Content in category Apocalyptic Evangelism

Why Care About “Jacob’s Trouble?”

[…] The church that understands the issues related to Jacob’s trouble will be able to benefit from the divine intention that God has invested in that time to bring both the church and Israel into their place. Knowledge and acceptance of this truth is crucial if such great and costly judgments and the glorious fulfillment of the prophetic Word will not be lost on our understanding, since it is also through that understanding (particularly of Daniel’s vision) that the true remnant of the church will be able to instruct many (Dan 11:33; 12:3). This instruction will result in the salvation of an innumerable multitude (Rev 7:9) that will come to faith during the time of “the tribulation, the great one” (Rev 7:14; literal translation of the Greed double article). The key of interpretation and understanding will be the difference between life and death. It has always been so, but this is particularly said of “those days” (Dan 12:7; Mt 24:19, 22, 29) in particular.

Not only will Jacob’s trouble straighten Israel to its appointed place; it will also further purify and perfect the church (dn 11:33-35; 12:10). When the first travail of the heavenly woman (“the mother of us all,” i.e., all the elect) is completed with Michael’s eviction of Satan at the mid-point of the last week, then the travail of Israel can begin, which ends in the sudden and supernatural birth of the nation “in one day” (Isa 66:8; Ezek 39:22; Zech 3:9; 12:10 with Mt 23:39; Acts 3:21; Ro 11:26 with Isa 59:21; Joel 2:31; 3:14-16 with Mt 24:29).

All the great issues of God’s name and nature, his covenant contention, and pleading with the church, Israel, and the nations will come to its concentrated intensity and fullness, so that the mystery of God can be finished (Rev 10:7; 11:15) with the return of Christ to destroy the Man of Sin (2Thes 2:8) and to re-instate the natural branches for the millennial establishment of the “everlasting covenant”. […]

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The pride of your power

[…] God is making a point that will reverberate in the Jewish soul for a thousand years. I want to show in what follows that it is very significant to God’s purpose that the Jerusalem that falls under the power of the Antichrist (Rev 11:2; 13:5) has first come under the control of the orthodox, if not entirely, at least to an unprecedented extent. (Compare Ps 83:12; Isa 28:14-15; 63:18; 64:10-11; Dan 8:13; 9:26-27; 11:22, 31, 36-37; 12:11; Mt 24:15, 20; 2Thes 2:4. ).

The picture one gets from these passages is of a Jerusalem that has accommodated the desire of certain orthodox sects of Judaism to rebuild the temple and restore the ancient ritual of animal sacrifice. This suggests sweeping changes in the current policies of the secular government, since under present circumstances; such a scenario is clearly out of the question. Something’s got to give! […]

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When He sees that their power is gone. (A “witnessing” question)

[…] The goal of Jacob’s trouble is to bring the Jew to an end of His own power. It is significant that this is precisely the place where Jesus is revealed to the Jewish heart, namely, at the end of power (“when He sees that their power is gone …” compare Deut 32:36 with Dan 12:7). This is because the strength of the veil that is over the Jewish heart, and indeed over every natural heart, stands in what scripture calls, “the pride of your power” (Lev 26:19). It is what Paul calls, “confidence in the flesh” (2Cor 1:9; Phil 3:3-4). When this is taken away, so is the veil in the revelation of the face of Jesus Christ (2Cor 3:18; 4:6).

I believe the suffering of the Jews during the time of Jacob’s trouble will be different from all other times of covenant curse and judgment, because this time, their suffering will be in the full light of a powerfully declared and fully vindicated display of prophetic fulfillment. (Prophecy as mercy! Rev 19:10).

The presence of a prophetic people that have the key of interpretation (Dan 11:33) and who, because of the liberating power of the gospel, love not their lives unto the death (Rev 12:11), will be the difference between Jacob’s trouble and the Holocaust. One ends with the ultimately humanistic declaration, “never again!” While the other ends by the acceptance of Israel’s history of tribulation as all together just and not unequal to the nation’s corporate guilt (Lev 26:41-43; Hos 5:15; Zech 12:10). Such a corporate acknowledgment will indeed be a miracle of revelation and grace.

So we are to bring into Israel’s consciousness something much more than the case for the supernatural fulfillment of prophecy. We are to study how to press upon Jewish consideration the ancient covenant contention that has burned throughout the long age of exile and that must continue to burn to the end of Jacob’s trouble, when the face of God will be no longer hidden from a then fully regenerate (Isa 54:13; 59:21; 60:21; 66:8; Jer 31:34; Ezek 39:21, 29) and restored nation. […]

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“When saw we Thee?”

[…] When it comes to Israel’s unbelief, it is amazing to see all that conspires to reinforce it. Not only centuries of “Christian” antisemitic behavior, but even how certain verses are translated, let alone interpreted, compounds the distance between church and synagogue. Take for example the Jewish translation of Zech 12:10. Compare it with most Christian translations and you will see what I mean. Of course, Christian linguists, such as Walter Kaiser in his book, “the Messiah in the Old Testament” argues the translation question with decisive evidence for the messianic interpretation. But the average believer must take considerable pains to be informed. It may be effective on some occasions, but it’s not always quite as easy as quoting Zech 12:10 as proof that the Jewish nation pierced their own Messiah. .

