“The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.
9. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them, declares the Lord.
10 . This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
11 . No longer will they teach their neighbour, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.
12 . For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
Isaiah 49 verse 3 says, says “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendour” ... verse 6 "It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob, and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth." Verse 9: "to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon and those who sit in darkness from prison. This all sounds remarkbly similar to Jesus' charge to his disciples to "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature ..." It is also a remarkably accurate description of the fulfillment of its missionary vision of the West European and British churches in taking the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the nations of the world during the 19th and 20th centuries.
Isaiah 42: 9 refers to former things that have now come to pass. What former things are these? The promises of the covenant to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. given many years ago, that through his seed - the nemnants (third) of the House of Israel who inhabit these islands at the end of the earth and the coastal regions in the Last Days - will all the nations of the world be blessed.
Isaiah prophesied it; we are witnesses to it. There is so much more in Isaiah 42 which adds more detail and contains more evidence that the peoples of the British Isles and the coasts of North West mainland Europe are where God found the lost of the House of Isreal.
A few chapters ago we examined a prophecy by Ezekiel that a period of punishment for the sins of the Children of Israel must elapse before God would seek out His people and restore the House of Israel to its former glory. According to the prophecy, the punishment - multiplied seven-fold from 360 years to 2,520 years - began in 722 BCE and ended in 1798.
So what is so significant about the year 1798? If our calculations are correct, God was now free and ready to hand-pick individuals called out from among the House of Isreal who had lost their identity (the knowledge of and signficance of being of the House Israel) - "one from a city and two from a tribal family" as Jeremiah had prophesied.
Correlate this prophecy with our study on the Book of Revelation and 1798 seems to be the year in which it all started to come together. Not only did that year mark the end of period of punishment bestoyed upon the House of Israel for its backsliding, it marked the end of the Roman Catholic Church's strangehold of the followers of Jesus in Europe - they were now free to follow God's leading outside the strict guidelines and control of the church universal.
In our journey through the "Sevens" of the Book of Revelation, 1798 falls at the end of the 5th Era in Church History. At this juncture God's says "stop" the Revelation, "John, lets have a stocktake of who is and who isn't in the Kingdom. Separate the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the tares, because it's harvest time.
God had been calling the peoples of the British Isles and the western seaboard of Europe to come out from under the control of the Roman Catholic church for a number of years, as evidenced by the founding of the Protestant Movement, the Wesleyan revival under the ministry of John (1703–1791) and Charles Wesley (1707–1788), as a movement within the Church of England; the founding of the Evangelical party of John Newton, William Wilberforce and his Clapham sect that became inspired to combat social ills at home and slavery abroad.
In 1798, freedom to read the Bible in their own tongue was made lawful. Laïcité - the name of the nearly sacred principle guarding the separation of church and state in France today - ensured that all religious groups in both France and across Europe are free and the state will not meddle in any of them. The two witness - the Old and New Testaments - were back, and very much alive! What is referred to as the Second Great Christian Awakening of the Anglican Church began in 1800, followed the founding of numerous Bible and missionary societies between 1799 and 1803.
On 25th January 1813, Pope Pius VII, in the presence of four Cardinals signed a document called the Concordat in which the Vatican renounced all power of the Pope and all of his successors over Europe and their empires (Spanish, Portuguese, Prussian, Dutch, French - the British Empire never was under Papal rule). For the first time since 538 A.D., the people of the world could legally practice Christianity outside of the covering of the Roman Catholic Church. For the first time in 1,275 yearst was now lawful everywhere to preach the Gospel as taught by Jesus and the Apostles, and to read and teach from the Bible in public.
God had returned to find and restore the lost House of Isreal - they had waited on Him for his law, and now, with their years of banishment over, were ready to fulfil God's covenant to Abraham - He would be their God, and they would be His people. All systems were 'go' for them to take the light to the gentiles - thereby fulfilling the promise to Abraham and birthright granted to the descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh by Israel/Jacob, that through them would all the nations of the world be blessed. The Missionary Age had arrived!
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