071: Matt Davies - The Role of Biblical Tarshish at the Time of the End

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   Welcome to the Good Christadelphian Talks podcast. I'm Levi. And I'm Chris. Thank you so much for joining us this week. On this podcast, we select one talk a week to help each one of us get the Bible in our daily news feed. And we post at the start of each week for you to listen with a short intro beforehand to kind of set the stage for the talk you're about to hear.

2. 0:33

   And now let's hear more about this week's talk. For the podcast this week, we're listening to a talk that was given by Brother Math Davies in 2016, talking about the biblical nation of Tarshish and the role that it plays in the latter days of biblical times. This class was given right after Brexit had originally been voted on by the United Kingdom.

3. 1:02

   And I thought it would be relevant to share this class as the deadline for the United Kingdom to officially partake in Brexit and leave the European Union past at the end of January. Now, I know for some people, taking a listen to prophecy classes like this can both be encouraging and discouraging based on the fact that we do not fully understand nor know all the events that are going to take place before the return of Christ.

4. 1:24

   However, Brother Matt in his class is looking specifically at the evidence that's supporting the United Kingdom to be Tarshish and also taking a look at the role that Tarshish will play in the latter days that are outlined in Ezekiel 38. I found it to be a really thorough and well laid out class looking at that evidence.

5. 1:44

   With the things going on in the news right now with Brexit was an encouraging one to listen to. At the very beginning of his class, he makes the claim that this could be the last great sign that we will see. I don't know if I fully agree with that kind of hyperbolic statement at the beginning of it, but I did think that overall the idea of this is it might be one of the most visible signs of God working in the world around us since maybe the formation of Israel, which was before I was alive.

6. 2:10

   But I know from talking to some of the older brothers and sisters that were alive at that time, how exciting and encouraging it was to see Israel reformed as a nation. This is the first time in the last 50 years that the stage in the world matches what's outlined in Ezekiel 38, which is setting the stage for those latter days just before the Gogian Confederacy was to invade Israel.

7. 2:31

   There's still other things that may be put in place still before the return of Christ, but it's exciting to see things in the world that seem to be aligning with that glorious day coming soon. I thought it was a really interesting class to listen to, looking at all the archaeological evidence that Brother Matt gets into, talking about the evidence that allows us to sort of confidently say that the nation of Tarshish that's mentioned in the scriptures does align with the United Kingdom and all the other nations that respond from the British Empire back in history.

8. 3:03

   As always, if you have any suggestions for classes, please feel free to send them in. We have gotten a number of really interesting ones that we're in the process of listening to and really enjoying it. So if you have any other recommendations or classes, please feel free to send them in. They're always very much appreciated.

9. 3:21

   Hopefully you enjoyed this class, and I will now turn it over to Brother Matt Davies for his class on the biblical role of Tarshish in the latter days. We have witnessed perhaps what is going to be the last great sign to our generation. I truly believe that. We have witnessed on the 23rd of June the British public voting to separate themselves from the European Union.

10. 3:53

    Brexit has taken place. How many prophecy days have we been to, brothers and sisters, where the speaker dealing with the subject of Tarshish has said, do you know what? We're expecting that one day Britain's going to separate from Europe. And now, brothers and sisters, we are here. We are at that day. It's happened.

11. 4:12

    It's history. It's past. We've had words like earthquake use. We've got a new cabinet, a new prime minister. Things have completely and dramatically changed on the world scene.

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    Against all the odds, brothers and sisters, this has happened. And, you know, it shouldn't really have come as a surprise to us, should it, brothers and sisters? Our pioneer brethren, going right back in time, have written down for us, by their understanding of Bible prophecy, that these things would take place. And even in recent times, even when Britain joined the EEC as it was at the time, although that was confusing to some of us, we have seen brethren, for example, here's Graham Pierce.

13. 5:00

    He said there in 1981, though we do not know how it will happen, Britain will separate from Europe. Our brother, Paul Billington, Britain's exit from Europe is inevitable in 1990. Our brother, John, who's here today, in 1998, Britain has no part in this power of Europe. And again, from the Bible magazine, 2007, we have the same thing.

14. 5:31

    Brothers and sisters. Wow. It happened. But, that doesn't prove anything, does it? It doesn't prove anything. And we do have those ideas that are floating around. We're a bit confused still in some places. Tarshish can be any trading nation. Tarshish is Spain we're hearing. Tarshish is Turkey we're hearing. You can never know, so why bother looking?

15. 5:57

    Why are you crazy people getting excited about Brexit? Well, brothers and sisters, if we haven't taken the time to read back over some of those old pioneer publications, if we haven't taken the time to read some of those things in the Bible magazine and elsewhere, I suggest that we do so, because we are missing out if we don't appreciate what has just happened to this country.

16. 6:24

    What we'd like to do today, with the small amount of time that we've got together, God willing, is to open our Bibles and try and give you a bit of a flavour on why it is reasonable to believe that when we read Tarshish in our scriptures, we are actually reading of the ancient power of Britain, this country that we are strangers and pilgrims in.

