Unfailing Prophecies.
The Bible is filled with prophecies. You'd think people would be amazed at the accuracy of Biblical prophecies, instead they dismiss them with lies that they aren't real, that they've been fabricated after the fact. Well, let me tell you, the Bible predicted that Jerusalem would once more be in the control of the Jewish people and this did not happen until 1980 when Jewish controlled Israel placed the seat of their government in Jerusalem for the first time in 1,910 years. The prophecy was given by Jesus Christ Himself, as He ministered upon earth before His death and resurrection. A 1,910 year old prophecy fulfilled and still people would say the Bible is not real, not truth, that there is no God, no Savior. The Bible has had many prophecies come to pass throughout our history and Satan has blinded the understanding of people with the fables and lies of mankind. The fables they believe readily because of their arrogance, their self-serving, their hatred of the love of God.
The animosity between God and Satan is reality that many simply do not believe is real. People would rather believe there is no hope of eternity just so they can cling to their lusts now. Temporary lusts are preferred above eternal salvation, just as Satan desires. Satan knows his own days are numbered until his existence is blotted out, and he wants to take as many people with him as possible. Satan wants to steal from God every last person he can.
All by the grace of our LORD- may we NOT be won by Satan!
Please, open your hearts to the truth of our Savior's love! Our Savior would give you an eternity in the joy of the purest of all loves that make any earthly lust pale in comparison. You crave the satisfaction of fulfilling lust pleasures right now, I know, I KNOW how powerful those lusts are! Those lusts are NOT worth depriving yourself of the unspeakable, unknowable -as of now- wonders and glories that await us!
We fail to believe in the pure joy to come because we are blinded by the world we live in now. Satan has pulled a covering over the eyes of people that keeps them from choosing to believe in the unseen, it keeps them from the hope of faith and all its evidences. Satan has taken millions upon millions, billions captive in his evil snare. Please DO NOT BE ONE OF THEM! PLEASE!
*******
(From Eden to Eden-A Historic and Prophetic Study. By J. H. Waggoner. 1890.)
CHAPTER VII. THE KINGDOM AND THE KING
God made the earth to be inhabited by the children of men. Isa. 45:18; Ps. 115:16.
Isa 45:18 For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.
Psa 115:16 The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD'S: but the earth hath he given to the children of men.
When the intention was expressed to make man, it was said: "And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." Gen. 1:26. More may have been implied than is here expressed. There is order in Heaven; some are appointed to higher stations than others, but all is harmony, for all delight to do the will of their Creator. When the earth is freed from the curse, there will be different orders among the children of men. Rev. 21:24.
Rev 21:24 And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it.
How natural to suppose that, had Adam remained innocent, as the earth was filled with his posterity, great respect would always have been shown to him, the head of the race. But now that glory and honor will be borne by the second Adam.
In addition to the gift of the land, and the blessing of the nations, the Lord said to Abraham: "And kings shall come out of thee." Gen. 17:6. The same words were repeated to Jacob. Gen. 35:11. And the idea of royalty is incorporated into the covenant at Horeb. "Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests." Ex. 19:6. In the days of Samuel the prophet the people asked for a king. The motive that actuated them was not good; they wanted a king that they might be like all the nations. 1 Sam. 8:19, 20. The Lord had given directions for their conduct, with a view to keeping them separate from, and unlike, the nations. He was their ruler, their guide, and protector. Doubtless the heathen who knew not God, held them in derision because they had no king, no visible ruler; and this may have had an ill effect upon them. But God, while he disapproved of their request, listened to them, only reserving to himself the right to choose their king for them. He did not resign the right to rule over them; he was still their actual sovereign, guiding and directing their kings in the government of the kingdom. Samuel was directed to anoint Saul, the son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin. When Saul had reigned sixteen years, he disobeyed the word of the Lord, who had before appointed Amalek to utter destruction for their sins. Ex. 17:8-14; Deut. 25:17-19. Therefore the Lord rejected Saul, and took the kingdom from his house. Samuel was sent to Bethlehem, and there anointed David, the youngest son of Jesse, of the tribe of Judah. This was about seven years before the end of Saul's reign. In the year 1055, b. c., David was made king over Judah, and reigned in Hebron seven years. At the end of that period all Israel sought after him, and he reigned in Jerusalem thirty-three years. In the thirteenth year of his reign, David expressed his intention to build a house for the ark of the Lord, which had always rested under curtains from the time the tabernacle was made by Moses in the desert of Arabia. But the Lord would not suffer him to build a temple to his name, because he had been engaged in many wars; but the promise was then made that his seed should build a house for the Lord, and should be established upon his throne forever.
The language of the promise was very expressive:--
"I will raise up thy seed after thee, which shall be of thy sons; and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build me an house, and I will establish his throne forever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son; and I will not take my mercy away from him, as I took it from him that was before thee; but I will settle him in mine house and in my kingdom forever; and his throne shall be established
forevermore." 1 Chron. 17:11-14.
