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Begin by reading some verses from Daniel's prophecy in chapter two. And in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams, and his spirit was troubled, and his sleep brake from him. Then the king commanded to call the magicians and the enchanters and the sorcerers and the Chaldeans for to tell the king his dreams. So they came in and stood before the king. And the king said unto them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit is troubled to know the dream. Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in the Syrian language, O king, live forever.
Tell thy servants the dream, and we will show thee the interpretation. The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, the thing is gone from me. Now we ought to pause and notice that the translation of that phrase is uncertain. It is possible that the king meant one thing or another. Did he mean that the dream had slipped his memory and he couldn't remember what it was, and therefore, as the passage will now say, he demanded of his wise men to tell him what the dream was, and then to give the interpretation, because he had been forgetful and forgotten what the dream was after all.
That, of course, is to be held a distinct possibility, granted Nebuchadnezzar his addiction to the bottle and his elderly age. It could, however, mean something. It could mean simply, now the decree is gone forth from me, that if you make no- not known unto me the dream and the interpretation thereof, you shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made at dunghill. And on the whole, I think I favor that second, uh, translation. That the king here is not saying, I have forgotten the dream, the dream is gone from me. It is most unlikely that it had. I suspect he held in his mind the sharpest memory of what that dream was.
But he was being a very canny king. Tell these wise men the dream, and they will come up with the interpretation thereof, but how do you know that they weren't cheating? They were powerful men, were these wise men in Babylon, and carried a tremendous lot of, uh, authority. And if he told them the dream, which surely his gracious majesty could already see, pondered serious matters for, uh, uh, promised serious matters for him. They might take advantage of it and say the dream meant that soon Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom was to pass away or something frightful like that.
So, Nebuchadnezzar hadn't forgotten the dream, but first of all decided to set these wise men a test. If they were really wise men, let them give evidence that they were wise men. Let them first, without being told, tell the king exactly what he dreamed. Ah, if they could do that, then the king might be disposed to listen to their interpretation of the dream. First, then he would prove them by asking them to tell him what the dream had been.
The wise men tried all they knew in polite language to tell the king that he was being very arbitrary. And when he wouldn't yield and persisted that if they didn't tell him the dream, what the dream was, then he would have them executed, they replied in verse ten, there is not a man upon the earth that can show the king's matter, for as much as no king, lord, nor ruler hath asked any such thing of any magician or enchanter or Chaldean, and it is a rare thing that the king requireth, and there is none other that can show it before the king, except the gods whose dwelling is not with flesh. Which was polite palace language, which actually meant that the king Nebuchadnezzar was being an arbitrary silly fool, demanding of these wise men something that no other king had ever thought of asking anybody.
And so you will perceive, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, as we think of these things, that chapter two of the book of Daniel has two major lessons to convey to us. It is, of course, a lesson on the Gentile empires and includes as its major portion the divine critique of Gentile government. But we should not allow ourselves to overlook the fact that the divine critique of Gentile government is preceded by a demonstration of divine revelation.
So just for a few moments, let us think about that demonstration, first of all, that there is such a thing as divine revelation. If there isn't, of course, then exit the whole of the book of Daniel. For the worth of the book of Daniel lies explicitly here, that in these visions we have not the shrewd forecasts of, uh, wise political and religious men, that we do have revelation strictly so called, that the God of heaven interposed and actually communicated and communicated directly first to Nebuchadnezzar and then to his servant Daniel.
Indeed, we may enlarge the issue at stake and say that this is the issue at stake in Holy Scripture. Is this book simply a collection of the writings of wise, shrewd men, who, being experts in morality and in theology, have decided to write what they thought, and somehow or other we have to believe that that becomes to us divine revelation? Or is it that in the Word of God we have the self-revelation of God to us men and women? That is a very big issue at stake, and all theologians and budding theologians present will know what I refer to.
Here, therefore, at the very beginning, before we get an actual prophecy, God in his wisdom has the whole thing raised. Is there such a thing as divine revelation? And if there is, what do you mean by it? Look at chapter two and verse thirty, if you will, where Daniel explains to his majesty, but as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living, but to the intent that the interpretation may be known to the king. Now, Daniel is not saying that he has no IQ.