17. 6:49

    And then we want to have a consideration about what are the implications of that if we conclude that it is reasonable that Tarshish is Britain, what does that mean to us? And what should that mean to you and me as we live our daily lives in 2016? So that's what we hope to do.

18. 7:08

    Now, we've got a lot to get through, so I hope you've got your seatbelts on. We've got there on the screen, there are 28 times that Tarshish is mentioned in scripture in 24 verses. Now, you will be pleased to know I'm not going to be going through all 28 with you, because what we can do is separate those 28 mentions of Tarshish into different buckets, as it were.

19. 7:35

    So, we've got a lot of historical references to Tarshish on the left-hand side. Tarshish is mentioned as a real person, it's a name of a person, and so we've got some references there to a named person called Tarshish. And then, as we go on, we can enter into the time of the kings around 900 BC, we find that Tarshish is no longer a single person, but it's become a nation, a people, and they're famous for various things.

20. 8:03

    And when we continue on into the time of Ezekiel around 600 BC, we find again that there's this people called Tarshish that are doing various things at that time. And if that's all it was, then perhaps we wouldn't really be thinking much about time anymore. We think of them as one of those ancient places that are pretty much insignificant, dying in the midst of time, as it were, a blank.

21. 8:31

    But no, because we have prophetical references to this power of Tarshish, which make it relevant to us, brothers and sisters, and young people and friends in our days. Because we have references to do with a prophecy around Tyre and various prophecies around ancient Tyre. We're going to have a quick look at that in a bit.

22. 8:53

    We've just read with Brother David, we've just read the account in Ezekiel chapter 38 of the latter days, and we'll have a glance at that. And Tarshish is alive and well in the latter days. And finally, brothers and sisters, if we get time back and we do, we'll have a quick look at some of the prophecies about the power of Tarshish in the kingdom age after our Lord Jesus Christ has returned to the earth.

23. 9:21

    God has a purpose with this power of Tarshish. We can't treat it lightly, brothers and sisters. I don't think it's good enough to say, well, it's too complicated and we can't be bothered. Really. I think it's, God's given us a lot of information to digest around Tarshish. It's his holy word, it's inspired and infallible word and it is our duty, isn't it?

24. 9:43

    It's our honour to search these things out, to see, to try and understand what he has revealed about these things. So, let's begin. The first thing I would like to point out is that whoever Tarshish is, they are a descendant of Japheth. If you've got your Bibles, let's look over to Genesis and chapter 10.

25. 10:06

    In Genesis chapter 10, of course, you'll know this is the account of the descendants of Noah and we know this chapter as the table of nations because from all of these descendants, we understand that humanity has descended from. So, in Genesis chapter 10, you'll see in verse 1, now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ha, and Japheth.

26. 10:31

    And unto them were sons born after flood. And then, we get, in verses 2 through 5, the sons of Japheth. Glance down and look at verse 4, and the sons of Japheth, Elisha, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim, by these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands. So, this is the first time we come across Tarshish.

27. 11:03

    It's a person. It's a descendant of Noah through Japheth. Now, what's interesting about that, brothers and sisters, is that Josephus records to us the migration pattern of the sons of Noah. And he explains in his works that the sons of Japheth, they emigrated into the European territories. And so, what we are looking to glean from this is that wherever Tarshish is, you know, we're going to expect to find them in the European part of the world.

28. 11:35

    We're not going to expect to find them in China or Japan, really, or down in Africa, because they're Japhethites. And so, we look for them within that region of Europe, the isles of the Gentiles, as we have read there in verse 5. So, that's clue number one. It's from Japheth, probably, a European power.

29. 11:54

    As we say, as we go forward then in time from Genesis, we find that Tarshish is no longer a single person, a single character. He's had descendants of his own. He's now established, as it were, a power, all of its own right, a nation famous for its maritime adventures. We come across the ships of Tarshish all over the place, all over Scripture, mainly at the time of the kings and in the time of Ezekiel.

30. 12:25

    So, whoever Tarshish is, around 900 BC, that's in academic terms the Bronze Age, whoever Tarshish is, they're going to have established very good maritime skills because we come across them trading and this and that, travelling here, travelling there at the time of the kings. And so, they're our proud maritime history stretching back into that Bronze Age.

31. 12:50

    Now, the problem with the Bronze Age is that history wasn't being written in the Bronze Age. So, it's not like we can just hop on the internet and find some accounts and blogs or something of somebody who's around in the Bronze Age. The Bronze Age was prehistory. We can't even find very easily manuscripts and documents from that time.

32. 13:11

    They've all disintegrated long, long ago. And so, we have to, you know, we're going to have to try and piece a few things together in a minute to see what this power of Tarshish might have been. Now, there's another one. I'd like us to turn over to 2 Chronicles. Let's go now to the time of King Solomon because Tarshish, as we say, is established at this time as a maritime power at the time of Solomon.

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    So, we go to 2 Chronicles and chapter 9. And we see that the Tarshish power was absolutely essential for us in making Solomon one of the richest powers of the ancient world. And we're told that in 2 Chronicles chapter 9.

