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In vs. 10 Jesus states that He will keep them from the hour of temptation which will come upon the whole world, to try them that dwell upon the Earth. My question is what is the hour of temptation?

Revelation 3:10
Because you have kept the word of my patience, I also will keep you from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.

Seen best in light of:

Luke 21:34-35
And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.

And perhaps also:

Joel 3:14
Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision:
for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.

What is this hour, and what does it mean to be ‘kept from’ it?

The term hour in the NT is often used of an appointed time or a time that is in some way decisive (Mt 26:45; Jn 2:4; 4:23; 5:25; 12:23; 16:21; 17:1). In at least one instance in Rev 17:12, an hour is shown to cover the whole time that the ten kings give their strength and power to the beast. This would appear to include the entire 3 1/2 years of the unequaled tribulation. Elsewhere in the Revelation, the term carries a much more narrow usage, as in the case of great Babylon’s destruction. There, the hour describes the time of the 7th bowl of wrath, the very end of the end (Rev 16:17-18; 18:10, 17, 19). But in only one great and unequaled tribulation will the whole of the earth be so ultimately and finally tested.

In what sense is one to be ‘kept from’ the hour of testing? Some argue that here is promised, not only deliverance from what the hour threatens but physical removal from its very presence. Advocates of this view point out that the Greek words that are translated ‘kept from’ can as well be translated “kept out of”. However, we see the same words in John 17:15, and there the promise is not exemption from the presence of danger but protection from falling under the power of Satan.

I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.

How can we determine whether to be ‘kept from’ or ‘kept out of’ the hour is promise of physical immunity from the time of the final, great test, or divine preservation within it?

Before coming to the specifics of that question, it is well we remember that this promise was addressed particularly to the deeply tested church of Philadelphia. Even though the ultimate, age ending great tribulation would not come until a later time, the promise of divine preservation in the midst of great trial was no less serviceable and applicable to believers under severe testing all throughout the whole time of the church’s struggle on earth. So however “kept from the hour” is understood, its meaning and application cannot be limited only to the time of the last persecution under the last beast.

It is clear that escape and protection is promised to tribulation believers, not from persecution and suffering, of course, (Dan 7:21, 25; 11:33-35; 12:10; Rev 6:11; 13:7; 14:13; 20:4), but from demonic deception, and the plagues of divine wrath that will be inflicted ONLY on those who take the mark.

We see this in the pre-tribulational sealing of the 144,000 (Rev 7:3), and in the flight of the woman (Israel) to seek refuge in the wilderness (Rev 12:6, 14). Not only are believers protected from the evil one (Jn 17:15), but even unbelievers, particularly the elect remnant of Israel, are seen to survive to the day of national repentance at the Lord’s return (Ps 102:13; Isa 59:20-21; 66:8; Eze 39:22; Zech 3:9; 12:10; Mt 23:39; Mt 24:22; Ro 11:26-27; Rev 1:7). Not only this, but the scripture makes equally clear that there will be gentile survivors who apparently were not saved in time for the rapture. These will join themselves to the penitent survivors of Israel and joyously assist in their return to the Land (see Zech 8:23; Isa 14:1-2; 49:22; 60:9; 66:20).

Such manifest survival, even by many who are not saved till the end, fully exposes the fallacy of the argument that in order for the church to escape wrath, she must be removed from the earth. There could hardly be a greater misuse and misapplication of the promise of 1Thes 5:9.

For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,

Interestingly, the words of the glorified Jesus in Rev 3:10 (red in some Bibles) are very nearly the same words He spoke on earth in Lk 21:34-35. This is remarkable proof that John is carefully writing the very words of Jesus that appear only here and in Luke’s account of the Olivet discourse. For me, such manifestly parallel usage is decisive for the interpretation of Rev 3:10.

When we closely examine the context of Luke’s account of Jesus’ parallel warning, we see that what is to be escaped by the wakeful, praying believer is not the time that these events will be happening, but the things (perils and pressures) that would threaten to subvert his or hers ability to “stand before the Son of man” (Lk 21:36). As the context makes indisputably clear, this time of ‘standing before the Son of man’ cannot refer to a presumed rapture before the tribulation but to Jesus’ post-tribulational return in power and glory (Lk 21:27 with Lk 21:36).

That ‘day’ comes suddenly, but not without warning. It will not come “unaware“, like a thief, upon wakeful and observant believers (Lk 21:34 with 1Thes 5:2-4) They will recognize the signs (Mt 24:3, 15; Lk 21:10-11, 20-21, 25-26; 1Thes 5:3; 2Thes 2:4). 

Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near (Lk 21:28). So you also, when you see these things happening, know that the kingdom of God is near (Lk 21:31).

Jesus anticipates that the matter will be quite the opposite with some claiming the Christian faith.  

But if that servant says in his heart, “My Lord delays His coming”; and begins to beat the male and female servants, and eat and drink and be drunk, the lord that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him, and at an hour when it is not aware, and will cut him asunder and appoint him his portion with the unbelievers (Lk 12:45-46). 

Note how nearly the language here compares with Luke’s account of the Olivet prophecy, 

“But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man” (Lk 21:34-36), 

and also with Paul’s description of the day of the Lord in 1Thes 5:2-4.

For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief.

In all of these references, we observe that the great scandal will be that many professing Christian faith will be caught unaware and unprepared, not for an imminent, un-signaled rapture of the church, but for the post-tribulational return of Christ.

Paul equates such ignorance with a state of spiritual darkness. Such darkness is fully expected of the world but not of believers. This is the scandal of the end times, and we see why.

It speaks of an unconscionable rejection of the truth, leaving one vulnerable to the great delusion that Paul says that God Himself will be obliged to send on all  who have not received the love of the truth. This will be particularly the case when it is seen just how much light professing Christendom will have rejected in the face of some of the most compelling evidence of fulfilled prophecy ever seen on earth since the time of Jesus. 

The scandal will not be that professing Christians were caught unprepared for a Lk any moment rapture. The far greater indictment will be that many who count themselves Christians will not be alerted by some of the most outstanding and clearly defined signs as laid down by the prophets, Jesus, and Paul.

This means that all of the fully foretold signs and otherwise recognizable evidence that the great tribulation is here, and the Lord’s return near, will have passed without awakening these professors of the Christian religion out of their spiritual stupor. 

This is not because there has been no signs. On the contrary, the scripture reads clear. These are professing Christians that will remain unmoved by the signs, even in their manifest presence. This is the great anomaly and scandal. It is the ultimate indictment on apostate Christendom. 

It is telling that as late as the 6th bowl, just before the final 7th bowl is poured out to bring the “great day of God Almighty” (Rev 16:16-17), Jesus interjects to announce that His coming, now so truly imminent, will yet take many as a thief, even Christians with stained garments (Rev 16:15).

This tells us that despite all the magnificent, fully foretold sign events of the tribulation, Jesus’ return will not only overtake the world as a thief, but many who claim Jesus as their Lord. Context will not permit us the luxury of applying this to an earlier, secret, un-signaled return. It is manifestly Jesus’ post-tribulational return that is shown to take the hypocrites unaware, as a thief, and this despite all the highly detailed prophecies clearly marking the time and describing the meaning of these events. There is good reason why and how this will be so, but that discussion would take us too far from our topic to enter upon here. 

Many ask how can such thoroughly foretold events take the world, and particularly Christians unaware, as a thief? For this very cause, some have argued for the necessity of an earlier, un-signaled return that is to be distinguished from the well signaled return after the tribulation (Mt 24:15-31; 2Thes 2:3-4; Rev 6-19), hence the ‘inference’ of two distinct comings. But aren’t we seeing this now? Behold the confusion that reigns in the study of prophecy! How many optional interpretations of the end can there be?! One can only think of Daniel’s prophecy. “Many shall be purified, made white, and refined, but the wicked shall do wickedly; and none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand” (Dan 12:10).

Those who “escape all these things” in order to be prepared to “stand before the Son of man” are the same wakeful believers who recognize the signs that are ‘beginning to come to pass.”

And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draws near (Lk 21:28). 

That certain definite, alerting signs can be seen does not comport with pretribulationism’s doctrine of an unsignaled, any moment rapture. Yet the very believers who are commanded to pray to “escape all these things” are being told that they will see “these things begin to come to pass”. In keeping with Jesus’ warning elsewhere in the other synoptic accounts of the Olivet prophecy, with Paul’s warning warning in 1Thes 5:2-4; 2Thes 2:3-4, Peter’s warning (2Pet 3:10), and Jesus’ warning in Rev 16:15, the only ones who will be caught “unawares” are those who abide in darkness and fail to vigilantly watch for “all these things” that will signal the Lord’s now truly ‘imminent’ return. 

So what are the “all these things” that is being escaped in Lk 21:36? Is it the foreboding portents of terror?   

“And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken” (Lk 21:25-26).

If that were so, we would not see the following encouragement. 

“Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near” Lk 21:28). 

Rather, where the believer is concerned, it is the urgency to not fall prey to the great and unparalleled deception against which Jesus and Paul so gravely and repeatedly warn (Mt 24:4, 11, 24; 2Thes 2:3, 11). This is why I included Joel 3:14 as a possible reference to this “hour”. This is why there is such a great premium that must be placed on the interpretation of what these events mean that will be so decisive for the escape and salvation of many during the time of the great test (Dan 11:33). Therefore, the safe keeping that is promised cannot be immunity from persecution, but escape from the unequaled deception that will expose one to the wrath that will be poured out, not on believers, of course, but only upon the fatally deceived followers of the beast (Rev 11:18: 16:2, 10).

It is another discussion, too involved to enter upon here, but it can be shown exactly when Paul expected to be raised and translated at the resurrection on the last day. When this is proven beyond reasonable dispute, it becomes clear that however we understand “the hour” or the nature of what it means to be “kept from” it, one thing we know. It cannot mean an early exit, physical removal, or exemption from tribulation to which all saints are appointed (see Acts 14:22).

I tend to think the hour of Rev 3:10 includes more than the last hour of Babylon’s destruction, which is identified with the Lord’s thief-like return at the great day of God (2Pet 3:10-12; Rev 16:14-17; 18:10, 17, 19 with Eze 39:8). I believe it should be equated with the great tribulation of the final 3 1/2 years, and not just a final period of wrath at the very end, as some have argued. 

So in what sense are we kept from that hour? I think the promise is that the faithful will be kept from ‘the power of the hour’, which is to say, saved from the deception and the pressures to defect that will be extreme. The overcoming saints of Revelation are kept, not only from wrath but from the peril of loss of witness and the shame of a spotted garment (Rev 2:10, 22-23; 3:3, 16; 16:15).

One final point: never before the 19th century was the promise of being “kept from the hour” interpreted to mean physical exemption from the great test, and total removal from the earth, as this would be to contradict, not only many clear texts, but the whole pattern of God’s work in the past by setting forth in every season of crisis a witness of overcoming faith under fire. How then, by any reckoning, are tribulation saints, who are no less the dear children of God, to be denied the promise of being ‘kept from the hour’?

It is ridiculous to argue that only those believers living before the tribulation are “not appointed to wrath” (1Thes 5:9), as if to suggest that the saints living during the tribulation are any the less partakers of this promise. Whether living before or during the tribulation, never are the children of God the subject of divine wrath. This alone is sufficient to prove that one does not have to be absent from the hour of the test in order to escape its dangers and evils.    

Followup Question
Would you be able to direct me to the scripture(s) where Paul expects to be raised and resurrected at the end of the 3 1/2 years?

Yes, the object first must be to establish when the OT saints expected to be raised, show those passages in their native contexts, and then show that Paul expected his own resurrection with “all who belong to Christ” (1Cor 15:23) to be at the same time that the OT righteous are raised. A careful comparison of scripture will show decisively that the time of the resurrection never changed from OT to NT.

It is easy to prove from Job, Isaiah, and Daniel when the OT saints would be raised. Let’s start there and then move to Paul’s direct exclamation that ties his hope of translation to the same time, namely, the end of the final tribulation at the day of the Lord.

Let’s start with Job.

Notice that Job’s inspired expectation agrees with Paul’s affirmation that we all must be “changed” (1Cor 15:51-52).

Job 14:14
If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.

Then in Job 19, we have that grand and glorious assurance that Job will see that great, curse reversing, atoning “Redeemer” with human feet standing on the earth in the latter day.

Job 19:25-27
For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.

Zechariah tells us exactly when this will be.

Zechariah 14:4-5
And His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and …. And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; … and the LORD my God shall come,
and all the saints with thee.

Then there is Isaiah’s assurance of the time of his personal resurrection with all the righteous of Israel. Note especially Isa 25:7-8, which Paul will very significantly quote as referencing the time of the church’s resurrection in 1Cor 15:54.

Isaiah 25:7-8
And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it.

Seen in its larger context, there is no scholar or interpreter of which I’m aware that does not recognize that this passage has in view the resurrection of the righteous of Israel at the post-tribulational day of the Lord. Now turn the page and see in the next chapter where Isaiah places his own resurrection AFTER the final travail that is elsewhere shown to be the tribulation / travail of Jacob’s trouble (see Isa 13:8; Isa 66:8; Mic 5:3; Jer 30:6-7; Dan 12:1).

Isaiah 26:17-19
Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O LORD. We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen. Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.

Interestingly, in the next chapter, we see the very trumpet that all agree is the trumpet that Jesus has in view in Mt 24:31.

Isaiah 27:13
And it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the LORD in the holy mount at Jerusalem.

Could this be the same trumpet that Paul calls “last” in 1Cor 15:52? The evidence will leave no question that it is.

Now look at Daniel’s assurance that he would stand in his lot at the end of days (Dan 12:13) and receive his inheritance at that time with all the righteous who are to be raised AFTER the great, unequaled trouble.

Daniel 12:1-2
And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince who stands for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

So the time when the OT saints will be raised is put beyond reasonable dispute. After the devastating critique by Alexander Reese in his “The Approaching Advent of Christ” published in the 1940’s, modern pre-trib scholars now unanimously accept that the OT saints remain in “the dust of the earth” for an additional seven years while the bride is taken up to heaven for the marriage feast of the Lamb. What’s wrong with this picture?

Side note: According to the defenders of the pre-trib rapture, born again saints of the tribulation are not to be reckoned as “church saints” but “tribulation saints”, since in their view the body of Christ is believed to include only those living between Pentecost and the rapture. Saints living before Pentecost or after the rapture are not considered part of the body of Christ. Even though born of the Spirit, they are believed to belong to a different “people of God”, with a different destiny and uniquely distinct inheritance. This view was unheard of in church history until introduced in the mid 1800’s by J. N. Darby of the Plymouth Brethren movement. It was exponentially popularized by the publication of the famously well received Scofield reference Bible, first published in 1909.

So with the time of the resurrection of OT believers infallibly established, the question at hand becomes whether the body of Christ is to be raised at the same time or some earlier time? If so, what is the biblical basis for this inference?

