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Friday, September 28, 2012

The Testimony and Its Vessel Unto the Time of the End


"THE ABIDING MESSAGE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL"

In this introductory word it will be necessary for us to take a broad view of what is before us and to be occupied mainly in a general outline. The more specific spiritual application will remain for subsequent consideration and you will understa
nd that the peculiar nature of this present time is just preparation for what may follow.

We shall have to take what this book (Daniel) brings into view along a two-fold line, in the main. Firstly the historical and prophetical; and then secondly, the typical and spiritual. But I would like here immediately to say that it is not on'e thought or intention to deal with the Book of Daniel in any way exhaustively along prophetic lines, that is, it is not just prophecy as contained in this book which will occupy us, although that will be latent and sometimes patent all the way through.

We are aware that prophecy by itself need not be spiritually helpful or enriching or building up. It may be very interesting, very fascinating, very educational, but it does not always have a spiritual effect, and I do not think the Lord ever intended His people just to study prophecy as a subject, but to recognize that everything in His thought is intended to reach down into the life and to make very radical changes there, and in order for prophecy to do that, you have to do a great deal more than study dates, times, seasons, and signs. There has to be a spiritual interpretation and application, and it is that which we have especially in mind here. But for the present moment we just take some more or less broad view of what is here brought before us.

2,500 Years of This World's History

We know that the Book of Daniel covers and outlines that part of this world's history which was designated by the Lord Jesus Himself as "the times of the Gentiles." You will remember that He said (it is recorded in Luke 21;24): "Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled," and this Book of Daniel covers, and outlines, that period; roughly a period of some 2,500 years. It commenced when the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were entirely overthrown and Gentile powers took possession of their land; in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, Nebuchadnezzar introduced the times of the Gentiles, the Gentile world-powers; and never since that time has there been a king of Israel or Judah. Now the outline of this period is given to us largely in the second, seventh, eighth and ninth chapters of this book.

In the second chapter we have the image of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, and the seventh and the eighth chapters are enlargements of the second, that is, a fuller account of what is contained in the image of that dream. I am not going to attempt to deal with all the details of that, but just to remind you of that image and what it pointed to.

As you will remember, the image had a head of gold, and interpreting the dream to Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel said: "Thou art this head of gold," which of course was Nebuchadnezzar and his empire, the Babylonian empire. And then the image had its chest and arms of silver; you will notice that that is inferior to gold and portrayed an inferior kingdom which would follow that of the Babylonian. It pointed on to the Medo-Persian empire (Daniel 2:38). Then the trunk and thighs were of brass, a still more inferior empire following that, which was fulfilled the the great Macedonian empire. Then the legs of iron and the feet part of iron and part of clay, pointed on to a still more inferior empire, namely, the Roman, the two legs representing the eastern section and the western section of the Roman empire. The feet, the iron speaking of the monarchical aspect of that empire, that government, and the clay speaking of the democratic aspect.

Over the territory covered by that fourth empire today that are monarchics and republics, a literal fulfillment in our own day and many years past of that which was foreshadowed 500 years B.C. Then another thing is said concerning that fourth empire, that in the midst of those kings the God of heaven would set up a kingdom which should never be destroyed, and which would never be in the hands of another people; a stone cut without hands should break those kingdoms in pieces. We have seen a very large fulfillment of that; the God of heaven hs set His kingdom in the midst of the kingdoms of that fourth world empire, the Roman empire. Against that kingdom of the God of the heavens no world power has yet been able to prevail, although they have wielded the full weight of their might against the saints of the Most High: butchered and massacred them and determined with a diabolical determination to wipe them out: it is those kingdoms that have gone to pieces, the stone cut without hands has broken them and the kingdoms which have set themselves against the Lord and His Christ are fast becoming stories in history books of glories of past days, and the kingdom of the God of heaven goes on never to be destroyed, and never to be entrusted to the hands of any mere world-power, it is in the hands of the saints of the Most High. There will yet be a greater fulfillment of this: a literal one, and not only a spiritual one. Well, that is the second chapter in brief, so far as Daniel's image is concerned, and then as we said, chapters 7 and 8 are an enlargement of that. In chapter 7 you have the four beasts coming up out of the sea. The sea, as we here know, represents the unorganized mass of mankind. Coming up out of the sea are these four beasts.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 2)

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