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    They helped Solomon, you see, train in global markets. So, 2 Chronicles chapter 9, and if you look at verse 20, we read there of the great wealth of Solomon. It says, And all the drinking vessels of King Solomon were of gold. And all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon were of pure gold.

35. 14:18

    None were of silver. It was not anything accounted of in the days of Solomon. Why? Why was it like nothing if everything was gold? We're told in verse 21. For, the king's ships went to Tarshish with the servants of Pilate, every three years once, came the ships of Tarshish bringing gold and silver, ivory and apes and peacocks.

36. 14:45

    And King Solomon passed all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom. Now, there's a suggestion here. Because what we have is, we have a trade deal, don't we, between Hiram, Solomon, and the ships of Tarshish. So first of all, who was Hiram? Well, Hiram was the king of Tyre. Where was Tyre?

37. 15:14

    Tyre is to the north of Israel in modern day Lebanon. It was the great emporium, I think they called it, of the Phoenicians. The Phoenicians were kind of a maritime trading nation. They set up outposts all over the place. We'll have a look at those in a minute. And Hiram was their king in Tyre to the north of Israel.

38. 15:36

    And Hiram, of course, he got on very well with David and Solomon. He helped even contribute to the temple, didn't he? In Amos, it says that he had a brotherly covenant with Israel and with the God of Israel, it seems. I believe, personally, he was a believer in Yahweh, the God of Israel.

39. 15:56

    Anyway, here, he decides to go into business, as it were, with King Solomon. Now, we're told in 2 Chronicles 8, we've not got too much time to spend on this, but in 2 Chronicles 8, we're told that Solomon specifically builds a port in Ezion Giva, which is to the south of Israel down there, modern day, Elat.

40. 16:17

    And so we've got to ask ourselves the question, well, what is this trade deal all about? Why did this trade deal make Solomon so rich?

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    Well, I've got a suggestion to make. And that is that what this deal did is that it connected for the Phoenicians the west and the east together. That's what it did. It allowed them to trade in the west and bring commodities from there across to the east and vice versa. And in the middle was the land of Solomon who Hiram used to kind of transfer possibly some of those goods across.

42. 16:56

    Now, you might think that's a bit strange. That's a bit of an assumption. Well, I haven't got it on the screen, but recently in Tel Dor, which is just south of Tyre, they found some Phoenician bases in an ancient port. An ancient Phoenician port. And in those bases they found traces of cinnamon from the Bronte.

43. 17:14

    And cinnamon come from India. So it's amazing that we've got these trade routes happening. Why is it that Indian spices are up there across the land in Tyre? They were doing a lot of business, brothers and sisters. And it's interesting that it says every three years these ships came. Don't you think that's peculiar?

44. 17:33

    I'll tell you why that's peculiar, because it doesn't take three years to get from Esmeralda down to, say, India, where we read most probably the apes and the peacocks were coming from that was part of this trade deal. It doesn't take three years to get to India and back. It takes half a year.

45. 17:51

    So we've got all these questions. And there's one other quick thing, another piece of the puzzle, which is later in time, we come across another king, King Jehoshaphat. And this is at the time when the kingdom of Israel had broken up. So we have the southern kingdom, in Judah. Jehoshaphat was the king of Judah.

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    And he does a deal with Amaziah, who is the king of Israel in the north. And we're told in 2 Chronicles 20 that God curses this, this deal. But one of the things that Jehoshaphat wanted to do was to build ships in Ezion, Geber, to go to Tarshish. And I think he was trying to recreate this great wealth that Solomon had basically got.

47. 18:34

    Now, why is all this relevant? That's what you're thinking to this clue. Well, first of all, it shows that wherever Tarshish was, they traded across the east and the west. But there's another thing to bear in mind. Some people have considered that because the ships of Tarshish left from Ezion Geber down here and they went down and traded in things like peacocks and apes, that perhaps that suggests that Tarshish was in the east, that there was an eastern Tarshish.

48. 19:01

    I know Brother Thomas believed that. But I wonder whether or not this here, this clue here from Herodotus is of interest and import. Because we read from Herodotus that a king of Egypt, Necho, sent out a fleet manned by a Phoenician crew. The Phoenicians sailed from the Arabian Gulf into the southern ocean and after two full years they rounded the pillars of Hercules, that's by Spain.

49. 19:25

    In the course of the third they returned to Egypt. And Herodotus lived about 150 years after Ezekiel. So what that means, brothers and sisters, is that we don't necessarily have to look for Tarshish in the east because the Phoenicians, according to Herodotus, were circumnavigating Africa. And so wherever Tarshish was, you could actually get to it.

50. 19:53

    Either way, it's not a solid clue in my view as to where Tarshish is. It definitely has connections to the east, but Tarshish could be in any part of that train room. And if you're just thinking, come on, Matt, you're crazy. Those ancient people, they were stupid. How could they get a boat to go around Africa?

51. 20:14

    Well, some crazy person, I think his name was Philip Beale, he started a thing called the Phoenician Ship Expedition. I don't know if you came across that in the news. They actually sailed into London. And he built this boat with his team using ancient techniques and modelling it on ancient Phoenician ship models.