Or take Dan 9:25-26. Our translations stress our Christian conviction that the anointed one that is “cut off” is the Messiah by capitalizing the word for anointed and translating the passage with a definite article, “the Messiah the Prince”. This is all legitimate, but the informed Jewish position sees this as speaking only of “an anointed prince,” which they typically interpret as referring to Onias III, the officiating high priest who was murdered when Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated the Jewish alter in the 2nd century B.C, who, of course, became the great archetype of the Antichrist in later apocalyptic literature. [..]

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Make it plain upon the tables, that all who read may run…

[…]

Here’s what I do:

I simply begin with people’s familiarity with the story of Bethlehem and show them the prophecy in Mic 5:2, pointing out the antiquity of the prophecy (8th century contemporary of Isaiah). I then point out the next verse (Mic 5:3), which shows the “giving up” of Israel, pointing out the causal connection between the “therefore” of verse 3 and the “giving up” of the nation to the smiting of the ruler in verse 1 – Mic 5:1 (obviously the ruler from Bethelehem of verse 2 – Mic 5:2). I make much of the fact that the “giving up” of Israel is never permanent, but only UNTIL the time of Zion’s travail, pointing out that this is OT language for the travail and subsequent birth of the nation which follows the unequaled travail of “Jacob’s trouble” (Isa 66:8; Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1). I then ask if they’ve ever heard of the “great tribulation” (many have through everything from the “Left Behind” series to the History Channel. I sometimes mention the view of many Rabbis who spoke of “the messianic woes” or “footsteps of the Messiah” in reference to this fearful time.

(After this simple foundation, the way is made for almost any point of importance. In other words, it is a convenient grid to build on, as it opens up many of the great questions and issues of the mystery of the faith in its full reach to the end of the age). […]

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Apocalyptic Evangelism

The idea of the course was to recover the context of the apocalyptic gospel of the first century as a call to flee to Christ from the wrath to come, and thus make personal appropriation of the messianic salvation in expectation of the imminence of Jersualem’s destruction, which represented the imminent tribulation to first century Jewish expectation. Well, we are there again. We have come full circle. We stand and witness once more under the shadow of an imminent world disaster over Jerusalem. Thus the same issues that confronted first century Israel are back in the forefront.

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Dispensationalism & More on “One or Two Peoples of God?”

… With the new revelation has come a new language. But this is where we need to exercise caution. We learn from the doctrine of Christ’s pre-existence that for something to be newly revealed does not mean that it has come newly into existence.; This is an important distinction when we are speaking of Christ and the church. Much has come to light in the gospel that had real existence before the dispensation of the fuller revelation. This applies as much to the ‘body of Christ’ as to Christ Himself and the unity of persons in the Godhead. …

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The ‘Messianic Secret’ and Apostolic Sending

[…] In this sense, ‘apostolic sending’ is itself ‘an apocalyptic phenonmenon’, theologically speaking. Because the secret is more than new information. It is an event not only of divine disclosure but of spiritual quickening. It at once kills and makes alive. The revealed secret, as only apprehended by the Spirit, completely shatters the pride of self-reliance and gives an open heaven of revelation and power. A full and true apprehension of the mystery of God in Christ designs not a knowledge by which one may glory above another (1Cor 4:7), as in gnosticism. But rather a freedom in love that casts out fear and enables a selfless obedience unto death. “And they loved not their lives unto death” (Rev 12:10). The power that loves the enemy, and the freedom from the fear of death are the tests that prove the value of any knowledge or any mystery (1Cor 13:2).

Ever since Pentecost the secret has been the ‘open secret’, but whether it has been apprehended by the Spirit is shown by one thing only, namely, the presence and power of the life of the age to come, Christ revealed in the church (Jn 13:35; Eph 3:21), with the result that “now is come salvation, strength, the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ” (Rev 12:10). Thus the ACTS of the apostles (Dan 11:32-33). […]

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The Inerrancy of Scripture

[…] Translation is not merely an academic task. It is context sensitive, and decisions of translation are often a very spiritual matter. Within limits, a subjective bias can influence decisions between close options. If the stakes are high spiritually, and if there’s a close choice, such as in Zech 12:10, the orthodox Jew will, of course, avoid the translation that implies a meaning that favors the Christian interpretation, but NOT because his knowledge of Hebrew is superior. So even the translator’s task must be governed by the Spirit, or else a subjective bias can compromise a close decision between reasonable possibilities. …

But on the larger questions of the inerrancy of scripture, the classic article that provides THE definitive defense of this subject in the last century was written by Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield. He was a magnificent apologist for the evangelical faith in many areas, but played an especially key role in checking the flood of German higher criticism that was sweeping our academic institutions by storm with its wholesale assault on the authority of scripture. I would go as far as to say that except for men like Warfield, Vos, Machen, and a handful of others, America would not have its “Bible belts” today, and we’d be in even worse shape than we are now. But he’s your man on the doctrine of inerrancy. […]

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