Much more can be said concerning the NT view of the OT day of the Lord that also fixes the time of the resurrection of the NT believer no less than the OT saints, but before coming to the most decisive evidence of Paul’s own blessed hope, it is important to observe Jesus’ reference to this common Jewish hope of resurrection at the “last day” (Jn 11:24).

Jesus promised that all who the Father gives and draws to Him will be raised at the “last day” (Jn 6:39-40, 44). In Jn 11:24, we see from Martha’s reply that this was the common expectation of the Jews. Pre-tribulationists will point out that Jesus’ promise was before the church came newly into existence at Pentecost. On this presumption it is argued that only those dying before Pentecost will be raised at the last day.

While recognizing that the mystery of the many membered mystical body of Christ was not yet revealed (though new revelation does not necessarily mean new existence), it is most unnatural to suppose that the promise that those coming to Jesus would be raised at the last day only applied until Pentecost, and that believers dying after Pentecost, but before Paul’s revelation of the mystery of the rapture, were wrong to expect resurrection at the last day. It will surely be admitted that for one not already committed to the pre-trib position, this appears quite forced.

We are very familiar with Paul’s mention of the timing of the rapture / translation of living believers in connection with what he calls, “the last trump” (1Cor 15:52). However, pre-tribulationists are instant to caution us against associating Paul’s last trump with the 7th trumpet of Rev 10:7; 11:15, since John had not yet written the Revelation. Well, fair enough. Still, it is much to be observed that the last trumpet in the sequence of trumpets in the Revelation ‘just happens’ to have something very significantly in common with Paul’s last trump, namely, attendance by the Lord’s return to gather His saints.

Moreover, it was well known that Jesus spoke of a trumpet in connection with His return “immediately after the tribulation of those days” in Mt 24:39-31. There we see that the elect are “gathered together” and Paul will use this very language to describe “OUR gathering together” in 2Thes 2:1. So the old argument that Mt 24 is strictly “Jewish ground” that has nothing to do with the “church” will not hold up.

So would Paul have left his Corinthians without further qualification and distinction when such a natural ‘mis-association’ would have been so inevitable? But there is something even more decisive on the timing of the rapture that is seldom, if ever noticed.

All will agree that if we can rightly establish the time Paul’s last trump, we have established the time of the rapture. How then can we prove that Paul’s last trump is the same trumpet that Jesus says will attend His return after the tribulation? Paul tells us very plainly by his use of OT prophecy. Notice carefully.

1 Corinthians 15:51-54
Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

Now the decisive question is this? When is then? What time is in view? The problem for the pre-trib view comes in when was ask where the saying is written? When we locate the saying that Paul is referencing in Isa 25:8, an examination of the context leaves no question that the time in view is the post-tribulational day of the Lord. Only by separating what God has clearly joined can the time of the last trump of 1Cor 15:52 be exegetically disjoined or logically separated from the time that this ‘saying’ will be fulfilled. “For then (at the last trump) shall the saying be brought to pass that is written …”

If we begin by assuming that the last trump is before the tribulation, we are faced by a serious conflict, because the saying recorded in Isa 25:8 very clearly has its fulfillment after the tribulation. Recognizing this, the pre-tribulationists must argue for a double fulfillment, one before the tribulation and another that is after.

Herein lies the conflict that demands honest resolution. Are we really to believe that Isa 25:8 is fulfilled for Paul and the church seven years earlier than it is for the righteous of Israel, for Job (Job 19:25; Zech 14:4), for Isaiah (Isa 26:19), or Daniel? (Dan 12:2). 

Not only this, but Isa 25:8 very significantly belongs to a literary section of Isaiah that has been very well distinguished and called by scholars, “Isaiah’s little apocalypse”. Isa 24 begins a highly developed description of the cataclysmic day of the Lord and continues on this theme through to Isa 27 that ends, again, very significantly, with the jubilee trumpet of Isa 27:12-13. This trumpet announces the end of tribulation and penitent Israel’s regathering to the Land.

Pre-trib scholars and teachers recognize that this is indeed the trumpet to which Jesus refers in Mt 24:31. Yet, they insist we should distinguish between this obviously later trumpet and Paul’s supposedly earlier “last” trump. But are we to suppose that Paul would not have anticipated such an easy and natural confusion? Would he not, in practical anticipation, have said more to qualify and clarify this very natural, really inevitable association?

How natural to interpret Paul as having the same time in view that anyone reading Isa 25:8 would assume. And how much more this would be expected in view of what Jesus says of His post-tribulational return being accompanied by the well known trumpet of Isa 27:13, as well as His clear promise of the resurrection of His elect at the last day? (Jn 6:39-40, 44).

I think even a devoted pre-tribber would find it hard to imagine that Paul would not have taken greater pains to distinguish the otherwise indistinguishable. Better to see that Paul fixes his own blessed hope with all the redeemed at the post-tribulational day of the Lord, which the Jews, but most importantly Jesus, identifies as taking place at “the last day.”

Thus, it is NOT the time of the resurrection that constitutes the mystery. That was well known. Rather, is the nature of the translation and catching up for re-location, re-union, and spiritual rule that adds crucial insight to what was already well established and well known.

This is only a sample of so much more that could be said. Obviously many books have been written. But in view of such evidence, (“the plain person’s plain reading of plain language”), it is hard to imagine anything but the most determined emotionalism that would insist on clinging to such a precarious and potentially disarming position.

With due respect for the earnest hearts and well meaning quest for harmony of scripture by godly, sincere believers, I have come to believe that the doctrine of an any moment return to rapture the church seven years before the Lord’s return to rule is a dangerously disarming Trojan horse that has come into the evangelical camp for such a time as this.

Hope that helps.

Yours in the Beloved, Reggie

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I would love to know your thoughts on the Islamic Caliphate (700 ad) as the the fourth beast of Daniel rather than the traditional interpretation of Rome.

I have a different take on the nature of the beast kingdoms. I see them as a generic continuity of the kingdom of man, not so much replacing one another, though there are territorial and distinct character changes, but each kingdom is not so much replaced as living on in its successors. Whatever we understand of the 4th kingdom, it is paradoxically at once the last, and yet not the last. We know this because John sees Rome as the 6th, to be succeeded in the future by a 7th. I think the point here is that the 4th kingdom would be the last monolithic world dominion. Unlike the more contained 3 predecessors, the 4th (I think Rome) would be first divided and then fragmented and never again able to come into the kind of cohesion achieved by the earlier kingdoms, including Rome in its beginnings, and I think this fragmentation and division continues right through the Antichrist time, since he is never able to consolidate his kingdom into another world dominion, uniting only the ten, but then enforces economic but not absolute military dominance over many nations that continue to resist him right up to the end (Dan 11:40-45 with Rev 16:12-16, many scriptures bearing on this little considered fact).

So the Antichrist arises as a ‘little horn’ from the region of ancient Syria (Dan 8:9), amidst a very divided, diffused and fragmented end time form of the 4th kingdom, and actually constitutes both the 7th and the 8th from the standpoint of John’s fuller account of beast kingdoms, reaching back to include Egypt and Assyria in addition to Daniel’s four. For John the Antichrist is the 7th in his rise, but becomes the 8th as the risen 7th. As the 8th, he now embodies as the former 7, as the ‘composite beast’ . He is therefore at once the 7th and the 8th. As the 8th, he is the risen 7th, now become the full incarnation of Satan, the ultimate human embodiment of the mystery of iniquity, but that’s another discussion.

The rise of Islam is indeed huge and becomes THE primary force that will be exploited to overwhelm Israel and begin the tribulation. It is no accident of history that a 7th century fiction of Mohammed’s mid night journey from the temple mount should obsess the entire Arab world (people of the ‘everlasting hatred’), not with Medina or Mecca but Jewish Jerusalem. I also believe since a very young man that the ten kings will be Arab nations. So how do I make these to be an extension of Rome rather than the Islamic world? Good question. I ask that myself. I can only say that the ten are shown to issue out of the 4th in its final, fragmented stage, and certainly many of these nations were part of the ancient Roman world and its evolution through history. It seems the prophecy sees the 4th kingdom in a long evolution of division and fragmentation, reaching to the end, and thus ignores, on the gap principle, many of the kingdoms that would rise and fall within its parameters. But here’s the principal reason I can’t well negotiate skipping Rome as the 4th kingdom:

For me, it is Dan 9:26. Here is the “cutting off” of the Messiah (compare the same language in the Song of the Suffering Servant; Isa 53:8). This greatest event on the 70 week timeline significantly happens when Rome rules the world. Clearly, there is a gap between the 69th and 70th week, and thus between the time of Rome and the time of the final mystery of incarnation in Daniel’s “coming prince”, Paul’s ‘man of sin’. The ten kings are contemporary with the beast, but the beast and the ten are described as issuing out of the fourth. John sees all these beast as a single beast with many heads, and he clearly carries this beyond Rome, which he represents as the 6th of 8 heads.

Now here’s my thinking: In Lk 3, it is said that when John Baptist emerges out of the desert to begin his ministry on the Jordan, the scriptures says “all men were in expectation”. That phrase is huge! By any reckoning, the 70 weeks were nearly expired. It was time for the last events that would bring the kingdom. It was time for the Messiah, or at least his expected forerunner. Clearly, Rome was obviously the 4th, and to their experience manifested all the traits described of the 4th. The Messiah, though rejected, appears and makes the atonement that purchases the ‘everlasting righteousness’ of covenant promise. In this, the kingdom of God has come near and is announced as present. Am I to suppose that the kingdom of God in its inaugurated form as a mystery, but mighty in its working and accomplishment in the realm of the Spirit, did NOT come during the fourth kingdom? Or that Jesus’ death during the rule of Rome over Judea was not during the 4th kingdom? That’s just hard for me. Rather, it seems we are touching again on the heart of the mystery of the kingdom coming in stages, with the unexpected gap between the two comings at both ends of the long history of the divided and fragmented 4th kingdom. In other words, it’s the gap principle again where there is the partial, then the leap to the end and the full coming in of the kingdom to fill the whole earth.

I also believe that the same 4 that appear in Dan 2 is represented again in Dan 7 under the imagery now of beasts rather than metals. I base this on my personal conviction that the language of Dan 7:4 too clearly refers to Nebuchadnezzar’s insanity and humbling to dismiss. This means that the winged Lion is the head of gold, which for me is decisive that the same 4 beasts are in view in both visions only under different symbols. Now, can we really conceive that after Daniel’s vision begins with the 3 kingdoms that history confirms followed after Babylon, that Rome is skipped, the very kingdom that was ruling when Jesus announces the inaugurating presence of the kingdom and the great turn of history in His imminent cutting off as the curse reversing seed of the woman? That, for me, is too much to ask. No, Daniel is not skipping Rome anymore than John skips Rome in his vision of the 7 headed beast, but the 7th could well be one who emerges out of a later stage of the 4th, and perhaps this emergence is from the caliphate which took its rise within the 4th, but is not particularly distinguished from the 4th in its ten king stage.

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Before Art’s passing, the goal of the planned ‘table talks’ for the following summer was to bring together the scriptures that would establish an overview of the key themes of prophecy. He wanted to find something that would “pull the strands together” into a kind of synthesis, and then to use that synthesis to address and answer the classic Jewish objections to the faith.

What follows is an expansion on a brief overview sent to a brother with whom I shared a plan of presentation that aims to simplify many of the sometimes complex issues of prophecy. It also provides a convenient grid of reference for anyone wanting to present the case for Christ and the mystery of Israel from the Old Testament.

I first present some ideas for an initial introduction. This can be used with great versatility and comparative simplicity, depending on the situation. For those who want to take the subject further, I offer further suggestions on how this initial introductory outline can be used to go deeper, as understanding and maturity permits.

I believe that what I present here came in answer to prayer. For years I have looked to the Lord for a means to “make plain upon tables” (Dan 12:4; Hab 2:2-3) an appreciable amount of otherwise difficult and controversial subject matter. The goal is simplicity and clarity for the average person, regardless of academic background. But the real power of the truths that follow lies in the scriptures themselves. They are specific target passages that merit closest attention.

The approach builds around the well known story of Joseph, as type and parable of both comings of Christ to Israel. The idea is to begin with a couple of key portions of Old Testament prophecy in order to establish a simple outline of the prophetic future, particularly as it pertains to the relationship of Christ’s two comings to Israel. This will provide a convenient frame of reference that can enable and equip any believer to make the case for the mystery of the gospel in the Old Testament, particularly in its relationship to Israel and the events that conclude the age.

To open the subject, I sometimes begin with the familiar story of Bethlehem as an opportunity to show the amazing prophecy of Mic 5:2, pointing out its great antiquity (8th century contemporary of Isaiah). I then point out the lesser known feature of the prophecy the follows in the next verse. “Therefore (for this cause) will He (Yahweh) ‘give them up’ UNTIL the time that she who travails has brought forth; then shall the remnant of His brethren return to the children of Israel (Mic 5:3). The chosen nation is to be “given up UNTIL …”. This is the language of divine abandonment. What are the implications? What provocation was so great as to evoke such ominous language, anticipating the tragic nature of Jewish history?

The next verse shows that the return of “His brethren” coincides with the universal dominion of the ruler from Bethlehem. Exile ends forever with the Davidic king’s rod-iron rule over all nations that begins when His enemies are made His footstool with the destruction of the last invader of the gentiles (Ps 2:6-9; 110:1-6; Mic 5:4-6). This is the arch-persecutor whom Paul, citing Isa 11:4, will call, ‘the man of sin’, (compare Paul’s use of the Septuagint’s translation, “the Ungodly One” with the KJV’s, “that Wicked; 2Thes 2:8).

That verse 2 speaks of Israel’s promised Messiah from David’s line is undisputed by the Rabbis who freely acknowledge the Messiah’s pre-existence but do not accept any inference of deity. Indeed, the Hebrew does not require it, as examples can be shown where the language means only the days of old, but it is also understood that were a kind of divine son-ship in view, as in Christian theology, there is no other terminology in the Hebrew language that could more definitely indicate deity and co-eternality. Yet, if we compare Isaiah’s use of very similar language for the Davidic Messiah (Isa 7:14; 9:6-7 from Gen 3:15; Ps 2:7; 110:1-4), the evidence begins to mount in the direction of a divine figure.

By connecting verse 1 with verse 3 it becomes evident that the reason for the abandonment of verse 3, (“He shall give them up”), is that the smitten judge of verse 1 was not, as usually assumed, a mere humiliation of Israel’s contemporary king by the invading army (whether Hezekiah by the Assyrians, or Zedekiah by the Babylonians, as variously suggested), but the smitten judge was, in fact, the Messiah from Bethlehem who was rejected by “His brethren” (keeping in mind the Joseph analogy).