Thus the Lord said to David, he shall be thy seed and my son. As in the promise in Gen. 3:15, and also in that to Abraham, we shall find in this to David, that this promise to his seed does not refer to his posterity in general, nor to his immediate son, but to one remote, namely, to Christ. He alone is at once the seed of David and the Son of God. But even as the children of Israel possessed the land of Canaan, so Solomon built a temple for the sanctuary of God. This, of course, was a type of the real temple, " the true tabernacle " (Heb. 8:2), which the seed of promise was to build.
This promise, dwelt upon in Ps. 89, is as follows:--
"I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant, Thy seed will I establish forever, and build up thy throne to all generations." "His seed also will I make to endure forever, and his throne as the days of Heaven." "His seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me." Ps. 89:3, 4, 29, 36.
Solomon enjoyed a peaceable reign of forty years, but when his son, Rehoboam, took the kingdom, there was a revolt, and the kingdom was divided into two branches of Judah and Israel. This was 975 years b. c. The kings of Israel, in order to separate themselves entirely from Judah, and thus maintain a separate supremacy, corrupted their worship, and during its entire existence there was not one truly pious king in Israel. Nearly two hundred and sixty years after this division took place, the king of Assyria utterly overthrew the kingdom of Israel, taking the people captive and scattering them in his own dominions, and peopling Samaria with strangers. 2 Kings 1:7. About forty years after this, 677 b.c., the king of Assyria took Manasseh, king of Judah, captive, and carried him to Babylon, for he had done very wickedly, and the Lord delivered him into the hand of his enemy. And thus in 677, b. c., the twelve tribes were without a king in either
house.
To those who cannot look beyond this present state or dispensation for a fulfillment of the promises to David, this seems to be a sad commentary on those promises of everlasting glory to his throne and kingdom. There was temporarily a change in the condition of the kingdom of Judah. Manasseh humbled himself, and they restored him to his throne; and kings reigned in Jerusalem about the space of seventy-five years longer, when the king of Babylon took Jerusalem, and put kings over Judah according to his own mind. He exalted Zedekiah to be king, but Zedekiah rebelled against him, and the king of Babylon took him captive and put out his eyes, and destroyed the temple and the chief houses in Jerusalem. This was 588 years before Christ. 2 Kings 25:4-10; 2 Chron. 36:14-20.
The temple built by Solomon stood 417 years, from 1005 to 588 b. c. But before the utter destruction of the city, in the days of Jehoiakim, b. c. 606, Nebuchadnezzar came and took the king captive, and carried away some of the vessels of the house of God, and some of the goodliest of the children of Judah he took to Babylon, to be instructed in the learning of the Chaldeans. Compare Dan. 1:3, 4; 2 Kings 20:16-18; Isa. 37:5-7. Among the captives were Daniel and his three brethren, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, of the children of Judah. It was only about five years before the captivity of Zedekiah, and the destruction of the temple and the city, that the prophet Ezekiel spoke of the utter subversion of the kingdom, and also of its future restoration, as follows:--
"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." Eze. 21:25-27.
The kingdom, the crown, had passed under various changes. After many wars it was taken by the king of Babylon, who set rulers in Judah according to his will. But under Zedekiah, a most rebellious prince, the prophet said, " it shall be no more"--it shall be utterly cast down, " until he come whose right it is." And whose is the right to the kingdom and throne of David? It is the right, by an unfailing promise, of that certain one of the seed of David, who, said the Lord, "shall be my son." In his right it shall endure as the sun, even as the days of Heaven. And more than a hundred years before this time, another prophet spoke of this:--
"And thou, O tower of the flock, the stronghold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem." Micah 4:8.
The first dominion was that which was given to Adam--dominion over all the earth. The tower of the flock is no other than the seed of the woman--the seed of Abraham. He is heir of the world, and through him shall the kingdom come to the daughter of Jerusalem. This is a most interesting prophecy, connecting the first dominion--the original gift of the earth-with the kingdom which the seed of David shall inherit. All prophecy, all promise, all hope, centers in the stronghold, the tower of the flock. As the seed of the woman, he will bruise the head of the serpent, and recover the lost dominion. As the seed of Abraham he is the heir of the world, and a blessing to all nations. As the seed of David, he will possess the kingdom forever, and his throne shall endure as the sun, even as the days of Heaven. As the Son of God, he will save his people from their sins, and restore life to the race of Adam; to all who accept his salvation. All blessings come through him. Let all blessing and honor and glory be paid to him. About fifteen years before the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and the temple, in the third year of the captivity of Daniel and his brethren, a prophecy of the restoration of the kingdom was given by means of a dream to Nebuchadnezzar, and its wonderful interpretation by Daniel. This is of greater interest than the prophecies that had preceded it, inasmuch as it gives a series of events easily understood by all, thereby beginning to open to us the time of the restoration of the kingdom and throne of David.
To be continued…
No comments:
Post a Comment