Daniel and the Boys in the Band by Brian E. R. Limmer - HTML preview
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Chapter 8: The Gap-Year
As the title gap-year suggests, our travel brings us to crossroads where we choose a direction from what we have seen so far. If we just follow the natural route, we will simply look through history since the fall of Jerusalem, ticking-off prophecies as they are fulfilled between that time and now. That is not a good route to take because beyond the ‘now’ is a muddy field called speculation; ‘What will happen next?’ What will be the order of events?' That produces speculative doctrine. Speculative doctrine divides the church on points nobody knows, Like the Pharisees of old, it will only blind us in our own interpretations, until we will not recognise the Messiah when he comes. Better to take time out to consolidate what Daniel and the boys have taught us so far, before we check list the events as they have been accomplished. What Daniel and the boys of the band have taught us by revealing history before it occurred, is about the sovereignty of God that brought events to pass. Daniel, as we saw in an earlier chapter, is Calvinistic200 in his understanding of the divine right of Kings. He has to be, under an egotist king like Nebuchadnezzar, but He is not a Calvinist. He sees God’s purposes being brought about through the actions of a pagan king, not by making the king do them.
Time Out On Sovereignty
Daniel, is taken up, into the same governmental briefing room that Isaiah had visited before him. They are not the only ones to visit that operations room. The writer of Job had been there to witness the discussion between God and Satan over the character of Job. Micah saw a vision of God’s heavenly court deliberating on how to deal with King Ahab:
I saw the LORD sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by Him on His right and on His left201.
Ezekiel saw God’s glory and throne in his vision by the River Kebar: Ezekiel is shown how God directs events on earth from His glorious throne, emphasizing God’s sovereignty even over Israel’s exile.
Above the expanse over their heads was the likeness of a throne, with a figure like that of a man seated on it… and this was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD202.
Later, John was transported into heaven and saw the same throne of God: John’s vision echoes Isaiah and Ezekiel, showing worship, judgment, and the unfolding of God’s plan for creation and redemption.
At once I was in the Spirit, and I saw a throne standing in heaven, with someone seated on it. And the One seated there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and a rainbow encircled the throne203.
There he was shown the workings behind God’s eternal plan. Daniel is shown, then obediently writes down, the culmination of future unfolding events. But all of these are unequivocal on the sovereignty of God in the operations room.
Sovereignty of God:
This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the decision by the word of the holy ones, so that the living may know that the Most High rules over the kingdom of men and gives it to whom He wishes, and sets over it the lowliest of men204.
The God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever,205
And He [the lowliest of men] is given dominion, glory, and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and His kingdom is one that will never be destroyed206.
When Isaiah had visited earlier, he declared:
I declare the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose; 207
Daniel, and the boys of the band had a kindred spirit when it came to theology. They believed absolutely in the sovereignty of God. Nebuchadnezzar, in his understanding of divine right of kings would mean ‘I act as though I am God’. God in His Sovereignty means ‘I AM God’, When God said ‘I declare the end from the beginning’, He was not saying ‘I see the end from the beginning’, nor ‘I have known the end from the beginning’, but, ‘I will accomplish the end from the beginning’. God declares how the doings will turn out before the doings are done. In saying ‘My counsel will stand’ he is saying ‘I myself will accomplish all my purpose’.
God knows the future because:
The future is what God said.
The future is what God purposed.
The future is God processed.
The future is God having accomplished.
The future is God sustaining.
That is different to the human idea of sovereignty. Nebuchadnezzar understood sovereignty to be the right to decide on the basis of the prediction of wise-men, future tellers, sooth sayer, or diviners. He would plan on the basis of what they imagined might happen. In terms of achievement, a kings sovereignty is dependent on might. God’s sovereignty is greater because His is based on wisdom, and the freedom, the power and creation of the very substance that can bring about everything he intends. Everything else is subject to God saying yes or no.
God’s sovereignty covers natural phenomena that bring things about. In the record of Jonah, the fish, the plant and the worm acted on God’s say so because He brought them about.
People toss a coin but God himself brings about it landing heads or tails208.
Look up at the sky! Who created the stars you see? He knows how many there are, He calls each one by name, His power is so great—not one of them is missing!209
Why? Not because he has the power to control them by his might, but because He brought them about. Perhaps more poignantly, sovereignty means God has the right to do things that seem illogical to human beings. Things that ‘wise-men’ cannot see, things beyond the logic of humans, things that look like mistakes, things that seem unjust, things that are inconvenient, things that seem unjust, things that we see as cruel.
Moses, among others, took God up on the question of incapacity.