For chapter one he has recorded that when it came to his final year examinations in the university, he passed them with flying colors. There wasn't a chap in the university that could match him, nor a girl either, for his IQ. He is making the point that there is a distinct difference between a man using his IQ and offering us thus the results of his shrewd thinking and calculations and forecasting, on the one hand, and the question of direct divine revelation on the other. Now, surely God does not despise the human intellect, and there are many occasions when he chooses to use it, and in his hands it becomes a blessing to men.
But here again, we come back to the point Daniel is making the point now, that in this interpretation of the vision, you have divine revelation, demonstrated to be such by the fact that Daniel was able to tell the king what he dreamed. So now, in the difference between Daniel at this particular occasion and the wise men of Babylon, you will see the difference between science, properly so called, and revelation. A scientist starts with the evidence that is given him. There is the universe in front of him.
The scientist doesn't use his brain to manufacture an a universe, to manufacture the evidence. The evidence is there. He comes in at the second stage and uses his intellect to try and understand and to interpret the evidence that is before him. And those wise men in Nebuchadnezzar's court, well, we shall not call them scientists, shall we, because our modern day scientists might be a little bit offended to be classed with such men. They will point out to us that these old, uh, magicians and things, they poked around studying dreams and investigated the livers of animals to make their forecasts from, and all such other impossible things.
How could you call them scientists? Well, perhaps we won't then. Call them what you will. Though it would have been odd, wouldn't it? And if the dear men hadn't have investigated dreams, we should have said how unscientific they were. I mean, are not dreams a tremendous part of people's experience? How could you profess to be, to have a scientific view of the world and not come round to asking yourself, what do dreams mean? The psychologists are still at it, God be thanked. What do dreams mean? Oh, you mustn't criticize them too much because their techniques of investigation were rather lowly, and they, they hit upon a lot of theories that weren't really true.
They tried to investigate dreams. They tried to investigate the stars. Alas, they went in more for astrology than astronomy. But then they were infants at the game, weren't they? And let's not laugh too loudly at their accomplishments. Do you know, when I was a lad all those many years ago, the medicals, they won't mind my saying it, but the medical scientists had come up with certain theories and operations that now, if you were to mention them, would bring a red glow to the cheeks of the medics. Why? Because science, you know, in the end is empirical, isn't it? We do our best with the evidence, we use all the techniques we know, nowadays logic and what have you, but still a good deal of empiricism.
We kick the thing and see what happens, and you kick it a hundred times and take the statistics, and then you come up with your results. What an honorable profession, uh, the science is. We, yes, we should not, uh, for all the honor we pay our scientists, we should not go to the extreme of imagining that there is such a thing as science with a capital S that, uh, is our final arbiter. All there are are scientists, honorable men, I wish I had been one, who, facing the evidence of the universe around us, do their best to understand it and apply the results to the benefit of all.
We have earlier seen that Daniel is not anti-science. He was prepared for the education of Babylon, to play his part in it. But when you said that, there is a fundamental distinction between science and revelation. In science, the scientist faces the evidence that is given him. He doesn't create the evidence. And this was the problem facing the wise men when Nebuchadnezzar, that rather gray morning, made what to them was an utterly irrational and arbitrary demand. Not that they should interpret the evidence of the dream, but they should cough up the evidence to start with.
They were to tell him what the dream was. There isn't a man on earth that can do it, he says, and we're grateful for their acknowledgement. Now, when we talk of revelation, we're talking of something that nobody would ever know, except God were pleased to reveal it. And having revealed it, his word becomes the evidence which now we as theologians try to interpret. Some people say they cannot believe in prophecy. They don't mind, uh, writings about the past in the Bible, but, uh, it's the bits that talk about the future that they find difficult.
