dominant spirit of these Gentile empires was the spirit of the beast. Is it not remarkable that after the lapse of all the centuries this is the spirit that characterises the nations to a degree which is absolutely indisputable? Some of these people who have recklessly declared to the common people that Daniel was not a prophet and indeed that he never existed may well turn the searchlight of their critical faculties upon their own message.

There was, however, another important feature in the dream of Nebuchadnezzar. The stone, cut without hands smote the image upon its feet that were of iron and clay and broke them in pieces. “Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver and the gold broken to pieces together and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floor and the wind carried them away that no place was found for them.” 7 The whole image collapsed by reason of the operation of the stone. We need to mark the fact most clearly and definitely because it will have a direct bearing on our service on our prayers and on our whole attitude to world issues. For want of seeing this truth time, money, energy are being wasted in the church of God. “No place was found for them.” This gigantic civilisation which has been built up with the heart of a beast, in cruelty and domination lust, greed, passion and plunder is destined to be swept right out of existence like chaff. God has no purpose in it. It is a man-made, God resisting creation conceived in the heart of man and reared in the deep spirit of human pride. It is something God is permitting and providentially overruling, but God has no purpose in it. The purpose of god is in the stone. Nobody reading this chapter in Daniel can reach any other conclusion. God is not working out His purpose through the stone and through the image, for the stone emerges to be the destroyer of the image. It is also clear that the stone is not produced out of the marvels of the image. The idea that the kingdom of God will naturally emerge out of the kingdoms of this world finds no countenance in this chapter. Our Lord declared: “My kingdom is not of this world,” 8 and yet clergy and ministers in high places persist in talking to the unsaved as if He had never said such thing. It matters not what sort of ordination one has had nor what eminence in a denomination a man may have reached, all these things are like the chaff of the threshing floor with God. These considerations give no authority to override the truth of the Word of God, and the truth there is that not only is His kingdom not of this world, but that it comes in and reaches its consummation by the destruction of the kingdoms of this world. It is also clear that the stone acts suddenly. The cutting out of the stone is a secret process, secret from the image, but when it strikes, it strikes suddenly. The stone will have in it all the power of God Himself! Let the reader observe and listen to the voices of thinking men and women. What is this continual murmur one hears that the next war will mean the end of our civilisation? It is a premonition of the carnal mind in the mercy of God. Whether the next war will end our civilisation or not I do not know, but this I know from the Word of God, there will be eventually a war the end of which will be the coming of the Lord in judgment upon this civilisation with the result that it will be no more. That is the inevitable end! The whole of God’s purpose is in the stone and not in the image. If, of course one deliberately elects to ignore the teaching of Scripture and to assert that this dead image has been inspired by the Holy Spirit and will emerge to fulfil the purpose of God, then one has completely travestied the simple teaching of this chapter and will spend a lifetime in work which is destined itself to be “burned up.”

Now these are far reaching conclusions and the reader may justly feel that they are so different from the testimony of the modern pulpit and so alien from the outlook of the people with whom he or she mixes daily that further reflection is necessary. Let us consider the teaching of Revelation 16. It may be that some will have difficulty in doing so, for it is a book which as a prophetic study is greatly discounted. In the opinion of many who think their speculations are worthy of being made dogmatic certainties this book was written to encourage Christians in time of crisis. That crisis has all passed and its value now remains in its inspiration to confidence in God and the glory of ultimate victory for any subsequent generation that may be tested out in like manner. And the people sitting in the pews believe it.