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    And he actually did this trip. So you can look up the Phoenician ship expedition. You can see that it was possible with the ancient kind of sailing and kind of tools that they had in those days. It is a thing, brothers and sisters. So the clue we're looking for there is that Tarshish traded in the east and the west.

53. 20:55

    I'm not so sure we have to look for it in the west. And the reason I'm definitely sure that Tarshish wasn't in the east was because of this clue when we come to the time of Jonah. You remember Jonah he wants to flee he doesn't want to go and preach the truth to the Ninevites.

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    And so we're told twice in the prophecy of Jonah what his plans were to get out of this situation. Jonah chapter 1 Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of Yahweh. Went down to Joppa and he found a ship going to Tarshish. And then later he recounts this and he says look I want him to run away and I wanted to get to Tarshish.

55. 21:40

    So he goes to Joppa to get to Tarshish. Now if you're fleeing somewhere you're going to try you're trying to flee as fast as you possibly can. That's the whole idea of running away isn't it? Fleeing. Well where's Joppa? Well Joppa is on the western side of Israel. It's modern day Jaffa. And so wherever Tarshish is if you want to get there quickly you need to go west.

56. 22:04

    That's what being told by Jonah. And here's another extra biblical clue. This is King Esarhaddon writing around 670 BC. And I was excited when I came across this because he says all the kings from the lands surrounded by sea from the country Ladinana Cyprus and Laman the Ionian Islands as far as Tarshish bowed to my feet.

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    So this is a king living around the same time as Ezekiel and he says he tells us three really exciting things. Firstly did you notice that he's referencing kings that were surrounded by sea to wherever Tarshish is according to Esarhaddon it was an island. Secondly he is looking at these things from east to west because if you look at how his mind he's going from Cyprus to the Ionian Islands and he's ending up at Tarshish and so it seems Tarshish is in the west if you follow his train of thought and you would think he would know wouldn't be brothers and sisters because he lived in those days and so this power of Tarshish I would say to you based on this evidence and scriptural evidence we can't say oh we're never sure it's just could be any trading nation it could be anybody who's happening to trade not according to S.R. Haddon S.R. Haddon says no this was a real power in the west that bowed to my feet and as I say he'd know wouldn't he when Jonah got on the boat to go to Tarshish do you think he was just kind of paid his ticket and just take me anywhere there's a trading you know Timbuktu so to speak I don't think so brothers and sisters he determined in his mind to go to Tarshish it was the furthest point away that he knew about and off he went clue number five I'm going to hurry up I get excited I'm going to lose time can we turn over to Ezekiel chapter 27 please as I say time of Ezekiel now

58. 24:09

    a couple of hundred years off from the time of Solomon and Ezekiel has some prophecies around the power of Tyre now remember Tyre was that power that Hiram was the king over and as I mentioned there was very close connections between the Phoenician power of Tyre and Solomon and the things of God and as time went on as we know from our studies the Tyrians they forgot God and in fact eventually they eventually scorned the people of Israel and so for those reasons we read prophecies such as this in Ezekiel chapter 27 these are prophecies against Tyre of the doom of the great city so we read in verse 2 now thou son of man take up a lamentation for Tyrus and say unto Tyrus own thou that art situate at the entry of the sea which art a merchant of the people for many islands thus saith the done I young O Tyrus thou hast said I am of perfect peace thy borders are in the midst of the seas thy builders have perfected thy beauty they have made all thy shipboards and he goes on praising how wonderful Tyre is it goes through all the different wonderful things that Tyre had done and then at the end of the chapter we find that all of those wonderful things because of the pride of the people was going to come to an end because they had forgotten the God of Israel but inside this prophecy we get some interesting clues again to who Tarshish is Tarshish is there in verse 12 it says Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all

59. 25:55

    kind of riches with silver iron tin and lead they traded in thy fairs and in verse 25 we read that the ships of Tarshish did sing of thee in thy market and thou was replenished and made very glorious in the midst of the seas so there's this great connection you see between the Phoenician power of Tyre and Tarshish and Tarshish came and traded certain things at Tyre silver iron tin and lead now that's very interesting as we say the Phoenicians had a great network and stuff's been discovered all over the place with Phoenician inscriptions north Africa particularly around the Mediterranean there's accounts of them going down to western Africa there's they're all over there's parts of them in the east as well bear in mind it's prehistory it's great that we've got some of those things but what's interesting about this is that we get mentioned non-Phoenician colonies here who are coming to trade at Tyre and they're bringing various things to Tyre and Tarshish is bringing these metals there's other ones so for example if you look at verse 21 Arabia and all the princes of Kedar they occupy with me in lambs and rams and goats verse 22 we read of Sheba and Rama they come with all precious stones and gold and spices so you get the idea these are powers bringing commodities native to their lands to Tyre to trade that's what it seems to be applying so wherever Tarshish is then it's going to be found in a place where there is silver, iron, tin and lead that's what we're being told brothers and sisters from this and again we're told