Well, now let's notice another thing before we, uh, uh, go on to the second lesson. The other point that is made here in this story about divine revelation. Divine revelation frequently reveals the future. That is not its only and sole task. On this occasion, it revealed the past. Yes? The issue at stake was not simply, could divine revelation reveal the future? It was, could divine revelation revealed last night's happenings? What Nebuchadnezzar dreamed about last night on his bed? Could it reveal the past? So if you're going to believe in revel- in the question of the basic possibility of revelation, you mustn't confine yourself to thinking simply about can God reveal the future, or can the Bible reveal the future?
It's more than that. Is there such a thing as revelation where God can reveal to his people past, present, or future that otherwise they would not know? Daniel is there to say in the name of the Jewish believers, in the name of God, there is such a thing as divine revelation. God has spoken into this world. We in our day and generation need to be clear in our minds about those two things. I repeat, not anti-science. There's no reason to be anti-science. On the other hand, we are not re- to reduce holy writ to being the best that holy men can think of, as some do.
Some would tell us that what we have, for instance, in our gospels is simply that God revealed himself in Jesus Christ. The dear apostles did their best, best, poor men, to understand it. They didn't understand it themselves a hundred percent. Then they sat down and tried to write it, and that was even worse. And what we have got is a rather mishmash of very imperfect u- u- understandings, expressions of very imperfect understandings, to understand what God was saying in the person of Jesus. You'll see how fundamental an issue it is. Is our New Testament divine revelation inspired by God's Holy Spirit, or isn't it? But now then we come to the major lesson that was taught in this, on this occasion.
And as you will see, it was a divine critique of Gentile government given to Nebuchadnezzar. Now, if you will care to look at your summary sheet of contents here, you will see that there are, in fact, in the book of Daniel, two critiques of Gentile imperialistic government. The one is given in chapter two and the other is given in chapter uh seven. And it is a profitable thing if for a moment we consider the differences between them.
Both, as I say, are divine critiques of Gentile imperial government, and both will tell us why, in the end, Gentile government will have to be destroyed and removed, and its place taken by the Lord Jesus at his second coming. But notice how different they are. Different in the imagery that they use. In chapter two, the Gentile governments are represented as a majestic image of a man, beautiful, a delightful work of art, an achievement of the human spirit.
And, uh, in chapter seven, by vivid contrast, those same Gentile imperial governments are represented as ravening wild beasts. So we notice that there's not one, but two critiques, and at first sight they are exceedingly different. One represents Gentile governments as the acme of human civilization, and one represents them as wild, ravening beasts. They are so different that some scholars have thought that chapter seven contradicts chapter two, or chapter seven must have been written by somebody different from the author of chapter two.
That, of course, is not the true explanation of affairs, but this is God giving us two views of Gentile government. The views are not contradictory, but complementary. And as we think about these things, it is good for us to observe there are two views. One puts the one side, one puts the other. You will need both of them in order to get a complete idea of what God thinks of Gentile government. Notice the other contrast. In both critiques, imperial Gentile government is shown to have a flaw, a fatal fault.
But then it's different on each occasion. In chapter two, we are told that the feet and toes of the image were made of iron and clay, which proved to be, uh, impossible to unite. They were incoherent substances. You couldn't make them stand together. Therefore, the image was basically unstable because of this fatal weakness. But the seeming opposite, he said in chapter seven, where the governments are all likened to beasts, the fourth one more particularly so, and in the end those beasts are destroyed, and the fourth one in particular, uh, put away.
Why? Not because they were weak, oh, for the very opposite reason, because they were strong, hideously strong, and possessed of such frightening power, that had God let them go, they would have destroyed mankind completely and the planet upon which we live. As we proceed to the detail in the coming weeks, we shall see how it is necessary to hold both views in order to get a balanced concept of the nature of Gentile imperial government. And finally, you'll notice that in those chapters, when God comes to symbolize the messianic kingdom, that he shall set up in the place of Gentile powers, the symbolism is different each time, and very, very significantly different.
In chapter two, the beautiful polished image of a man is smashed to smithereens by a stone, a boulder, cut out without hands, rough-hewn and unpolished, and stands in vivid contrast to the artificial artwork of that statue of a man. But when in chapter seven God describes the Messianic kingdom, now it's no longer in the form of a rough-hewn stone that might at first sight seem inferior to a beautiful polished image.