Yet what does the book itself say? “The revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave Him.” 9 With these words it opens; so that of all the books of the Bible this is unique in being a revelation from God the Father to His Beloved Son sharing His throne after ascension. “Blessed is he that readeth, and that they hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein; for the time is at hand.” 10 Hence we may expect great blessing in meditating upon the truths of its chapters, even though we may find things hard to be understood. This chapter 16 therefore may rightly claim our attention. Seven angels are commanded to go their ways and pour out the seven bowls of the wrath of God upon the earth. Nobody would suppose today from religious leaders that God was capable of wrath with Europe. Things may be difficult but God, so to speak, is immensely gratified with all the well meaning efforts that are being made, and statesmen and others may be quite sure that the ecclesiastical leaders are able to speak with absolute authority upon God’s feelings. How blind they are! “Seven bowls of the wrath of God.” Let the Christian believer spend time on his knees alone waiting upon God to know and to understand what this may mean, and does mean to the world. The fears that are reflected in ARP will fade into the mists. “Seven bowls of the wrath of God.” 11 God is determined one day to step right into the midst of human affairs in judgment. Man has been tried and found wanting. He is not only in sin but he is refusing God’s way out. How will this judgment reveal itself? John saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet. These unclean spirits are under the command of Satan, they are the spirits of demons and they go forth unto the kings of the whole earth to gather them to battle of the great day of God, the Almighty. Here is a gleam of light for the reader who is ready to take it. Why do the statesmen of the earth find it so hard to ensure peace? Dictators and democracies alike declare there is nothing they want more than peace, and yet conference after conference fails. What is the explanation? The dictators blame the democracies, the democracies blame the dictators. The nations that possess blame the dissatisfied nations that do not possess and these in their turn, the “have-nots” blame those that have. There is, of course, an element of truth in all this, for human nature itself is not easily entreated, but the child of God taught by the Spirit through the Word knows that there are also these evil spirits operating in world affairs as keenly resolved to push the nations into war for the destruction of the race as surely as they pushed the Jews into the awful crime of destroying the Son of God in Calvary. It was by wicked hands 12 that He was slain, hands energised by the spirits of wickedness. So too these powers of darkness, the rulers of this world, are resolved on the destruction of the race to pervert the purpose of God. They go into the whole world. In preparation for it we may expect a world to be bent on armaments, believing this to be the only line of safety. As a matter of fact, from a worldly point of view they are right. Abyssinia was as disarmed as any nation could well be but that did not save it. Armaments will be piled up as the only way to peace, and for a time it would seem they will be successful. That will be the time when the nations will say “Peace, peace,” 13 and rejoice that through this method of armed force, costly as it is, at least the lives of people are being preserved. That feeling will be well understood, for war is likely to prove the abyss for any nation that enters upon it. At the same time, these huge armaments are like matchwood as far as their power over the spirits of darkness is concerned and what the statesmen of the earth do not see, and what our religious leaders do not see or will not believe from their Bibles is that the dominant and determining factor in the world issues today are the unseen spirits of the supernatural world working in the affairs of men. Yet when they shall say, Peace, peace, then sudden destruction cometh upon them and they shall not escape. When armaments have been piled up as to make men frightened of war, then these evil spirits will gather them together for that which they have feared. It will be “sudden destruction,” the same swift end as was indicated by the stone that will strike the image.

Here then is a situation of the greatest importance. There are three great movements proceeding to a climax. There is a political movement in the completing of the image. There is the movement of the powers of darkness energising men for their own ends. There is the secret cutting out of the stone ready for the day when it shall strike the image. Those chapters in Zachariah to which reference was made in the previous study will help us again here. 14 It would appear that the Jew settling down in his own land will excite the interest and envy of the Gentile nations. For a time the Jew will be safe, but later he will find himself the cockpit of the nations once more. He will be the issue for the Gentile nations and some will support him and some oppose him. There will be great suffering for the Jew, the great tribulation to which our Lord bore testimony, and he will be delivered out of it by the appearing of our Lord on Mount Olivet. “Then shall the Lord go forth and fight against those nations as when He fought in the day of battle,” and in such a contest how feeble will be all the armaments of the nations. In Matthew 25 we have a very interesting parable in which our Lord describes Himself as a King upon a throne. Before Him are gathered all the nations, and strangely enough He does not deal with individuals but only with nations. They are divided as sheep from the goats. 15 Some enter into blessing and some into everlasting punishment. These nations are judged by their attitude to the Lord’s brethren. It may be legitimate to say that the Lord’s brethren are His believing and redeemed people, but I think it is more true to say that His brethren are His own race after the flesh, so that the Gentile nations will find themselves at the bar of the Lord Jesus Christ when He comes to Olivet judged for their treatment to the Jew. The issue will be “to Me” or “not to Me.” 16 How little the nations think today that in their treatment of the Jew the Lord in heaven is looking on and that vengeance belongs to God, for He will repay! 17