60. 27:47

    it must be a real place you know you can't have here Tyre being some fanciful kind of fairy tale place where we're not really sure where it is and then straight away next read of Damascus which we know exactly where it is these it makes no sense to treat God's word like some seem to be doing in this regard Tarshish was a real place known for its metals here's in Jeremiah Jeremiah 10 silver from Tarshish extra biblical quote here this is a receipt the oldest mention of the house of Yahweh and a receipt around silver from Tarshish is mentioned on it in this ostracron so wherever Tarshish is silver, iron, tin and lead will be there there's another prophecy we haven't got time to go there in Isaiah chapter 23 which talks about Tyre and it says Tyre is going to be destroyed and as part of that prophecy we read that the Tyrians would pass over to Tarshish and that they would go a far off in Sodham when Tyre had been destroyed so another clue is then wherever Tarshish is it seems that the power of Tyre would be transferred to Tarshish they would be as it were the latter day Tyre after Tyre had fallen and then we come to our day and age to Ezekiel chapter 38 so we turn there brothers because this is where it gets very very relevant to us because it's all well and good looking back in time at history and we're not through it yet so I'm sorry if you find history driving we're going to have a little bit more but it's all well and

61. 29:29

    good looking back at history but what does it mean today and Ezekiel 38 if ever there was a chapter about today it would be Ezekiel 38 wouldn't it why do we say such things well because Ezekiel 38 is about the time period called the latter days in verse 8 and it's also mentioned there in verse 16 two times mentioned in case we weren't paying attention the latter days why is that important well because when you follow that thread through the whole of scripture the latter days is always a reference to the time when the Jews have been regathered to their land which we've seen now shortly brother Mike and brother Simeon are going to be taking us into Daniel and we're going to be looking at the time of the end which is another biblical phrase that we come across and for your notes just jot down Daniel chapter 10 verse 14 I don't know if the other speakers will go to it because in Daniel 10 verse 14 the angel comes to Daniel and says I'm going to share with you what's going to happen in the latter days and then we get Daniel chapter 11 and at the end of Daniel chapter 11 we get the phrase and at the time of the end and so it is my belief that the phrase the latter years the latter days is the same as the time of the end and so Tarshish at the time of the end is our subject today and what do we find Tarshish doing at this time of the end well we read of them in verse 13 but before we

62. 30:53

    get there just to kind of force the issue home this is our time Israel have been restored there is controversy as the chapter says on the mountains of Israel with the west south settlements and indeed we read that this mysterious invader from the north who comes against Israel in Ezekiel 38 in the latter days comes against a wealthy Israel in verse 12 that we gathered against all the nations and we've seen the rise of Israel we've seen their economic power growing their technology we've seen the gas fines they're there all the pieces of the puzzle are pretty much in place for this to unfold just another couple of things before we move on I've got to do this because we read of these ancient invading forces from verses 1 through 7 and these invading forces come against Israel in the latter days we read some strange things don't we read about this character called Gove in verse 2 he's the leader of this invading force and we read that he's from the land of Mago I just want to spend a couple of seconds just looking at who the land or where the land of Mago actually is well Josephus tells us that the people of Mago were called the Scythians by the Greeks and so we've got to go back to the Greeks to figure out where were the Scythians then and Herodotus the father of history he's the first historian around 450 BC he records eight key rivers that ran through the territory of Scythia and we can find some of those rivers basically brothers and sisters plotting the two extreme ones on the

63. 32:43

    map we've got the river Danube and the river Don we have the land of Scythia there before us so we have the land of Mago that comes up there on the screen central and eastern Europe and this is where Gov he comes from this area and he seems to be leading these people forward there's another group of people isn't there mentioned in verse well verse 5 we have some very familiar to us Persia and Ethiopia and Libya but then in verse 6 I just want to hold in on this one Goma Goma pops up again Josephus tells us that the Greeks called the Goma people Galatians so we go back to the Greeks well the time of the Romans actually and we find that this guy Galaties he founded the Gauls and the Gauls I don't know if you're like me when growing up I was a big fan of Asterix the Gaul and his magic potion I don't know anybody else remembers that but Asterix the Gaul as we all know was from France the Franks came from the ancient Gauls so we piece these things together now there's more nations and I'm sure the other speakers are going to add a few more to this map but the reason why I'm putting this up these brothers and sisters because these are the peoples of the European nations indicated in these prophecies and these peoples at the time of the end are against Israel but then we have this other power block that we've mentioned in verse 13 we have Sheba Dedan the merchants of Tarshish with all the uprides thereof they challenge this invading

64. 34:27

    force they say there in verse 13 they say art thou come to take a spoil hast thou gathered thy company to take a pray so first off where is Sheba and Dedan well we can trace them back to this area here in the Gulf states Saudi Arabia and the south Yemen and the United Arab Emirates and all those Gulf states down there and once we've done that we can see that there are these two power bases forming as I say there's the northern invader Gog and we put only two of those nations on the screen or will follow I'm sure and these European powers are separate politically militarily and economically from Sheba and Dedan who are in that area there and the merchants of Tarshish so in the latter days Tarshish whoever they are in our day we should be seeing this Tarshish power starting to connect its trade with the Gulf states that's the point and it's not going to be with the European powers in Central and Eastern and Western Europe over there it's going to be different it's going to have a different course of action the final clue that we read of actually there in Ezekiel 38 is that whoever Tarshish is it has young lions within it that's a really strange thing isn't it because we're reading here of political powers and suddenly in the midst of referencing these political powers and these training merchants of Tarshish we read of some young lions that come out of Tarshish now I don't know what you think brothers and sisters but I don't think this is referencing literal lions to you because the