It has been well said that when we see a “therefore” in scripture, we need to pay close attention to what it’s ‘there for! ‘Therefore’ marks the transition from what is said and what the results or consequences are of what has been said. In this instance, I point out that the “therefore” (‘for this cause’) of verse 3 stands in causal connection to the smiting of the ruler of Israel in verse 1. The insertion of verse 2 between the cause of verse 1 and the effect of verse 3 explains the enormity of the offense that brings the judgement of Yahweh’s abandonment of the chosen people. It is because the smitten judge of verse 1 is not just any king or governor of Israel. He is the ruler from David’s line who has no beginning who brings the kingdom that has no end. The time in view is NOT the time of His birth, nor His ascension to the right hand of God, but when He comes (returns?) to destroy the final enemy (Ps 110:1-2; Isa 11:4; Mic 5:5-6).

The degree of punishment implies a greater crime than the more common sins of idolatry and covenant disloyalty from which there would a measure of recovery and revival, as under the prophets, Zechariah and Haggai, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Rather, the enormity of the punishment implies something more than sins in general, but a particular, consummate offense. This is evident in Hos 5:15-6:2 where the end of exile and the resurrection of the nation to begin the messianic age awaits acknowledgement, not simply of sins, or guilt in general, but of one offense in particular (compare also Zech 12:10, and Mt 23:39; Jn 19:37; Rev 1:7).

Such a long and unremitting experience of exile can only be explained by an offense that is on the scale of the national rejection (smiting) of God’s Messiah, the Davidic king whom He calls His son in Ps 2:7. It should not be lost on our attention that the prophet Isaiah, who is notably a contemporary of Micah, uses the same language to describe the suffering servant of Isa 50 and 53 who is likewise smitten by both the nation and by God as an atonement for sin. (compare, Job 16:10; Ps 69:26; Isa 50:6; 53:4, 10; Mic 5:1; Zech 13:7; Lam 3:30; Mt 26:31, 67-68; 27:30). .

Because it is so important to be clear on Israel’s predestined restoration to covenant favor, we are careful to emphasize that the “giving up” of Israel is never permanent, but only “UNTIL” the time of ‘Zion’s travail’. It is also important to point out that Micah’s reference to Israel’s travail is typical OT language for the great and unequaled tribulation (“Jacob’s trouble”) that ends in the spiritual birth or resurrection of the nation (compare Deut 4:30; Isa 13:8; 26:16-17; 66:8; Jer 30:6-7; Dan 12:1; Hos 5:15; Mic 5:3).

Most will have heard of the coming “great tribulation”, referred to in popular idiom as ‘the apocalypse’. The concept of a final great tribulation of unequaled severity was once a common theme in the eschatology of Judaism. The transition from exile to redemption was understood to follow a time of great and unequaled tribulation, which the Rabbis called “the messianic woes,” or “the footsteps of the Messiah.”

The Micah passage is only the first plank of evidence. The strength of the argument is in the cumulative evidence for a foretold prophetic mystery that is distributed here and there throughout the writings of the prophets (Isa 8:14-17; 28:9-13; 29:11; Dan 9:24; 12:9; 1Pet 1:11; Ro 16:25-26).

Pointing out the implications of Micah 5:1-4 for both comings of Messiah to Israel provides the perfect opportunity to turn to another significant “until” passage from the Old Testament, Hos 5:15-6:2. Here again, a time of divine desertion is in view, which can be shown to correspond to the two days of exile and the age long chastisement that ends with Israel’s national repentance and resurrection (Hos 6:2 with Isa 26:19-20; Eze 37:5, 11-12; Dan 12:1-2; Hos 13:13-14).

Notice that in both the Hosea passage and the Micah passage; the cause for divine desertion is blamed, not on guilt or transgression in general, but on a singular ‘offense’ or transgression. The nation’s release from the judgment of exile and tribulation comes when this particular offense is acknowledged (Hos 5:15; Zech 12:10; with Mt 23:39; Acts 3:19-21; Ro 11:26; Rev 1:7). Once again, we see that the transition comes “in their affliction” (Deut 4:30; Isa 48:10; Jer 30:6-7; Dan 12:1). It is important to stress that the day of national deliverance is always depicted as coming after a brief, but unequaled time of national birth pangs, affliction, or tribulation called “the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Deut 4:30; 32:36; Isa 13:6-8; 26:17-18; 66:8; Mic 4:9; 5:3; Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1, 7; Mt 24:21).

Significantly, Hosea depicts the departure and return of God in language that fits the presence, departure, and return of the Messiah to His former place in heaven, as now ‘sit down’ (term of completion) at God’s right hand, “waiting till His enemies are made His footstool when He shall begin His rod-iron rule out of Zion (Ps 2:8-9; 110:1-2; Hos 5:15; Heb 10:12-13). It is important to point out that the One who departs to His place, returns when the offense that provoked His departure is finally acknowledged. This corresponds to Zech 12:10. “They shall look up Me whom they have pierced.” The manifest analogy with Joseph becomes even more compelling in light of Mt 23:39. “You will not see me again ‘till’ you will say, “Blessed is He who comes …”  Zech 12:10, used with Mt 23:39, takes on glorious force in relationship to the prophetic type of Joseph’s reunion with his estranged brethren. It is the fitting dénouement to the most costly, fiercely pursued love story ever conceived.

The smiting of the divine son of David is the key to determining when the two days of Hos 6:2 begins. The time of Israel’s final giving up conincides with the two days that begins when the smitten ruler returns to His place at the Father’s right hand, expecting till His enemies are made His footstool at Antichrist’s destruction and the return of the kingdom to Israel. (compare Mic 5:1-5; Hos 5:15-6:3). This is the ultimate provocation that caused the One who “came to His own” but was ‘despised’ of the nation (Ps 22:6; Isa 49:7; 53:3; Hos 9:7; Jn 1:11) to “go away and return to His place” (Hos 5:15 w/ Ps 110:1-3; Mt 22:44; 26:64; Acts 1:11; 2:34; 3:21; 7:56; Ro 8:34; Eph 1:20; Col 3:1; Heb 1:3, 13; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2). You can see how amazingly well Mic 5:1-4 and Hos 5:15-6:2 go together in setting forth this basic outline of prophetic history.

The order and the way one proceeds from here will be a matter of personal adaptation and choice, but at this point, I like to point out that the unexpected interval between two distinct comings of Messiah covers, not only the full time that God is hiding His face in disapproval (Deut 31:17-18; 32:20; Isa 8:17; Eze 39:24, 29), but it particularly marks the time that the Deuteronomic threat would be fulfilled that during Israel’s estrangement from covenant favor, another people, a ‘not a people’, would be called to make Israel jealous. (Deut 32:21; Isa Isa 49:5; 65:1; with Mt 21:43; Acts 14:27; 15:14; Ro 10:19; 11:11; 1Pet 2:9-10). This is the time of Messiah’s session at God’s right while His face remains hidden, as the vision and prophecy remains sealed from the errant nation who have not yet come into the everlasting righteousness of the New Covenant sealed by the ascended Redeemer’s blood (Ps 110:1-2; Isa 8:14-17; Isa 59:20-21; Jer 32:40; Dan 9:24).

This great and unexpected reversal begins with rejection of the ‘corner stone’ (Isa 8:14-15; 28:16; Mt 21:42; Acts 4:11; 1Pet 2:8) and continues until the Spirit is poured out upon the surviving remnant (Ezek 39:28-29; Joel 2:28; Zech 12:10). “From that day and forward the house of Israel will know that I am the Lord their God (Ezek 39:22). “And I will not hide My face from them anymore; for I shall have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel, says the Lord God” (Ezek 39:29; compare also Isa 8:17; 59:19-21; Ro 11:25-27). This basic order of ongoing covenant discipline and the hiding of God’s face between the advents needs to be brought to Jewish attention, so that what many refuse to consider now, they will consider perfectly. “In the latter days, you will consider it perfectly” (see Deut 32:29; Isa 1:3; 42:22-25; Jer 23:30; 30:24)

After the two days of divine absence (Mt 23:39) that perfectly parallels the age long “giving up” of Israel described in Mic 5:3 and Hos 5:15-6:2, the rejected ruler from Bethlehem returns to revive the blinded nation by a miracle of revelation and regeneration that accomplishes the return and reunion of His estranged brethren (the broken off branches). With this, the covenant with Israel is vindicated, as Messiah begins His universal, rod-iron rule over the nations from a restored Zion (Mic 5:4). Notice how the language, “then the remnant of His brethren shall return” is so profoundly evocative of Joseph’s family reunion at the moment of his self revelation to his brethren who had formerly rejected and sold him.

If I am speaking to Christians who have heard of the millennium, I point out that the Jews are raised to live out the third day in His sight as a newly born / newly revived, now entirely regenerate nation (Isa 54:13; 59:21; 60:21; Jer 31:34 et al). Thus, the third day in which the resurrected nation lives in His sight, corresponds perfectly to the NT revelation of the thousand year reign that follows Messiah’s return.

With the national confession and repentance that concludes the second day, the resurrected nation then lives out the third day of millennial glory as an all living (fully regenerate) nation that has now come into the ‘everlasting righteousness’ of covenant promise (Jer 32:40; Dan 9:24). With the new heart and spirit that is no longer the experience of only a remnant (Eze 18:31), but now the entirety of a fully regenerate with none left among them who do not know the Lord (Jer 31:34; Eze 39:22), never again to depart (Isa 54:10; 59:21; Jer 32:40), the Land can now be kept in  guaranteed security, forever beyond the threat of curse and exile (2Sam 7:10; 1Chron 17:9; Isa 54:15-17; Jer 24:6-7; Eze 37:25-28; Am 9:14-15).

At this point, I will typically share my personal conviction that the two days should be reckoned from the point of the Lord’s return “to His place”.  The time of abandonment begins, not with the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D., but when Jesus returned to His former glory in heaven, to take His seat of authority and rule at the Father’s right hand. There He remains until another great ‘until’ of prophecy, “until His enemies are made His footstool” (see Ps 110:1-2), and from thence He will return “at the set time to favor Zion” (Ps 102:13; 110:3). The following verse, Ps 110:3, shows that the same time Messiah’s enemies are made His footstool, the nation, long apostate, is made ‘willing in the day of His power” (i.e., the day of the Lord). With this, the long captivity is over forever, as the times of the gentiles close with the Deliverer’s descent out of Zion to turn ungodliness from Jacob (Lk 21:24; Ro 11:25-29).

In His parting words, Jesus declares to the nation who would not be gathered, “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Mt 23:38-39). With Israel’s fall, a “door of faith” would now be opened to the gentiles (Deut 32:21; Isa 49:5; 65:1; Acts 14:27; 15:14; Mt 21:43; Ro 1:5; 10:19; 16:25-26; 1Pet 2:9).

The death of Jesus would mark an unexpected extension of the long night of exilic judgment that must continue “UNTIL the times of the gentiles be fulfilled” (Lk 21:24). In the meantime, something completely unexpected would interpose itself into the eschatological time line. That is the present calling out of the gentiles a people for His name (Mt 24:14; 28:19; Acts 14:27; 15:14; Ro 16:26). This was, of course, very much expected but only in connection with the ‘end’ of exile, never as a result of Israel’s greater fall and further hardening (Ro 11:11). Though fully ‘written’ and foretold in the prophetic writings, all of this belonged to the mystery hidden in other ages (Isa 8:16; 29:11; Acts 26:22; Ro 16:25-26; 1Cor 2:7-8; 1Pet 1:11).

Astonishingly, before Israel’s regeneration and return, before the tribulation (Zion’s travail; Isa 66:7-8), not with Israel’s deliverance and exaltation, but “through their fall” (Ro 11:11). This unexpected turn took everyone by surprise. “Though Israel be NOT gathered”, yet,  Messiah’s labors would not be in vain, but receive a more immediate reward and vindication among the gentiles (Isa 49:5-6; 65:1). Even while the saved remnant will continue to ‘wait on Him who hides His face from Israel’ (Isa 8:17), the sealed vision, what Paul calls the ‘hidden wisdom’ is ‘bound up and sealed among My disciples’ (Isa 8:16). It is the ‘mystery of the gospel’ by which the gentiles are made fellow partakers and joint heirs with the household of faith (Ro 16:25-26; Eph 2:19; 3:5-6; 6:18).

Paradox of paradox, only in this way could the Deuteronomic threat of Moses be fulfilled, that for a certain season, during the nation had been ‘given up’, another people (‘not a people’ / gentiles) would be blessed in their place. How better to understand the great extension of exilic judgment than by the nation’s failure to recognize “the time of their visitation” resulting in the rejection and crucifixion of Jesus? (Mt 23:39 with Lk 19:44; Acts 2:23). In this light, few things uttered by mortal lips could be more chilling and prophetic than the tragic self-imprecation invoked in Pilate’s judgment hall, “His blood be on us and on our children!” (Mt 27:24-25).

By following through, using, and underlining for emphasis, the highly significant ‘tills’ and ‘untils’ of prophecy, the way is made clear to show that Israel’s blindness and exile is both temporary and everywhere connected to their national resurrection at Messiah’s return. With the question raised as to what great offense would be sufficient to condemn the nation to such an extended exile, one might turn to compare in Dan 9:26, where one called a ‘messiah’ is ‘cut off’, noting the same language is used to describe Isaiah’s suffering servant in Isa 53:8. Like Micah’s smitten king, He is likewise smitten, stricken, and despised of His own brethren (Isa 49:7; 50:6; 53:3-4). This comparison shows that the anonymous Servant in Isa 53 and the anointed Prince of Dan 9:26, are one and the same. He is the seed of the woman through whom the curse would be reversed by atoning substitution.

It is important to understand that the prophets well knew the implications of this most pregnant promise. Only one not under the curse could conceivably reverse it. Through unfolding revelation of David’s discernment of the significance of Abraham’s encounter with Melchizedek and his own investing of his future greater son with transcendent attributes of deity at God’s right hand (without “beginning of days”; Ps 110:4; Mic 5:2; Heb 7:3, or ‘end of days’; Isa 9:6-7), we may be very sure that the prophets foresaw, not only the sufferings of Messiah and the glories that would follow (1Pet 1:11), but also His necessary sinlessness and divine nature (Ps 2:7; 110:1, 4; Isa 7:14; 9:6-7; Mic 5:2; Jer 23:6).

As contemporaries in the southern kingdom of Judah, both Isaiah and Micah saw and foretold that the ruler from David’s line would be (in significant pattern with the sufferings of the rejected Joseph and the afflictions of David), rejected, despised, and ‘smitten’ by “His own brethren” (Ps 22:6, 16; Isa 49:7; 50:6; 53:3-4; Mic 5:1-3; Zech 12:10; Jn 19:37; Rev 1:7). They understood that before Messiah would enter into His glory, He would first be made a trap and snare for pride and unbelief, as the divinely ordained stone of stumbling (Isa 8:14; 28:6; Mk 12:10-11; Acts 4:11; Ro 9:32-33; 1Cor 1:23; 2Cor 2:16; 1Pet 2:4-8).  But it is just here, at the point of Israel’s greater fall by the rejection of their Messiah, that both Micah and Hosea, also contemporaries, speak of an extended time of divine abandonment (Mic 5:3; Hos 5:15).