The Messianic kingdom is given to and set up by one like unto the Son of Man, beautiful and delightful in the contrast between him as the ideal Son of Man, perfectly humane and human, as distinct from those ravening wild beasts that have tormented the world for so many centuries. If then I've made my point that there are two critiques of Gentile government, we must take each one in turn and hold both of them finally in our minds, uh, in order to get a balanced view, then I have done my job so far.
Now let's turn to see what lessons we can learn from the image on God's assessment of Gentile government. Is it, we say, that God has proclaimed that Gentile rule in the end will have to be destroyed? That God holds that all Gentile government is essentially and in its very nature, bad and evil. No, indeed not. The very reverse is true. You say, but you've just told us that Gentile government is like a ravening lot of beasts, and we know that well in our experience.
Look at old Napoleon with his oceans of blood, and look at Master Hitler with his gas chambers. Have not empires been ravening wild beasts? Evil in the extreme? Well, yes, from one point of view, they have. Ah, yes, but there's another side to it. Oh, do notice how balanced God's word is. From another point of view, Gentile government is rightly represented by a majestic image, and not of a cow, nor a bull, nor a lion, but an image of a man. It was, I know, a dream image, but in Babylon the artists could have, uh, produced such a thing.
They had the technology to do it. It upset Nebuchadnezzar a little bit when he saw it in his dream. Can you imagine the shock on the poor old boy? Dreams can be up off-putting, can't they? In the middle of the night, suddenly he was out walking on the plain. He couldn't re- remember how he got there. You know how it is in a dream. And suddenly he saw this colossal image of a man. Oh, what on earth is it? And, uh, well, it was so big. You know, some men are very impressive, aren't they? But if you get them too big, man written too large, he he begins to be a little bit awe-inspiring, and, uh, Nebuchadnezzar, when he saw this colossal great image, he must have been a little upset.
Who told them to put up an image here? I never gave any command to anybody to put up an image here. Oh, just look at the image. What a curious thing. Ha. Gold at the top, silver, brass, iron. Oh, what on earth is this absurd thing? Feet, iron and clay. What a stupid artist to go and do a thing like that. I wonder, did Nebuchadnezzar in his dream said, I'll have, I'll have somebody own up to this, and I'll have his head off for this absurdity? Anyway, what's he saying with a man like this up on the plain? What man? What man is there around here big enough to be represented by an image like this if it isn't me?
Ha! And what on earth is the artist saying about me? And while he was a pondering this, there came a stone cut out without hands. Oh, look out, says Nebuchadnezzar, it's going to hit the image. And so it did. And the whole thing was smashed to smithereens and carried away, and Nebuchadnezzar woke up. You know how nightmares are, don't you? If that was him, what were the gods saying? That his empire was coming to an end? No wonder he didn't tell the wise men what his dream was. I don't know what they'd have made of that. Yes, the image is coming to its end, one day.
For all that God says, it was a glorious image to start with. And government has been, has it not? Do you not agree? Government has been a marvelous achievement of man upon this planet. Rather than live as savages in a jungle. What wonderful things we owe to human government of achievement. The Romans with their great aqueducts and roadways, and the Greeks with their inventions. Let us not speak always despisingly of the achievements of human government.
How much we owe to it ourselves, anyway. Who wouldn't prefer to be an Englishman living in Belfast than an Englishman living among the pygmies in the rainforest? And what is more, not only is it a magnificent achievement of man stamping his authority on this planet, but the Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar in the name of God, thou art, O king, the head of gold, and all the glory has God given you. It was God himself that gave Nebuchadnezzar the glory and the glitter and the power to be the emperor he was. Right down to the New Testament days, the apostles will affirm that there is no power but of God.
Government, in that sense, is of God. But then we have to notice that the image tells us that no empire will be permanent. Now, that is no news to us who have learned from our history books about many empires that have come and gone. It was perhaps news to people like Nebuchadnezzar, who still held the fond hope that his empire might live forever. When I was a boy, there were some people who thought the British Empire was going to live forever. It proved to be one of the shortest in history. Isn't that a funny thing?