But Moses said, “No, LORD, don’t send me. I was born with an impediment of speech”, The LORD said to him, "Who gives man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or dumb? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? It is I, the LORD.210
Two of the boys in the band discussed the injustices of life. Habakkuk argued it was totally unfair that the good guys always seem to take the come back for the bad guys in life. Jeremiah went to God and relayed the argument, asking whose fault it was that some are blessed and others always seem crushed. God took him down to the local pottery where a potter, trying to make a beautiful vase out of clay, squashed it down and made a potty instead. ‘Whose fault was it that it ended up as a potty’, asked God? Was the clay to blame for not being pliable enough or the potter to blame for seeing the best he could make out of the clay was a potty? The sovereignty of the potter: observed, decided, determined, and made a very useful pot out of the material available. The status of the pot did not determine its nature, only its function. Sovereignty could have tossed it aside and not made anything at all, but sovereignty purposed the need for a useful but not elegant creation.
Remember, If God should so choose that you suffer for doing right, You are better off to obey God and than to suffer for doing wrong211.
Christ suffered undeserving here on earth. Now you must be ready to suffer as he did, because suffering shows that you have stopped sinning 212.
Don’t you understand? I am the only God; there are no others. I am the one who takes life and gives it again. I punished you with suffering to heal, and if I will heal you, nothing can stop me213!
‘If I will heal you, nothing can stop me’, marks out a difference in logic between God and mankind. But it also holds a very important truth about sovereignty. If nothing else is remembered, remember this because it marks the basic material with which God builds the church. Sovereignty is not the ultimate power, character is! The character of God, determines his sovereignty, and how he uses it. The character of God holds the love, grace, mercy, patience, long-suffering and other attributes that determine God’s sovereignty. Imagine if Satan was ever to achieve his goal of usurping God’s place! Sovereignty would be determined by all that is evil and not all that is good, because Satan’s nature is selfish, egotistic, and all that is evil! Picture if you can, every evil dictator that has ever lived, combined to determine sovereignty.
On the other hand, Daniel records, God: Gathered his people three times to their land, then scattered them three times again as refugees; God determined the building of two temples and then determined both should be destroyed; God determined four kingdoms should rise, one after the other; Then God determined the destruction of three by war and a forth by scattering or dissimulation over the continent. What human logic could devise that? It requires God’s character to plan such sovereignty
The climax of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream is the forth kingdom and what will happen in it. The Roman Empire was the forth kingdom. It came to power but it was a mish-mash of nations, it came to power as an iron fist, it disintegrated because of its clay feet, unintegrated iron and clay, integral in its creation material. It never consolidated, its in-fighting was there at its conception until it caused its disintegration in approx 420AD. It was never defeated; because there was no nation capable. Rome dissolved back into the nations over Europe where it remains, co-operating together but not united, even today. Considering this prophecy was given around 500BC, the picture is very recognizable
And there shall be a forth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things. And like iron that crushes, it shall break and crush all these. And as you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom, but some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the soft clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle. As you saw the iron mixed with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay.
It is during this period of dissolved countries, that God set up his Kingdom, a kingdom that is not human in nature and will never be defeated. The statement ‘will never be defeated’ means other nations will try to defeat it! The statement ‘They will mix and hold together in a poor Marriage’, is a picture of the nations of Europe even to this day. But it could equally be a picture of the church.
And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever,214
Just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.215
The dissolving of the Roman Empire into the nations of Europe is the beginning of the time when this, ‘non-human kingdom’ will be established and grow. The interpretation that the church has made from time to time must be challenged; it is not the church that dashed the Roman Empire, That was an act of God long before the church became organised. The idea that the church must take over the world to usher in the kingdom of God is wrong; although it is finding a voice again today in some churches. This argument has been used in history as a deliberate political misinterpretation, for example, to rally the crusaders.
The gap-year is not a period when God sets aside Israel to concentrate on the gentiles, no, he is working among both groups at once. To mark progress, we look at them separately but notice how God is drawing the two groups closer together all the time. The early church worked very hard to try and keep the Jews and Gentiles together, The problem of unity in diversity defeated that aim. One thing to notice here. Prophets usually speak both short term and long term. Daniel speaks of prophecies that may be said to have been fulfilled by some, but on closer scrutiny have not been fully fulfilled yet. They may have a parallel or foreshadowing in the skirmishes events close to the time of the prophecy, but do not fully fulfil the requirements of the prophecies.
Although Israel was scattered among the nations at the end of the demise of the temple in 70AD, they were not forgotten. Neither did their persecution stop. Moses and the prophets forewarned that Israel would be scattered whenever they were disobedient:
And the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other216.
They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive among all nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles217.