Among the covenant curses of Deuteronomy it is written that while God’s face would be hidden from the nation (Deut 31:17-18), at the same time, He would be provoking them to jealousy by another people, a ‘not a people’, a ‘foolish nation’ (Deut 32:20-21). The foretold surrender of Israel over to an age long hardening (Job 34:29; Isa 6:9-11; 29:11) would never be more than partial, of course, since God would always preserve to Himself a remnant.

God’s face was never hidden from the remnant, but the prophets looked to the time when, not only a remnant, but all Israel would be saved, entirely, and without exception, all would be righteous and their children after them preserved in righteousness forever (Isa 4:3; 45:25; 54:13; 50:21; 60:21; Jer 31:34; 32:40 et al), when the face of God would no longer be hidden from any part of the now fully redeemed nation (Isa 8:17; Eze 39:22, 28-29).

This situation of a lively remnant in abiding contrast with a disobedient nation under judgment would continue only ‘UNTIL’ the Spirit is poured upon us from on high …” (Isa 32:15-17). Not the concurrence of the pouring out of the Spirit with the spiritual birth of the nation in one day (Isa 66:8; Zech 3:9; Eze 39:22) whereupon the erring nation will at last and forever enter into everlasting righteousness of the New Covenant (Isa 66:8; Jer 31:3131-34; Eze 11:19; 36:26-27). But note; a new spirit was always in times past available to the remnant who would turn to the Lord in repentance (Prov 1:23; Isa 55:1-3; Eze 18:31).

Not knowing the mystery of Messiah’s two comings and the purpose of God for the gentiles during an unexpected inter-advent period, nor the expansion of the remnant to include the wild branches from among the gentiles during an extended exile between the advents, the pouring out of the Spirit was always associated with the end of the final tribulation at the day of the Lord. The hiding of God’s face, not from the remnant, from whom His face was never hidden, but from the nation as a whole, ends forever with pouring out of the Spirit upon the newly born (Isa 66:8), resurrected (Isa 25:8; 26:19; Eze 37:12; Hos 6:2; 13:14) , and now entirely regenerate nation of penitent survivors at the end of the great and final tribulation (Isa 8:17; Isa 54:7-8; 57:17-18; 59:21; 64:7; Eze 36:26-27; 37:14; 39:8, 13; 22-24, 39; Joel 2:29-31; Zech 12:10).

Not only had Moses foretold the great anomaly of gentile salvation at the very time the face of God would be hidden from the larger nation, but Isaiah is just as clear, particularly when an exceptionally stubborn and much debated textual variant is duly considered. Time forbids giving an account and full documentation of the argumentation that has passed between both Jewish and Christian scholars, but the wording that is actually present in our surviving manuscripts (Kethiv) for Isa 49:5, but also questioned by the marginal reading (Quere) in some manuscripts, requires us to understand that Messiah’s mission to gather the tribes Israel would meet with momentary disappointment and seeming failure (“though Israel be NOT gathered”; see note below).

This momentary disappointment would be vindicated by the more immediate expansion of Messiah’s mission to bring the light of salvation to the nations and isles afar off (Isa 42:1; 49:1, 6), not AFTER Israel has been restored, but during the time that Israel is NOT gathered. Such a reading, along with Isa 65:1, suggests that the gathering of the gentiles would not be limited to the post-tribulational salvation of the nation, (which is no less true and forthcoming), but to the time that follows the rejection of Messiah, Jesus (Isa 49:7; 53:3; Mic 5:1; Zech 12:10).

This is just an opening for all the many evidences that can then, time permitting, be added to demonstrate the gospel in the Old Testament. Not only as a mystery that pertains to Christ’s two comings, but as a mystery that reveals God’s plan in all its glorious relationship to the fall and rising again of Israel. As I said, it provides a port of entrance by which one can move freely, fitting each additional piece into the framework that the mystery establishes of Messiah’s two comings and the extended judgment of exile that continues until His return.

It is certainly well known that the two comings of Christ were foretold in prophecy, but the approach that I am commending here underscores and proves the relation of the second coming to Israel in particular. Then all the great points of divine contention that the end events will press to ultimate intensity can be considered in their proper context. This is something much more than the mere acknowledgement of prophetic fulfillment. It raises all the great issues of God that surface when we understand that the end of the age comes in relation to what Isaiah calls the “controversy of Zion” (Isa 34:8; Zech 12:2-3).

By demonstrating this structural outline of the mystery of Christ and Israel, one is able to verify from OT prophecy, that between the comings of Christ, the face of God is hidden from the nation at the very same time that God is provoking the Jew to jealousy by another people (the preponderantly Gentile church; Deut 32:21; Isa 49:5; 65:1 with Mt 21:43; Ro 10:19; 11:11). These scriptures establish the context and time for the calling out of a people from among the Gentiles (Acts 14:27; 15:14-18; Ro 11:15-17, 25) during the time that God is hiding His face from the nation as a whole (Deut 31:17-18; 32:20; Isa 8:17; Ezek 39:29; Mic 3:4).

I say “the nation as a whole,” because the face of God is not hidden from the elect remnant, among whom the testimony is “sealed up and bound” (Isa 8:16). The Spirit has already revealed the mystery of the gospel to the church (Ro 16:25-26 w/ Dan 11:32-33; 12:3, 10). What is waiting is for the Spirit to be poured out “in the whole house of Israel” at the day of the Lord (Isa 44:3; 59:21; Ezek 37:11, 14; 39:25, 29; Joel 2:28-29; Zech 12:10). Then will the ‘sealed vision’ be revealed to the penitent remnant of Israel by the outpoured Spirit of God (compare Isa 8:16-17 w/ Dan 9:24; Ezek 39:29; Zech 12:10) in the same way that the gospel was revealed by the Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 3:18-21 w/ 1Pet 1:11-12). From this we can see that Israel’s national regeneration “in one day” (Isa 66:8; Ezek 39:22; Zech 3:9; 12:10) stands in remarkable analogy to the amazing sovereignty of Christ’s revelation of Himself to Paul on the Damascus road (Gal 1:15-16 w/ Ps 102:13).

Ezekiel is clear that “from that day and forward” (Ezek 39:22), God’s face will never more be hidden from any part of the whole house of Israel (Ezek 39:28-29). From that time, every living Jewish survivor of the last tribulation (Jer 31:34), and every child ever born to Jewish parentage (Isa 54:13; 59:21), will ‘all’ know the Lord in the glory of the everlasting covenant (Isa 60:21; Jer 31:34). This is the covenant background behind Paul’s statement, “And so ‘all’ Israel shall be saved” (Ro 11:26).

The gentile believer, no less than the Jewish believer, needs to be prepared to show the evidence of the gospel as a prophetic mystery contained in the Old Testament, not only for the useful goal of personal salvation, but because God has literally ‘commanded’ that the mystery of the gospel should be made known to all nations (not only to Jews) “by the scriptures of the prophets” (Acts 18:28; Ro 16:26). Prophecy is God’s own chosen method of witness (Isa 41:21-22; 42:9; 43:10-12; 44:7-8; 45:11; 46:9-10; Rev 19:10). It is like Paul’s reference to the weakness and ‘foolishness” of preaching; it is the approach that has “pleased God.”

From the standpoint of evangelism, the early church made a point to proclaim the gospel as a revelation a mystery (Eph 6:19) that was completely foretold in the Old Testament (Acts 26:22), but yet kept secret until the set time of revelation (Isa 8:16; 29:11; Ro 16:25-26). Should this also be our approach to evangelism? I believe it should for the following reasons:

Among Jews of the first century, the test for any truth claim was the question: “Does it stand written?” The revelation of the gospel was commended, by the apostles, to Israel on one basis only, namely, its agreement with what Moses and the prophets foretold. Approaching the witnessing task in this way does some very important things. At the same time that it validates the gospel, it also shows decisive evidence for the miracle of prophecy. The demonstration of the divine purpose of God in prophecy gives purpose and meaning to history, which opens a door of hope to the hopeless, even as it removes the intellectual excuse. (Even when our witness does not result in someone’s salvation, God has willed the removal of the “hiding place” for purposes of clarity in His judgment (Ps 51:4; Isa 6:10; 28:13; Jn 15:22).

This original approach to evangelism also accomplishes something else that is very important but too slightly considered in modern times. It establishes the gospel as a mystery that was intentionally hidden until the time of its full revelation with the advent of the Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 3:18-21; Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:11-12). We need to understand why the gospel of Christ was a mystery, because it bears greatly on how we understand the last days of this age.

There was a divine strategy to expose and defeat the principalities and powers of this present age by keeping the mystery of God’s hidden wisdom concerning Christ secret until after its accomplishment (compare Mk 8:30; 9:9; “see you tell no man;” w/ 1Cor 2:7-8; “For had they (the principalities and powers) known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory”. The mystery was a divinely prepared trap and snare against all self sufficient presumption, both human and demonic (Ps 69:22 w/ Isa 8:14-15; 28:16; Mt 21:42; 1Pet 2:6-8). In that sense, it was hidden for judgment (Jn 9:39).

Before its revelation, the gospel, though completely foretold, was a divinely designed mystery (the sealed testimony or vision; Isa 8:16; 29:11; Dan 9:24; 12:4, 9) prepared to function not only as revelation to the repentant, but as judgment to the impenitent. The church needs to present the gospel for the mystery that it was, and also for the revelation that it will yet be to the penitent survivors of Jacob’s trouble at the future day of the Lord.

The mystery of the gospel includes both comings of Christ, and the second coming is inextricably related to literal-physical Israel and all that pertains to the Antichrist, the tribulation, and Christ’s return at the day of the Lord. The greater mystery of God (Rev 10:7), “the mystery of His will” (Eph 1:9), or “the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ” (Eph 1:11), reveals God’s predestined means of fulfilling in literal detail His everlasting covenant with Israel. That is why it is so essential that the church understand its relationship to Israel’s future grace, since it is the same covenant of sure mercies, as established with Abraham and David.

In order for the hidden wisdom of God’s prophetic purpose in Christ to be concealed from the demonic realm, it was also necessary that it be hidden from man as well (Mt 13:35; Ro 16:25; Eph 3:5). Even after the mystery of the gospel has been revealed to the church in its outward form, its inner essence remains hidden and inaccessible to pride (Mt 11:25; 1Cor 2:14). It is not enough that the outward form of the gospel be only understood with the mind; it must be quickened by the Spirit, as only revelation by the Spirit is sufficient to create lasting inward transformation (2Cor 3:18). Enough evidence will make even a devil “believe” (Ja 2:19), but true trust in God is foreign to our nature. It must be in-wrought by the life giving Spirit of God.

This understanding of the ways of God in mystery as judgment, and through revelation as mercy, saves the church from taking for granted the extravagant cost and scope of the work of God with both Jew and gentile in His continual war against the pride of self-reliance. It brings into view a further aspect of God’s ability to accomplish both judgment and salvation by His wise use of a prophetic mystery that is at once His glory and special delight.

Paul spoke about the “fellowship of the mystery” (Eph 3:9 KJV), as a “hidden wisdom, which God decreed before the ages for our glory” (1 Cor 2:7). This carries huge implications for the church, not only for its more intelligent appreciation of the cost and glory of the gospel, but for its understanding of the modern crisis of Israel as we approach the concluding stages of the same prophetic mystery, as this mystery will again confront Israel (Isa 28:11-18), the church (Ro 11:25; 1Pet 4:17), and the nations (Ps 2:1-2, 6; Isa 29:7-8; 34:2, 8; Dan 11:28, 30; 40-45; Joel 3:2; Zeph 3:8; Zech 12:2-3, 9; 14:2-3).

It raises the issue of God’s employment of mystery and revelation in His conquest of Satan (Dan 10:12-13; 1Cor 2:7-8; Rev 12:7-10), as it also tests and exposes the hearts of men. Although the prophetic mystery that stumbled Israel is now an open secret, it remains hidden from the pride of impenitence (Isa 28:21). Such a concept of revealed mystery by a God who “hides Himself” (Isa 45:15) provides a radical readjustment of how God is perceived in this aspect of His judgment upon all human and demonic autonomy. If the ultra religious sects of Israel was not spared in the day of an unrecognized visitation (Lk 19:44), how shall the pride of the church be spared (Ro 11:21; 1Pet 4:17), as we near the time that the “the mystery of God” (Rev 10:7) is about to be finished?

In conclusion, this plan of presentation shows the basic outline of history in prophecy, and makes sense of the unexpectedly long interval that has already passed between the first and second comings, which brings us now full circle again to an imminent world crisis over Jerusalem as a modern cup of trembling, evoking all the great issues of God that conclude the age. It makes sense out of all that has followed in Jewish history.

The case for a future tribulation that is focused primarily on the nation of Israel opens up opportunity to call attention to the contemporary fulfillment of prophecy and to draw out the implications of current trends. Time permitting, particularly when witnessing to Jews; one could expand on the ancient contention of the covenant (Lev 26; Deut 28-32; Ezek 20:37), and the explanation this provides for the mystery of Jewish suffering throughout history. The way is then made to show that the great goal of the covenant and the solution to the crisis of Jewish history is the revelation of the righteousness of God in Christ. This is the crux; all else is secondary by comparison. The entire New Testament is occupied to expound the righteousness promised to Israel in the everlasting covenant. (“For therein (the gospel) is the righteousness of God revealed… But now the righteousness of God is manifested …; Ro 1:17; 3:21-22, 25-26; 10:3-4; 16:26).

In covenant and prophecy, all lines lead to the revelation of Messiah as “the Lord our righteousness” (Jer 23:6). No other righteousness is adequate to fulfill the law and no other sacrifice is acceptable to assuage divine wrath. The imputed righteousness of Christ is the “the everlasting righteousness” (Isa 26:12; 45:24-25; 54:17; Jer 23:6; 32:40; Dan 9:24) of covenant promise that will enable Israel to keep the Land forever. It is the righteousness revealed to the church at the end 69th week of Daniel, as it will be revealed to the penitent remnant of Israel at the end of Daniel’s seventieth week, fitting the newly born nation (Isa 66:8) for its millennial inheritance.

The gap that the above scriptures expose between Christ’s two advents can be discerned in Daniel’s famous prophecy of the seventy weeks (Dan 9:24-27). A hidden age between the advents is a common characteristic of Old Testament prophecy, where both comings of Christ are often blended in the same prophecy without clear distinction. The phenomenon also appears in many passages where near and distant aspects of prophecy are combined.

We need to understand that God deliberately concealed the foretold gospel of Christ in the form of a prophetic mystery, revealed in parts and pieces (“here a little, and there a little”) throughout the prophetic writings of the Old Testament (Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:11-12). This needs to be underscored, because Daniel’s mysterious prophecy of the seventy weeks constitutes a perfect example of the OT mystery of Messiah’s coming, departure, and return to Israel, as a secret, divinely sealed and ‘kept under wraps’, or ‘encrypted’ (the Hebrew sense of Isa 8:16 according to Keil and Delitzsch) until its revelation by the Spirit (compare also Dan 9:24; 12:4, 9; Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:11-12 etc.)

