The Scourge Of Racism
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If ‘“the people of the prince who is to come’” (Daniel 9:26b, NKJV) are those of the first century Roman Empire identified in a previous post as history also affirms,1 then, how can this future prince or ruler to emerge from them be the “he” of Daniel 9:27a, NKJV since the Empire ceased to exist after their capital city, Rome, was overrun and conquered by barbarians in the fifth century A. D.? In chapter two of Daniel, God explains how this is possible through a dream He gave Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, and provided a much younger Daniel the interpretation (Daniel 2:19-23). In chapters of his book that follow, God also reveals details to Daniel about this coming prince.
As Daniel’s dream interpretation asserts and history attests, the Roman Empire was “divided” West and East in 292 A.D. by Caesar Diocletian (Daniel 2:31-42, NKJV). It was the western half that was brought down by barbarians in 476 A.D. while the eastern half continued and thrived; eventually morphing into the Byzantine Empire that fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church in the West took it upon itself to preserve Western Civilization embedded in the heritage of the Roman Empire and played king maker among those European lands that came under its sway. The Orthodox Church of the eastern Empire did the same reaching as far north as Russia.
Thus, with the mingled “seed of men” West and East, much of the Roman Empire’s legacy of governance, knowledge and culture garnered especially from others they assimilated such as the Greeks for example, has been kept alive (Daniel 2:43, NKJV). Important among the intermingled peoples that have tangibly kept much of the heritage of the Roman Empire alive is our own United States of America. The colonial product primarily of the British Empire once itself in large part a conquest of Rome, it can be seen in our preservation and promulgation of Western Civilization, republic form of national government, its building architecture, democracy and eagle as an emblem.
Our nation’s Roman legacy is shared in common with other nations also spawned by the imperialism of the British Empire and major players of mainland Western Europe it continues ties to that Rome previously ruled or dominated. While our nation is as strong as iron on the battlefield normally, many acknowledge our political and social fragility as well as fragmentation which with all other democratic nations possessing Rome’s legacy, perfectly fits Daniel’s brittle, two feet profile of division. The brief history of democracy as even fine tuned by our nation and turbulent current events proves Daniel is correct that the strength of iron is not mixing well with weak, fragile clay.2
Ancient unified Rome’s assimilation of other kingdoms under the Caesars did not stop with adopting and/or adapting the aforementioned items of their civilizations, but also entailed the spiritual characteristics and methods that show up in their raw ambition for dominion and territorial expansion through conquest respectively. For this cause, despite what will have been a relative few centuries of democratic governments compared to human monarchies, this present world ends with “kings” and “kingdoms” again that are broken into “pieces” and consumed by God’s Kingdom from Heaven.3 His Kingdom will not be “destroyed” or “left to other people” and is “forever,” (Daniel 2:44-45, NKJV)!4
Indeed, a later vision given to Daniel and New Testament prophecy converge and complement each other as it is revealed that after the physical fall of predecessor kingdoms Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and unified Rome, a divided Rome’s two feet with their spiritual qualities and methods move forward in final form to ten toes as “ten horns” or kings that rule the world (Daniel 7:1-7, NKJV). It is very important to understand why the spiritual qualities and methods of these kingdoms do not change over time. It is because as Daniel learned in yet another vision they are from the same source: eternally living demons (Daniel 10:10-14, 20-21; Revelation 12:3, 13:1-2)!5
This latter time Roman Empire divided among ten kings exists in de facto form when the prince to come begins his rise to prominence. He does this by negotiating a seven year ‘“covenant’” with Israel that allows the Jews to conduct animal sacrifices on the grounds of their newly built third Temple in the face of an angry world (Daniel 9:27a; Revelation 11:1-2, NKJV). This starts the final seven years of God’s prophetic timeline vision! Due to the world’s violent hostility and for more ‘“prophesy’” to it, God brings out His ‘“two witnesses’” He gives ‘“power’” to protect Israel for ‘“one thousand two hundred and sixty days;’” the first half of the seven years (Revelation 11:3-6, NKJV).
1 See the January 30, 2022 post, The Right Side Of History, under the categories Bible Prophecy and Biblical Worldview.
2 America earned its leadership of the West on the battlefields of Europe in two World War victories being as strong as iron. However, the sedition of Southern States leading to the Civil War of history and on the brink of collapse now, with angrily intensifying political and social divisions in disunity shows how fragile our nation has been and is.