But even during dispersion and the reality of holocaust, God promised not to let Israel be destroyed as a nation completely:
For I am with you to save you… though I make a full end of all the nations… I will not make a full end of you218.
Has God rejected His people? By no means! … God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew219.
God always promised he would bring them back to their homeland. Isaiah and Ezekiel always expected that return to the land, before the final tribulation judgment:
The Lord will … recover the remnant of His people … and will assemble the banished of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth220.
Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off. He made me walk around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry’. Son of man, can these bones live?221. Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O My people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel222. And I will put My Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land223.
During this time of the Gentiles God is working on two fronts, He is building the Church and amalgamating it with his chosen people. The modern State of Israel was set up by the gentile nations in 1948AD. But God is clear, He is doing these things for neither Church or Israel, He will do it to vindicate his name as a Holy Name among all the nations of the earth.
Therefore say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord GOD: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of My great name… And the nations will know that I am the LORD…Through you I will vindicate My holiness before the eyes of the nations. I will take you from among the nations and gather you from all countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you… I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you224.
Take note of this next passage, it will put into context some of the challenging passages we are going to come back to a little later. When God starts talking about time and ‘in an instant’, He sets himself another challenge. He set the challenge and he delivered it. ‘I will do this in one day’, He says:
Who has ever heard of such a thing? Who has ever seen such things? Can a country be born in a day or a nation be brought forth in a moment? Yet no sooner is Zion in labour than she gives birth to her children225.
We can tick that box because the State of Israel was signed into being at the Balfour Declaration on November 2nd, 1917.226 The State of Israel was born. The valley of dry bone re-lives.
Then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you, and He will gather you again from among all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you… and He will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it227.
But a land for Israel is one thing, but the people have to return to it. Some nations did all they could to stop the people returning.
They conspire together saying, ‘Come, let us erase them as a nation, may the name of Israel be remembered no more’. For with one mind they plot together; they form an alliance against You228.
On 30th November 1947, the United Nations drew up a plan to partition Palestine and Israel. The following morning, before Israel could form an army, Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, and expeditionary forces from Iraq attacked Israeli settlements. Ten months of fighting took place, mostly on the territory of the British Mandate, the Sinai Peninsula and Southern Lebanon.
Foreseeing this as a problem, God prophesied through several members of the band. Lead vocal Isaiah declares:
In that day the Lord will extend His hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that remains of His people… from Assyria, from Egypt… from the coastlands of the sea. He will raise a signal for the nations and will assemble the banished of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth229. So I am coming to gather all the nations and ethnic groups… They will bring back all your countrymen from all the nations as an offering to the LORD, to My holy hill Jerusalem230.
The backing boys; Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Micah, Obadiah and Zephaniah, all join in harmony to support Isaiah:
Behold, I will bring them from the north country and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth… A great company, they shall return here… Hear the word of the Lord, O nations… He who scattered Israel will gather him, and will keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock. It is not for your sake… that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations… Then the nations will know that I am the LORD231.
I will restore the fortunes of My people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant them on their land, and they shall never again be uprooted out of the land that I have given them232.
For the children of Israel shall dwell many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or pillar, without ephod or household gods. Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God, and David their king, and they shall come in fear to the LORD and to His goodness in the latter days233.
In that day, declares the LORD, I will assemble the lame and gather those who have been driven away and those whom I have afflicted; and the lame I will make the remnant, and those who were cast off a strong nation; and the LORD will reign over them in Mount Zion from this time forth and for-evermore234.
Behold, at that time I will deal with all your oppressors. And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise… At that time I will bring you in, at the time when I gather you together; for I will make you renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes, says the LORD235.
Then the nations will know that I am the LORD236.
Behold, I will gather them from all the countries to which I drove them… I will bring them back to this place and make them dwell in safety. They shall be My people, and I will be their God… I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all My heart and all My soul237.
Though I scattered them among the countries, yet I have been a sanctuary to them for a while… And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh238.
But in Mount Zion there shall be those who escape, and it shall be holy, and the house of Jacob shall possess their own possessions… Saviours shall go up to Mount Zion to rule Mount Esau, and the kingdom shall be the Lord’s239.
Thus says the Lord GOD: When I gather the house of Israel from the peoples among whom they are scattered, and manifest My holiness in them in the sight of the nations, then they shall dwell in their own land… They shall dwell securely, when I execute judgments upon all their Neighbors who have treated them with contempt. Then they will know that I am the LORD their God240.
You will arise and have pity on Zion; it is the time to favour her; the appointed time has come… Nations will fear the name of the LORD, and all the kings of the earth will fear Your glory. For the LORD builds up Zion; He appears in His glory241.
