The Witness of the Stars

by E. W. Bullinger

We now desire to specially emphasize the fact that all these dates, and their termination in a rapidly approaching fulfilment, refer only to Jerusalem, and the Gentiles, and the Jews! They refer only to the end of the Gentile possession of Jerusalem, and to the settlement of the Jews in their own city and land.

These “times and seasons” have nothing whatever to do with “the Church of God” (1 Thess. v. 1). The mystical Body of Christ, whenever its members are complete, “will be taken up to meet the Lord—the Head of the Body—in the air, so to be ever with the Lord” (1 Thess. iv. 15-17). This glorious event has nothing to do with any earthly sign or circumstance, so far as the members of this mystical Body are concerned.

Therefore we are not dealing here with the coming of the Lord; either for His saints, or with them. We are not referring to what is commonly and erroneously called “the end of the world.” We are merely pointing out that the end of Gentile dominion over Jerusalem is drawing near! And we cannot close our eyes to the marvellous manner in which the veil is being removed from Jewish hearts: to the change which has come over the Jewish nation in its attitude towards Christ and Christianity, chiefly, under God, through the unparalleled circulation of more than a quarter of a million copies of a new translation of the New Testament into Hebrew, by the late Isaac Salkinson, published by the Trinitarian Bible Society, and freely distributed by the Mildmay Mission to the Jews: to the Palestine literature which has sprung up amongst the Jews in recent years: to the persecutions in various countries which are stirring their nest, and setting the nation in motion: to the organized emigration to Argentina, which its promoters avowedly speak of as “a nursery ground for Palestine” (Daily Graphic, March 10th, 1892): to the railways completed and in course of construction in the Holy Land: to the numerous Societies and their branches which have permeated the whole nation, which, while having various names, have only one object—“the colonisation of Palestine.”

When we put these events side by side with the teaching of the heavens as to the “cycles” or appointed times, we are merely showing how [pg 194] wonderfully they agree with what is written in the Book, and witnessed to by great and uncontested historic dates.

Nor are we absolutely naming a definite year or day even for these Palestine events. After all, they can be only approximate, for man has so misused every gift that God has ever given him, that even with such wondrous heavenly time-keepers he cannot really tell you what year it is! And, besides this loss of reckoning, there is confusion as to the commencement of the a.d. era, which makes absolute accuracy between the a.m., b.c., and a.d. dates impossible.

Added to this, there is another point to be borne in mind, viz., that when the “times of the Gentiles” shall end, Jewish independence need not be either immediate or complete!

For when Nebuchadnezzar began his kingdom of Babylon in a.m. 3376 (b.c. 625), the Jews, though in their land and city, were not independent. Nebuchadnezzar went to and fro to Jerusalem, and put down and set up whom he would; and it was not till some thirty years afterwards that he destroyed the City and Temple and made the people captives.

So, likewise, in the time of the end, there may be an epanodos. There may be a similar period of possession without independence, a quasi-independence guaranteed by the Great Powers; and, for ought we know, it may be that, in order to gain complete [pg 195] independence, they may ultimately make that fatal league with the coming Prince.

So that while we name the dates 1896-7 as being significant, we are not “fixing dates” in the ordinary sense of the term, but merely pointing out some of “the signs of the times,” concerning which we ought not to be ignorant.

The true interpretation will in any case still remain, and will surely be literally fulfilled in its own time. The Word of God will be vindicated; its prophetic truth will be verified; God Himself will be glorified; and His people saved with an everlasting salvation.