This is not the place to make the full case, but the seventy weeks are strategically constructed around the two great mysteries of incarnation (the woman’s and the serpent’s seed of Gen 3:15) that mark the beginning and the end of this present age. In One (“Messiah the Prince”), the mystery of godliness is revealed (1Tim 3:16). In the other, “the prince that shall come” heads up the mystery of iniquity, which Paul shows must be revealed before Christ can return (2Thes 2:7).

It can be demonstrated beyond reasonable dispute that the final week (Dan 9:27) of Daniel’s prophecy of the seventy weeks (Dan 9:24-27) is not in reference to Christ but the Antichrist. Therefore, a gap is necessarily observed between the 69th and 70th weeks. The controversy over whether the 70th week of Daniel is future, resolves itself into one decisive question: “Which of the two princes stops the daily sacrifice?” If the evidence within the immediate context of the book is given due priority, the answer is irrefutable. It is “the one who exalts himself” (compare Dan 8:11 w/ Dan 11:31-37; 2Thes 2:4).

Furthermore, chapter 12 of Daniel is particularly decisive in making the case for the futurity of Daniel’s final week, because it makes clear that the sacrifice that is stopped in “the middle of the week” in Dan 9:27, happens approximately 3 ½ years (1290 days) before the resurrection of the dead (compare Dan 12:1-2 with Dan 12:11; see also, Dan 7:25; 12:7; Rev 11:2-3; 12:16, 14; 13:5). To suppose that the 70th week of Daniel follows the 69th in unbroken succession is to ignore the internal evidence within the book, but worse, it is to miss the divinely intended mystery that will continue to offend the rationalism of higher criticism.

So the great tribulation is clearly the second half of the last seven years that starts with a covenant or league (Dan 9:27; 11:23) that is made with “the prince that shall come.” He is the Antichrist (“little horn” or “Man of Sin”) who makes the “covenant with death hell” that seduces Israel into a false sense of security (Isa 28:15-18; Dan 11:24 ASV). The false security that results from this ill-fated peace treaty (Ezek 38:8, 11, 14) prepares the way for the “sudden destruction” (1Thes 5:3) of Jacob’s trouble (Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1; Mt 24:21). Therefore, the tribulation starts at the mid point of the week when the Antichrist violates the covenant that he earlier confirmed at the start of the week (Dan 9:27; 11:23-31).

No single prophecy could ever be more important for the end time church to understand (“Let the reader understand;” Mt 24:15) than Daniel’s prophecy of the seventy weeks (Dan 9:24-27). Careful attention to Daniel is vital for opening up and showing so much else that is critically relevant for the church’s preparation for its role in these last days towards Israel and the nations (Dan 11:33; 12:3, 10). The specific chronology of Daniel is particularly dreaded by Satan, because his eviction by Michael in the middle of week (Rev 12:9-10) is directly related to the prophetic countdown of events that start with the beginning of Daniel’s seventieth week.

[Note 1: We have followed K and 4QIsd in reading lo‘ (‘not’; cf also Vg, Sym, Th), rather than Q and 1QIsa lô (‘to him’; cf also LXX, Tg, Syr). The latter reading implies the meaning ‘and so that Israel might be gathered to him’, which makes easier sense but thus seems to be a correction. Goldingay, J., & Payne, D. (2006). A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Isaiah 40–55. (G. I. Davies & G. N. Stanton, Eds.) (Vol. 2, p. 162). London; New York: T&T Clark.

[Note 2: That the book of Daniel has suffered greater attack by liberal scholarship than any other book of the Bible should alert the conservative believer to Satan’s special fear and hatred of its contents. (see Sir Robert Anderson’s, “Daniel in the Critics Den.” More recently, Josh McDowell has written an update of Anderson’s material by the same title.)]

[Note 3: The futurity of the entire seven years of Daniel’s seventieth week was specifically affirmed by Hippolytus (170-236 AD) in his “Treatise on Christ and Antichrist” (Ante Nicene Fathers Vol 5, Pt. 2:43). Hippolytus was a disciple of Irenaeus, who was a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of John. So the really presumptuous allegation that the gap between the 69th and 70th weeks of Daniel is an invention of modern 19th century dispensationalism is patently false. On the contrary, the much maligned “gap theory” is intrinsic to the mystery of Christ in the Old Testament.]

Reggie

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Do you have anything on how Satan’s removal from the heavens puts him in a less powerful place than he currently occupies?

We have to be very careful of our words here. The only sense that the Satan’s power is restricted will be in his ability to accuse the believer’s conscience. He is already without legal right, but his removal by Michael in the middle of the week ends his access to accuse in some unprecedented way. It’s there in the text!

Certainly the once and for all victory of Christ has ended Satan’s legal right to any believer’s conscience, but there you see that when Michael prevails to cast Satan down (an event that is clearly in the middle of the week; Dan 12:1), he is particularly described as “the Accuser of the brethren,” who, until he is cast down by Michael at the beginning of the tribulation is able, in some sense, to accuse the regenerate servants of God, albeit illicitly. What are the implications of this?

I believe there is a profound reason for this, but first notice that the line up of these events all happening at the mid point of the last week. This shows that it is the clearing of heaven from Satan’s abiding presence, is not only a powerful milestone on the way to the coming of the kingdom (the removal of the restrainer), but Michael’s victory accomplishes an unprecedented open heaven, as it were, that significantly announces the presence of the kingdom in power, and this announced presence of the kingdom is significantly 3 1/2 years BEFORE Jesus’ return. Something major has happened! I believe that what is in view is the heavenly enforcement of Christ’s victory by a church that has come to travail in analogy to Daniel’s intercession and self abasement. It is what I call the ‘conquest of the veil’ on a corporate scale unprecedented since Pentecost, as anticipated in Jesus’ exclamation, “I saw Satan fall as lightening from heaven.”

The Accuser’s removal announces the significantly related power and liberty of the overcoming church. The timing here lines up perfectly with other passages that show a breakthrough of mighty anointing that comes upon the ‘maskilim’ in significant timing with the abomination of desolation that marks the mid-point of the seventieth week (Dan 11:31-35; 12:7-10). Very significantly, this is also the time that the two witnesses receive their power. What is happening to the witnesses is happening to all the godly remnant, an anointing of power to do exploits (greater works?) and turn an innumerable multitude to righteousness. At the same time the man child is caught up, Satan is cast down, and as God’s people apprehend their place with Christ (in figurative analogy to Jesus’ birth and ascension), Satan comes down to bring the final woe to the earth dwellers. I call this the great transition and it happens in both the realm of light and the realm of darkness, the ultimate point of divide.

All adds up to something very transitional at this point, not only in the realm of darkness on the side of the mystery of iniquity, but also the side of light and power of the truth. It is a profound spiritual apprehension of the gospel by a church that is now completely poured out. It’s a new Pentecost! It empowers for the last great thrust of the gospel that will draw the net on an innumerable multitude. But the actual power of Satan, so far from being limited or ‘less’, is actually intensified. It is no longer distributed between heaven and earth but is now concentrated, fully and finally on the earth. For those who dwell in heaven (not a term for only departed saints and angels but all the people of the Spirit, whether in heaven or earth), it means the greatest break through of kingdom power since Pentecost. But for the ‘earth dwellers’ (a term meaning, not mere habitation of the earth but the sensual unregenerate who have their life in the earth), it will mean the time of unequaled woe.

Not time to enter into it here, but we must ask; how is it that something that has always been true concerning Satan’s fatal defeat at the cross and the rightful freedom of every believer from his accusations is, in some sense, being reiterated just here, immediately upon Michael’s removal of Satan, an event that we know does not happen until the standing up of Michael at the middle of the week, 3 1/2 years before the Lord’s return? I believe the answer has all to do with the believer’s relation to the veil. Here’s what I mean:

In the spiritual realm, there is a constant war against the veil of the flesh that is especially felt by the child of God. Every believer is in a war against the temptation to put confidence in the flesh, but not only at the conscious level. This is one important purpose in our pruning and the unique and tailored things we must pass through, much of which is involuntary, appointed and orchestrated by the Lord. Our maturity in Christ has all to do with the degree of brokenness and freedom from the impediment of that residual measure of self reliance that limits and hinders the fuller, manifest power of His life in us. This is what Paul made the constant object of his prayer, enjoining the prayers of the saints to the end that “Christ might be magnified in my MORTAL body.” This is the sense that he hoped to ‘attain’ to the resurrection of the dead. He was speaking of the power of the resurrection as a present potential and goal.

This is simply the well established biblical principal that our strength is our weakness, and our weakness is our strength, and why it is that it is only when Israel comes to the end of their power that their great transition comes (compare Deut 36:32; Dan 12:7). We understand what happens to the saints in the middle of the week when we can conceive that God has in mind a corporate fullness of Christ in the tribulation church that has become completely emptied of the last remains of the hindrance of strength. This is why Christ is revealed at the end of the law, because it is the Spirit’s quickening of the law that destroys all hope in the flesh. Christ is the end of the law because He is revealed at the end of strength. I’m not trying to be technically exegetical here, only interested to communicate a profound principle of the Spirit’s working. Spurgeon called it, ‘the withering work of the Spirit.” This most ultimate weakness and divine emptying of the godly remnant will empower the true body for an ultimate corporate fullness and witness that will significantly parallel the 3 1/2 years of His ministry beginning with the baptism of John.

Because of what will have transpired in the first half of the week, the true bride of Christ will have been greatly emptied of the last remains of confidence in the flesh, which is the strength of the veil and what holds the church back from its ordained apostolic fullness. The first half of the week will be very crucially employed to crowd and constrain the church to a place it would never have otherwise been able to go corporately. Thus my analogy, “when you are become of full age, another will gird you and take you where you would not have gone.”

It is the church’s coming through to this glorious weakness and self emptying that will receive the help of Michael. This is in significant analogy to what happened in response to Daniel’s urgency of self abasement and prevailing intercession. This breakthrough in the accomplishment of ultimate things is not only incidental to a fixed time, though it is that too. It is the issue of intercession, the filling up of the prayers of the saints, but not without the deep spiritual travail of intercession and self emptying that will be accomplished in the saints facing the final and ultimate trial, Simply put, as the greater the victory over the residual remains of self reliance in the believer brings the greater manifestation of His power and life, just so, the last great straightening and emptying of the church in the spiritual and prophetic travail that will come especially in the first half the week, will bring the great release of resurrection power and life of Jesus in the corporate seed of the woman, His body. So much that is ultimately transitional and decisive converges at the middle of the week and we need to probe and understand why!

Up until the middle of week, the believing church of God will have been greatly exercised and deeply processed and constrained through mighty displays of prophetic fulfillment and flesh destroying revelation of the truth. This will be in full and sober view of all that is now very near at hand. I call it the great straightening of the church. It is very related conceptually to Paul’s reference to his deep travail till Christ be formed in the wavering Galatians. It is the kind of travail that we see with the heavenly woman. That is true initially in the new birth, yes, but the same dynamic is no less true in principle and pattern in our maturation process and no less in the maturation of Christ in the corporate body as eschatologically anticipated in Eph 4:13. It is all by revelation and grace alone, and nothing of the self determination of well meaning religious zeal. The church, true church, will be profoundly emptied and divested of the last remnant of confidence in the flesh, which is the strength of the veil that hinders and holds back the power of the life of Christ from full manifestation in any believer’s life, but in this case, the corporate body (man child?).

I believe the man child is not only a personal but also a corporate figure. It is not only Jesus, as the ultimate personal seed, but the collective seed of the woman, the people of the Spirit. The sense that the corporate man child is caught up is not, as some have suggested, a pre-trib or mid-trib rapture. The catching up is indeed in the middle of the week in immediate connection with Michael’s dejection of Satan, but it is not of the physical body, since we know it is not the time of the resurrection (Paul puts his own resurrection at the last trumpet with all who are in Christ; 1Cor 15:23, 52). It implies rather a spiritual birth and ascent, comparable to Christ’s own ascension to God’s right hand where every believer arose and ascended with Him, as now ‘sealed and set down’. I think of the way that Jesus could say of Himself that He was presently ‘in heaven’ even as he spoke with Nicodemus on earth.

With Satan’s forcible removal by Michael, heaven has been cleared of the one who hinders, and this is taking place as the church has come through to a corporate fullness through the end of every misplaced, distributed, or mixed confidence. It implies unprecedented freedom and power on a corporate scale not seen since Pentecost. The church has, as it were, ascended, or rather fully grasped and apprehended its ascended position and sealed identity with Christ as sealed and seated at God’s right hand. It is only the old old story, the simple gospel of Christ, but in a much fuller apprehension of things already true but now much more perfectly and powerfully apprehended because of the great and glorious weakness that God has brought His church. It is the ultimate possession of our possessions, as when Paul so greatly groaned to apprehend that for which he was apprehended.

All of this happens on the side of light at nearly or exactly the same time that the mystery of iniquity is being revealed through the casting down of Satan, whereupon the deadly wound is healed, which results in the resurrection of the sea beast as the ultimate incarnation of Satan. The whole book of Revelation, the opening of the seals by Lamb, is all about this final manifestation of the mystery of iniquity that ends the ‘time of the nations’ and finishes the mystery of God (Rev 10:7) in HIs return, which Satan knows better than the church is impossible apart from the birth / resurrection of the Jewish nation (natural branches), and why he goes to exterminate the woman with fevered urgency once he sees his time is short.

Well, this is getting too long again, but you get the idea. I know this will be thought speculative, but while I have some admitted ‘loose ends’ in all I understand of what must converge to accomplish the great transition in the middle of the week, of some things, I am very sure. There is something very transitional and transformative ahead for the church that we must come to together before the last witness, which I love to call, ‘the final thrust’. God has something to prove and demonstrate through His church before He vindicates His covenant publicly in Israel’s return, which at that time will be no less the church of the one new man.

There is also something cosmic and world changing that takes place in heaven and on earth when this already despicable antichrist is revealed as THE Antichrist by what I believe will be a literal, bodily resurrection from the dead. The implications will be seismic.

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After listening to a number of preachers speak about the trumpets of Revelation already being fulfilled since World War 1, and that we are quickly approaching the sixth which speaks of a great war in the Middle East; Is this possible? Because I always thought of the trumpets happening within the last 3 and half years, and we have not yet seen ‘hail fire, mixed with blood, burning up a third of the trees”, or the star “Wormwood poisoning a third of the planet’s freshwater sources” and if we have, when? Am I missing something?

Concerning the timing of the trumpets, you are very correct. They most certainly begin at the middle of the week, at the time of the sealing of the servants of God (Rev 7:1-3 ff.) and continue to the ‘last’ or 7th trumpet, which is the Lord’s return and the beginning of His millennial reign (Mt 24:31; 1Cor 15:52; Rev 10:7; 11:15 ff.).

