PICKING UP AGAIN IN THE PROPHETIC WORD OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IN SEEING FROM THE BEGINNING WHAT IS BEING PREDICTED AND FORESHADOWED ABOUT THE END TIMES. 

Earlier in this chapter we began to lay some of the typical prophetic events and Words over New Testament prophetic understanding, with a primary view towards that Great End Times’ revealing Book of Revelation. It is a Book that is impossible to interpret correctly without a very good understanding of the Old Testament, as they are intricately tied together.  Anyone who attempts to give exegesis of Bible Prophecy must be able to show the harmonious connection throughout Scripture, from the beginning till the end, connecting the dots, without wresting, leaving out, or over– spiritualizing Scriptures. Seeing that it is Written by One Author, the Spirit of God, He most certainly has laid Prophecy out for us in discernable continuity. He has tied the MAJOR AND MINOR Prophetic Words of the Old Testament to the Prophetic Words of the New Testament. We should realize that almost all unfulfilled Prophecy in the Old Testament has to do with the End Times, and the Second Coming of the Messiah. 

Having begun in Genesis, and advancing to the Psalms, we briefly have laid some ground work as to how the Old Testament Prophecies in the Torah, along with its emblematic types in progressive fulfillment, speak to the End Times of the Book of Revelation.  

The primary subject of the Old Testament is the historical dealings of God with the seed of Abraham. So it is that we trace the History of that seed through Isaac to Jacob and his 12 sons into Egypt where they multiplied into a vast number of people, who become greatly oppressed. God then marvelously Redeemed those people out of Egypt, having entered into Covenant, and were established as the separated unto God Nation of Israel in the land of Canaan, as a theocracy (a system of government in which priests are to rule in the name of God) with prophets. 

“And Moses went up unto God, and the Lord called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel; Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.)”[Exodus 19:3-6] 

But in the course of time, the Nation of Israelites persisted in having a king to rule over them, against God’s warnings through the prophet Samuel, who finally was instructed to grant them their desire. Samuel then anointed Saul to be the first king, followed by David and then Solomon. The Nation then no longer being a theocracy, but a Nation with a king and priests and prophets.  

This Old Covenant ordination set the Nation apart granting a special “authority” or power to rule in the Earth. Perhaps we could say, “the times of the early Church” as opposed to “the times of the Gentiles” that was to follow. To this Calling, both Moses, and Paul on Mars hill, point back to Babel (Babylon) where God confounded then the one language and appointed and scattered all the Nations, but had determined to reserve especially unto Himself the future people of “Israel”. They were to come from the line of Adam’s son Seth (notably meaning: appointed/substitute) and then eventually to Abraham, Isaac, and  Jacob (Israel) through Noah’s son; Shem. “So the Lord scattered them (those who would make up the Nations) abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.” [Genesis 11:8] 

And Paul has this same event in view…. 

“And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.…” [Acts 17:26] And again with Moses’ Words: “When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the Lord’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.” [Deuteronomy 32:8-9] 

So up until when King Solomon died, the 12 Tribes (and Levites) were one kingdom. After Solomon’s death, the 12 Tribes were split into two distinct kingdoms as was previously prophesied. (See 1 Kings 11:29-37) The Northern 10 Tribes were to be known as Samaria or Israel and the 2 Tribes of Judah and Benjamin, retaining Jerusalem in the Southern Kingdom, were to be known as the kingdom of Judah. 

Although the Nation had been rent into two in about 922 B.C., Scripture records that God continued for nearly 200 years to warn both of them by His prophets. “Yet the Lord testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, and by all the seers, saying , Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statuettes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets.” [2 Kings 17:13] During which time the first of the “Major” Prophets, Isaiah, began his 50 plus years of  ministry unto “..Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.” [Isaiah 1:1] The Book of Isaiah being where we draw much light on End Times prophecy from. 

So God continued to discipline the two kingdoms, and kept His hedge of separation around His Covenant people. That is to the degree of allowing them both to maintain that appointed independence from the Gentile Nations. Until about 722 B.C. when God began to withdraw the light of His Countenance (as that light was fully withdrawn upon the rejection of the Messiah some 750 years later) when Assyria overcomes and carries off many of the Northern 10 Tribes into captivity, and relocates many Assyrians into the Northern parts of the Promised Land. The Israelites thereby were scattered all over the Middle East, and over time lost their identities and are referred to as the lost 10 Tribes of Israel, unto today. Leaving then only Judah with Jerusalem in the Land of Canaan as God’s representative Covenant people for about 130 more years.   