How empires don't stay put. Why do, why does that happen, and why do civilizations go bad and disappear? And nations that once led the world become also rans and very third class nations amongst the world. Why is that? Is it always going to be so? God is telling Nebuchadnezzar that no one empire is going to be permanent, and Nebuchadnezzar's will be followed by another, and that by another still. No one empire permanent. And then there are various m- metals representing these empires that tell us that the different forms of government that they represent have different values.
They are not all the same. The Babylonian was of gold, so to speak, glorious. Much more glorious than the fourth one, which was made of common old iron. On the other hand, the iron was stronger by far than the gold. And so no, uh, uh, uh, uh, no one empire, no one political system proves to be of absolute value, not in God's system. Sometimes we take that hard, and there are those that would identify Chris- Christianity with, uh, democracy, as though democracy were of absolute value, and to be a Christian, you must be a Democrat.
That isn't how God sees it. Different forms of government have different values. No one form of government is either permanent or of absolute value. They come and they go. We must beware of exalting things that are of relative value and looking at them as though they were of absolute value. God called you one day to live in a country that is not a democracy, but an exceeding, uh, severe tyranny. Well, so what? Daniel lived under what was in fact a tyranny.
And then shall we notice what else the image tells us? It tells us that change by itself does not bring in the great age of peace. Now, our communist friends tell us it will. They have a theory that is precisely by this fact that, uh, governments change, that history is on the move, and it goes from, uh, thesis to antithesis to synthesis, and it will go from feudalism to capitalism to socialism to communism. And it will do that by the inevitable laws of change that, according to communist theory, are inherent in history.
And so they inspire many people in backward countries to fight for the communist cause. Why? Because they tell them that the very laws of history are on your side. Change is inevitable, and change, helped by the Communist Party, will eventually bring in the great millennium, and they call upon people to sacrifice their lives, curiously enough, for a millennium that by definition they will never see. Because the dear communists can't believe there's a resurrection, and when his life on this earth is done, it's done and done forever. And millions are persuaded of the gospel of it, that somehow there are laws in history that mean that change will inevitably bring in the great golden age of peace.
Let the image tell you it won't. There's a change of government, but change by itself didn't bring in the age of peace. What did bring it in? Why, the coming in power and great glory of the Son of Man, of the Messiah, who came to destroy first the systems of men and set up God's kingdom in its place. To suppose that there are some absolute laws in history that lead automatically to the millennium is a form of idolatry, of course. Just as much as m- our old Nebuchadnezzar believing in Marduk and the moon god, the forces of nature.
So your communist believes in the laws of history. They amount to the same thing in the end. There are no such absolute laws. Shall we then notice that when the messianic kingdom comes, it is not a final stage of the image, is it? The old image didn't, wasn't made up of gold, silver, copper, iron, iron and clay, and stone at the bottom. No, no. The Messianic Kingdom is not part of that series at all. It's something completely different. And when it comes, it smashes the image and takes its place. So the kingdom of God shall come, not by the governments of this world gradually getting more and more refined and the political systems perfected, until one day you'll wake up and you say, hello, it feels a bit odd today.
Oh, I know what it is, the kingdom of God has come. No, no. The kingdom of God, the messianic kingdom, is not the final stage in the image, but something completely different. Then you will notice what the fatal weakness of the image was as an image. There were in the toes and feet two constituent parts, iron and clay, and of course they could not mix. So there was the strength of the iron, there was the weakness and brittleness of the clay, they would not cohere. Now there have been variant interpretations of this fact.
Some have said that the clay represents democracy as distinct, say, from the gold of Nebuchadnezzar's tyranny. And some have said, no, the g- the iron and the clay represent different nations that shall be in the final form of Gentile rule, that shall not cohere in spite of intermarriage. They shall try by intermarriage, by the seed of men, to unite nations that are disparate and of different qualities, and they will not succeed, and the whole thing will fall apart. Choose whichever one you think is best. I, at this stage, because it is a quarter to three in the afternoon, uh, give, uh, way to flights of fancy.
