What events did the Old Testament program predict for Israel and the future?
The Old Testament program foretold Israel's emergence through the Abrahamic covenant, the Messiah's coming, His rejection and crucifixion, the seven-year tribulation spoken of in Daniel, and Christ's return to set up His kingdom. It gave no hint of the nearly 1900-year Church Age.
Les explains that the Old Testament program, as laid out in Psalms chapter 2, never gave the slightest hint of the 1900 and some years of what we call the Church Age; it is just not in there. That program foretold the coming of the nation of Israel on the scene by virtue of the Abrahamic covenant, how the Messiah came, was rejected, and crucified, and then after that was to come the tribulation, that awful seven-year period spoken of in Daniel, and then Christ would return and set up His kingdom. Not a mention of the church is in it whatsoever. Les also connects this to God saving the chief rebel, Saul of Tarsus, by grace on the road to Damascus, and to the Jewish believers' consternation when Paul and Barnabas brought Gentiles into the church at Antioch.
Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans;