166 - Who Can Stand, Who Can Survive [B]

Who Can Stand, Who Can Survive. Rev. 7:4, Daniel 9:24-27

The divine purpose of history is what we are dealing with in Revelation. Revelation is bringing history to its conclusion and so this enables us to understand why God does certain things the way He does in history and how He sets things up a certain way. Our life is just as much a part of history as anyone who walks across the pages of any biography or historical work. We all have our own history that plays a role within the broad structure of God's plan and purposes, and that fits within the context of the angelic conflict.

Two areas where this is important comes across in the Old Testament in terms of these covenants that God made with Israel. The first is the Abrahamic covenant where God promised land, seed and blessing to Abraham—a specific piece of real estate, descendants that would be more numerous than the sand of the seashore, and through his descendants all would be blessed. That seed promise is later expanded in the Davidic covenant which God made with king David—the promise of an eternal house, and eternal kingdom, and an eternal throne. To understand what is happening in Revelation chapter seven, and why suddenly, beginning in verse 4, we have the return to the twelve tribes of Israel and God saving 12,000 from each of these tribes, we have to understand that God's plan for Israel is one of those major threads that run through history because of the promises that God has made to Abraham in the Abrahamic covenant and also to David. It is the Abrahamic covenant that sets up a broad structure for all of history. So the Jews, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, are at the very centre of history and at the centre of God's plan. Just because Israel has now temporarily been set aside because of their rejection of God's plan through the Messiah, the rejection of Christ at the first coming, it is not a permanent rejection. They have not been permanently set aside—and this is the point that Paul is making in Romans chapters 9-11—but have been temporarily set aside, and now is the times of the Gentiles. When the 'times of the gentiles' comes to fulfilment then there is going to be a return of emphasis in history to Israel. That is where Revelation chapter seven fits in. We see this shift that occurs here and that God is restoring His emphasis to Israel, and there is this distinction between Israel and the church.

We have seen that prior to the cross Satan's strategy in the angelic conflict and in history was to prevent God from fulfilling His promise to man through the promises to Abraham and David to bring the seed, the Messiah, to the earth in order for Him to go to the cross and pay the price for our salvation.

As we seek to understand a particular passage of Scripture such as Daniel chapter nine we realise that it is set within a historical context and we can't really understand it if we don't have a broader understanding of history and of God's plan in history, especially for Israel, and what God has revealed in other passages of Scripture. Daniel is an old man by the time of chapter nine. He was originally taken to Babylon around 605 BC as a young man, along with a number of other young Jewish aristocrats, as captives by Nebuchadnezzar and there they were to be trained to operate within the bureaucracy of Babylon. Now as we come to the end period Daniel has been reading in Jeremiah and he understands the times and knows that the time of the Jewish dispersal and activity in Babylon is about to end—verses 1, 2. Cf. Jeremiah 25:11, 12 where God specifically spelled out that because the Jews had violated their annual Sabbath they would be removed from the land so that the land would enjoy its rest and those Sabbath rests. A Sabbath year occurred once every seven years and for much of Israel's history they did not observe this. During the sabbatical year they were to take the entire year off and not work, showing that they were trusting God to provide for all of their needs and to sustain them. 2 Chronicles 36:21 ^NASB "[this was done] to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths. All the days of its desolation it kept sabbath until seventy years were complete."

So the 70x7, the 490 years looks backward into their previous history of failure to observe the Sabbath. As Daniel focuses on Jeremiah 25:11, 12 and some passage sin Deuteronomy and Leviticus he realise that God has promised that the Israelites would be discipline, would be taken out of the land, but when they turned back to the Lord in humility and prayer and confession of sin, then God would remember His covenant and restore them to the land. So he is going to begin to pray a prayer of confession in Daniel 9:4-11 in fulfilment of Leviticus 26:40-42 ^NASB "If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their forefathers, in their unfaithfulness which they committed against Me, and also in their acting with hostility against Me—I also was acting with hostility against them, to bring them into the land of their enemies—or if their uncircumcised heart becomes humbled so that they then make amends for their iniquity, then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and I will remember also My covenant with Isaac, and My covenant with Abraham as well, and I will remember the land."

Daniel 9:13 ^NASB "As it is written in the law of Moses, all this calamity has come on us; yet we have not sought the favor of the LORD our God by turning from our iniquity and giving attention to Your truth." What is happening is that within the context of the Old testament promises in the Law—the cursing and blessing of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 30—God had promised and predicted that Israel would be disobedient and that He would end up taking them from the land that He had promised them in discipline, but that He would restore them to the land and would "bring them back from all the nations."

