“. . . there is no doubt about one hard and fast conclusion: the grip of anti-Semitism on the inhabitants of Planet Earth 70 years after the Holocaust remains powerful and perhaps impervious to reason. Why single out one of the world’s tiniest populations for such hatred? To that question, the survey offers no answer . . .” (Commentary magazine’s Jonathan Tobin)

Satan’s hatred is only part of the biblical explanation for what has been called, ‘the everlasting hatred’.

Traditional church interpretation is out of touch with the mystery that alone makes sense of the age old phenomenon of antisemitism. What is our answer? Has the church not abdicated its prophetic calling to point to this unspeakably costly, but fully predicted history of divine contention? The prophetic Spirit does not shrink from pressing this most costly point of divine appeal.

The proverbial elephant in the room is the hugely offensive but unavoidably clear biblical thesis that anti-Semitism cannot be dissociated from the sovereignty of God in judgment. The wrath of God works in profound conjunction with the exposure of the malice of the powers. Israel has been cast upon history as an alabaster box of unspeakable divine cost. They are His witnesses (Isa 43:10). But often, the lessons that this corporate Ebed Yahweh [Servant of the LORD] was intended to teach are too painful to consider or contemplate. Yet, what could be a more unconscionable waste of God’s costly investment, to demonstrate both His mercy and divine severity through them, if we skirt the issues that are raised by such an unique history?

However much it raises the great questions of theodicy, this ancient divine contention is made unavoidably plain by the Hebrew prophets themselves, who were by no means antisemitic. “Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?” (Gal 4:16). How then are we the prophetic people of the Spirit if we neglect to press the point that has cost God so much to make? A prophet, or any true witness for that matter, is one who presents God’s case, who interprets His action in history.

We have neglected God’s own witness and principal point of appeal in our appointed prophetic encounter with Israel! Blindness to the covenant context of history has made us cowardly and humanistic and therefore negligent to press God’s costly point. Only the sending home of that point by the revealing power of the Spirit will ever explain and ultimately end this otherwise irrational blight and curse on humanity. It is a judgment that works both ways, exposing all equally to the sin of Deicide, revealed no less in the spirit of anti-Semitism as in the crucifixion of Jesus, as neither could discern the mystery sent to expose the true disposition of the heart. Count on it! God always first comes to us incognito as the disallowed stone, in weakness and foolishness, in order to find us out. Thus it is with ‘the Jewish problem’.

How many are willing to consider that the wrath of man, even the opposition of Satan, is not Israel’s (or anyone’s) first concern? Such things are held within the bounds of an absolute sovereignty, so that these secondary causes point to a much more profoundly direct divine contention and holy confrontation.

“Who among you will give ear to this? who will hearken and hear for the time to come? Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? did not the Lord, he against whom we have sinned? for they would not walk in his ways, neither were they obedient unto his law. Therefore he hath poured upon him the fury of his anger, and the strength of battle: and it hath set him on fire round about, yet he knew not; and it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart” (Isa 42:23-25).

“You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above” (Jn 19:11).

This comes home when Israel is brought at last to consider that the opposition and rage of men is really much more directly the opposition of God Himself. Antisemitism is a continual reminder of the elect nation’s perennial opposition to God and resistance of His Spirit (Mt 23:30-31; Acts 7:51). All the promises are built around an apocalyptic end to this age long contention. It is the tragic side of the covenant (the ‘vengeance’ of the covenant; Lev 26:25; Mic 6:2) that must continue ‘until’ all Israel will be saved according to the promise of the everlasting / new covenant (Jer 31:34; 32:40). All of history groans and travails for this. The church, so far as it is true and in touch with its own calling and nature, groans and travails for this.

The post The Mystery of Anti-Semitism appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

The post How Shall We Then Live [Video] appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

I would love to read your thoughts about the Harlot. I know it is a complicated subject, but any help in understanding Rev. 17 would be greatly appreciated! M

I know I have written on this question somewhere before, but was unable to find anything among the archives of past emails, so I’ll try to give you a brief summary of my present view. Though I believe the Lord has given light on the subject, I’m just as sure that much more remains, and I’ll be grateful for the opportunity to adjust my present view as the Lord grants more light, or correction through the body, as we labor together to faithfully compare scripture with scripture. At the annual conference in Ohio this year, Mark Klafter gave a discourse that agrees very nearly with my view. Travis Bennett is another brother who makes the case very well for the view I hold. I’ll invite him to see if he has anything he can send you.

If you’ve been tracking with some of our exchanges for very long, you may have run across my proposal that the ten kings of Dan 7 and Rev 17 may well prove to be an Arab / Islamic block that will unite as a counter measure to check western dominance. Apparently 7 give willing support to the Antichrist, while 3 are brought into the alliance through force. For example, Dan 11:25-27 may hold a clue to how non-compliant nations are forced to unite with him in his plot to invade Jerusalem.

A careful review of those verses leading up to the abomination of Dan 11:31 will support my view that a common hatred of the ‘holy covenant’ is the principal unifying force that brings these warring factions into common cause against the “holy covenant” (Dan 11:27-30). I take the reference to the “holy covenant” in those verses to represent Jerusalem and her recently restored institutions of temple and sacrifice (cf. Isa 63:18). It is this covenant that the ‘coming prince’ confirms in Dan 9:27. The “league” or treaty made with him in Dan 11:23 appears to be only one part of a much larger international peace arrangement.

I believe the ten kings who “hate the whore and burn her flesh with fire” are fulfilling the divinely ordained covenant discipline upon Jerusalem (Rev 17:17). This takes place in the middle of the week when the false security of the first half of the week is broken by the ten nation confederacy of the Antichrist. This invasion comes suddenly when Israel is dwelling in a short-lived delusion of false security (Isa 28:14-15, Eze 38:8, 11, 14; Dan 8:25; 11:23-24; 1Thes 5:3). Note how the prophets compare Jerusalem’s final desolation to an overwhelming flood (Isa 28:2, 14-15, 17-18; 59:18; with Eze 38:8-9; Dan 9:26; 11:22, 31; Mt 24:15-16; Lk 21:24; Rev 11:2).