A careful comparison of Rev 8:12-13; 9:12-13; Rev 11:11-15 will show that the last three trumpets are the last three woes. This further contradicts the really bizarre notion that the first five trumpets are already past and the 6th is imminent. As you rightly ask, how could the 6th trumpet be the next to sound unless we are already well advanced into the great tribulation? That such a proposal could be made, or seriously entertained, underscores a really dangerous ignorance or misplacement of the events that signal the beginning of the tribulation, that let us know when it is approaching and when we’re in it.

Firstly, we know that the great tribulation cannot start until the necessary preliminary conditions are in place. Breaking the deadly peace arrangement, the Antichrist descends suddenly upon an unsuspecting Israel that is resting in a false sense of security (Isa 28:15, 18; Dan 8:25; 9:27; 11:23-24; 1Thes 5:3). Sweeping away all opposition (Dan 11:31; Rev 13:4), he forcibly enters the rebuilt temple of God which must again stand in Jerusalem (‘the holy place’ in ‘Judea’; Mt 24:15-16; 2Thes 2:4; Rev 11:1-2). He then stops the regular (morning and evening) sacrifice that has been only recently reinstated (Isa 63:18; Dan 8:13-14) and places the abomination that triggers the great tribulation (Dan 11:31; 12:1-2, 11; Mt 24:15-16, 21; 2Thes 2:4). It’s that simple. It was meant to be for our protection.

It is fitting that God would make it plain so that we would not be deceived by false reports and premature excitements to the contrary. There is only one antidote to end times deception: “But take ye heed! Behold; I have foretold you all things” (Mt 24:25: Mk 13:23). And, “Let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall NOT come, except there come a falling away FIRST, and that man of sin be revealed …” (2Thes 2:3-4).

Jesus does not give all the details that are needful for His people’s knowledge of the end. Rather, He sends His disciples to Daniel’s prophecy to identify and understand the key event that signals the beginning of the tribulation (Mt 24:15-16, 21). If we would only follow His clear command, we would save ourselves a lot of abuse and needless diversion from the false alarms of prophetic speculation. By His interjection, ‘let the reader understand’ (to paraphrase, “pay attention to Daniel!”), Jesus is directing us to search Daniel’s prophecy for this event, and to read with “understanding” (a word that appears with significant frequency all throughout the book).

We find that the abomination that brings the final desolation of Jerusalem is mentioned four times (Dan 8:11; 9:27; 11:31; 12:11). Jesus knew that when we would carefully observe what leads up to this event and mark what follows from it, we would not be so easily mistaken or deceived concerning the time of His return, nor without understanding of the nature and meaning of the tribulation that must immediately precede (Mt 24:29). This should be the beginning point of any study of prophecy, since it is exactly where Jesus tells His disciples to begin, a divine directive that has been far too little emphasized.

Contrary to many prophecy scenarios, the abomination of desolation cannot be separated in time from the stopping of the daily sacrifice. Both are equally 1290 days before the end (Dan 12:11). I agree this would seem obvious, but many false views of prophecy live and thrive by separating the inseparable. For example, some insist that Christ stopped the sacrifice by His death, but move the abomination up another 40 years to 70 A.D or some other more distant place in church history.  Then, contrary to the clearest of evidence from the most simple comparison of scripture with scripture, they boldly proceed to disconnect these inseparable events from Paul’s description of the man of sin who enters the temple of God just shortly before his destruction by Jesus’ return (2Thes 2:1-9). These things cannot be split up and placed at different points in history!

Many of the false systems of prophecy can only be sustained by either separating the sacrifice from the abomination by either decades or centuries, or by spiritualizing one or both. Invariably, the temple must also be spiritualized, so that the temple that Paul mentions in 2Thes 2:4 (see also John’s reference in Rev 11:1-2) is usually considered to be representative of world Christendom. It is disconnected entirely from the temple mentioned by Jesus in His Olivet prophecy (Mt 24:15). And yet, both Jesus and Paul are clearly citing the words of Daniel to describe the same man who enters and defiles the temple of God to begin the unequaled tribulation (Dan 11:31, 36-37; 12:1, 11 with Mt 24:15-16, 21; 2Thes 2:3-4, 8).

What temple and where? How could Paul, without further qualification, have expected the Thessalonians to imagine any other ‘temple of God’ than the one that was standing in Jerusalem as a wonder of the ancient world when Paul was writing his epistle? What powerful presuppositions must be at play for interpreters to insist that Paul’s reference to the temple of God in 2Thess 2:4 is an entirely different kind of temple, separate in time, meaning, and location from the temple that Jesus refers to in Mt 24:15-16. This is especially awkward when both passages are so manifestly speaking of the same event that signals the great apostasy and and final tribulation.

If we will carefully compare Paul’s wording in 2Thes 2:4 with the identical language of Daniel’s prophecy in Dan 11:36-37, it cannot be missed that the same person is in view. It should be obvious that this is the same man who places the abomination of desolation only five verses earlier in Dan 11:31, the event which Jesus references using precisely the same language in Mt 24:15.

Notice too that Rev 12:7-14 puts the ‘short time’ of Satan’s rage as following immediately upon Michael’s heavenly victory over Satan. This is exactly what we see in Dan 12:1-2. Michael stands up and then begins the unequaled trouble (Jacob’s trouble; Jer 30:7) that ends with the deliverance of Daniel’s people and the resurrection. In such a context, it would be a violence against plain language to separate these events, whether by decades or centuries. No, the abomination is placed at the same time the sacrifice is removed in the middle of Daniel’s 70th week, precisely 1290 days before “the end”, i.e., the end that accomplishes the final salvation of Israel in connection with the resurrection (Dan 9:27; 12:1-2, 11-13). That end! The text could hardly be plainer, and if a plain reading of plain language is not a sufficient ground for interpretation, then the sky’s the limit!

With the temple spiritualized to stand for the church, the man of sin becomes a symbol for either a long line of Roman emperors or more commonly, the succession of popes, spanning, not a short period of approximately 3 1/2 years, but many centuries, as each of the days of Daniel’s half week (1260, 1290, 1335; Dn 9:27; 12:11-12; Rev 11:3, 12:6) is understood to represent a year. This is the presupposition of the so-called ‘historicist’ interpretation that has been the dominant view since the Reformation until modern times and remains prevalent today among both Reformed and Seventh Day Adventists.

In this view, the sacrifice of Dan 12:11 is either put in the past or spiritualized. It cannot conceivably refer to a literal sacrifice that is being offered in a literal Jewish temple in a Jewish Jerusalem that will be stopped by the Antichrist just 3 1/2 literal years before the end. Why? Because this would require a prophetically significant reconstitution of the Jewish nation, such as we see before our eyes.

(Note: The so-called ‘year day theory’ has been a principal cause of most of the failed dates for Christ’s return, most notably Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists).

The end result of all is to transfer prophecy out of its original Jewish context into a more symbolic and spiritualized fulfillment in the church. The rule seems to be (I’ve heard it stated) that the original and literal Jewish context must be abandoned if any progress is to be made in prophetic interpretation.

It is the separating of what God has joined that brings all the error and confusion. Keep these few events together and in their manifest relationship and alignment, and you’ll be much better prepared to detect any deviations from the basic criterion (plum line) that Jesus gives in His Olivet prophecy as safeguard against deception.

Failure to hold these inextricable parts together has led to many disappointed expectations that have notoriously discredited prophecy all throughout the history of the church. The net result is to create what I like to call, the ‘wolf! wolf! syndrome’ that has led many to conclude that nothing definite or certain can or ‘should’ be known concerning the time of the Lord’s return, whether now or at some point in the future. In this way, many have been diverted from the specific instruction that Jesus presents as His provision against a deception that will particularly concern the time and manner of His return (see Mt 24:23-29; Mk 13:21-23; 2Thes 2:3). The urgency of the language that both Jesus and Paul uses to warn and correct of any deviation from this basic criteria may prove much more decisive when the time comes than we can presently conceive.

Recently I was sent something from a youtube clip of the Jim Bakker show where someone was on declaring that “we missed the 5th trumpet.” But as I mentioned, a careful comparison of Rev 8:12-13; 9:12-13 with Rev 11:11-14, in their contexts, should put beyond question that the 5th trumpet is the first woe. The 6th trumpet which is also the second woe coincides with the great earthquake that attends the ascension of the two witnesses. Manifestly, this is close to the end of the tribulation. Then, with the passing of the second woe in the aftermath of the ascension of the witnesses (Rev 11:14), announcement is made that the third woe is coming quickly. According to Rev 8:13 with Rev 9:12, the third woe is manifestly the 7th trumpet that finishes the mystery of God with the Lord’s return to judge the wicked and reward the righteous (Rev 10:7; 11:15-18).

The tribulation is sufficiently defined that no believer who regards the plain meaning of scripture can miss it. I believe a clear case can be made from scripture that all 7 of the trumpets are within the last 3 1/2 years, but what is clear beyond any reasonable dispute is the impossibility that we missed five trumpets so that only one more remains between us and Christ’s return at the 7th trump. That such a ludicrous proposal could get to first base is sad commentary on how vulnerable we are to deceptions of a much more serious nature.

As for the ever present threat of upheavals and disasters and judgment upon nations, Jesus says we are not to be troubled (in the sense of distracted or moved off course; compare 2Thes 2:2). Regardless of what we see, until we have seen the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet; the end is not yet! This is very important, as apocalyptic enthusiasm will grow ever more distracting and misleading with premature announcements of an imminent end. By such false alarms, the really significant events that do indeed mark the time with clarity and final certainty are lightly regarded or dismissed. Thus it is that despite the most prolific and visible display of prophecy in human history, that day is able to come upon the world completely unawares. That’s amazing; but it also removes all excuse.

It is a sobering paradox that despite the great clarity of at least the most important sign events that Jesus gives, the angelic messenger can say to Daniel, “the wicked shall do wickedly and none of the wicked shall understand” (Dan 12:10). That is very sobering. How else could such manifest fulfillment overtake the world as a thief?

Finally, I think the great question is what does all of this confusion mean? Why are things as they are? I believe the answer lies in what the Lord did at His first coming. Concealed within the prophetic writings was a mystery that was not to be revealed until the appointed time (Mk 5:43; 8:30; 9:9; 1Cor 2:7-8; Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:10-12). All things were indeed foretold, albeit in such a way that for some, it would be a trap and snare, a stone of stumbling and rock of offense (Isa 8:14-18; Lk 2:34-35), designed by God to elude carnal confidence, while for babes, God Himself would undertake to reveal His hidden wisdom, ordained to their glory (Mt 11:25-26; Jn 15:15; 1Cor 2:7; Rev 10:7 with Amos 3:7).

All things were being tested by the mystery that confronted the nation in the person of Jesus. It will be so again at the end. God intends that the world be confronted with a mystery that is designed to test and search the depths of every heart. By their nature, the prophetic scriptures are designed to elude the pride of human self reliance, not because they are difficult or clouded in mystery; quite the contrary, they are plain and simple to the plain and simple. That is to say, they are clear and transparent to plain persons of simple trust who have been emptied of their own self sufficiency to know anything of themselves. Such find their only hope in a trembling dependency on the Holy Spirit, and in the reliability God’s plain use of plain words for plain, everyday people. Everything will try to move us from the simplicity and clarity of what Jesus gave us to protect us from the subtleties of well meaning religious zeal, “But take heed; see, I have told you all things beforehand. Therefore, if they say to you … (any deviation) … believe it not!”

The post The Tribulation Timing of the Trumpets and Three Woes appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

I appreciate so much your willingness dear brother, so these are my questions:

1.– Acts 3:21 says “The heaven must receive Lord Jesus until the times of restoration of all things which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from acient times”

On the other hand the Lord Jesus said: “Elijah is coming and will restore all things” (Mathew 17:11)

2.– Revelation 3:10 refers to an “hour of test”

Both questions are very related so that the answer to one will reflect directly on the other. I will begin with the second, because it is decisive to the question of the church’s role in the eschatological restoration, since it is clear that only a church that is present in the tribulation could possibly be an instrument of restoration during that time. But before I come to what I believe Rev 3:10 means, let me say a little about what I’m sure it cannot mean.

Whether the church can be seen in the tribulation will depend entirely on how the church is conceived and defined. Only since the advent of modern dispensationalism has the concept been introduced that the body of Christ exists only between Pentecost and a rapture that removes the church before the start of the last seven years. According to dispensationalism, the new birth does not make one a member of Christ’s body unless it happens between Pentecost and the rapture. Those born again after the presumed pre-tribulational rapture are not considered to be part of the church. They belong to another, distinct ‘people of God’.

In this view, saints persecuted under Antichrist are called, ‘tribulation saints’ in order to distinguish them from so-called, “church saints.” The rapture that is supposed to precede the tribulation is conceived as a ‘reversal of Pentecost’ (their term). Dispensationalists believe that the Holy Spirit did not begin to indwell the saints until Pentecost and that this will end with the pre-tribulation rapture. After the rapture, the Spirit continues to be crucial in the new birth. He fills and empowers (just as He did the OT saints), but He does NOT indwell tribulation saints. They are NOT regarded as members of Christ’s body, the church; nor are any who are saved in the millennium considered to be members of Christ’s body, since they too sustain a pre-Pentecostal relationship to the Holy Spirit, as merely ‘with’ but not ‘in’ the believer. In short, the pre-tribulation rapture amounts to a retraction of Pentecost where the Spirit’s indwelling is concerned, since He is not considered to indwell believers either before Pentecost or after the rapture.

This view is built up according to dispensationalism’s interpretation of such texts as Jn 7:39 (“for the Holy Spirit was not yet given”); Jn 14:17 (“for He dwells with you and will be in you”); see also Acts 11:15 with 1Cor 12:13). Yet, the church is distinguished as the church by its advance reception of the very promise that is yet to come to the penitent remnant of Israel at the day of the Lord (Joel 2:1-2, 28-31; Isa 32:15-18; Eze 39:29; Zech 12:10; Acts 2:16-20). Will post-tribulational Israel be any less baptized, filled, and also indwelt by the Spirit than the church of this age? Are we to suppose that He will merely ‘come upon’ or be ‘with’ millennial Israel, and not also indwell them? How can the special gift of the Spirit that came at Pentecost be reversed when it is impossible to reverse the once and for all basis on which He is given, namely, namely, the glorification of Christ? (see Jn 7:39). Of course, the arguments against such a pitiful pneumatology (doctrine of the Holy Spirit) are too many to be entered upon here, as it would take us too far off our present purpose. I make the point only because, unless the church in its very nature is defined according to dispensational presuppositions (unheard of before the 19th century), then the presence of the saints in the tribulation is decisive proof that the church is present in the tribulation. In the pre-tribulational, dispensational view of Rev 3:10, there is no place for the church to play a role in the Elijah ministry of restoration. The evangelism of the nations is delegated to the 144,000 sealed from the 12 tribes of Israel, or to the two witnesses who come in the spirit and power of Elijah, since, in their view, the church has been physically removed.