3 Our democracy may be the best system of government ever invented by noble men seeking to honor God by installing His great spiritual, moral and ethical teachings of the Bible in its founding documents. However, as they themselves acknowledged, the experiment would fail unless the people were biblically moral. And we see today they were right! For this reason, perhaps, the Lord did suffer the creation of our nation as a final, failed best effort of sinful men to govern themselves. What we need and only God can provide is His Kingdom of perfect righteousness! Even so, I am grateful to God and pleased to have been born a fallen sinner and citizen of America where in freedom, I heard His Gospel, repented, believed and now, live out my days in peace with Him; serving and waiting for His Kingdom to come!
4 The nearness of God’s coming Kingdom should stir every Christian man’s heart to prepare. Bench sitting in these times will not do! Get stirred up reading the series the Lord led me to write in the summer of 2017 beginning July 30th, Restoring Men In The Two Minute Drill, under the categories Bible Prophecy and The Cause that concludes September 3rd and also serves as a great supplement to this post. Too, get my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics, available in the Strong Man Store, at your favorite internet bookseller or brick and mortar bookstore.
5 Again, the control and manipulation of mortal men and their worldly kingdoms which belong to him is a vitally strategic part of Satan’s war against God (Luke 4:5-8).
After foretelling ‘“the end of’” Jerusalem and the Temple in desolation ‘“with’” the overflowing ‘“flood’” of Roman military might in 70 A.D. (Daniel 9:26b, NKJV), the angel, Gabriel, sent to help Daniel understand makes the astonishing assertion, ‘“and till the end of the war desolations are determined’” plainly by God (Daniel 9:26c, NKJV). No specific war is named as any next prophetic timeline event prior to or slated for the final seven of the seventy sevens in the vision.1 Indeed, nothing like what is spoken of in Daniel 9:27 for the final seven of the seventy sevens has taken place after Messiah came or could since Israel’s Temple as a required prop lies in ruins to this day!
There is only one biblically sound and historically accurate conclusion to be drawn from the foregoing: there has been a delay or timeout inserted by God into His prophetic timeline vision! After the cutoff of Messiah and the sixty-ninth seven, God paused the ticking clock leaving the remaining seven years of the total four hundred and ninety to be fulfilled suspended until He in sovereignty chose the precise moment to restart it. First among His purposes in the delay, God would allow the ongoing spiritual war between Satan and Himself to continue with desolations in the earth until He brings it to His preordained from eternity end and that include the events of Daniel 9:27!
Meantime, of the many prophecies the Lord Jesus spoke before His death, burial, resurrection and ascension many calculate was in 33 A.D.,2 He foretells two other purposes for God’s delay that has now, lasted nearly two millennia. Second then, the Lord declares this delay before the final seven years of God’s prophetic timeline ‘“are the days of vengeance’” upon the Jewish people for their transgression to include rejecting Him to His face and afterward, the Gospel about Him by His apostles ‘“that all things which are written may be fulfilled,’” (Hosea 3, 5:8-6:3; Luke 13:34-35, 21:20-24a; Acts 3:1-4:22, NKJV).3 Third, the delay is ‘“the times of the Gentiles,’” (Luke 21:24b, NKJV).
God’s gracious purpose for the Gentiles during our times is the salvation of many. To this end, the Lord Jesus instructs His apostles about the scope of their mission and work when meeting with them after His resurrection (Matthew 28:16-20; Mark 16:14-16; Luke 24:46-49; John 20:19-23; Acts 1:4-8). Thus, though He was cutoff and left with nothing concerning His reign as the King of Israel at that time, with His resurrection predetermined from eternity the Lord immediately took charge to command the preaching of the Gospel about Him for salvation as well as still to come visible reign over the nation and entire earth from it as the priority message of His disciples until He returns!
Paul, the Jewish apostle to us Gentiles affirms the foregoing about God’s purposes for delay in completing the prophetic timeline vision given to Daniel as he carried out the mission and work after being rejected by many of his fellow Jews (Acts 13:26-47). Empowered by the Holy Spirit he was so bold as to preach in the heart of pagan idolatry declaring God’s call “to repent” to the Gentiles as both John the Baptist and the Lord before him did among the Jews (Matthew 3:1-2; Mark 1:14-15; Acts 17:16-34, NKJV). He also pointedly instructs and warns Gentiles about the two purposes the Lord gives for God’s delay in a strategic letter to believers at Rome (Romans 9-11).