We are not saying that the harlot is strictly synonymous with Jerusalem. On the contrary, it is very clear that the harlot represents something much more expansive in power and influence (Rev 17:15). Still, Jerusalem is nonetheless contemplated as ‘that great city,’ which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt. How can this be? In her apostasy, the ‘faithful city” is described as belonging in spirit and practice to the “city of confusion,” the symbol of world rebellion. The contradiction of the faithful city’s conformity to the spirit and practices of the surrounding nations was a constant lament of the prophets.

This is why I believe in what might be called a “two-fold” destruction of Babylon. The first stage of destruction is inflicted upon Jerusalem (and possibly her western allies) by the ten nation alliance under Antichrist at the start of the tribulation. This comes suddenly and without warning on the boastful leaders of Jerusalem who have arrogantly dismissed the prophetic warning of imminent disaster (Isa 28:14-15; 1Thes 5:3). The second stage is the great day of God Almighty when greater world-wide Babylon is destroyed with finality.

The ten kings are the divinely appointed instruments of God to inflict the first stage of judgement on the whore (Rev 17:17), but notice; they are not exempt from the second stage of divine wrath that comes upon greater world Babylon at the very end of the tribulation (Rev 16:10, 19). Therefore, in keeping with the prophets, Revelation seems to depict a mysterious intersection between mystery Babylon and Jerusalem in her apostasy.

Because of her high and privileged calling to represent the kingdom of God on earth, Jerusalem’s shame is so much the greater for adopting the character of the world. Thus, there is nothing that could be remotely construed as antisemitic about our view. It is the view of the prophets who continually pressed God’s warning that the elect nation would never be permitted to imitate the surrounding nations (Amos 3:2). It is language specific to the high calling of covenant election and privilege in full view of their exalted millennial destiny to be God’s servant to the nations.

I cannot, of course, prove it from scripture, but a great deal of scriptural evidence leads me to personally expect that at the same time the Antichrist invades Jerusalem, the west will also come under nuclear attack.

With brotherly love, Reggie

– – – – – – – – – – – – –
A response to the above from another reader:

Shalom Reggie,

In Rev. 18:4 we read “come out of her my people” and that seems to indicate that not everyone in the environs of the “Great City” is actually a part of the faithless system seated in Sodom and Egypt – Babylon the Great.

It seems Revelation depicts two opposite, extreme poles of faith in Israel related to Messiah Yeshua – one very faithful and following the Lamb wherever he may go, and one apostate and hating God and killing Yeshua and his prophets. Between these two extreme poles there is an undecided mass. The two faithful prophets, and the single false prophet, attempt to convince the undecided mass, all the while the final terrible disasters come on the land and people, and the entire region and world, until the coming of the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, who is the Word of God.

Best wishes in Messiah Yeshua, H

As always, very valuable input. Your view is certainly rich with analogy from the OT and that speaks well for it. However, I am seeing more of the ancient dualism of the two seeds (natures) that divide all of humanity, going back to Gen 3:15. This doesn’t diminish the very Jewish background and framework of John’s Revelation, since the battle lines of that ancient enmity run right through a necessarily Jewish Jerusalem at the end.

Actually, for my reading, Rev 18:4 is another reason I think the concept of mystery Babylon is intended to transcend any particular city. Jerusalem is the exception, because of the anomaly that the called and elect city should so much embody the spirit of the age. That spirit is expressed by its engagement to build up the kingdom of man, even religious man, on the basis of what is “in man.” For this, Jerusalem doesn’t have to be anything more than humanistic, because in biblical perspective, the spirit of self determinism, whether religious or secular, “IS” the ultimate affront.

There is a growing number that are taking a more localized view of Revelation, making much of how Rev 1:7 should be properly translated, “the tribes of the Land,” etc. This view, very popular among preterists, is no longer confined to them, but has growing acceptance in scholarly circles everywhere. I am still convinced of a more universal and cosmic reading.

The metaphor of Babylon, the great harlot, while it certainly includes apostate Jerusalem (as the astonishing anomaly of painful contradiction), cannot be limited to a single city. That is why “coming out of her” is not a simple matter of leaving the environs of any particular city. That is too easy. It is more profoundly a matter of the heart, since its essence is fearful dependency on man in all its forms. That is why the first thing that Cain did when he went out from the presence of the Lord was to build a city, the city of man. That is why I see the metaphor to work so well both ways. It is not ‘either / or’. It speaks of the spirit of Babylon in both its localized and universal presence.

If we compare closely the language that John borrows from the prophets when they speak of the great city centers of the world, not only Babylon, but no less Nineveh and Tyre, etc., it becomes apparent that Mystery Babylon has become a metaphor for man centered civilization. It is the rebellion of Babel come to full.

It has been too little noticed that the full ripening of divine wrath is significantly distinguished in the prophets by what Isaiah calls, ‘the controversy of Zion’ (Isa 34:8; Zech 12:2-3). It is the controversy of the covenant, the ancient covenant, older than the law, that is everlasting, not only with a remnant called the church, but a nation of destiny whose historic apostasy must be cleansed away forever before the age can give way to the kingdom of God on earth.

The church has tended to interpret all prophecy in terms of itself. The question of the nature of the great falling away is one such example, as this has been interpreted as an internal affair within professing Christendom. This is not the view of the prophets, and it is NOT how Paul and his contemporaries would have understood it. They were looking for an imminent world rebellion against the covenant of God with Israel, of which the church was only a part, as the elect remnant bound in hopeful travail to a still elect nation scheduled for unequaled judgment.

The great rebellion is the rebellion of the nations against the holy covenant (Dan 11:28-32). It is also the final stage of the discipline of the covenant outlined in Deut 28-32, as it pertains to God’s dealing with Israel to the end of the age. Not only does the time of the great rebellion coincided with the final wrestling of an elect Jacob on his way to becoming a transformed nation for all nations, it is also the time of God’s great reckoning with the nations concerning their regard for His irrevocable covenant bond with Israel. This explains why an assault on Jerusalem is an assault on the throne of God.