Now the Nation of Assyria was declining and Babylon ascending. Starting in about 605 and continuing until 586, the King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, defeats and finally destroys Jerusalem as Jeremiah had prophesied. Over those years, Daniel and Ezekiel, among many others, would be carried off into exile, and became two mighty Prophets of God.  

And so it is that the “Prophets” of the Old Testament are raised up over hundreds of years, continuing in and expounding upon what God had already laid out in the “Torah” through the prophet Moses in the first 5 Books of the Bible. Wherein we discover how God, from the beginning, will deal with the three groups of human beings over the entire history of the Earth; Gentiles, Jews/Israelites and Christians. 

The spiritual dynamic of Isaiah’s proclaimed message of darkness, after years of chastising Judah and Israel, is laid out for us here, in the history of the Nation. And it is what Paul explains to the Gentiles, who find themselves in the favor of God in his time, when he writes in the Book of Romans chapters 10 & 11L “….But Isaiah is very bold, and saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people. I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away his people which he foreknew.…I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles.…For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part (that began in the message and day of Isaiah, that blindness still present in Paul’s day, and continues unto today) is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. (come into Church Covenant Acts 15:14) And so (afterwards) all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, (the Second Coming of Jesus Christ Isaiah 59:20) and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. [Zechariah 13:1]   

This, what you Gentiles are experiencing, is the loss of Covenant favor and authority in the earth by the Nation of Israelites, and is tied to God’s goodness in extending His Covenant unto the “fullness of the Gentiles are brought in”. [Romans 11:25] The  meaning of these words of Paul should not be confused with Jesus Christ’s Words in Luke 21, “And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.  

But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. (The times of the Gentiles with authority in the Earth, which started with Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of Jerusalem and Judah’s exile, now is finished/over, at which time Jesus goes on to declare He will Return.)  

“And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.” [Luke 21:25-28] (These Words having in view the redemption and the restoration of the Nation of Israel.) 

A key to Prophetic understanding has to do with first recognizing and then defining those respective dealings. That is to say; to see in the prophetic writings, God’s separate dealings with the Nation of Jews, with the Nation of the New Man/Christians, and with the Nations of the Gentiles (especially in those End Time Days just preceding His Return) in the purposes, and the order and by the means  which God has prescribed.  

It is in the Book of Daniel, a great prophet in captivity in Babylon, wherein God answers the questions of the sincere seeker about the meanings of the cutting off of the “natural branches” (from the Covenant Promises of Abraham). And in so doing, He has taken away their appointed place as His intermediaries in the Earth, and now establishes King Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon as the first in a succession of 4 Beast–like Gentile kingdoms to rule in the Earth. At the end of which He promises to reestablish Israel in a Messianic New Covenant with preeminence in the Earth,  thereby defining for us the meaning and timing of the Last Days. 

THE PERPLEXED PROPHET DANIEL 

Just before Nebuchadnezzar came to Israel the first time, Jeremiah prophesied in Jeremiah 25:8-14 of the impending judgment of God, the destruction and captivity of Jerusalem and Judah, and that as Judgment and for a declared set time of 70 years, He would at some time after that visit them again. (Jeremiah 29:10-14) And at the close of that 70 year period, the Babylonians would be punished and the nation destroyed. However, God does not speak to the exact time of that restoration of the people in Jeremiah.  

And so it was that the Chaldean Nation fell in the first year of Darius the Mede. Daniel, having been promoted to Prime Minister, was naturally perplexed as to the meanings of the Visions he had been given previously, and the connection with the Words of Jeremiah as it relates to the Nation of Israel’s captivity of 70 years and then restoration. He was perplexed in that it was Written that there was to be the revival of the heart of the people in prayerful wholehearted seeking and a great gathering of the Jewish people restored from all the Gentile Nations. He was also perplexed about the clear Words of Prophecy given unto him during that time of Babylon’s and king Nebuchadnezzar’s World dominance, in which God had given him a vision of a Metallic Statue. The understanding had been supernaturally given to Daniel that the Golden Head would give way to 3 future kingdom dynasties, of which the last must run through multiple phases. And this being sure, how is it that these prophecies are compatible? In that it had been now about 69 years, and Daniel perceived there was no revival in the hearts of the people and that only 2 of the 4 Gentile kingdom dynasties revealed had been introduced and only one had run its course? So setting this aside, in his sincere desire to see the Nation restored and the people forgiven, this holy man earnestly prayed as Jeremiah foresaw God’s people doing. 

