Plucking the Eagle's Wings

Plucking the Eagle's Wings

Gentiles were grafted into God's covenant with Abraham's descendants. At this point, God's covenant timekeeping shifted to the Gentiles and started at the time of the crucifixion of Christ, the Messiah who was cut off. Even some rabbis teach that God has stopped counting time with reference to the Jews because of their unbelief. Jesus continually rebuked the Jews for their unbelief. The crucifixion of Jesus is believed to have occurred in April of 32 A.D. Christ predicted the destruction of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple (Matthew 24:1-2). This came to pass in 70 A.D. From the time of Christ's death until this present generation, God has been keeping time based on the new covenant. When the time of the Gentile nations is completed, the Lord will once again base prophetic timing upon His beloved nation Israel. The final seven years before Christ's return, called Daniel's seventieth week, is also called the seven-year tribulation. Let me emphasize that confusion over how to calculate the timing of prophetic events can be solved when we understand how God counts in covenant time. Jesus Christ formed a new covenant through His death and resurrection. According to Matthew 1:17, a total of forty two generations existed from Abraham to Christ. These generations cannot be traced by a specific calendar, but each generation consists of forty to fifty years. Each generation represents one man who had a son, who then had a son and so forth. We could say that there are fourteen people from Abraham to David, fourteen people from David to Babylon, and fourteen people from Babylon to Christ, thus generating a total of Abraham is the natural father of the Jews. When God made a covenant with Abraham, He promised a multitude of children as large as the number represented by "the stars of the heavens and the sand of the sea" (Genesis 22:17). Abraham birthed a natural nation, but through Abraham's promised seed, Jesus Christ, God would birth a spiritual nation that is the church. Two nations came through Abraham one natural and one spiritual. Many people do not realize that the Old Testament predicted Israel's rejection of God's plan, and that the Almighty would raise up a new nation from a people that did not exist. Moses articulated this in the Torah: forty-two people from Abraham Christ. The Covenants—Israel and the Church

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