We should be careful to notice why it is that God’s long patience expires precisely when the nations under Antichrist come down to divide the Land and to take possession of a nation that has been only recently, and against all odds, regathered from many generations of exile and sword (Eze 38:8). This is VERY significant! The church has too little inquired why it should be here, at this particular point that “God’s fury comes up on His face” (Eze 38:18). Divine patience has reached its final threshold. Why here? What is this line that has only now been crossed in a way that is different from all former destructions of God’s covenant chastisement of Israel?

If we will be careful to observe the context and the time, as the events leading to the great transition of the day of the Lord. If we will observe the manifest connection of things, we will be compelled to consider that the great rebellion is about much more than the church. It is the rebellion of the nations against the God who elects. It is much more than deceit in the church or antisemitism in the church and the world; it is a rebellion against the covenant claims of the prophetic Word of God, which in turn forces every other issue.

The church, with its arrogant replacement hermeneutic, is responsible for how little the nations have even heard, let alone considered that line and why it means what it means to God. Certainly the great rebellion will divide and expose the false from the true, but the idolatry of man, as it will be embodied in the Antichrist is a phenomenon that goes well beyond ecclesiastical boundaries, though it is particularly appalling when it arrogantly asserts itself into the set apart things of God (Mt 24:15; 2Thes 2:4).

You will know, Hanoch, how that many of the apocalyptic writers who wrote in the period between the testaments would often conceive of the great rebellion in this way. For them, the great rebellion was conceived along the lines of a repetition of Antiochus’ violence against the temple and worship of covenant Israel, only they would portray the ultimate rebellion against all the finality of the earth shaking events of the unequaled tribulation and day of the Lord. The rabbis of the middle ages would see it this way too. All is to say that the ‘great divorce’ of the church from its OT / Jewish roots has taken a much greater toll than we tend to imagine on our interpretation of scripture. We are too illiterate of the OT. This is due to the application of a false dichotomy which has come from a false hermeneutic that would have been unthinkable to the early church. Thus was lost the context, not only of NT revelation, but an entire world view.

So does the great falling away happen in the church? Certainly! It must! Its line will run right through the church (Christendom), just as it runs through the earthly Jerusalem. It will certainly shake the church, as judgment must begin at the house of God. It is ordained to touch everything everywhere. This is why we need to so carefully reflect and consider what God has invested in this issue of covenant with Israel, and how He intends to employ it to drive home His great point / points. It concerns so much more than the exposure of the false church. It will accomplish that too, certainly, but God is requiring something of all nations and He is using the issue of the Land to do it. Not because the Land is anything by itself, not because Zion’s hill is anything by itself, but because God is God and when He speaks clearly, all flesh becomes accountable to hear and bow.

We should reflect much on this. Not only Jacob, but everyone in all places will be caused to wrestle with the great questions evoked by covenant and prophecy, since the testimony of Jesus ‘IS” the Spirit of prophecy. This will be the great tribunal that will shake all things. At issue will be His covenant claims, and the prophetic declarations of His mouth.

I don’t know how He will do it. I can imagine a few things, but I am sure that God intends to use the growing crisis of Israel, and issue of Jerusalem in particular, to first press and then expose everything that pertains to the final ripening of His indignation. Truly, a line has been crossed that has never been crossed in just such a way before (Isa 24:5). It is the point of no return that is the ultimate exposure of “man.”

Yours in the Beloved, Reggie

The post The Two-fold Destruction of the Harlot and the Great Falling Away appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

Part I was written by the late Art Katz, and is still available on the Art Katz Ministries website. Part II, by Reggie Kelly, is below:

For just as “the whole world lies in wickedness,” so too is it also under judgment, even when through divine grace, judgment is postponed to give greater space for repentance (John 3:36). There is a common grace that daily supports the unbelieving world that is wholly undeserved. We might say that the world hangs by a thread of divine forbearance and mercy. It is certainly judgment anytime the hedge of covenant protection is sovereignly removed. We may thank God for any salutary effects that issue from calamity, as is often the case, but this cannot dismiss the component of judgment. However, there is much more to judgment than punishment. There is the sobering reminder of human vulnerability, frailty, and helplessness. Anything that weakens false security, and humbles the pride of the flesh is always a mercy, a temporal preview of eternity.

Jesus’ reference to the tower of Siloam (Luke 13:4) reflects a unique view of divine judgment. Jesus does not diminish the component of judgment in divine providence, but raises the question of moral equality. The judgment that came to the eighteen was not an index of greater moral defection than any in Israel, but a token of the judgment that is coming to all who remain impenitent. In this sense, it would be a mistake to interpret this judgment on America as a sign that our nation has excelled all others in iniquity and rebellion. I do not see this when I read history, nor now when I travel, quite the contrary!

That America is suffering for a right thing at the same time that she is suffering for her own presumption and idolatry is not mutually exclusive. Throughout Israel’s history, God would sometimes judge His people’s covenant neglect by raising up against them a fierce and inhumane power of a much lesser moral conscience. What is fearful for America is the greater jealousy of God’s very love. God has a different kind of standard for a people that have been the recipients of the greater blessing of truth and light. So in one sense, though certainly relative, a greater evil is raised up to judge the lesser because of the greater privilege and responsibility of the latter. It seems rather that the greater divine jealousy in judgment is a sign of the greater covenant affection, as seen paradoxically in Israel’s historical judgments, and now more recently in the Holocaust.

God “put” into the heart of Israel’s enemies to hate His covenant people and to bring judgment upon them. This is sovereignty and predestination, the highest affront to our frail and hopelessly humanistic perspectives. His holy wrath will yet be revealed in the rage and hatred of demon possessed hordes that are destined to destroy two thirds of the Jewish race, and yet in such severity, there is the glory of divine love – mysteriously perhaps, but it is there! This pattern can be shown again and again. King David prays “in wrath, remember mercy.” Both are true, they are not mutually exclusive; they are true at the same time. Are there heroes during times of judgment? Are innocent children trapped in the seemingly indiscriminate disaster? Of course! And it was so in Israel when the righteous remnant would suffer with the nation who had brought down judgment on itself.