Old enemies thought they had scattered Israel for good. Had God not seen the growing hostility of the enemies of Israel against her? Within months of Israel taking up the land, they gathered together to drive them out again. Israel had no army to speak of at this point, but Ezekiel composed the lines:
The LORD said: Ezekiel, now say to the wind, "The LORD God commands you to blow from every direction and to breathe life into these dead bodies, so they can live again. As soon as I said this, the wind blew among the bodies, and they came back to life! They all stood up, and there were enough to make a large army242.
In Ezekiel 25 to 32, God pronounces a judgement on seven nations that will form a confederation with a common aim to destroy Israel. God declares He will destroy: Amon, Moab, Edom, Felicia, Tyre, Sidon, and Egypt, if they do not repent of this intention. The time between the pronouncement by Ezekiel and the act, is grace time to repent. When we see the action taking place, we must assume God has judged that they did not. Do you think God foresaw the devastation that Israel’s army would leave in the reshaping of the region? Could He have foreseen the destruction of Gaza, or the settlements in the West Bank?
If you humbly obey the LORD, then come and worship him. If you do right and are humble, perhaps you will be safe on that day when the LORD turns loose his anger. Gaza and Ashkelon will be deserted and left in ruins. Ashdod will be emptied in broad daylight, and Ekron uprooted. To you people of Philistia who live along the coast, the LORD has this to say: “I am now your enemy, and I’ll wipe you out!” … The LORD God hasn’t forgotten those survivors in Judah, and he will help them— his people will take your land to use for pasture243.
And when evening comes, they will rest in houses at Ashkelon. The LORD All-Powerful, the God of Israel, said: I’ve heard Moab and Ammon insult my people and threaten their nation. And so, I swear by my very life that Moab and Ammon will end up like Sodom and Gomorrah— covered with thorn bushes and salt pits forever. Then my people who survive will take their land. This is how Moab and Ammon will at last be repaid for their pride— and for sneering at the nation that belongs to me, the LORD All-Powerful. I will fiercely attack. Then every god on this earth will shrink to nothing, and everyone of every nation will bow down to me, right where they are. People of Ethiopia, the sword of the LORD will slaughter you! The LORD will reach to the north to crush Assyria and overthrow Nineveh. Herds of wild animals will live in its rubble; all kinds of desert owls will perch on its stones.
The LORD has this to say about the nation of Jordan: The people of Israel have plenty of children to inherit their lands. So why have you, worshippers of the god Milcom, taken over towns and land I gave to Gad? Someday I will send an army to attack you in Rabbah, [valley of Elah, West Bank]. It will be left in ruins, and the surrounding villages will lie in ashes. You took some of Israel’s land, but on that day Israel will take it back244!
For you and me, who live in a limited season of time, our hearts go out because of the destruction we see in these lands, we see the destruction and suffering and cry out to God for his peace in the land. We might see the cruelty of one nation against another, But: the character of God demands justice, once a judgement is pronounced; The mercy of God delays the judgement; The grace of God allowed time for repentance; until the sovereignty of God has to ensure his word cannot be broken.
Once spoken by God, His pronouncement must come to pass, no matter how unjust you and I see them. God did put in a get-out clause in the judgment, which God clearly thought had not been taken.
If you do right and are humble, you will be safe on that day when the LORD turns loose his anger. [if not: implied], Gaza and Ashkelon will be deserted and left in ruins. Ashdod will be emptied in broad daylight, and Ekron uprooted. To you people of Philistia who live along the coast, the LORD has this to say: “I am now your enemy, and I’ll wipe you out!” … The LORD God hasn’t forgotten those survivors in Judah, and he will help them— his people will take your land to use for pasture245.
Daniel and the church
So we see the longer term doings of God in His chosen nation. But at the same time God deals with his church. God’s intention, even before the fall, was a world filled with men and women in communion with him. That was always the plan. So it’s no surprise that the Messiah’s mission would be a global mission for all nations. Isaiah sets out a mission that is far bigger than one nation in its scope:
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; So, I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth246.”
‘It is too light a thing, has a twofold meaning. too small a thing for me to restore only Israel. I will save men and women from all nations’. That is the mission of the Messiah. It also explains the expansion of the kingdom to the gentiles. ‘So, I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth’.
Daniel and the boys in the band picked that up, and run with it
I, the LORD, have called you for a righteous purpose, and I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and appoint you to be a covenant for the people and a light to all the nations, to open the eyes of the blind and to bring prisoners out of the dungeon and those sitting in darkness out from the prison house247.
The backing boys join in with the refrain:
In the last days, the mountain of the house of the LORD will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and peoples will stream to it. And many nations will come and say: ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways so that we may walk in His paths’. For the law will go forth from Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem248.
