Zedekiah the glory departs, and Ezekiel 21 reveals the condition of things

that will obtain `until He come':

`And thou, profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when

iniquity shall have an end, thus saith the Lord God; Remove the diadem,

and take off the crown: this shall not be the same: exalt him that is

low, and abase him that is high.  I will overturn, overturn, overturn

it: and it shall be no more, until He come Whose right it is; and I

will give it Him' (21:25 -27).

`Until He come'; Gentile dominion obtains on the earth until the coming

of the Son of Man.  No interim `Kingdom' is to be found here.  Daniel's

prophecies are occupied with this period of overturning, of the exalting of

the base and abasing of the high.  `This shall not be the same', saith the

Lord, `this shall not be this', as the Hebrew reads, i.e. Nebuchadnezzar's

dominion and dynasty would not be a real continuance of the throne of David.

It would be in character rather a rule and dominion of wild beasts.  The

words, `it shall be no more, until He come', leave us in no doubt that the

throne thus vacated shall be occupied by none other than the Lord Jesus

Christ Himself.

The times of the Gentiles are characterized by one great feature,

marked by the Lord in Luke 21:24, `and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the

Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled'.  The kingdoms that

succeeded Babylon may have been larger or smaller, more powerful or weaker,

more autocratic or less so, but the one essential characteristic of Babylon,

Persia, Greece, Rome, Turkey and any succeeding mandatory power is the

Gentile domination of Jerusalem.  That is the great distinguishing feature,

and will only be removed when `He comes Whose right it is'.

We have, therefore, a period of time which fills the `gap' caused by

Israel's failure, which gap is filled by the dynasty started with

Nebuchadnezzar and which will persist until, in the Day of the Lord, `the

stone cut out without hands' strikes this colossus, and `the kingdoms of this

world become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ'.

It is characteristic of the times of the Gentiles that this Jerusalem

should be `trodden down'.  Those times will not end until Jerusalem is free

from the yoke of Gentile dominion, surveillance or protection.  Each

succeeding ruler of the Gentiles has dominated Jerusalem -- Babylon, Medo -

Persia, Greece, Rome, Turkey, the League of Nations, the British Mandate, the

United Nations, and so on to the last great Dictator and his ten subsequent

kings at the time of the end.

When Jerusalem is at length free, the times of the Gentiles will be

`fulfilled' (pleroo), and `the fulness (pleroma) of the Gentiles' will have

come (Luke 21:24; Rom. 11:25).  Immediately following this statement

concerning the times of the Gentiles, the epistle to the Romans goes on to

say `and so' or `thus' `all Israel shall be saved' (Rom. 11:26).  The `gap'

in the outworking of the Divine purpose in Israel is stressed in Romans 9 to

11, because of their failure, but a `remnant' shall be saved at the

beginning, for had the Lord not left them a `seed' they would have been like

Sodom and Gomorrah.  Throughout the period covered by the Acts, `all day

long' the Lord stretched out his hands `to a disobedient and gainsaying

people' (Rom. 10:21).  However low Israel may have fallen during this period,

the answer of God to Elijah has a parallel, `I have reserved to Myself seven

thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal' (Rom. 11:4).