65. 36:15

    context is political powers so how do we understand these lions then well we haven't got time but Ezekiel 19 tells us how that lions basically progress they start off as whelps which are dependent on their mother and as they get older they eventually leave the pride they catch their own prey they become independent of the mother lion and so although they're from the mother lion they are independent powers in their own rights and so we take that context and we apply it to the political context of Ezekiel chapter 38 and suddenly we realise that what we're being told here is that whoever Tarshish is wherever it might be there are political lions that have come out of it so to speak independent political powers in their own rights and so that's what we understand it's a colonial power in the latter days so just to recap it's a descendant of Tarshish it's a descendant of Tarshish it's a maritime power it traded in global markets it's located to the west it's a source of silver iron tin and lead and it traded with Tyre it takes over from Tyre it's a trading power in the gulf and it's a colonial power now we're going to whiz through this because the question is is it reasonable that Britain fits with these clues that we've gleaned from scripture is there any other power that fits with these things well let's let's just go through them steadily so we've got well of course a descendant of Japheth and so it fits that indication there in the European areas what about the next two an ancient maritime power traded in

66. 38:04

    global markets well as I say it's tricky because we're talking about the Bronze Age it's very difficult to get hold of material and evidence from that far back but it just so happens that in 1992 these they were digging a road between Folkestone I think and Dover the A20 and they found this boat which is on display in the Dover Museum it's the oldest seagoing boat ever discovered from the Bronze Age 300 sorry 3000 BC sorry 1000 BC 3000 years ago I think it's fitting isn't it that the most ancient seagoing ship has been found in Britain if we're looking for an indication of who Britain is well there's a little clue of who Tarsha is there's a little clue amazing that they found this boat there's only 20 Bronze Age boats on the planet and this one is very very rare and there it is in Britain they found other boats and shipwrecks around Britain from the Bronze Age which according to this article in the Telegraph show that trade was thriving off the coast of Britain 3000 years ago that one's in South from in Devon what about connections with the Mediterranean you know you often sometimes make me ah Britain you're crazy Matt you're crazy there's no way there's connections with the Mediterranean really well look at this this is Carthage which was a Phoenician city and they found a coin from Carthage in Britain 2300 year old coin what's a coin from Phoenician Carthage doing in Britain if there was no trade going on brothers and sisters and young people the experts here in this article conclude that there was a

67. 39:53

    lot of trade what about this guy they found a small boy in Stonehenge unfortunately obviously dead they dug him up and they did some tests on him and they found he was 3000 years old and that in fact he came from the Mediterranean now we've got evidence of peoples moving across and by the way skeletons from that time are incredibly rare so it's amazing they found one in the first place then to find one that's from the Mediterranean wow that's even better so I think and that's just a few bits of evidence I can carry on and boy you're silly with ancient things that we found but there's a couple to whet your appetite I think we can say there is evidence of ancient trade and maritime prowess off of the coast of Britain clue number four was it's to the west well obviously that one fits the bill if you wanted to get to Britain by boat as quick as possible you would leave from somewhere like Joppa what about clue number five a source of silver iron tin and lead now this one this one is for me the clincher you know all of these individually you can pull apart a bit but when you see all of them together and add this one to the mix it's pretty solid I mean I don't think there's any other power that could fit these clues these are very very rare to find altogether and even rarer is tin as we would find now are these in Britain well yes they are brothers and sisters young people and friends I always tell this story so

68. 41:25

    sorry if you've heard it too many times but I do find it amusing I bored my wife silly one time when we were a holiday in Derbyshire and I happened to go past the mining museum and I spent the afternoon taking photos of rocks she thought I'd gone crazy but in all of my photographs there were these these were the rocks that you can get silver iron tin and lead from and if you're thinking why is there only three well because you can get lead and silver from Galena on the right hand side wow and we're in Wales aren't we and this is a from a from a book on the ancient industrial mining that goes back to the Romans and say it's hard to go back further than that but look at the the Welsh mines before you're thinking what do you know about Wales well my name is Davies and I do have ancestors come back this way mine and stock so you know this is this is our history brothers our ancestors most probably may have been part of those Phoenician trading kind of networks of old and you'll find there silver iron tin and lead well you won't find the silver but as I say the silver is from the lead mines as well so you've got all of them there being mined in Roman times I could keep going on this massive cauldron they found full of bronze and bronze of course you need tin to make and copper and that was found there in 1932 there's some you can find all these tin ingots you know they put the