There is another view that sees a ‘split rapture’ whereby the mature overcomer is taken and the compromised believers are left behind to endure the tribulation. This interpretation understands the promise of Rev 3:10, not as a promise to the church in general, but only to a special part of the church whom they call the ‘overcomers’. It tends to allow that some who are truly saved are left behind because they were not counted worthy to be among the special company of overcomers. In my view, this is to make a division between true, Spirit born believers that is not justified by scripture. It fails to distinguish between inheritance and reward. A distinction in spiritual attainment and eternal reward must not be confused with the ‘blessed hope’ that every believer has of perfected union with Christ and of reunion with all who ‘sleep in Jesus’ at His return (1Cor 15:23, 52; 1Thes 4:14-17; 2Thes 2:1; 2Tim 4:8; 1Jn 3:2-3). If we say that Rev 3:10 is a reference to an prior physical removal from the hour of testing, then it follows that any work of restoration is left to those who weren’t raptured (the ‘under-comers’?), or more likely the Elijah task would be delegated, in such case, to the two witnesses or the (newly saved?) 144,000. Note too that a study of the three woes in connection with the final three trumpets, together with other decisive evidence, puts beyond question that the ministry of the two witnesses is the second half of the week, as we shall see that this is also relevant to your question concerning the church’s role in the promised restoration.

But note who it is that overcomes in the book of Revelation. It is the same who overcomes in the book of 1John, namely, those who are genuinely born of God. In the Revelation those who overcome are those who choose martyrdom over the pressure to yield to the mark of the beast. In such case, to NOT overcome is to be irreversibly reprobated and damned. He who overcomes is not speaking of a special privileged group that will be exempt from the hour of testing. The overcomer is the saint that perseveres in the hour of ultimate testing by a faith that overcomes precisely because it is born of God (1Jn 5:4). Such perseverance under trial is a sign of true regeneration (1 Jn 5:1).

But who is more of an overcomer than Paul? It is therefore of highest importance where Paul sees his own resurrection and the resurrection or rapture of “all” who belong to Christ at His coming (1Cor 15:23, 52-54; 2Tim 4:8). Paul sees his own “change” at the same place the scripture puts Job’s ‘change’ and resurrection, namely, the day of the Lord (Job 14:13-14; 19:25-27 with Zech 14:1-4). Both Daniel’s and Isaiah’s personal resurrection are likewise placed after the tribulation at the day of the Lord (Isa 25:7-8; 26:16-21). It is the resurrection of the ‘last day’. This is also where Jesus puts the resurrection of all who would believe on Him. Until Alexander Reese challenged the glaring inconsistency, earlier dispensational writers had most inconsistently placed the resurrection of the OT saints at the pre-trib rapture.

Only since dispensationalism’s doctrine of a pre-tribulation rapture and the supposed distinction of ‘church saints’ from all other saints (i.e., OT saints, tribulation saints, and millennial saints), has it ever been imagined that the resurrection of the OT righteous must wait an additional seven years after the church has been taken from earth to heaven. Yet, the constant promise of the NT is that the church’s blessed hope is to be gathered together unto Christ at the day of the Lord (Mt 24:29-31; Ro 2:5, 16; 1Cor 1:8; 5:5; Phil 1:6, 10; 2:16; 2Thes 1:7-8, 10; 2:2,3, 8; 2Tim 1:12, 18; 4:8; Heb 10:25; 2Pet 3:10, 12; Jude 5; Rev 16:14-15). For this very cause, pre-tribulationists have twice changed their position on the location of the day of the Lord. They are forced by their system to do do. The first time was in response to Alexander’s Reese’s, “The Approaching Advent of Christ.” In response to the ferment that his book stirred among scholars, the day of the Lord was moved forward from the end of the tribulation to now include the entire seven years. The last time was in response to Robert H. Gundry’s, “The Church and theTribulation.”

Gundry showed beyond dispute that the pre tribulation doctrine of an imminent (any moment) rapture crumbles if it is held that the rapture begins the day of the Lord. This is obvious, since Paul is very clear that “that day” cannot come until after the man of sin has first been revealed (2Thes 2:3). The response to Gundry’s challenge was to propose yet another space of time between the rapture and the beginning of the day of the Lord. This would give time for the Antichrist to be revealed sometime after, with no clear view of how long after the any moment rapture, but before the beginning of the thief-like coming of the day of the Lord. You see what lengths these expositors must go to save their theory.

Of course, such an artful evasion will simply not work! As I show elsewhere, the day of the Lord comes only AFTER the stellar upheaval and darkness that immediately follows the tribulation but precedes the day of the Lord (Mt 24:29 with Acts 2:20) You may wish to check my article on the website: “The Rapture Question Decisively Answered by the Timing of the Day of the Lord.” The day of the Lord simply cannot be spread out to include the entire seven years, not even the last 3 1/2 years that so nearly anticipates it. The day of the Lord is the climax of the tribulation and the beginning of the millennium. It is the climactic point of transition between this age and the age to come. This can be seen from the following evidence:

When the armies of the earth are gathering to the battlefields of Armageddon near the time of the Antichrist’s destruction (Dan 11:44-45; Rev 16:12-17), the day of the Lord is said to be “near” It is not yet “here”! (Isa 13:6, 10-11; 34:8; Eze 30:3; 39:8 22, 28-29; Joel 3:2, 11-16; Obad 15-17; Zeph 1:7, 14-15; 3:8; Mal 4:5; Rev 16:12-15 with 2Pet 3:10. 12; compare especially Rev 16:17 with Eze 39:8). In order to save the doctrine of imminence (i.e., that Christ may appear any moment), pretribulationists must try to locate the day of the Lord at the start of the seven years. But is is not the rapture that comes as a thief, but the day of the Lord (1Thes 5:3), and “that day” (the DOL) shall NOT come except there come first the falling away and the revelation of the man of sin” (2Thes 2:1-3, 8), so very clearly, the day of the Lord is NOT imminent. It is NOT an event that can begin at any time. It canNOT begin until after the Antichrist is revealed (2Thes 2:3).

Observe: Even so late as the 6th bowl, Jesus announces that His thief-like coming is still ahead (Rev 16:12-15). This agrees perfectly with 2Pet 3:10, 12, where the day of the Lord that comes ‘as a thief’ is also called the “day of God,” just as the post-tribulational, Armageddon return of Christ is called, “the great day of God Almighty” (Rev 16:14). This is the same post-tribulational coming that Jesus compares to a thief in His Olivet prophecy in Mt 24:43. Here is where scripture puts the thief-like return of Jesus, which is the day of the Lord.

Furthermore, Paul puts his own resurrection at the last trump. Shall we put the rapture and ascent of an overcomer group ahead of where Paul puts his own translation or resurrection? Where exactly does Paul put the ‘last trump’ that translates the church? Paul is very clear where he is putting the trumpet when he says, “THEN shall be brought to pass the saying that is written …” (1Cor 15:54). When is ‘then’? What is ‘the saying’ and where is it written? The answer to these questions is decisive for what Paul has in mind. The saying, “death is swallowed up in victory,” is found in Isa 25:8. Note that the context is undeniably post-tribulational. It belongs to a section in Isaiah that scholars call, “Isaiah’s little apocalypse” (Isa 24-27). As part of the continuing prophetic narrative, Isaiah places his own resurrection at the end of the great tribulation (Isa 26:16-21). We find the same order of events in Daniel where he too is raised after the time of unequaled trouble (see Dan 12:1-2, 13). What is more, the very trumpet that Jesus mentions in connection with His post-tribulational return (Mt 24:29-31) is certainly the same that is mentioned in Isa 27:13 in the same context.

It cannot be doubted that the “gathering together of the elect” in Mt 24:31 in connection with the great trumpet is the same “gathering together” of believers (“our gathering together unto Him”) in 2Thes 2:1. It is all on the same day, the day of the Lord (2Thes 2:1-3). In John’s Revelation, it is significant that there are no further trumpets to be sounded after the 7th, which finishes the mystery of God, raises the dead, and announces the judgment of the nations (Rev 10:7; 11:15-18). How remarkable then, in the face of such massive evidence, to be bound to a theory that expects Paul’s ‘last trump’ to be seven years earlier than this well known trumpet that sounds at the end of the tribulation.

How then, without labored qualification, could Paul have ever expected his first century hearers to NOT confuse a supposed pre-trib resurrection trumpet with this well known resurrection trumpet that Isaiah and Jesus mentions in connection with the Lord’s return and Israel’s post-tribulational deliverance? Therefore, in view of where Paul puts his own resurrection, I am not inclined to imagine an earlier rapture of any kind, as this would leave the final work of restoration to someone other than the church, the pillar and ground of truth. Furthermore, it would rob God of His intention that gentile believers in particular be those who will move the Jew to jealousy.

These are only a few of the reasons why Rev 3:10 cannot mean a pre-tribulation rapture of any part of the church. Pretribulational dispensationalists will object that the church is nowhere to be found after ch 4 of Revelation. This is a very artificial and ungrounded objection because it assumes that terms such as “elect” and “saints” do not imply the presence of the church. Never, in all the history of the church has it ever been conceived or taught that the born again elect saints of God are not also the living members of Christ’s body. This is a new theory that has appeared as a Trojan horse in the evangelical camp for such a time as this. It would be quite surprising if the word church should be used in the Revelation to describe the universal experience of the church in the tribulation. Throughout the NT, the word, ‘church’ is seldom used to describe saints in general. It is used only very occasionally for the corporate, universal body of Christ. Its far more common usage is to describe a local assembly of believers. It would be strange indeed if the word church should be used in the more apocalyptic sections of Revelation where the former apocalypse of Daniel provides the background for its use of the word, ‘saints’.

Who are the saints if not the church? It is only the peculiar ecclessiology (doctrine of the church) of dispensationalism that has ever said differently. Besides, the church is mentioned again in Revelation by a term that even dispensationalists admit refers to the church. “Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife has made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb …” (Rev 19:7-9). Except for pretribulational presuppositions, the natural reading of this imagery is placed in the context of Jesus’ white horse return at Armageddon. The saints on earth are immediately united in the air with the myriads of departed redeemed that descend with Jesus at His return (1Thes 3:13; 4:14 with Zech 14:5; Joel 3:11; Isa 13:3 with Ps 149:5-9). The marriage supper of the Lamb coincides perfectly with Isa 25:6-9 where the context is the time of the resurrection, Israel’s deliverance, and the removal of the veil that covers all nations. This coincides perfectly with the finishing of the mystery of God at the 7h trumpet (Isa 25:7 with Rev 10:7; 11:15)

Therefore, unless we are willing to conceive a special resurrection for so-called overcomers that happens before the tribulation, and thus before the last trump where Paul sees his own resurrection with all other believers (1Cor 15:23, 52-54; 2Thes 2;1; 1Tim 4:8), then we may conclude that Rev 3:10 cannot be a promise of physical removal for the church or any part of the church. What then are we to understand of this precious promise of comfort and reassurance? Since the promise is made to one church in particular facing the great persecutions of Rome, it will not do to restrict its meaning and application only to the church of the last generation. However, since the seven churches of Asia are representative of the church of all time, and since the language of Rev 3:10 is so obviously a reference to the well known eschatological trial that is the transition between this age and the age to come, the promise is to all who will be divinely enabled to stand in the evil day. In what sense does the patient endurance of believers commend them to the promise to be kept from (‘ek’) the hour of temptation that is coming as a snare on all who dwell on the earth”? How are we kept? Is it by complete removal so that one is not physically in the hour? Or is the keeping from the peril that the hour holds?

On strictly linguistic grounds, either interpretation is possible. Its nearest parallel is Jn 17:15, “I do not pray that You should take them ‘out of’ the world, but that You should keep them ‘from’ the evil one.” Here, the idea is deliverance “from” the power of evil, not its presence. When Jesus said, “Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour” (Jn 12:27), it was not merely an hour within natural chronology, but prospects of the awful ordeal that made His prophetic consciousness to wince and recoil at the terrors the hour would bring. Thus, ‘kept from the hour’ becomes a figure of speech for deliverance and escape from what the hour of ultimate testing threatens.

But there is a phrase in this promise that has a very close parallel to its frequent usage throughout the Revelation. It is “them that dwell on the earth” (Rev 6:10; 11:10; 12:12; 13:8, 12, 14; 14:6; 17:8). In most instances, it becomes almost a technical term for the world of the unregenerate that are exposed to the wrath of the last plagues. Its closest parallel is found in Luke 21:35. Look at it in its larger context: “And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a ‘snare’ shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man” (Luke 21:34-36). Here, I believe, is the key for how we should understand Rev 3:10.

The ‘hour’ of Rev 3:10 is the time that a terrible “snare / temptation” will overtake all earth dwellers who are not counted worthy to escape its deadly deception. It is the time immediately preceding and climaxing with “that day,” the day of the Lord, when men shall stand, or ‘not be able’ to stand before the Son of Man. It is the day that overtakes the unbelieving world as a thief (Mt 24:43-44; 1Thes 5:1-3; Rev 3:3; 16:15). It comes suddenly in a time they (the earth dwellers) are not expecting. Not only will it bring an unequaled test of persecution for believers and sore plagues of wrath upon unbelievers, it will be preceded by a deception (snare) that will be unequaled, so great that had it been possible, even the very elect would have been swept away by the strong delusion. It is this deadly deception that will ensnare the nations. It is from this great apostasy (world rebellion) that Rev 3:10 promises escape and preservation, not through physical absence but through gracious protection.

But there appear to be a broad and a narrow use of the term, ‘hour’ in Revelation. In Rev 17:12, the hour seems to include the entire 3 1/2 years of unequaled tribulation, since this is the time that the ten kings are united with the beast in their war against the whore, but in Rev 18:10, 17, 19, the hour is much more narrowly defined. It is the great day of God Almighty in final judgement on the whore, as this time, the judgment is inflicted directly and much more finally by God Himself. This takes us to the very end of the tribulation, and even here, there is a great moment of testing that will confront the nations. It is the time of the “valley of decision” (Joel 3:14) when the nations are being seduced by evil spirits to move against the Antichrist but meet instead the unexpected return of Jesus at Armageddon (compare Dan 11:44-45 with Rev 16:12-17; 19:19).

So I ask; is the hour of trial the entire tribulation? Or is this hour a more narrow point of time at the end of the tribulation? When the final hour of Babylon’s destruction comes, the risen saints will participate with Jesus in her judgment (see Zech 14:5; Joel 3:11; Isa 13:3 with Ps 149:5-9). In such case, they will be with the Lord at that hour. I believe the hour of testing refers to the entire tribulation from the time of the abomination to the end, but even if, for the sake of argument, it should be insisted that “kept from the hour” should be interpreted to mean physical absence, it still would not necessarily mean removal from the entire 7 years, or even the last 3 1/2 years, but only the “hour” of mystery Babylon’s final destruction at the great day of God Almighty (Rev 16:17-19; 18:10, 17, 19).