In the light of all this it is clear that the stone is the coming of the Lord. Truly He will be a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence. Read prayerfully I Peter, chapter 2, and notice the living stones built into the corner stone rejected of men, but precious. Out from the nations the Holy Spirit is calling a church which, when it is completed will be the stone for the destruction of all this man made civilisation that will not have God to rule over it. No man can fashion that stone but God is doing it. The world scoffs at the idea of being saved. It has no place for the blood and being born again, and yet did the world but know the greatest power the world has yet seen is being created formed and constituted by the Holy Spirit so that the Lord may receive the church to Himself for this very purpose of dealing with the nations. Many truths emerge out of this fact. The interests of the believer are entirely in the stone. Any reader of Scripture will see from looking at Revelation 18, verses 19 and 20 that in God’s purpose the interest of the true church of the redeemed and the world must always be absolutely opposed. The church under the leadership of its Living Lord is destined to be the instrument of the greatest revolution the world of men has ever known. Another truth is quite clear. Pictures of the saints’ retirement into heaven at death there to live in glorious ease and inactivity, except for singing, for evermore are completely dispelled. The saints are coming with Him to put an end to the bloodiest war in the experience of men to judge the nations and to inaugurate the reign of Jesus on the earth. It is clear that there will be plenty of work at the beginning! Finally, the path of service is well marked and defined. The child of God whose eyes are thus opened will see very clearly that the supreme duty of the hour is to evangelise the masses. Every effort of the Lord’s people should be devoted to this end that the Holy Spirit may have an instrument of testimony to use for the salvation of men and women. The need of the daily witness becomes supreme, the privilege of the mission field is lit up with an eternal glory, the ministry of the Sunday School teacher is given a new meaning and is seen to be of the greatest importance. Yet we are told that Second Adventism cuts the nerve of evangelistic enterprise. The sober fact is that it strengthens evangelistic enterprise as nothing else will or can.

Security is the question of the hour. In the recent crisis there was an advertisement in the press inviting people to proceed to the Bahamas “away from the turmoil of Europe.” It had an attractive appeal and no doubt some responded to it, but there is no escape from this issue. It is a judgment coming upon the whole world, and wherever you may travel this crisis of the Coming Christ will confront you. If they call upon the rocks to hide them from his face it will be futile; for He comes to deal with the whole race of men, and it is decreed that before Him every knee shall bow, 18 the knee of every intelligent being in the whole universe. Are you ready? Where are your interests today? Are they in the image, destined to be destroyed, or in the stone destined to destroy and then to found the kingdom of righteousness? You cannot be in both and you must be in one. Think it out, get away with God on your knees, ask Him to enable you to search the heart concerning the truth of these things and to lead you into His truth and then have the courage to stand in this little day, at all costs, for Him and for His purpose. The night is coming, coming as it seems, so swiftly. We need to rebuke the lethargy of our spirits, the tendency to sweep these things aside, the fear of seeming peculiar to others, so that this tremendous climax of the image and the stone towards which we are hastening may find us in Christ and with Christ, the servants of His purpose. 19

1

Romans chapter 11

2

Revelation 1:7

3

Luke 21:24

4

Matthew 24:15

5

Daniel 2:37-38

6

Luke 21:24

7

Daniel 2:35

8

John 18:35-36

9

Revelation 1:1

10

Revelation 1:3

11

Revelation 15:7

12

Acts 2:23

13

I Thessalonians 5:3

14

Zechariah 14:3-4 & 5b

15

Matthew 25:31-33

16

Zechariah 2:8-12

17

Romans 12: 19

18

Isaiah 45:22-25 and Romans 14:11

19

Ephesians 3: 10-11