The discipline that occurred to Israel in the Old Testament occurred at two key events. The northern kingdom was conquered by Assyria in 732 BC and the ten tribes were then taken away and redistributed and resettled in various parts of the Assyrian empire. They became known as the lost tribes of Israel. They weren't lost, God knew where they were, and many of them when they saw the Assyrians coming and understood God's plan headed south to Judea and so those tribes did not completely lose their identity and integrity. That was the first deportation. The second occurred when Judah was destroyed in 586 BC by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar. When that occurred those who were in the southern kingdom were taken but were kept together. Unlike the Assyrians who wanted to destroy ethnic integrity by scattering and mixing the peoples together the Babylonians kept all the Jews together and moved to Babylon. The Jewish community in Babylon continued, even up and through New Testament times, in what was one of the strongest areas of Judaism in the ancient world.

When God answered Daniel's prayer and brought them back the initial return under Zerubbabel only involved 5000 Jews, and they all came back from Babylon, not from everywhere. But the promise that Daniel is going to hear in Deuteronomy is that God is going to bring them back from all over the earth where he has scattered them. That universal or world-wide regathering has never really happened in history.

So in chapter nine Daniel is praying that God would return them to the land because he sees that those seventy years are just about finished. God answers his prayer. Even while he was praying He sends the angel Gabriel to him in order to reveal the timetable for Israel's history to Daniel. Just as there were 490 years in Israel's past where they had failed to fulfil the Mosaic Law in terms of the Sabbath years there will also be a future period of 490 years that God is decreeing for Israel. This is explained in Daniel 9:24 ^NASB "Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy {place.}" It is not literal weeks; it is seventy periods of seven. It could be seven days, seven weeks, seven years. It is understood to be seventy periods of seven years—490 years, just as the previous 490 years of sabbatical rejection and disobedience that had taken place.

Six things are mentioned that will be completed and finalised during this period: "to finish the transgression, to make and end of sin [plural, indicating the actual sins of idolatry that had taken place throughout Israel's history], to make atonement for iniquity [the final realisation of atonement for Israel], to bring in everlasting righteousness [establish a righteous kingdom], to seal up vision and prophecy [bring to conclusion the prophecies that had been given related to Israel's future], to anoint the most holy place [the Millennial temple].

Now he is going to break this down. Daniel 9:25 ^NASB "So you are to know and discern {that} from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince {there will be} seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress." We have a time frame to know exactly when the Messiah is going to come—seven and sixty-two weeks [69 weeks]. Sixty-nine leaves another week hanging there. So the first part of this is going to include from Messiah the Prince. Daniel 9:26 ^NASB "Then after the sixty-two weeks [plus the first seven] the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end {will come} with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined. [27] And he [the prince who is to come] will make a firm covenant with the many for one week [the last seven-year period], but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations {will come} one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate." The reference to the prince who is to come is a reference to the Antichrist. The "people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city" is in AD 70 when the Roman legions defeated Israel and destroyed the temple. The prince who is to come is identified there as a Roman, someone of western European extraction.

The last seven years means that God must still have a purpose for Israel and within Jewish history that is yet unfulfilled, and that is designed to bring to completion those six things mentioned in Daniel 9:24. So we ask what happens to those other seven years. They are put off into the future, Daniel 9:27 ^NASB "And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week…" So that one week period is future for Israel. It is not for the church. One reason the church will not be here during the Tribulation is because the purpose of the Tribulation is to bring to completion this plan that God has for Israel's salvation, not the church. The church is in the way, so the church has to be removed at the Rapture so that God can restore His emphasis to Israel during this final one week period, and this is that future period known as the Tribulation.

Up to the cross Satan's plan was to try to wipe out the line of David, the seed of Abraham, to prevent the Messiah from coming; but once the Messiah came and died on the cross Satan has to go back and completely reengineer his whole strategy. Now what he has to do to try to win against God is to destroy Israel so that God can't fulfil His promises to Israel. If he can destroy Israel before God can fulfil those promises then Satan thinks he can win. This means that Israel, even though they are in an apostate position today, is still at the centre of history because God still has to fulfil those promises that He once made to give that land to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That involves their resurrection and eventual possession of that particular land.

The reason for Revelation chapter seven is that there is a restoration of Israel and after the Tribulation begins God is going to call out 144,000 from the twelve tribes of Israel to be evangelists who will go forth and take the gospel to primarily to Israel but also to gentiles. It is the very presence of Israel today and in the future that is part of God's testimony of His faithfulness to His Word and that He can bring about that which He has promised. Jeremiah 31:35 ^NASB "Thus says the LORD, Who gives the sun for light by day And the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; The LORD of hosts is His name: [36] 'If this fixed order departs From before Me,' declares the LORD, 'Then the offspring of Israel also will cease From being a nation before Me forever'." In other words, Israel will be a nation before God forever.