Uh, but betrayed to do that by my own experience, you know. I have a great sympathy with that image. I don't know about you, but now I forget, I forget these public things and come to exceedingly private matters. Forgive me. But sometimes I feel like that image, quite majestic. And as an Nebuchadnezzar, I don't have the opportunity he does, he did, but I could command anybody. You should hear me Monday mornings when I wake up. Now, gooding, now, now, now you're going to do it this way, my boy. You are, you're not going to do that, and you are going to do this. Cool, I would make a delightful Nebuchadnezzar. Oh, I should get everybody behaving. Very good at commanding.
I have a little weakness, if you won't tell anybody else. I'm not too good at obeying and carrying it out. It's unfortunate, really. I have to say, like, uh, another did, oh, wretched man that I am, the good I would do, that I don't do. Oh, that fatal flaw in the human makeup that all down the centuries has made human government unstable, whether in the individual or whether in the state. Man for all his majesty, nations for all their achievements, beggared by this fatal weakness in the human makeup.
Why will it all have to be removed? Why will not Gentile government be perfected and turn into the kingdom of God? For this very reason, sirs. It's not God being nasty and peevish, it's God being realistic. There is a fatal, fatal flaw in man qua man that pursues him as an individual, that pursues him at the level of government. Strong to command, not so strong to obey and carry out what is right. How well we have n- how much we have seen it in the course of history.
Thank God, it's gospel now that Daniel tells us, gospel, that God has an answer to the problem that centuries of experience have exposed. There shall be an age of peace in spite of the clay in man's totttery feet. God is not going to leave our planet to ruin. There is coming the great kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, thank God for it. And when it comes, it shall be stable. It shall stand like a mountain. There'll be no tottering there, because it will come as that stone was, cut out without hands, a Hebrew idiom for saying by divine and supernatural power, thus it shall be done.
This is no child's story, comforting us in the dark with unrealistic hopes. This is the reality of a God that has intervened to send his son into our world and begin that great work already, that regenerating of men and women by his spirit that shall make the basis for his coming reign of glory and a kingdom that rests not on man's broken powers, but upon the supernatural power of God. As we wait for that great event, let us ask ourselves even now, have we already entered into that present phase of God's kingdom by that entry that is not our best efforts, but by our experience of the supernatural power of God in being born again of water and the spirit.
And finally, when will that great messianic kingdom come? Now here, let me interpose a note. My good friend, Mr. Gilpin here, sitting on the front row, uh, I owe him many things over many years, and I'm grateful for his help. And he has pointed out to me this morning that I was speaking about the Messianic Kingdom coming with the coming of Christ, and that I had not mentioned our Lord's coming as it relates to the church. He was absolutely right in his diagnosis. Thank you, Mr. Gilpin, sir. You will find a weakness in me, if not in the image, that in the course of these lectures I shall not be speaking much of our Lord's coming for the church.
Now, if you feel that a big need and you don't understand the difference, ask the leader of your group that you're in to explain these matters. I shall not be speaking much of our Lord's coming for the church because I am, in fact, interpreting the book of Daniel, and you would hardly expect anything about the church in the book of Daniel, would you? We were going to speak about the Lord's coming for the church, we should need to follow other scriptures in the New Testament. This series, therefore, by your great leave, I shall be speaking not of the Lord's coming to take his people home to the Father's house, with all those comforting things that there shall there follow. I am speaking of the bigger thing, the Lord's appearing in power and great glory, his revelation, his apocalypse, when he comes to execute the wrath of God and to set up the Messianic kingdom.
When will he do it? Does this image give us any notion of when he will do it? We notice that the image gives us a succession of empires. And as I read them in my innocence, there are five stages and not four. The head of gold, which was Babylon, the breast and arms of silver, which was Medo-Persia, the belly and sides of copper, which was Greece, the legs of iron that were Rome, and then listed quite, quite clearly, distinctly, the feet and toes that were, uh, of iron and clay.