NOW in answer to his prayers, the Angel Gabriel appears in the 9th chapter to give him skill and understanding and to reveal the purposes of God to him. Until he received this understanding, he could not understand his own visions that he had previously received. After he had received the visions of the 4 Wild Beast kingdoms and their destruction and the passing of their dominion, finally and forever, into the Kingdom of the Messiah, he wrote: “As for me Daniel, my cogitations much troubled me, and my countenance changed in me; but I kept the matter in my heart.” [Daniel 7:28] And after the vision of the 8th chapter, “And I Daniel fainted, and was sick certain days….and I was astonished at the vision, but none understood it.” [Daniel 8:27] 

So it is in the 9th Chapter of Daniel we shall find the Words of Prophecy that all other Prophecy in the Bible hinge upon, the keys to these future dealings with the 3 groups of peoples upon the Earth, leading up to the Second Coming of the Messiah, which are revealed to Daniel in these few verses in the future of Israel. 

Gabriel says; “At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to show thee; for thou art greatly beloved: therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision. Seventy (7 year) weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off (Crucified), but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood (the overflowing of God’s Wrath), and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he (the prince that shall come) shall confirm the covenant with many (majority of the Jewish people) for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.” [Daniel 9:23-27] 

The message from Gabriel is effectively that the 70 years of judgment pronounced by Jeremiah will not suffice to the fullest of God’s intent. And that after that 70 years, another 7 times 70 years must be accomplished (possibly an allusion to the 26th chapter of Leviticus). The 490 years determined out of the “times of the Gentiles” to accomplish these 6 purposes of God in the Nation of Israel are:  

1) to shut up the transgressions (that is to arrest and restrain it, that it no longer may spread).  

2) to seal up sins (to shut up in prison or seal as possibly seen in Revelation 20:3). 

3)  to cover iniquity (by Atonement). Now these first 3 finding fulfillment in the Last Days leading up to and including Christ’s Second Coming, after which the last 3 are filled up with meaning. 

4) to bring in everlasting righteousness (now that transgression and sin have been sealed up, the New Covenant is established, which is the writing of the Word upon their hearts. Jeremiah 31:33) 

5) to seal up vision and prophet (prophesy having appeared due to sin, and now sin having been put away, there is no need for prophet or prophecy).  

6) to anoint the Most Holy of holies (having in view Ezekiel’s Millennial Temple, that which will be built after the Second Coming of Christ).    

These last 3 workings having to do with the establishing of Israel after the long awaited “490” years, in the Earthly Millennial Kingdom of Christ in the Earth.  

These 6 workings then will be the result of God’s long dealings with Israel, those dealings currently being exercised and which will be greatly heightened according to Prophecies unto the Last Days. That 70th week of Daniel suspended, being that last 7 year period before Jesus Christ’s Return and then His calling and restoring of all the Tribes as in predicted in Ezekiel’s prophesied two sticks coming together. “For Judah and his companions and Ephraim and for all the house of Israel his companions; and join them one to another into one stick…And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all: Neither shall they defile themselves any more….so shall they be my people, and I will be their God. And David my servant shall be king over them…My Tabernacle also shall be with them, yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people…” [Ezekiel 37:15-27] This prophetic Word which Revelation 21:3-5 finally fills completely up with meaning (as we have explained before in a previous chapter). 

So it is that Israel, according to Daniel’s Words of Chapter 9 in conjunction with those of Chapter 7:27…. “And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of  the most High (Places), whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.” His Kingdom will be established forever in the New Heavens and New Earth. And so it is that Prophecy, as it relates to the Israelites, has to do with the earth. And therefore most of Old Testament Prophecy has to do with Israel’s future earthly inheritance. 

Whereas the New Testament Church members are called to a glorious inheritance in the heavenly realm.. Hebrews 3:1 says, “Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling….” Now it is necessary here to expand from the ongoing dealings of God with Israel in the Earthly fulfillment of Prophecy, and now comprehend the grafting into that part of Abraham’s blessing, that of the promises and fulfillment of the inheritance in the heavenly realm through the Nation of the New Man in Jesus Christ, that other SEED. And that by continuing to give a detailed overview of Israel’s coming earthly inheritance so that the dealings with Christ’s followers in that heavenly calling may be more clearly discerned… “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples (types): and they are written for our admonition, (those with a heavenly calling) upon whom the ends of the world are come.” 

(Possibly do another time line that shows the Age of Righteousness. And on the prophets chart, show the 2000 years before Abraham and the 2000 years unto Christ, and the 2000 yrs/ the 3rd day unto now, with the 7000 year of Rest following.)