prevents us from ever believing that the kingdom of heaven will come upon earth as a

result of Gentile rule; rather are we clearly told that Gentile rule must be ground to

powder before the kingdom of the Lord can be set up.

Let us now seek the key to the understanding of the unexplained portions of the

image. First we will examine what is clearly revealed. Babylon was succeeded by

Medo-Persia, Medo-Persia by Greece, and Greece by some kingdom unnamed. Babylon

passed off the scene, but the kingdom of Persia has remained to this day, and so has

Greece. This leads us to our first point. It is not a necessity that the dispossessed

kingdom should be either destroyed or absorbed by its successor, and therefore the idea

that Rome is still existing in a weakened condition, and that the ten kings at the end must

be found in the Roman earth is, on this ground, without foundation. Some other principle

is at work and must be discovered.

We devoted the second article of this series to the question of the "Times of the

Gentiles", and we there showed that these were characterized by one essential feature,

indicated by the Lord in Luke 21: 24: "And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the

Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." Here is the essential prophetic

character of the times of the Gentiles. Babylon dominated Jerusalem, and every power

that has succeeded to the control of Jerusalem has taken its place in the image of Dan. 2:

Does Rome take its place according to this canon of interpretation? Who was it that sent

out a decree that all the inhabited earth should be taxed, and so unwittingly compelled the

birth of the Lord Jesus to take place at Bethlehem? It was Caesar Augustus (Luke 2: 1).

Who was exercising dominion over Jerusalem when John the Baptist pointed out the

Messiah of Israel? The answer is Tiberius Caesar (Luke 3: 1). Who was Governor of

Jerusalem, with the power of life and death, when the Lord Jesus was crucified? Again,

it was a Roman, Pontius Pilate (Luke 23:). To whom did the Jewish nation pay tribute

at this time? To none but Caesar (Luke 23: 2). It is, then, very evident that the Roman

Empire is in the line of Gentile succession, and if historians are true and Rome's

sovereignty over the earth lasted for the space of 666 years, we may, in its typical

character, find food for further thought.

This brings us to another important point. Believers in the Word of God are as certain

that God knew the rise and fall of Rome as that He knew the rise and fall of Babylon or

Persia. Why did He not definitely name Rome as he had Persia and Greece? For the

self-same reason that, in O.T. prophecy, He veiled the rejection of Christ by Israel, the

ensuing long interval between the "suffering" and the "glory" and the "times and the

seasons" of Israel's restoration.

The principle is brought out in Matt. 11: 14: "If ye will receive it, this is Elias, which

was for to come." Now John the Baptist declared most emphatically that he was not

Elias (John 1: 21). The Lord declared that Elias must first come and restore all things, as

Malachi had already prophesied (Matt. 17: 11, Mal. 4: 5, 6), and that this should

herald the great and dreadful day of the Lord. At the birth of John the Baptist it was said