69. 42:53

    ingots together in order to trade that one there is in Cornwall thought to date from 2000 BC this one's interesting they found this over in Germany this is what they call the niebra sky disc and it's thought that the ancients used this ancient sky disc to work out when to farm their crops anyway it's made of metal and fascinatingly when they did the analysis on this metal they found some of it was tin tin in Germany and when they analyse it tin from the bronze age look where it came from from corn wool and you're telling me that there's no trade going on between the Mediterranean and Britain in the bronze age look at this evidence brothers and sisters what about the other shipwrecks they found where they found tons and tons of tin ingots well say tons and tons they found 44 tin ingots in this one off the coast in 1991 down there in the south why have you got 44 tin ingots in your ancient bronze age vessel well Britain didn't leave tin there were mines in corn producing it all over the place it's to train with the Mediterranean as the bible has indicated Tarshish was doing this one here 259 copper ingots and 27 tin ingots were discovered near South and all of these by the way they appeared in the British archaeology magazine and in that magazine you can see the displays that they put on in the Dover museum around these things look at the artifacts this is all from the bronze age tin artifacts this was an industrial scale trade that was going on all of this

70. 44:38

    was found in the sea imagine the stuff that got through and was traded into these areas and when we go back to the east this is the periplus of the Etrian sea by a sailor around 30 AD periplus is kind of like a list of what was being traded from different ports at that time interestingly tin is mentioned four times but only as an import there were no ports in the east exporting tin tin didn't come from the east in the ancient times it came from the west where did it come from well here's old Herodotus again 440 BC he said this of that part of Europe nearest to the west I'm not able to speak with decision I by no means believe that the barbarians give the name Endorus Eridanus I always get stuck with that one Eridanus to a river which empties itself into the northern sea whence as it is said our amber comes and this is the point neither am I better acquainted with the islands called the Cassiterides from which we are said to have our tin it is nevertheless certain that both our tin and our amber are brought from those extreme regions now Herodotus was an educated man you can read of him going all over the place he travelled quite extensively you can find maps like this online which is basically the world according to Herodotus these are places that he was fully aware of and documented were the histories of Herodotus and isn't it funny that Herodotus said wherever I get our tin from wherever we get it from I don't quite know where it is

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    it's in the far west and so it fits doesn't it he says it's a group of islands called the Cassiterides the Isles of Tin now Herodotus was aware of Spain okay Iberia he was aware of the pillars of Hercules he was aware of Turkey he can travel around that but he says the tin couldn't come from anywhere there I don't actually know where it came from these extreme western regions he was unsure I wonder why he was unsure well Strabo another ancient historian gives us some clues as to why it was that it wasn't popular knowledge where this thing came from the Cassiterides are ten in number says Strabo and lie near each other in the ocean of the metals they have tin and lead formerly the Phoenicians alone from Gades engrossed this market hiding the navigation from all others when the Romans followed a certain ship master that they might discover the market the jealous ship master willfully stranded his vessel on a shoal misleading those who were tracking him to the same destruction escaping from the shipwreck by means of a fragment of the ship he was indemnified for his losses out of the public treasury so here we have a historical account that it was hard to know where the considerines ever were because the Phoenicians Hiram he was the king of the Phoenicians or at least the ones in Tyre the Phoenicians alone had gone there and they were hiding it from the other ancient peoples around like the Romans and by the time the Romans eventually get to Britain Julius Caesar in his diaries records that tin was already in full

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    production by the time he got there so is Britain a source of silver iron tin and lead and was it trading those things and making those things in ancient times I think we can say it was and by those historical accounts it seems that it's very clear that that was the source of the ancient tin what about taking over from time as in the prophecy of Isaiah well it's true is it not that the British empire came along and developed and took over trade dominated trade in the east and in the west like the ancient Phoenicians did you know the East India trading company famous for its dominance in the east of its trade and so I personally believe that's the prophecy that says that after Tyre would fall the ancient power of Tyre would pass over to Tarshish finally let's get to the latter days trading power in the Gulf well what's going on at the moment we've just had Brexit haven't we and that's opened up a whole new world of trade for Britain and who's desperate to get some of that trade well we have the Gulf States the Gulf Cooperation Council is making all the right noises it wants to do business with Britain it's already doing a ton of business with Britain at the moment but it wants to do more this was Dr.

73. 49:37

    Liam Fox obviously the new Secretary of State for International Trade where was he last week he was in the Gulf and he's there visiting Qatar Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates and he's calling for greater trade connections they're already doing a lot of trade brothers and sisters but they want more what about Boris good old Boris who doesn't like Boris Johnson he's in fun well he was over in the United Nations summit in New York this week wasn't he and if you read your papers very carefully who's he having lunch with who's he having little shenanigans with rubbing shoulders with he's talking to those in Bahrain he's trying to do a little bit of early business and you say well is Britain really in the Gulf are they able to challenge the normal invader coming to take a spoil well they're taking a leave in terms of the Gulf the Royal Navy's over there they have an operation called Operation Kipion have you heard of that Operation Kipion is all about the mission to keep the Gulf waters safe so that trade can take place between Britain and the United and the Gulf States and look what they say on their website under Operation Kipion ensuring the safe flow of trade and oil in the world we read in our Bibles that Tarshish will be in the Gulf and then we look at what Britain is doing and they're in the Gulf they're trading and they've even got they're not the greatest military might are they they're there enough to challenge these things and are they a colonial power having independent offspring well we're hearing