The church should see the writing on the wall. If it costs a secular nation this much to be identified with Israel, what will it cost the church? As for our beloved nation, I have to say with scripture that the only righteousness that God accepts is the righteousness of Christ; every other kind, however seemingly noble is ultimately wicked if it substitutes itself for this. God is revealed in no other place but “in Christ.” And this is as true in the Old Testament as in the New when the unique character of Hebraic faith is distinguished from all types of humanism. The faith of Abraham is the faith of Christ, and the faith of God’s elect in every age. All other “would be” faiths are doomed for all the reasons an infallible Bible makes clear. There is a veil of morality that humanism hides behind that will be stripped away and exposed in the coming crises. “Crises reveals, and ultimate crises reveals ultimately” (Art Katz). The die is cast. We are on collision course with Islam that reaches to the end of the age, and though I believe that the “Jack will be momentarily stuffed back in the box, it will soon enough spring out with a fury that will take Israel and the humanistic West by tragic surprise. “For when they shall say, ‘Peace and safety; the sudden destruction will come upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.’”

Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus!

Reggie Kelly

The post The Shaking of All Things That Can Be Shaken appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

This is more than a predicted event of the end time; it is a principle of the Spirit. The veil that hides Christ is only as strong as the pride of human self sufficiency. Christ is revealed at the end of strength! The one obstruction to revelation is the veil of the flesh, which speaks of the strength that must be broken of “the pride of its power” (Lev 26:19). That is why Christ is the end (goal) of the law for righteousness, because the law was given to take away this perverse presumption of power.

If the last days are indeed the shaking of all things, we may be sure that the church that will speak to Jacob in the wilderness is not one that is a stranger to the lengths that God will go to remove this deceitful kind of power. What kind of power is this that requires such severe dealings, even, and particularly with religious man at his best? Are we right to suppose that this power is lodged more deeply in the religious humanism of Judaism than in Christianity? Hardly.

Will Christ be fully formed in the church of the last witness apart from a deep travail of the Spirit sufficient to ‘cast down’ this hidden conceit of the heart? (see Gal 4:19). What will press the church to this? If the church, as the pillar and ground of the truth, will be the prophetic voice to Israel in the tribulation (Dan 11:32-33; 12:3, 10; Rev 12:10), what kind of shaking must surely come in advance of that time in order to deeply empty the servant people that will speak to Jacob in his distress?

Christ was crucified in weakness and raised in power. Paul meant this not only descriptively of Jesus but prescriptively for the church. It is a statement of our corporate calling to Israel and the nations. This is why Jesus had more than a few isolated predictions in mind when He said, “Ought not Christ to have suffered …?” He was referring to the much larger pattern of the many servant sons (Joseph, David, etc.) who anticipated in their sufferings the preeminent Servant. This is how we must speak to Israel.

Must Jacob bear his tribulation alone and all the church go free? Are we to suppose that those sealed servants of God who will suffer with Israel during her wilderness flight have been only recently saved after an alleged pre-trib rapture? No, they are servants with a history in God who know the fellowship of His sufferings and the power of His resurrection. It seems that prophetic logic would forbid that God would speak to Jacob through any lesser agency than a corporate servant son who has passed through death to know and testify to “the God who raises the dead.” Only by such a church would God speak / prophesy to Jacob in the day of his calamity. This is why I am led to expect some deep dealings that will shake and humble the church in necessary advance of Jacob’s trouble, not only individually, but corporately.

As things threaten almost daily to bring radical changes to the world as we’ve known it, it is only a matter of time till the dam breaks, not in the final form of the last 3 ½ years of “the final and unequaled tribulation,” as many falsely expect, but in the form of seismic changes that must precede and prepare for that time. This too will be costly, but it is this time that I believe God will be doing His great work of preparation in the church for the final thrust of witness and evangelism (Dan 11:32-33; 12:3), which, according to Rev 7:9, 14 will result in the greatest harvest of souls the world has ever seen. So the last witness of the tribulation church is guaranteed unprecedented success by the inerrant Word of prophecy. If our eye will be made utterly single in the pursuit of His glory, we will count it privilege to suffer for His sake, as a supreme gift of grace (Phil 1:29).

I am hoping for just a little time to probe this question together in our upcoming conference.

Yours in the Beloved, Reggie

The post The Servant that Will Speak to Jacob in His Distress appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

I’m proud and honoured to stand here today, as a Lebanese speaking for Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East . As someone who was raised in an Arabic country, I want to give you a glimpse into the heart of the Arabic world.

I was raised in Lebanon, where I was taught that the Jews were evil, Israel was the devil, and the only time we will have peace in the Middle East is when we kill all the Jews and drive them into the sea.

When the Moslems and Palestinians declared Jihad on the Christians in 1975, they started massacring the Christians, city after city. I ended up living in a bomb shelter underground from age 10 to 17, without electricity, eating grass to live, and crawling under sniper bullets to a spring to get water.

It was Israel who came to help the Christians in Lebanon. My mother was wounded by a Moslem’s shell, and was taken into an Israeli hospital for treatment. When we entered the emergency room, I was shocked at what I saw. There were hundreds of people wounded, Moslems, Palestinians, Christians, Lebanese, and Israeli soldiers lying on the floor. The doctors treated everyone according to their injury. They treated my mother before they treated the Israeli soldier lying next to her. They didn’t see religion, they didn’t see political affiliation, they saw people in need and they helped.

For the first time in my life I experienced a human quality that I know my culture would not have shown to their enemy. I experienced the values of the Israelis, who were able to love their enemy in their most trying moments. I spent 22 days at that hospital. Those days changed my life and the way I believe information, the way I listen to the radio or to television. I realized I was sold a fabricated lie by my government, about the Jews and Israel , that was so far from reality. I knew for fact that, if I was a Jew standing in an Arab hospital, I would be lynched and thrown over to the grounds, as shouts of joy of Allah Akbar, God is great, would echo through the hospital and the surrounding streets.

I became friends with the families of the Israeli wounded soldiers: one in particular Rina, her only child was wounded in his eyes.

One day I was visiting with her, and the Israeli army band came to play national songs to lift the spirits of the wounded soldiers. As they surrounded his bed playing a song about Jerusalem , Rina and I started crying. I felt out of place and started waking out of the room, and this mother holds my hand and pulls me back in without even looking at me. She holds me crying and says: “it is not your fault”. We just stood there crying, holding each other’s hands.

