An Alphabetical Analysis
Volume 8 - Prophetic Truth - Page 272 of 304
INDEX
A number of like passages would occur to any well taught reader of the
Old Testament such as the apostles were, and until the reader is in
possession of at least some of these passages, he cannot be competent to
judge the matter of the rightness of the question in Acts 1:6.  Coupled with
this let us remember that He Who opened up the Scriptures during those forty
days, at the same time 'opened their understanding'.  In the face of such a
comprehensive statement is it possible to maintain that prejudice and
ignorance prompted the question of Acts 1:6?
Isaiah's prophecy divides into two great sections: the first, chapters
1 to 39, deals mainly with Israel's rejection; the second, chapters 40 to 66,
deals with Israel's restoration.  This second section opens with the words:
'Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your God.  Speak ye
comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is
accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned' (Isa. 40:1,2).
This prophecy of restoration makes immediate reference to 'the voice of
him that crieth in the wilderness'.  The apostles would know the close
connection between John the Baptist and this prophecy, hence their pertinent
question in Acts 1:6.  Isaiah 43 contains the promise:
'I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west; I
will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring
My sons from far, and My daughters from the ends of the earth' (Isa.
43:5,6).
Jeremiah, too, is a prophet of rejection and restoration.
First the
Lord declares that He will:
'watch over His word to perform it' (1:12 author's translation) (which
word, here, was a word of judgment and wrath).
In Jeremiah 31:28 the Lord says:
'And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them, to
pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to
afflict; so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the
Lord'.
These words refer to Israel as a nation, and not to 'a church' as
verses 35 and 36 bear testimony:
' ... If those ordinances depart from before Me, saith the Lord, then
the seed of Israel also shall cease from being A Nation before Me for
ever' (Jer. 31:36).
'Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will perform that good
thing which I have promised unto the house of Israel and to the house
of Judah ... David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the
house of Israel ... if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven
and earth; then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David My
servant, so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the
seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will cause their captivity to
return, and have mercy on them' (Jer. 33:14-26).