74. 51:27

    an awful lot at the moment aren't we about the common world and how important that's going to be to post Brexit Britain trade will be continuing we've read that it's submerging Tarshish with all the young lions that will be in Sheba and Dida and again we could spend time looking at all of the young lions as it were the independent political offspring who are jumping at the opportunity to start doing business post Brexit so again as we say we think we've got that clue also hitting the target they're a descendant of Japheth they're a maritime power they traded in global markets they're located to the west of Israel they're a source of silver iron tin and lead they take over from Tyre they're a trading power in the Gulf they are a colonial power in the latter days brothers and sisters Britain I would suggest to you is the only fix for this power of Tarshish both historically and currently what does it mean brothers we're in Ezekiel 38 what are all these things indicating leading towards look at verse 23 thus will I magnify myself and sanctify myself and I will be known in the eyes of many nations and they shall know that I am God Ezekiel 38 is a snapshot of all the nations just before the Lord Jesus Christ reveals himself from the world's sake time is running out brothers and sisters the pieces of the puzzle are coming together why is Tarshish mentioned so much well God has a purpose with this power called Tarshish he's written about it in his word here in Isaiah 11 we read of those

75. 53:24

    some famous passages that we're looking and longing forward to it says there that they shall not hurt nor destroy and all my holy mountain for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Yahweh as the waters cover the sea and he shall set up an enzyme for the nations and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth because after the Lord Jesus Christ has returned and the battle of Armageddon has taken place in Ezekiel 38 what is the point of all that so that God will be known and the kingdom will be restored again to Israel the Lord Jesus Christ will sit on the throne of his father David it's not just any fuzzy old kingdom is it it's a specific kingdom an Israeli kingdom regathered reborn with the Lord Jesus Christ as its head the first dominion that then spreads to cover the whole earth and the primary people in that kingdom are to be the Israelites the Jews who are gathered in aren't they to be the subjects under the Lord Jesus Christ as we see there from Isaiah and the nation we are told that is going to help do that is the power of Tarshish I'll show you a verse about that in a minute I don't know if you can see the screen very well but that's a passage there from Isaiah 2 again a latter day prophecy and it says that in the time when the law is going to go forth from Zion that's the kingdom age we read that the lofty people the proud

76. 55:08

    people are going to be brought low and humbled in that day and do you know who's singled out to be humble brothers and sisters the Tarshish power oh yes they're alive and well when the Lord Jesus Christ returns but they have to be humble and so something has to change in this proud and lofty nation that we reside in as strangers and pilgrims Tarshish has to be humbled and we read then it seems that when they are humbled and the sign is set up in Israel of Christ we read in Isaiah 66 that God will set up a sign among the Jews and we think that's Christ and I will send those that escape of them the Jews unto the nations to Tarshish to the isles of far off that have not heard my fame neither have seen my glory and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles and they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto Yahweh to my holy mountain Jerusalem and so it seems to be that the Jews they go back to some of these countries possibly the saints with them as well when the Lord Jesus Christ has returned and they educate the people around that the Lord Jesus Christ has returned and one of the things that he is to do is establish the kingdom of Israel and so one of the things they do is they get all the Jews on their ships as it were and they bring them to Christ to Jerusalem and Tarshish we read there is their first it says in Isaiah 60 surely the isle shall wait for me and

77. 56:44

    the ships of Tarshish first to bring thy sons from far thy silver and thy gold with them unto the name of Yahweh thy God unto the Holy One of Israel because he hath glorified thee what a change brothers and sisters in this nation what a change imagine that imagine going down the street and talking to someone and say yes God is glorifying the Israelites we had no idea that there was a great plan and purpose so we're helping to bring those Jews back and the knowledge of God will be in this earth I'm sorry if I had to whiz through that we're running way over time I'm sorry

78. 57:28

    to make the point that we can't treat God's word like we have it particularly in relation to these things Tarshish is a real power we can't just be like well it's anyone it's very specific God has revealed these things to us we're his people we're his saints let's treat God's word with reverence and let's seek to understand what God has said it doesn't say the best bit as I can see but the Tarshish power is the power of Britain that we live in it is reasonable more than reasonable I'd suggest that Britain is ancient Tarshish and so what are the implications to you and me well the implications are simple because we have just witnessed the detachments of the Tarshish power from the powers of Goma and Mago in Brexit and this should make us think shouldn't it brothers and sisters how long is there to go there's hardly any time at all this is a great sign for us this is a time for us to pull up our socks to look at how we're spending our time and to consider the fact that God has called us out of the Gentiles to be a people for his name we've witnessed Brexit brothers and sisters what more do we need to give us the kick that we need to get things correct in our minds the Lord Jesus Christ is coming brothers and sisters are we ready the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Yahweh as the waters cover us thank you for listening to the good Christ Delphine talks podcast please subscribe for new episodes and leave a review on apple

79. 59:21

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