What a contrast between her, a mother looking at her deformed 19 year old only child, and still able to love me the enemy, and between a Moslem mother who sends her son to blow himself up to smithereens just to kill a few Jews or Christians.

The difference between the Arabic world and Israel is a difference in values and character. It’s barbarism verses civilization. It’s democracy verses dictatorship. It’s goodness verses evil.

Once upon a time, there was a special place in the lowest depths of hell for anyone who would intentionally murder a child. Now, the intentional murder of Israeli children is legitimized as Palestinian “armed struggle”.

However, once such behaviour is legitimized against Israel, it is legitimized every where in the world, constrained by nothing more than the subjective belief of people who would wrap themselves in dynamite and nails for the purpose of killing children in the name of god.

Because the Palestinians have been encouraged to believe that murdering innocent Israeli civilians is a legitimate tactic for advancing their cause, the whole world now suffers from a plague of terrorism, from Nairobi to New York, from Moscow to Madrid, from Bali to Beslan.

They blame suicide bombing on “desperation of occupation”. Let me tell you the truth. The first major terror bombing committed by Arabs against the Jewish state occurred ten weeks before Israel even became independent.

On Sunday morning, February 22, 1948, in anticipation of Israel’s independence, a triple truck bomb was detonated by Arab terrorists on Ben Yehuda Street, in what was then the Jewish section of Jerusalem. Fifty-four people were killed, and hundreds were wounded. Thus, it is obvious that Arab terrorism is caused not by the “desperation” of “occupation”, but by the very thought of a Jewish state.

So many times in history in the last 100 years, citizens have stood by and done nothing, allowing evil to prevail. As America stood up against and defeated communism, now it is time to stand up against the terror of religious bigotry and intolerance. It’s time to all stand up, and support and defend the state of Israel , which is the front line of the war against terrorism. )) is more addressed and adapted to the kind of relative moral ideals that are typically honored and at least verbally respected among the world of nations.
 
Theologically speaking, this has been called “common grace,” since one does not have to be a born again Christian to advocate such universally respected ethical standards as the celebrated ‘golden rule’. I believe she is correct that the policy (if not always the practice) of Israel is a quantum advance on the philosophy of Jihad, whether in its moderate or more radical forms. But due to the increasing flood of anti Zionist propaganda, particularly pervasive via the Internet, I would like to add some thoughts that occur to me concerning the more theological side of Israel’s dilemma, which is destined to become increasingly the world’s dilemma (Isa 34:8; Zech 12:2-3; Joel 3:1-2). 

God Himself has ordained that all nations will turn against Israel, not because Israel’s actions are any more reprehensible than any other nation that instinctively puts survival above the golden rule (or any other rule), but because of Israel’s privileged covenant status of eternal election and calling. This is why Israel will not be permitted to go the way of all other nations (Amos 3:2), regardless of how ‘relatively’ moral by comparison. This is all about a high calling.
 
Certainly, there have been tragic exceptions that no one would presume to justify. But given the unique kind of conditions confronting the nation since its modern repatriation, Israel has shown admirable restraint. And what shall we say of the manifest tokens of divine protection that we have witnessed when, against all odds, the fledgling nation has been spared time and again from the overwhelming forces of the united Arab world?

Such miraculous signs of providential protection have given rise to what scholars have called the “inviolability of Zion.” This is the doctrine believed by many in pre-exilic Israel which said that God would never permit the Holy City to pass into pagan hands. I have met many Christians in many countries who believe this doctrine today. But we must prepare ourselves; God has ordained that Israel will be forsaken of all her lovers; she will be tragically betrayed (Jer 30:14), and I for one believe this will seem out of all proportion to the ‘relative’ kind of morality common among nations.  
 
In any event, God has chosen to permit the eternally beloved nation (beloved with all the pathos and affection that a good father has towards his errant child) to be morally and politically “framed” far out of proportion to their actual crimes (from the relative human point of view).
 
Things are coming that will be tragic and pathetic beyond our ability to bear. Our hearts will break, as our faith will be tested to the core. “It will be a terror only to understand the report” (Isa 28:19). This was the prophet, Habakkuk’s, dilemma. He was perplexed at God’s choice to use a nation of far greater ferocity and wickedness to come down for the scourging of His covenant elect. 
 
The prophet knew keenly the nation’s covenant dereliction, but it was difficult for Habakkuk to find the equal weight of justice, not so much in the severity of judgment, but in God’s choice to use as the instrument of that judgment a nation that far exceeded Israel for cruelty and pagan defiance of covenant righteousness (see Isa 10:5). It was particularly God’s use of a nation far more wicked and fierce than the victim nation that constituted the offense to Habakkuk’s own human perceptions and relative measurements. We see not as He sees (Isa 55:8-9).

This is the mystery of God’s use of evil in behalf of His elect. We need to see that behind the ‘fierce countenance’ (Deut 28:50; Dan 8:23) of Satan’s hatred (in this case, the “ancient hatred” of Esau, which has found modern expression through the spirit of Islam; Ezek 35:5), it is ultimately God Himself that is opposing Israel by permitting their enemies to prevail against them. The Antichrist, as pre-typified in the King of Assyria is called the “rod” of God’s chastisement (Isa 10:5). It is God Himself who puts hooks into the jaws of the northern invader (Ezek 38:4). God employs the “evil thought” of a wicked principality (Ezek 38:10) as the very means by which He brings judgment and corrective discipline upon His people for their neglect of the covenant relationship. In Rev 17:16-17, there is a curious use of language that shows the absolute sovereignty of God in the employment of evil for His more ultimate purpose. The decision of the ten kings to support the Antichrist in His assault on the Harlot is something that God Himself has “put” in their hearts “to fulfill His will …”

Here is a paradox of supreme importance. These are the very nations allied with the Antichrist in his rage against ‘the holy covenant (Dan 11:28, 30), and yet this is a fulfillment of the will of God to bring judgment on the Harlot, a term that particularly symbolizes covenant infidelity. Although the ten kings will be judged at Armageddon with the Beast and the False Prophet, it is the Harlot who is first in judgment, because hers was the greater covenant calling, knowledge, and responsibility (1Pet 4:17). As stated in an earlier article, “It is a rule belonging to the very nature of covenant that the greater the knowledge and opportunity for blessing, the greater the severity of judgment when that privilege is slighted. God will then employ the bitter hatred of the enemy as His minister of judgment.”

