[429]It was during the early part of this world that God made promise to Abraham that through his seed all the families of the earth should be blessed.  Later, at the death of Jacob, God organized the nation of Israel or the Jews into a nation and at Mount Sinai made a covenant with them.  Jehovah dealt with the nation of Israel exclusive of all other nations for a number of years.  They had many kings, some good and some bad.  Zedekiah was their last king, and because of his wickedness God said concerning him:  “Therefore thus saith the Lord God:  Because ye have made your iniquity to be remembered, in that your transgressions are discovered, so that in all your doings your sins do appear; because, I say, that ye are come to remembrance, ye shall be taken with the hand.  And thou, profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end, thus saith the Lord God:  Remove the diadem, and take off the crown:  this shall not be the same; exalt him that is low and abase him that is high.  I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it:  and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it [to] him,”—­Ezekiel 21:24-27.

[430]In the year 606 B.C.  Zedekiah was overthrown.  He was taken a prisoner, carried away to Babylon, and Nebuchadnezzar established in the earth the first universal empire and the gentile times dated from that time forward.  The length of the gentile times is definitely fixed in the Scriptures as a period of seven symbolic times of 360 years each, or a total of 2,520 years.  This period beginning with the year 606 B.C. necessarily must end in 1914 A.D.  God had declared that he would overturn the right of the descendants of Abraham to rule, thereby permitting the gentiles to have an uninterrupted sway until he should come whose right it is.  The one whose right it is is the great Messiah, Christ Jesus the Lord.  It would be reasonable to expect him to be present some time before he would take unto himself his great power to reign.  His presence beginning in 1874, he has carried on his harvest work from 1878 forward, but has not interrupted the gentile dominion until that dominion should end.  The end of the gentile rule, therefore, would mark necessarily the end of the present order; therefore, the end of the world.  We should expect, then, to find 1914 as the beginning of the end of the old world or order of government.  And that this would take place during the presence of the Lord he definitely stated.

[431]When the gentile dominion legally ends, the order being a wicked one under the supervision of Satan, the god of the evil world (2 Corinthians 4:3,4), and all these nations lying in the wicked one (1 John 5:19), it would be expected that the gentile kingdoms and nations would strive to hold on to their power.  But when the proper time should come it would also be expected that the Lord, whose right it is, would take over the affairs into his own hands.  And so he said:  “We give thanks, O Lord God