In the Old Testament God promised that He would destroy Israel for their disobedience, but that He would also restore them. Leviticus 26:31-35 ^NASB "I will lay waste your cities as well and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your soothing aromas. I will make the land desolate so that your enemies who settle in it will be appalled over it. You, however, I will scatter among the nations and will draw out a sword after you, as your land becomes desolate and your cities become waste. Then the land will enjoy its sabbaths all the days of the desolation, while you are in your enemies' land; then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. All the days of {its} desolation it will observe the rest which it did not observe on your sabbaths, while you were living on it." That is the background for Daniel's prayer in chapter nine. In Deuteronomy 4:47 God promises: ^NASB "The LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD drives you. [28] There you will serve gods, the work of man's hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. [29] But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find {Him} if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul." The prophecy is that as the Jews are scattered in all the nations around the earth, then while they are out there in those nations they will seek the Lord and they will find Him, they will turn to Him in that position of captivity. Cf. Deuteronomy 30:1-3.

Isaiah 11:11 ^NASB "Then it will happen on that day that the Lord Will again recover the second time with His hand The remnant of His people, who will remain, From Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, And from the islands of the sea." "That day" in context is referring to the Millennial kingdom, what occurs when the Messiah comes at the end of the Tribulation. What this passages is saying is that at the end of the Tribulation the Lord is going to restore Israel a second time. How many times before that can the Lord restore Israel from all the nations? Only once! There is going to be one restoration, and this is going to be a restoration in belief that occurs at the end of the Tribulation but it implies that there is another world-wide restoration that occurs before that. It couldn't have been the restoration that occurred in 586 BC because that restoration was primarily just from Babylon and was not world-wide.

In the process of bringing them back as a regenerate nation there is going to have to be an unregenerate nation there already to fulfil the Daniel 9 prophecy. They have a temple there that the Antichrist can desecrate, a nation there that the Antichrist can enter into a covenant with. That implies that first restoration, and that is what is going on right now. For the first time in history we are seeing a world-wide regathering of Jews—in unbelief. What the Scriptures indicate is that the initial return has to be in unbelief because there will be an apostate nation that is going to enter into this contract with the Antichrist. But we can't look at this and say that the Rapture is around the corner. It just means that God is setting the stage for what is going to happen next in history, which is the Tribulation and the return to those circumstances. God has to do certain things at the end of the church age—near the end is a relative term—in order to prepare things for the Tribulation.

During this period God is going to bring Israel to salvation through turmoil and incredible testing, e.g. Ezekiel 20:33, 34 ^NASB "'As I live,' declares the Lord GOD, 'surely with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out [Tribulation], I shall be king over you. I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands where you are scattered, with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out [Tribulation]; and I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will enter into judgment with you face to face… [38] and I will purge from you the rebels and those who transgress against Me; I will bring them out of the land where they sojourn, but they will not enter the land of Israel. Thus you will know that I am the LORD.'" There is going to be this judgment on saved and unsaved Jews at the end of the Tribulation period. Cf. Ezekiel 22:17-19, 21-22.

Zephaniah 2:1, 2 ^NASB "Gather yourselves together, yes, gather, O nation without shame, before the decree takes effect—the day passes like the chaff—before the burning anger of the LORD comes upon you, Before the day of the LORD'S anger comes upon you." They are to gather themselves before the wrath occurs. There are two regatherings: one to the land which is a physical regathering, and a second regathering which is spiritual and take place at the end of the Tribulation period. We can chart it this way: At the end of the church age there will be a regathering in unbelief, and then at the end of the Tribulation there will be a regathering in belief.

Israel will be gathered to the land for persecution and judgment. This is the context for calling out these 12,000 from each of the twelve tribes, Jewish evangelists who will take the gospel primarily to Jews in the Tribulation period. Israel's regathering will be in stages. The modern Israel parallels the Israel that is predicted to exist in the end times.

Zionism is nothing more and nothing less than the belief that Jews have a right to a homeland, a nation in their historic homeland. Christian Zionism is just the belief by Christians that the Word of God teaches that Israel does have a right to their own land and that this was given to them by God in the Old Testament.  

In conclusion, what we see in the first eight verses of Revelation chapter seven is that consistent with God's purpose and plan in history is going to bring Israel back to the land, He is going to restore His emphasis on Israel, and He is going to call out these 144,000 Jewish evangelists who primarily go to the house of Israel.

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