We need to see this mystery, not only for Israel but for ourselves. When God’s elect are exposed through disobedience to “the yoke of a cruel one” (Jer 30:14), it is then they learn how easy His yoke is by comparison, and so flee back under the refuge of the covenant, which only the believer has in Christ.
 
To understand this hidden principle is to escape much that might otherwise offend and threaten the collapse of faith. We must know for Israel and for ourselves what Jesus understood when He said to Pilate: “You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above.” Where God’s true elect are concerned, this could as well be said of Satan as of Pilate (Ro 8:28). 
 
If a prophet of Habakkuk’s spiritual stature could be mystified and offended by God’s use of evil, what can be expected for the latent humanism that so deeply pervades most of Christendom when Israel will be betrayed not only by the nations, but once more by institutional Christendom as well? 
 
Therefore, we must not faint when our human sensibilities will be overwhelmed. The reason is clear: Just as God ‘got His man’ on the Damascus road, He will get His nation, regardless! He does not spare in His pursuit (Jacob’s trouble; Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1; Mt 24:21-22; compare also Deut 32:36 with Dan 12:7; also Gal 1:15-16 with Ps 102:13; 110:3). 

The church must come to understand what Israel will learn in the crucible of Jacob’s trouble, namely, He will not spare to bring all the way down just so that He might raise His afflicted all the way up to sit in heavenly places in Christ, to behold His beauty forever! It will be worth it all.
 
It is so important that we do not get caught up in endless comparisons of things that are at best relative. It is our prophetic calling to see beyond the veil to that glorious heart and wisdom that does not spare to sacrifice the thing that is momentary for a far greater weight of glory. We must see this for Israel and for ourselves. The judgment may seem by every human measurement and reckoning to be excessive, but the eye of faith knows it is not, and chooses to justify God rather than man. “Blessed be the name of the Lord!” “Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me” (Mt 11:6).  

Yours in the Beloved, Reggie Kelly

The post Seeing God in Israel’s Trouble… and Our Own appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

Brother Reggie,

I’m involved in a very good discussion with some Jewish Counter-Missionaries at the moment. We are essentially debating the relationship of Satan to God, in terms of whether Satan is a free-willed adversary to God, or whether Satan is merely executing God’s bidding. They make a good case from Hebrew scripture that it’s never more than the latter, and that the notion of a free-willed “enemy of God” comes only from Christian theology.

Any thoughts?

He is free-willed in his evil nature. In that sense, he is like any other angel. However, just as Jesus said to Pilate, “you could have no power at all against Me, except it were given you from above (Jn 19:11); the same could be said of Satan.

Like the Antichrist, Satan is God’s instrument of judgment and chastisement (Isa 10:5; 28:2) whose bounds are set by the sovereignty of God who makes wise and glorious use of Satan’s malice to fulfill His own predestined ends. Therefore, God’s elect can say of Satan what Joseph said to his brothers: “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Gen 50:20). It is a mystery, but Satan and the demons are not only instruments of redemptive chastisement to bring God’s elect back under the bond of the covenant, they are also agents of divine wrath upon the impenitent through the permission that they receive through the broken law of God.

So when we speak of Satan as a free agent, we must understand that he is free only within the orbit of his own fallen evil nature. It is the law of genesis that every seed brings forth ‘after its own kind’, and that is true of the nature and character of Satan. Therefore, Satan’s choices cannot transcend the predisposition of his evil nature. In that sense, he is not free, since he can only act according to a particular nature. He is NOT coerced, but his nature predicts the character of his actions. I believe the conversion of Satan’s evil designs into the service of God’s own ends in judgment and blessing subsists in His unlimited ability to perfectly anticipate and perfectly govern the outcome of any free action without violence to the will of the creature.

It is the age old question of God’s wise use of evil, yet this more than anything else provides the greatest demonstration of His unlimited power to accomplish His ultimate and highest purpose in glory. God’s ability to bring the greatest good out of the worst evil (Acts 2:23; Rev 13:8) is His glory. This ‘bright side of the dark picture’ is basis of hope in Isaiah, Habakkuk, Daniel, and all the prophets, since the gospel does not begin in the New Testament. That the glory of grace should be revealed against the backdrop of an undiminished severity of holy justice demonstrates something about the power and character of God that nothing else could ever do.

So yes, Satan is indeed ‘free’ in the sense that he is not coerced. However, in keeping with God’s over-ruling use of evil, Satan, like all created things, is perfectly “ruled over” in the sense of God’s sovereignty. As the wrath of man is made to praise Him (Ps 76:10), so too is the rage of Satan made to serve the plan of God. He is always made to hang on his own gallows and to fall into the snare that was prepared for the just (Prov 28:10; Est 7:10), as God has also prepared a snare for all pride, both human and demonic, in the prophetic mystery of Christ (compare Isa 8:14-15; 28:13 with 1Cor 2:7-8).

So, if I’m understanding correctly, your orthodox partners in dialogue may have the better of the argument here. I’m actually very surprised that they are willing to ascribe so much to the sovereignty of God, since they are usually far stronger on defending free will than most Christians. In fact, they are usually quite humanistic in their optimism concerning the sufficiency of human nature to choose the good and reject the evil.

Let us just say that due to his nature, Satan must do what he must do. But, due to God’s sovereign power, what Satan does is not only limited but turned into the service of His eternal purpose in Christ. That glorious end, so perfectly conceived in the Godhead before creation, would never have been possible apart from His pretemporal decision to permit His creatures the freedom to manifest another mystery, i.e., “the mystery of iniquity,” the full expression of which His coming now awaits (2Thes 2:3-4, 7-8).
Mon, May 24, 2010

The post Does God control Satan? appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

Question: In studying every scripture offered [in the previous post on Apostolic Evangelism] etc I’ve come across this portion that need be better explained.

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 chastisement that ends with Israel’s national repentance and resurrection.

Need be better explained (as many in the theological world will discredit what you and I do believe is sound) it’s this necessary contextual relationship to earlier events that gives ground to objections based on the larger context.