Micah pictures, not just Israel as a light, but already many other nations were saying, ‘Israel’s God is our God too’. They were organising themselves to say, ‘Let us also worship this Creator God, let us learn the Lord’s ways’. I am sorry if I challenge those that say Church was born in Acts, It may have had many prophecies fulfilled in the New Testament as we shall see in a moment, but it has been alive and well since the Garden-of-Eden. It may not have formed an organization, but people of all ages have been faithful to ‘Israel’s’ God. Many people looked to Israel to enlighten their lives. Relatively few of the Old Testament characters were descendants of Israel, or Jacob.
Many peoples and strong nations will come to seek the LORD of Hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat His favour. Thus says the LORD of Hosts: ‘In those days ten men from all the nations will take hold of the robe of a Jew, saying, Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you249.
For My name will be great among the nations, from where the sun rises to where it sets. In every place incense and pure offerings will be presented to My name, because My name will be great among all the nations, says the LORD of Hosts250.
Gentiles being drawn to Israel’s God is confirmed to Abraham at his calling. That calling confirmed that God’s people are all around the world but through Abraham and his descendants, they would all be drawn together under one Messiah251.
So it’s no wonder that after his incarnation, death, and resurrection, Jesus summarised the Old Testament as he did in Luke twenty-four. No wonder he would commission his blessed people to be a blessing in texts like Matthew 28:18 to 20, Mark 16:15, John 20:21, and Acts 1:8.
In forty days with his disciples, again and again he declared, as it were, ‘I bought them, now go get them’. ‘You are blessed, now be a blessing’.
After the nations had chosen their god, God himself set an addenda with Abraham saying:
All nations will be blessed through you252.
I was sought by those who did not ask for Me; I was found by those who did not seek Me. To a nation that did not call My name, I said, ‘Here am I, here I am253'.
The Psalmists envision the Gentile world uniting to worship the one true God:
All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD; all the families of the nations will bow down before Him254.
Many nations will join themselves to the LORD and will become My people255.
For My name will be great among the nations, from where the sun rises to where it sets. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to My name, because My name will be great among the nations256.
Matthew 24 should be read as a whole. It is an answer to the question ‘When will the kingdom come?' Jesus answered ‘Not Yet’! When the whole package is accomplished, then! We are not entitled to divide out one condition. When the gospel is preached to the whole world is a bad translation of what Jesus said. It is not a condition it is a commission. There are growing sections of the church teaching: ‘The church has to establish the church on the earth for Jesus to come and reign’. That is a resurrection of a false doctrine that was around in the days of Constantine, and later, the crusades. The Father will decide the moment. Jesus will set up the kingdom. Meantime:
This gospel of the kingdom will be preached all over the world as a testimony to all nations, for when the end will come257.
And after that, it will come about, says the Lord, that I will send my spirit on all flesh; and your sons and your daughters will be prophets, your old men will have dreams, your young men will see visions: And on the servants and the servant-girls in those days I will send my spirit258.
You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth259.
The New Covenant and the Indwelling Spirit260
Jeremiah promised a new covenant that would write God’s law on the hearts of His people after the Messiah had been cut off, in the context it will be after a new covenant which was signed by the blood of Jesus:
I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they will be My people261.
The author of Hebrews announces that this prophecy was fulfilled in Christ and realized in His Church:
“By calling this covenant ‘new,’ He has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear262.
It was always the intention of God to amalgamate the gentiles into the chosen people.
And the fate of my people Israel be changed, they will be building up again the waste towns and living in them; they will again be planting vine-gardens and taking the wine for their drink; and they will make gardens and get the fruit of them263.
And this is in agreement with the words of the prophets, Amos as it is said, After these things I will come back, and will put up the tent of David which has been broken down, building up again its broken parts and making it complete So that all will make search for the Lord, and all the Gentiles on whom my name is named264.
The prophet Amos foresaw when Israel is restored their land (tent), it would include Gentile nations,
I will restore David’s fallen booth… that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear My name265.
James, at the Jerusalem Council, affirmed that this prophecy was being fulfilled as Gentiles were coming to faith in Christ:
The words of the prophets agree with this, as it is written…266
The New Testament is a commentary on the progress of the church through this ‘gap-year’. Earlier we saw the first three-chapters of Revelation could be seen as markers of the progress of the church in prophecy, If that was meant to be I do not know, but certainly the decline of the church toward the end of the age is foretold:
For the time will come when men will not tolerate sound doctrine, but with itching ears they will gather around themselves teachers to suit their own desires267.
Because of the multiplication of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold268.
“People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive…269