You will notice that the legs were not of iron and clay mixed. Now, it is common knowledge, if you accept that, uh, uh, is, uh, these are the equivalents, not all agree, but if you accept that these are the equivalents, it is evident our Lord was born under the authority of ancient Rome. What we are interested, therefore, in is what does it mean when it says that the stone was cut out without hands and smashed the image? Uh, is the prophet referring to our Lord's birth, his life here on earth? When he was born, did he then proceed to smash the governments of the world and set up his own kingdom?
And some people would sincerely answer yes to that. Yes, he began, not all at once, but little by little, so to speak, to hack away at Gentile, uh, sinfulness and inadequacy, and gradually the world is being somehow Christianized. That is a view that seems to me unlikely. And indeed, when we read the rest of the New Testament, there are other references to Christ and his people smashing the nations of the earth. In the Revelation, for instance, in chapter two, our Lord speaks to his, uh, people and says as follows in chapter two: he who overcomes and keeps my works unto the end, to him will I give authority over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of the potter are broken to shivers, as I also have received of my Father.
It is evident there that the breaking in pieces is not something our Lord has already done. It's something that he promises to share with those that trust him and keep his works to the end, as when he shall do it. But of course, this question of how did our Lord set up his kingdom and how did he propose to do it, was a matter that, uh, uh, concerned the early believers, eh, uh, of whom we read in the New Testament. Let me therefore briefly indicate to you how the New Testament itself goes about, uh, this problem.
Phases in the setting up of the kingdom. When our Lord came, he was announced by John the Baptist, who prophesied of our Lord that he would do two things. He would baptize people in the Holy Spirit. Secondly, his fan was in his hand, he would thoroughly purge his threshing floor, gather the wheat into the garner, and burn up the fire with unqu- quenchable, uh, burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Two things then, impart the Holy Spirit, destroy the wicked. And John called upon people to repent because the kingdom of God was at hand, said John, you better repent because while the Messiah can baptize you in the Holy Spirit, if you turn out to be chaff, he'll burn you up with unquenchable fire.
Repent, man! The axe is laid at the root of the tree, and bad trees are about to come down. Then John began to have a problem. He witnessed like this to Master Herod, and Herod didn't like it, and his wife liked it even less. And John found himself in prison. Expected, I imagine, that the Lord would come and do a little burning up of chaff, namely burning up Master Herod and his wife. Weren't they infamous, deliberate defiers of God? And Jesus was the Messiah, come to burn up the chaff. Well, let him come then and burn up some chaff.
Our Lord didn't come. Matthew eleven tells us of John's perplexity. So perplexed that at a point he sent messengers to Jesus and says, now look here, now tell us plainly, are you really the Christ? Or have we got to wait for another? This is the New Testament itself, raising this question. If Jesus is the Christ, why didn't he put down evil when he came first? And in Matthew thirteen, our Lord begins to give the answer to this matter. He says, you know, the kingdom now is to be set up by the sower going forth to sow the word of God.
In this present age. Not by the Son of Man executing the judgments of God and smashing the nations. The kingdom is to be set up by the sower preaching the word. And what will happen is this, and he quoted the parable of the tares and the wheat. The man planted the wheat in his field. The wheat grew up, but the tares grew up as well. They represented the evil ones. The servants came to the master and they said, would thou that we root up the tares? No, said the master, lest in rooting them up you root the wheat up as well. Let both grow until the harvest. So here our Lord began to teach his people that there, that there were to be two phases in the setting up of his kingdom.
The present spiritual phase, when men and women are given the opportunity to repent and to believe the gospel and to get converted. A time when evil will be allowed to grow largely unchecked. But then he assured his people that one day the final harvest would come, and at the end of the age, yes, indeed, the Son of Man would come forth with his angels, root out the wicked, and consign them to their proper destiny. Notice, if you will, how Luke records the questionings and the answers that, uh, went between, uh, the disciples and the Lord over this same matter.
