Basic HTML Version
requires the ..love
OF
Goo . .. shed
abroad in our hearts by the Holy
[Spirit]" (Rom.
5:5).
God revealed bis law to the
nation Israel. One of the purposes
of this nation was to prove by
h~man
experience that man with–
out the ·Spirit of God within him
cannot be righteous.
So, at this point, let us cover a
brief synopsis of the actual history
of the nation, and of the gentile
nations of the world.
A most important declaration and
promise was given to the people of
Israel, as recorded in Leviticus 26.
Again
1
quote from my book
The
United States and Britain in Proph–
ecy,
starting page 11 0:
22
The Plvotal Prophecy
In this central prophecy, God re–
affirmed the birthright prom–
ise- but with conditions- for
those of Moses' day! The birth–
right tribes of Ephraim and
Manasseh were then
with
the
other tribes- as one nation. Obe–
dience to God's laws would bring
the vast national wealth and
blessings of the birthright not
only to Ephraim and Manasseh,
but the whole
NATION
would
automatically have shared theni
at that time.
Notice carefully that two of
the Ten Commandments are
mentioned for emphasis. These
were the main
test command–
ments!
They were the test of obe–
dience, and of faith in and loyalty
to God. God said: "Ye shall make
you no idols nor graven
image . .. to bow down unto it:
for
1
am the Lord your God. Ye
shall keep
MY
sabbaths ..."
(verses 1-2).
There was a
condition-a
great
big "if "-:-to their receiving actual
ful.fillment of this stupendous
birthright promise
in their time!
God said:
"Jf
ye walk in my stat–
utes, and keep my commandments,
and do them;
then
J
will give you
rain in due season, and the land
shall yield her increase ... "
(verses 3-4). All wealth comes out
of the ground. They would enjoy
bumper crops the year round, one
harvest on the theels of another.
Verse 6: "And 1 will give
PEACE
in
the land . . . and none shall make
you afraid . .. neither shall the
sword [of war] go through your
land ." What a blessing! What
nation enjoys continuous peace,
without fear of invasion?
Of course, in this world, every
nation has enemies. What if ene–
my nations attacked? Verses 7-8:
"And ye shall chase your ene–
mies, and they shall fall before
you by the sword. And five of you
shall chase an hundred, and an
hundred of you shall put ten
thousand to ftight. .. ."
Since many nations in this
world always have been aggres–
sors, Israel would have been
attacked. A nation with the mil–
itary superiority to defeat all
attackers would soon become the
dominant, most powerful nation
on earth- especially with re–
sources and great wealth from
the ground. Verse 9: "For 1 will
have respect unto you, and make
you fruitful, and multiply you,
and establish my covenant with
you."
The Great Blg lf
But here comes the alternative–
/F
the conditions are not met:
" .. . if ye will
not
hearken unto
me, and will not do all these
commandments .. . 1 also will do
this unto you; 1 will even appoint
over you terror, consumption,
and the burning ague [fever],
that shall consume the eyes, and
cause sorrow of heart [RSV:
waste the eyes and cause life to
pine away]: and ye shall sow
your seed in vain, for your ene–
mies shall eat it. And I will set
my face against you, and ye shall
be slain before your enemies:
they that hate you shall reign
over you . .. " (verses 14-17).
They would be invaded, con–
quered, become once again
slaves- as they had been in
Egypt before God freed them.
The Seven Prophetlc Times
Now continue in Leviticus 26:
"And if ye will not yet for all this
hearken unto me, then 1 will pun–
jsh you
seven times
more for your
sins" (verse 18)....
Now when we come to the
expression "then 1 will punish
you
seven times
more for your
sins" in Leviticus 26, it is evident
both by its manner of wording in
the sentence and by the fact of
actual fulfillment that it was
speaking of a
DURATION
of seven
prophetic
"times,"
or
YEARS.
And
on this "year-for-a-day princi–
pie," it becomes seven 360-day
years- a total of 2,520
days.
And
when each
day
is a
year
of pun–
ishment .. . the punishment be–
comes the withdrawing of and
withholding the promised bless–
ings for 2,520 years! For that is
precisely what did happen!
That national punishment- the
withholding of the birthright prom–
ises of national prosperity and dom–
inance, applied only to the house of
Israel headed by the tribes of
Ephraim and Manasseh.
How these promises were actual–
ly fulfilled at the
preci~e
time of
1800 to 1804 is one of the most
amazing fulfillments of prophecy in
the Bible and in the history of man–
kind. This fulfillment, step by step,
is vividly revealed in our. free book
The United States and Britain in
Prophecy.
This nation Israel promised to
obey God. But they never did. Even
while Moses was with the Eterna!
atop Mount Sinai
r~ceiving
further
instructions, the people melted and
fashioned a golden calf to worship
instead of the Eterna! God .
Because of their grumbling, their
lack of faith and their disobedience,
God did not allow them to enter the
Promised Land for 40 years.
At the end of the 40 years Moses
died. The Israelites were led across
the Jordan River into the Promised
Land under Joshua. During Josh–
ua's life they obeyed God more or
less but not fully.
After Joshua died, every man
did what seemed right in his own
mind. These people through dis–
obedience to God would fall cap–
tive to surrounding kings. Then
they would cry out to the Eterna!
and he would send a leader to free
them. Again and again this pro–
cess was repeated.
Israel Demanded Human King
After sorne generations God gave
them a prophet to lead and rule
them, the prophet Samuel. But in
due time the people demanded a
human king to rule them, as other
nations were ruled. God said to Sam–
uel it was not him that they rejected,
but God. Samuel had ruled only as
God's servant, and actually it had
been God's divine rule.
God gave them what they
wanted, King Saul, a tall and tow–
ering leader. But Saul disobeyed
God and the Eterna! replaced him
with King David. (The surprising
conclusi0n of this chapter will
appear next issue.) o
The
PLAIN TRUTH