Hos 5:13-6:2 When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound, then Ephraim went to Assyria, and sent to the great king. But he is not able to cure you or heal your wound. For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear and go away; I will carry off, and no one shall rescue. I will return again to my place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face, and in their distress earnestly seek me. 6 “Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.

You’re right; the larger context of that passage reflects an imminent and near fulfillment that is blended and combined with the long range perspective that ends in the final redemption. It is a common characteristic of OT prophecy. This characteristic of prophecy is a contributing factor in making the gospel the mystery that it was to first century Israel.

If these things weren’t so well hidden from the academic world, the church’s conversation with Israel would not be nearly so difficult. Truly, God has ordained a mystery.

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

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

Of course, it can be well argued on other grounds that the Messiah is in view, but I point this out as only one example of many, that when it comes to reaching across centuries of cumulative antisemitism to show Jews the evidence from prophecy that Jesus is the Messiah, nothing comes easy, particularly if the anti-missionaries have prepared them against the Christian witness.

I have found it best to stick at first with the issue of the broken covenant and the age long exile that must continue “UNTIL” the final redemption, which significantly follows the predetermined time of unequaled severity called Jacob’s trouble (Jer 30:6-7 w/ Dan 12:1-2). It then becomes possible to more reasonably suggest that generations of covenant revolt might have resulted in an ultimate judgement, as God would present Himself in the person of His Son to be destroyed as an ultimate exposure of what is in man. To see this is to see. To this end, God hid His purpose in a foretold prophetic mystery, sufficient to give evidence, but calculated to remain hidden from the self secure pride of man.

Through a mystery designed to stumble pride, Israel would miss the time of their visitation, and then the wrath of the unfulfilled covenant would be poured out upon them to the uttermost (see 1Thes 2:16). The perennial resistance of the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:51) and rejection of the prophets would quite logically consummate in the rejection of God Himself in the person of His Son (Mt 21:37).

In other words, I reason back from Israel’s historical condition as explained first by the curses of threatened exile, which manifestly still continues, to the nation’s acknowledgement of its corporate condition, a condition that exposed itself in an ultimate provocation of wrath in the rejection of its national son as prefigured in Joseph. It is this consummate and all revealing act of ‘offense’ that crowns an entire history of covenant defection.

I also make great point of the fact that the promise is never fulfilled short of the salvation of ‘all’ Israel. A mere remnant can never fulfill the promise of a fulfilled covenant and abiding possession of the Land. In view of the Holocaust and a history of tragedy, this brings the ominous question, “what’s it gonna take?’ From there, I make the case for a final time of divine pleading called Jacob’s trouble. Anyway, you get the idea; it all adds up to Jesus as the rejected and returning Joseph. What the church can sew of this seed will have its working throughout the entire time of deepening crisis until the point of national revelation and regeneration, as in the case of Paul on the road to Damascus.

To hide from pride and reveal to babes (Mt 11:25), this was the purpose of the mystery to be kept in waiting “as a mystery”. It was divinely intended to be kept sealed (Isa 8:15-16; Mk 8:30; 9:9; 1Cor 2:7-8) until after Israel (essential ‘man’) had stumbled and its true heart condition and natural enmity exposed. In this way, the ultimate revelation of what is in man became the place of the ultimate revelation of the ground of all salvation, past and future. Talk about divine irony! Talk about turning what “you meant for evil” into glory!

It all comes back to God’s strategic use of mystery as an instrument to overthrow the pride of self sufficiency while at the same time demonstrating grace by “an impossible with man” revelation to “whom He will” on the basis of a grace that admits no mixture, so as to exclude natural advantage, and so that grace might appear mercy indeed to those that receive it “agains all odds.”

It is the picture that Israel needs to have sewn into their consciousness by the witness of believers who make the intellectual side of the argument believable by what they demonstrate in terms of a heavenly wisdom, “even the hidden wisdom that God ordained to our glory.’ However, and here’s the rub; this wisdom has its embodiment, not only in Jesus, but to some real measure in all the people of the Spirit.

It is the mystery of incarnation, as Christ is formed in us, not by outward conformity to the law, but by an inward transformation that comes by revelation, often at the end of righteous spiritual travail (Gal 4:19). This gives the world a people who are taught of God to put no confidence in the flesh (2Cor 1:9).

In short, the church can forget about the effectiveness of even its most well reasoned apologetical defense of the gospel to Jews until it demonstrates this reality in an undeniable love to one another (“By this …” Jn 13:5). That is the only real signal to the powers that they have lost their claims on the people of God (1Jn 3:14).

Obviously, the church that falls short of “this” demonstration is kidding itself about moving the Jew to jealousy. God is not so clumsy as to conclude the age on no other basis than that the church finally got its theological ducks all lined up (although our superficial theology is no doubt a partial reflection of our condition). No, God requires a demonstration before principalities and powers in the real stuff of life.

Until the church (true and living, of course) attains to this corporate demonstration, the age cannot end, regardless of how much time ticks off. The church is called to be the living demonstration that in Christ “God was manifest in the flesh.” Because the church, so far as it the church, is the living embodiment of the reality of a humanly impossible life and wisdom by the same mystery of incarnation of Word and Spirit (Col 1:27; Pet 1:23). But the ultimate test of this reality is not even martyrdom (as per Islam, etc.; 1Cor 13:3); it is the love of the brethren.

Even if perfectly true (1Cor 13:2), any doctrine or knowledge that does not translate into the inward formation of Christ, as the ‘corporate’ “Servant of the Lord” in true incarnation in the church, will not be entrusted with any heroic eschatalogical task towards Jews. It doesn’t work that way. That would be works. It is the thing we do most unconsciously and spontaneously that defines us (“when saw we thee?”)

God is jealous and guarded that the only church that will be entrusted to move Israel to jealousy in the time of Jacob’s trouble is the church that is just as instant to show the same mercy “to the least of these My brethren” in the gritty and undramatic here and now. I am quite certain that the term, “the least of these My brethren,” is not limited to the Jews in flight in the final tribulation (though it would contextually apply). It speaks no less of our fellow member of Christ’s body.