This leads to a fourth purpose of God in His delay during these times of the Gentiles. It has been and is that while laboring to save the willing from among the Jews and Gentiles, He also brings warning judgments on the unsaved world. This is so they might have a foretaste of His coming wrath, perhaps, reconsider their wicked ways and repent! Consequently, Jews in unbelief and violent opposition to the Gospel from the first century have suffered greatly (1 Thessalonians 2:13-16, NKJV) as have Gentile nations still drinking fully from God’s ‘“cup of fury’” with many calamities, conquerors, wars, conflicts, violence, murders, economic hardships and widespread death from various means to include famine and pestilence as foretold (Jeremiah 25:15-31; Revelation 6:1-8, NKJV).
A final purpose in God’s delay tied to the message of the Gospel, the mission and work to proclaim it is to allow Messiah time to ‘“build’” His Church composed of Jews and Gentiles; God’s glorious “mystery” from eternity unfolded during this, Messiah’s epoch who lives forever (Matthew 16:13-20; Ephesians 2-3, NKJV)! We who make up His Church are equipped by God to “stand” in the ongoing spiritual war Satan presses against us too (Ephesians 6:10-18, NKJV).4 God waits for His redeemed through the generations in gracious longsuffering until the Gospel is ‘“preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations’” and every last soul foreknown to Him is accounted for; ‘“and then,’” to the horror of every scoffer, ‘“the end will come,’” (Matthew 24:14; 2 Peter 3:1-9; NKJV).
This being so, ‘“the end’” the Lord speaks of is also the end of God’s delay to proceed with the last seven of His seventy sevens prophetic timeline vision and its events given to Daniel (Daniel 9:27; Matthew 24:15). We are not there yet, but necessary props for this final dramatic period are being put into place by God. Israel back in the land as a nation since 1948 is the single most prophetically vital prop He has put into place to date since this will be followed by the building of a third Temple. In fact, Temple construction will come about due to never before seen severe judgments by God that convince the world He is and to leave Israel alone in their quest (Revelation 8-9).5 After this, Christ’s apostle, John, hears an angel say ‘“that there should be delay no longer,’” Revelation 10:1-7, NKJV).
1 This does not mean that until the end there would be no wars and desolations on earth as Bible prophecy even cited later in this post foretells and history easily shows has been the case. However, read the January 9, 2022 post, Easier To Read Bibles, under the categories, Bible Prophecy and Instruction where the Lord leads me to write about "the overarching spiritual war" in back of all human wars as well as The Right Side Of History, posted January 30, 2022, under the categories Bible Prophecy and Biblical Worldview discussing the “seventy weeks” prophecy.
2 Bible students have long wrestled with the correct way to reconcile up to eight years being off in the dating of Christ’s birth and death based on God’s prophetic timeline. The issue turns on whose calendar dating method is used: the Jewish 360 day year or the Catholic Gregorian 365 day year that replaced Julius Caesar’s calendar in the the 16th century. Accepting He was born sometime between 6-4 B.C. during Herod’s reign as Scripture indicates (Matthew 2:1; Luke 1:5) and after making adjustments for the transition year from B.C. to A.D., using the Jewish calendar one comes to A.D. 33 for the chronology of events attending to Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah of which I find no biblical reason to contest.
3 In stating, ‘“that all things which are written may be fulfilled,’” the Lord continues the thematic thread of hope by the prophets who after declaring God’s judgment, also spoke of His future blessing of Israel. Thus, note how the passages of Hosea and Luke 13:34-35 I cite end. Hosea 6:1-3 in context even gives the general time frame of two thousand years for how long Israel’s punishment and God’s delay presented in this post would be starting from when He began to “tear them” in A.D. 70. Obvious- ly, more than two literal days have passed since then. This span is calculated as uniquely used in the eternal perspective of God elsewhere in Scripture (Scripture inter- prets Scripture) based on one day being the equivalent of one thousand years (Hosea 5:14-15; Psalm 90:1-4; 2 Peter 3:8, NKJV).
4 The Lord’s charge through the apostle Paul “to be strong” in Ephesians 6:10, NKJV is made throughout the Bible to men. He led me to write the book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics to instruct Christian men about the absolutely essential need we have to know all of what God has in mind for us commanded by Him to be strong in the image of His Son, Jesus Christ! Read the sample chapter on our Web Site. Then, get the book in the Strong Man Store, at your favorite internet bookseller or brick and mortar bookstore.
5 See the September 29, 2019 post, God Almighty In A 21st Century World, under the category, Bible Prophecy.
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