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It is evident that Israel is passing: dominion is leaving them and is
being transferred for the time being to the Gentiles. This is emphasized by
such statements as Daniel 1:2: 'And the Lord gave ... into his hand', or
Jeremiah 25:1, 'The fourth year of Jehoiakim ... that was the first year of
Nebuchadnezzar'. The times of the Gentiles had therefore begun. And so with
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).
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. It would
be a dreadful parenthesis in the outworking of the Divine purpose. 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, and any 'kingdom' set up before the Lord returns must be
antichristian.
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'. (See The Times of
The Gentiles, and The Treading Down of Jerusalem, p. 101). 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, any mandatory power, and Israel's present
condition, is the Gentile humiliation of Jerusalem. That is the great
distinguishing feature, and will only be removed when 'He comes Whose right
it is'.
Warfare Great (Dan. 10:1 Revised Version)
The discovery of nuclear fission and the hydrogen bomb makes some
passages of Scripture more dreadfully real than earlier expositors have
dreamed. What awful weapon will the antichristian Beast possess that will
make all the world say, 'Who is able to make war with him?' (Rev. 13:4).
What is implied in the words, 'them which destroy the earth'? (Rev. 11:18).
What blasting horror will bring about the consumption indicated in Zechariah
14:12, and what decimation underlies the words, 'every one that is Left of
all the nations which came against Jerusalem'? (Zech. 14:16). The Midnight
Cry for April, 1956, tabulated a number of similar suggestive references
which we repeat here:
'Consuming heat (Mal. 4:1; Isa. 24:5,6),
fiery tempest (Psa. 11:6; Luke 17:28 -30),
universal shaking and mass destruction (Isa. 13:6 -9,13; 24:17 -20;
Hag. 2:6,7),