times of the
Gentiles should be fulfilled.’  Jerusalem was to be not merely beaten
down, but kept down, until a certain predicted period should expire.  But
while the words distinctly predict a long period of desolation, they no
less clearly imply the assurance of an ultimate restoration.  They teach
that Jerusalem is not to be trodden down for ever, but only till the
times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled; implying, as clearly as words
can, that when those times are expired, the Holy City shall rise again in
its beauty.  The words predict a desolation for a limited period, and at
the close of that period, restoration.

I have not time to discuss what is meant by ‘the times of the Gentiles.’
Suffice it to say that I believe it to be this present Gentile
dispensation; this time of Gentile power and Gentile opportunity; this
time during which God is gathering out His elect people from the Gentile
world, and is employing a Gentile Church in the sacred ministry of the
Gospel of His grace.  It seems to be the time of the ingathering of the
Gentile Church, for it is to last, according to St. Paul, ‘until the
fulness of the Gentiles be come in’; and it is clearly the time of the
exercise of Gentile power, for they are Gentiles by whom Jerusalem is to
be trodden under foot.

But I do not wish to occupy time in any discussion of this period, but
rather to invite your special attention to those Gentile powers which
have trodden Jerusalem under foot.  Which are they? and how do they now
stand?

What, then, are the Gentile powers which have trodden down Jerusalem?  In
the course of the eighteen hundred years of her humiliation there have
been times during which there have been short interruptions in the sway
of the ruling powers.  But, looking at the period as one great whole, and
fixing our attention on the conspicuous outlines of history, we find that
there are two powers which stand out conspicuous above all the rest as
the great oppressors of the Holy City.  These are Rome and the successive
forms of that Mah