It also important to note that many, including both Jews an gentiles, obviously do not require physical removal in order to escape the judgments of the tribulation. Some of these who obviously did not take the mark of the beast are preserved to the end. We know that a remnant of Israel survives the tribulation to receive repentance at the same time the church is being translated into their glorified state. These penitent survivors enter the millennium in mortal bodies. From a number of scriptures, we know that the penitent remnant of Israel will be assisted in their return by surviving gentiles who manifestly were not translated at the rapture.

As an aside, some pretribulationists have interpreted Lk 21;34-36 as a promise of escape by rapture, but many of their more academic leaders and scholars have cautioned against such an interpretation, because the context simply will not bear it. The entire context assumes believers witnessing and experiencing the events of the tribulation in anticipation of the Lord’s return after the tribulation. The same thing can be said of the Lord’s comparison of His coming as a thief in Mark and Matthew. Any close examination of the context will show that the coming in view is the coming after the tribulation. This is admitted even by pre-trib scholars, but the average pre-tribulationist hardly knows what the scholars of their position have been forced to concede in the more academic discussions on these questions, as mentioned above in the example of their changing positions on the day of the Lord.

Now I come to your first question: So far then as it can be firmly established that the church goes through the tribulation, then the church, as the pillar and ground of the truth (1Tim 3:15), will be the corporate prophetic agent through whom the Spirit of God will speak and work. I believe the restoration anticipated in Mt 17:11 and Mal 4:5 is to be somewhat distinguished from the restoration of Acts 3:21, though part of the same process. The restoration of Mal 4:5 takes place in the tribulation and is consummated by the restoration that comes fully only with Jesus’ return.

What is restored? It is all that was lost when the kingdom of David and Solomon passed under the power of the gentiles. It is all that was promised in the everlasting covenant that would come to full in the day-of-the-Lord vindication of the name and Word of God in Israel’s national repentance and return. That’s what a Jew thought of when he would speak of the ‘restoration of the kingdom to Israel’ (Acts 1:6; 3:21). It is what Paul was thinking of when he spoke of “their fullness” in contrast to the “fullness of the gentiles” (Ro 11:12, 15, 25-29. It is what Ezekiel, Obadiah, and Jesus had in mind when they spoke of the day of the Lord as the terminal point to the “time of the goyim” (Eze 30:3; Obad 15; Lk 21:24). It is also the fullness of Christ in the many membered man that God has ordained to fill up in the church before His return (Dan 11:32-33; Ro 11:25; Eph 4:13; Rev 12:10).

I believe Mt 17:11 and Mal 4:5 will be fulfilled in the ministry of the two witnesses, but not only the two witnesses. The two witnesses are real individuals, not a re-incarnations of Moses, Enoch, or Elijah, but they will come in the spirit and power of Elijah. They are local in the actual city of Jerusalem with a special assignment, unique to their calling, but they are not the only ones who receive power at this time. It is no mere coincidence that the two witnesses receive power for their task at precisely the same time that the ‘maskilim’ (those having insight; Dan 11:32-33; 12:3, 10) are empowered for their testimony throughout the last 3 1/2 years. It is very significant to note that immediately after the abomination of desolation is mentioned in Dan 11:31 (remember this is the very event that Jesus says starts the tribulation; Mt 24:15-16, 21), the very next verse speaks of the anointing of power that rest on those having insight (the ‘maskilim’) who “know their God.” Something has happened, and this is confirmed by what we see in Rev 12 where Michael casts down Satan to begin his “short time” of final fury against the woman and the saints (Rev 12:12).

Again, it is not incidental that when the “accuser of the brethren” is cast down, the saints are described as those who “love not their lives unto the death” (Rev 12:10). All of this happens at the mid point of Daniel’s last week. It happens in heaven and on earth. It is the point of great release, not only the mystery of iniquity in the Antichrist, but the fullness of Christ in a people of the Spirit who have been deeply emptied and prepared for the removal of Satan from his access and position in heaven as the accuser of the brethren. I can’t develop here all the implications this has for the church’s ministry of restoration in the tribulation, but our brother, Tom Quinlan has preserved a discussion I give on this at our first annual conference in Ohio. You can find that discussion posted on video on our website under, “The Church’s Tribulation Fullness.”

Also, you may wish to consult an article called, “Daniel as a Type of the Godly Remnant.”

You and the precious band that serve with you there are daily in our prayers. With greatest love and appreciation, Reggie

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Two Questions: Why it is that you say the kingdom cannot come in its fullness so long as Satan retains access to heaven? We know that Satan accuses the saints in heaven but why is that related to the mystery of lawlessness being fully revealed on earth?

Let me build to my answer. When Paul says the day of the Lord can’t come until the man of sin is revealed, he further shows that the coming of the man of sin brings to final revelation the mystery of iniquity that is presently at work. But before this mystery can be revealed, someone who is holding back that revelation will continue to do so until “he” (personal pronoun) is removed (I believe forcibly). As you know, I believe that someone is Satan. We see the evidence for the background of Paul’s insight in Dan 10 where the heavenly messenger is “hindered and opposed” (‘withstood’) by the opposing “prince of Persia.” So for Christ to return, this man must first come, as he is the personal embodiment of the revelation of a mystery that must first be revealed before Christ can return.

In Revelation we see a similar pattern. There, it is said that the kingdom of God has NOW come, precisely because Satan has been cast down by Michael. The question is, does he continue to accuse the saints after he has been cast down, or has something happened in his dejection that has denied him access to the conscience from that time and forward. In other words, does this transitional point at the middle of the week accomplish something in the realm of the Spirit that not only removes Satan from his former hindrance to the coming of the kingdom, but from his prosecution against the conscience. Whether this extends to every born again child of God, or to an overcoming minority at this point, I cannot tell with certainty. I suspect the latter, because I think this signifies a great sanctification, and fullness of revelation and power for a first-fruits company that are very aware they are facing the final persecution.

I am suggesting that in some special sense, the heavenly victory of Michael marks not only the beginning of the tribulation in Satan’s embodiment of the Antichrist, but also a point from which Satan is no longer able to wage war against the consciences of believers that have come through to something transitional through the preparation of the first half of the week. I am not claiming it as settled revelation, but I strongly infer that when Satan is cast down, and this is not before the middle of the week when Michael stands up, something has also ended of his ability to accuse the brethren.

That this is something that has been accessible all throughout the inter-advent period when believers gain the victory of full assurance and the power that this brings, I do not doubt. What I’m suggesting is that the glorious gospel of Christ is being so deeply apprehended corporately at this time that Satan’s hindrance of believers in the realm of heart and conscience is also being greatly removed. There appears to be a finality to his ability to accuse the brethren from that time and forward, as the church comes into its tribulation fullness. See what I mean?

We’re agreed that the standing up of Michael in Dan 12:1 and Rev 12:7-14 is clearly at the beginning of the tribulation, coinciding with Satan’s “short time” (Rev 12:12). Thus it is that Satan’s removal from his place in heaven is the removal of the hindrance to the revelation of the mystery of iniquity in the man of sin, which stands in the way of the coming of the day of the Lord / kingdom of God. Manifestly, then, there is some sense in which Satan holds this place in heaven until he is forcibly removed by Michael (BTW, the Holy Spirit, who is God, does not require to be “taken out of the way”). Simply put, the coming of the day of the Lord is the equivalent of the coming of the kingdom. This cannot happen till the restrainer (Satan) has been dislodged from his place in heaven, a place that he, in some sense, retains until the Michael ejects him at the mid-point of Daniel’s last week. When the cast down Satan takes up full residence in the revived body of the AC, this fulfills the mystery of iniquity, which must be revealed before Christ can come to gather His elect. You’ll remember the case I made that the 70 week prophecy is structured around these two great, age defining mysteries (1Tim 3:16; 2Thes 2:7) that take their departure from the seed promise of Gen 3:15, how that the age is bounded by these two mysteries explains the gap between the gap between the 69th and the 70th weeks of Daniel.

“And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ:for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.” Rev 12:10
 
Since it cannot be denied that there remains some sense in which Satan holds a place of resistance in heaven until he is forcibly thrust down by Michael, it becomes very significant that the shout of jubilation in Rev 12:10 declares mighty presence of the kingdom that comes 3 1/2 years BEFORE Satan is bound at Christ’s return. The “NOW” of Rev 12:10 must be emphasized. Why now? Obviously, the thing for which the kingdom of God has long waited has taken place. Therefore, not 3 1/2 years later when Christ returns, but “NOW is come salvation, strength, the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ!” The now of the kingdom’s powerful presence is not advent of kingdom in the sense of the 7th angel of Rev 11:15-18 or the finishing of the mystery of God in Rev 10:7. Rather, the “now” comes at the moment Michael cast Satan down to begin his ‘short time.’

The once and for all removal of the one who has been hindering the fall coming of the kingdom is greeted by the host of heaven with unbounded jubilation and the kingdom is pronounced at the point to have “now” come. This leaves the question, is the jubilation only because the kingdom “may” now come, or that in some powerful way, the “power of the kingdom” has come with the casting down of Satan? I believe it is the latter. This marks a point of powerful transition, not only for the mystery of iniquity, but for an unprecedented victory of the saints on earth over the accuser’s ability to accuse. It is not incidental that this is also the time of the great anointing, not only of the two witnesses, but of the maskilim who are strong doing exploits, instructing and turning many to righteousness (Dan 11:32-35; 12:3), responsible, I believe, for the tribulation harvest beyond human ability to count.

It is significant that immediately AFTER the abomination of desolation is described in Dan 11:31, the next verses speak of the power and anointing that is on the maskilim. This also marks the time of the greatest harvest that comes out of “the tribulation, the great one.” It suggests to me that the anointing of power is not only coming on the two witnesses at this time, but the godly remnant, the true body of Christ in the earth. Why? Precisely because the casting down of the accuser has meant a great heavenly victory of overcoming power for the church facing the last persecution. I am suggesting that something mighty and transitional has happened in heaven and earth that releases this break-through of great anointing and power. What can it be? It is not just incidental to the intersection of the time. Something or rather someone has been removed and there is an open heaven of access and grace that is unprecedented since the apostolic period. This, I believe, is related to our battle with the veil that is only as dense as the flesh is strong. It has to do with revelation and the power that comes when we are the more greatly emptied of subtlety of a residual tendency to put any confidence in the flesh. Before Jacob is brought to the end of his power, the church will have been emptied of the last measure of the sinful tendency to put any confidence in the flesh.

I know at first hearing, this may sound quite speculative, but I submit, as scripture is clear, that there is a profound connection between a believer’s lingering self sufficiency and the access of the accuser to that believer’s conscience, even as John would speak of some through weakness of faith are condemned in their hearts, though God, who is greater than our hearts, is not at all party to this sense of condemnation. All’s to say, something has happened with the casting down of Satan, particularly in his role as accuser of the brethren, that not only removes the barrier to the coming of the kingdom through the revelation of the mystery of iniquity, on the dark side, so to speak, but on the side of light, the accuser has, in some unprecedented sense, lost access to the consciences of believers. Certainly that access is, and has always been illicit. Still, believers have suffered and been hindered by Satan’s illicit accusations.

This coming victory in heaven is not something that is entirely new. It began, of course, with the ascended victory of Christ. I believe that what we have in Rev 12, as prelude to the tribulation, is a mighty enforcement of the authority and power of that once and for all triumph. Something happens at the middle of the week in that great transition in heaven that permits a much greater “corporate” fullness for the church. Something transformative appears to take place that permits the corporate body to receive a special and timely anointing that I can only conceive of as a deeper apprehension and appropriation of the power of the gospel. There are other clear markers that indicate that this comes precisely when Michael gains that mighty victory in heaven that starts the tribulation, which is undeniably Satan’s ‘short time’ of the final 3 1/2 years. This is the time of great transition and break-through that not only anoints the two witnesses with power, but the whole company of the maskilim, as shown in Dan 11:31-35; 12:3, 10. All of this stands in remarkable analogy to Daniel’s great break through, when, through his self-abasement and intercession, Michael dislodged the opposing prince of Persia. This is coming for the church. It will thrust Satan down to reveal the mystery of iniquity by his incarnation in the risen Antichrist and thus finish the mystery of God in Christ’s return (Rev 10:7).

There’s a correlation between the believer’s abiding sufficiency and the accuser’s access to the conscience. This will be greatly broken by the remnant’s heavenly victory and release to fullness, as the first half of the week constrains the church through amazing prophetic fulfillment and knowledge of the time, to a deep corporate self-emptying, as Daniel abased, himself. This will be answered in Michael’s mighty intervention. It is the nexus between the time, the corporate travail (intercessory priesthood) of the church (till Christ be formed in Israel), and revelation of Daniel’s sealed vision in gospel clarity and fullness, as realized corporately for the final martyr witness. Daniel is the key, not only his prophecy, but in his intercessor’s travail in sync with the definite knowledge of the time, which also limits the power of the flesh. This is how I see a connection between the accuser’s displacement and the power that comes on the church at that time.

On the dark side, the mystery of iniquity is Satan’s forced occupation of the fallen body of the Antichrist. As much as the fallen nature could only be by passed through the miracle of the virgin birth, the death and descent of the Antichrist accomplishes the exact opposite. In order for him to become the fullness of Satan in the flesh, all the residue of the image of God, conscience (or whatever that realm of soul or humanity should be called) must be entirely removed. This happens through the death and resurrection of the Antichrist. This is how the “revelation” of the man of sin is so much more than merely that he can be identified. His identity would have become plain much earlier through the deeds that are described of him in Daniel in the verses leading up to the abomination of desolation.

The revelation of the mystery of iniquity happens when Satan, now cast down, is forced, quite against his will, to take up a full and unlimited residence (not in terms of absolute localization, but in terms of the unlimited fullness of his nature, similar in that sense to Jesus as the perfection of His Father’s moral nature, but not so unlimited as Father in terms of omniscience and ubiquity). This is what he wanted to do with the body of Moses, I suppose in order to deceive Israel. With the mortal wound, the 7th beast descends into the abyss and rises as the eighth. He is now the composite beast, incorporating in one all the former heads of the beast kingdoms. As such, he is the “beast who was (as the 7th), and is not and yet is.” The eighth is the risen seventh. I see this as an actual demonic resurrection that is the exact opposite of the kind of life that God gives. It is permitted for the sake of an ultimate exposure that must come before the kingdom can come. It fulfills the last remaining mystery that must be revealed in order for the kingdom of God to come. Contrary to popular opinion, this is the last thing that Satan wants, since it will mean his time is almost over.

Certainly one cannot with bold conviction declare such a thing apart from the full assurance of clear revelation that cannot be received second hand, but I believe the day is not far off when witnesses will declare this. Jews everywhere will be confronted, not only with the prophetic evidence of the gospel, but with this awesome sign that will strongly confirm the warnings that have come from the disciples of Jesus, a warning that Isa 28 shows will be rejected in the first half of the week. It will be well considered in the second half, as I believe this is a principal reason why such a comparatively large number of Jews will escape what would otherwise have been certain death.

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