in heaven the foreknown day, when He shall ascend the throne so long denied

Him.  Why was it essential that the number twelve should be completed upon

the defection of Judas?  The answer is, that if Israel had repented as they

were called upon to do, there must have been twelve apostles ready to sit

upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.  It would have been

useless to have argued, that inasmuch as God foreknew that Israel would not

repent that He could disregard the fact that there were only eleven apostles

just before the day of Pentecost.

In the ordinary way, a man is himself, whether other folk are willing

to accept him or not -- but John the Baptist was no ordinary man, and so the

Saviour said, 'If ye are willing to receive (it, or him), this is Elijah, the

one about to come'; but the people were not thus willing, and instead of

'receiving' they rejected the gospel of the kingdom.  In the same way we can

say, if Israel had repented, then Rome would have been the last Gentile

kingdom on the earth, Antichrist would have arisen, the Beast would have

received Satanic power, the whole of Joel 2:28 -31 would have been fulfilled

instead of only the prelude at Pentecost, the day of the Lord as depicted in

the Revelation would have run straight on without a break, the Second Coming

of Christ would have taken place, and the times of restitution of all things

would have come in.

Instead, a gap of about nineteen hundred years intervenes between Joel

2:28,29 and verses 30 and 31; in the same way a gap intervenes in prophetic

details which corresponds with the discontinuance of the hope of Israel at

Acts 28, until prophetic times are renewed at the time of the end.  Up to

Acts 28, Rome was still the world power in direct succession from

Nebuchadnezzar, it was to Caesar that Paul was sent for trial and under

Caesar he finally paid the extreme penalty for his faithfulness.  A few years

after Acts 28, Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed and Israel became Lo -

ammi, 'not my people', their house left desolate, and their hope suspended.

Upon the defection of Israel in the land, the kingdom of the heavens had

assumed its 'mystery' form (Matt. 13); upon the defection of Israel at Rome,

the long suffering of God which had waited for another thirty -five years,

came to an end, 'the Mystery' of the present dispensation came in, the

mystery of Israel's blindness also ensued, and Gentile dominion, while still

functioning, is covered by a cloud, and mystery intervenes, for the

dispensation of the Mystery has no place in it for Gentile powers.

We know from secular history that from the battle of Actium, 31 b.c.,

to the Saracen conquest, a.d. 636, Rome trod down Jerusalem for a period of

666 years -- no accidental number.  The Mahometan power continued this

affliction right up to our own times, when Jerusalem was delivered from its

oppression in November 1917.  Since then Israel has been accepted once again

as a nation by the nations though not yet by their God, and the image of

Daniel 2 is emerging from the mist, the iron legs now being seen as feet in

the Middle East, which will be eventually intermingled with clay.  It is this

final aspect of Gentile dominion with which we are chiefly concerned, and

which is shaping before our very eyes.

In Daniel 7, the first year of the last king of Babylon, Daniel had a

vision of the time of the end.  As a consequence of the stirring of the four

winds upon the great sea, four beasts were seen to emerge, they 'came up from

the sea' (Dan. 7:2,3).  'The great sea' is a title given in the Old Testament

to the Mediterranean Sea (Num. 34:6,7; Josh. 1:4); it is sometimes called

'the uttermost sea' (Deut. 11:24).  In the interpretation of this vision,

these four beasts are said to arise out of the earth.  So the geographical