When will the kingdom be restored to Israel? When will the times of the Gentiles cease? And the Gentiles being put down, the kingdom be restored to Israel. When our Lord met with his disciples throughout the forty days, they asked him, is it at this time that you're going to restore the kingdom to Israel? And he, in effect, said, no, not at this time. You go and be my witnesses to the end of the earth. With that, he ascended. As he ascended, the angel stood by and said, gentlemen, this Jesus whom you've seen go, he's coming again, you know.
Oh, what a tremendous thing that was. So he's coming again. So he's not going to restore the kingdom to Israel just yet, but he will come again. In chapter two, you'll hear Peter quoting Psalm one hundred and ten. Jesus is the Messiah, he says to the Jew. If any Jew in the crowd said, but look here, Peter, how can he be? How can he be the Messiah when he's not put down evil, he's not smashed the Gentiles, he has not restored the kingdom to Israel? How can he possibly be the Messiah? And Peter now was ready with Psalm one hundred and ten, which maps out the program. The Lord said unto my Lord, sit at my right hand, that's the ascension, until, that's his present age, the second coming, when God will make his enemies the footstool of his feet.
And so when in chapter three the crowds come running around Peter for an explanation of the miracle, he says, I've done it in the name of Jesus. He is the Messiah. You crucified him. God has raised him. And now what? Well, the day of restoration is coming, but not at once, says Peter, the heavens must receive him until the times of the restorations of all things of which the prophets have spoken. Here then is the New Testament facing the problem, our Lord born under the ancient system of Rome, setting up his kingdom in a spiritual sense now.
But as Old Testament said would happen, waiting the interval, the until period between his ascension and his coming again. When that great day dawns and he comes again, then his kingdom will be visibly established in this world, and the kingdom restored to Israel, as the prophets had prophesied. Before I switch this off, may I just point out one of the reasons behind this particular, uh, selection of New Testament scriptures is to put together some of those scriptures that contain that important word until.
Where the New Testament shows itself aware of the great practical problem faced by Christians, particularly when they deal with Jews. They claim that Jesus is the Messiah. The Old Testament said that when the Messiah came, he would put down evil. The immediate question, therefore, that springs to the mind of an intelligent Jew is this: but how can your Jesus be Messiah if he hasn't put down evil? During the last war, we heard parallel questions from Gentiles. When vast carnage was going on, people would ask us, but how, uh, can there be a God?
You say Jesus is the Son of God, why doesn't he do something about this terrible evil that is going on? And therefore, for the early Christians to claim that Jesus is the Messiah, they had to have an answer to this question. Well, where on earth is his kingdom then, if he's the Messiah? And what's he doing about fulfilling what Old Testament said he would fulfill? Uh, that is the putting down of evil. And you'll notice how some of these questions answer that. They begin with our Lord saying here in Matthew, let both go together until. The wrath of God is not going to be executed until the end of the age.
And the Messiah shall not cry nor, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street until he send forth judgment to victory. Then, of course, taught by the Lord Jesus, the apostles, and the early church, uh, made much of Psalm one hundred and ten verse one as also of verse four. But verse one gives us the program from the Old Testament that God had foreordained. Sit at my right hand. That very command to the Savior from the Father implies the time when he wasn't at the right hand, for the simple reason that he was here on earth. He is bidden by the Father, sit at my right hand, that is his ascension.
Until, said the Psalm, covering this present age, until I make thine enemies the footstool of thy feet. And as you see, there is Peter heard saying the same thing in Acts chapter three twenty one. Jesus is the Messiah. See evidence in the miracle that I have just performed, says Peter, that he is the Messiah. Yes, it is true that one day God shall restore everything that he promised to restore through the Old Testament prophets, but not just now. The heavens must receive the Lord Jesus.
That is, he will remain there until the times of the restoration of all things that the prophets have spoken. You notice then how this matter of the until keeps recurring in the New Testament scriptures, because, of course, it was such a vital thing for the understanding of the early Christians, what had happened to the Lord Jesus, and where did this all fit in with the program that the Old Testament had mapped out. Not doing quite so good now. Oh, and there are so many buns to be eaten at tea. Pity that your tea time will be cut down a little bit, but do forgive me.