I am disturbed by how many that give themselves to conscious and deliberate end time preparation to hide the Jews are failing the test when it comes to the way we pass up the opportunity to treat with deference, patience, and kindness that that God may indeed know will be counted in the day of the judgment as, “the least of these my brethren.”

In His precious service, Reggie

The post “When saw we Thee?” appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

If “kept from the hour” is taken to mean physical removal, then this text alone is insufficient grounds to teach exemption from the last persecution. According to the post tribulational view of the rapture, the church is physically removed through the miracle of translation at Christ’s return to destroy the Antichrist (Mt 24:31 w/ 1Cor 15:52; 2Thes 2:1-3, 8 etc.). This is everywhere identified as the day of the Lord, or the day of God almighty.

I labor this point only to show that the post-tribulational view of the rapture can bear the physical removal interpretation of Rev 3:10 as well as the pre or mid-trib view, particularly since the final destruction that comes upon the wicked is said to come “in one hour.” Therefore, the phrase, “kept from the hour” in Rev 3:10 provides no sanctuary for pre-tribulationism.

The popular pre-tribulational concept that exemption from the wrath of God requires physical removal from the tribulation will not stand up under scriptural examination. The scriptures are clear that the measured judgments of the tribulation leading to the final strokes of divine wrath are directed most specifically upon the wicked (scriptures). Whereas saints are depicted as sealed and protected (scriptures).

Of course, the saints will suffer the wrath of man, as in all other ages. Doubtless many will also suffer from the privations (“hunger and thirst;” Rev 7:16) that will attend the distress of those days, but this is not the wrath of God. It is tribulation; and Christians have always been called to “enter the kingdom through much tribulation” (Acts 14:22).

The truth that believers are “not appointed to wrath” (1Thes 5:9) is somehow interpreted to mean that the church cannot be in the tribulation period. This would mean that the blood washed believers that are depicted as enduring the persecution of evil men during the tribulation are not to be counted as belonging to the church (according to the pre-tribulational view of the church as belonging only to the time between Pentecost and the rapture). But does this mean that believers that come to faith in the tribulation are “appointed to wrath?”

This is surely a view that is more the result of emotional wishful thinking than serious exegesis; since even pre-tribulationists allow that there are blood-bought believers who suffer persecution in the tribulation along with the elect Jews who have not yet come to faith in Jesus. Surely no one supposes that any of these have been “appointed to wrath.”

The only explanation for this kind of thinking has to be the presumption that those that miss the rapture have missed their opportunity to avoid the tribulation. Tribulation is interpreted as wrath and punishment for failure to respond to the gospel before the rapture happens. It gives the impression that those who “volunteer” to follow Christ now, enjoy special exemptions and privileges not accorded to tribulation believers. It is all too ‘meritorious’. Such an eschatology (view of the future) exposes a seriously flawed soteriology (doctrine of salvation). In fact, it reveals many things concerning our view of God and reality in general that is humanistic to the core. Reggie

The post Kept From The Hour appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

May I ask if there is room for a distinction of the Judgment of individuals and the judgement of nations – where nations are a corporate entity which will have to answer in defence to their response to their corporate destiny? – If true who will be responsible to answer for the corporate (National) Judgement – Those in power?.

Something else I have been pondering from time to time. When is a nation cursed to such an extent that it will be advisable for individuals to separate themselves from the national identity – if such a thing would be possible. – I always thought that the issue of a nation’s stance towards Israel might be the watershed issue on the issue of “the curse on a nation from God directly”, not that there are not many national curses, but I had a thought in the back of my mind that as soon as our nation goes against Israel it might be a good idea to find a another nation to live in?

Please bear with me, my questions might be very basic and not well informed. Your thoughts?
Kind regards, Hans

In scripture, particularly the OT, we see definite nations dealt with as nations. Many are described as having a distinct corporate personality. Scholars note the prominence in scripture of what is called, “corporate solidarity.” We see this also in the NT in the particular judgements threatened on some of the seven churches of Asia, which are each regarded as discrete corporate entities with their own unique personalities, gifting, strengths, weaknesses, and tendencies. Nations like churches have particular angels associated with them. There is a mystery of corporate solidarity that is intimated throughout scripture.

The book of the Revelation also speaks of the ‘glory’ of nations (Rev 21:24), suggesting that nations have a distinct character all their own, as do churches. This seems to suggest that the glories of their distinguishing attributes and excellencies are brought into the eternal city, as now regenerate and delivered of their former dominance by the principalities and powers that pervert true nationhood. That passage says, “the nations that are saved.” Does this mean that some whole nations are lost? Perhaps, but I think it is talking about the saved individuals that are out from those nations. Israel will be a completely saved nation because it will be purged of all that is not saved.

In considering judgment on nations and particular localities, we should remember the pattern we observe in scripture. However righteous and set apart, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel were required to taste the bitterness of exile along with the rest of the apostate nation. Therefore, though the end of an individual may be quite different in the ‘long run’, he or she may well be required to suffer in the judgements that descend on a nation whose iniquity has come to full. That is the pattern we see in Israel’s exile, and I can’t see where it would be too different in a world where the church is called to be a ‘diaspora’ people, scattered throughout the earth as a witness people. Why, even the church’s sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s table are suitably quite portable. We are a pilgrim people, in every place, and often on the move.

The church is called to be a light in a dark world. What part of the world does not lie in wickedness? Where does one go to hide their loved ones from the judgment that hovers over a cursed land? If we flee from certain levels of societal debauchery that seems to especially concentrated in some cities or nations more than others, we might well be fleeing to a worse place where God has marked a perhaps more hidden but just as hateful kind of pride.

Of course, there are examples of special revelation of the Spirit, such as Joseph’s dream, or Agabus’ warning of imminent famine in a specific region. There is the specific and prophetically knowable time to flee Judea in Mt 24:16 etc. We are indeed to ‘follow the cloud’ in our sojourn in this world. But except in such special instances of divine revelation and leading, it has usually been the experience of the remnant people of God to endure some measure of the suffering that judgment has brought on their nation or locality. There was no special immunity for even the most righteous in Israel, though sometimes miracles would happen, that was always the exception and not the rule according to Heb 11.

So unless specially directed, the church is not at liberty to flee off to the “safe spots” of the earth, even if it knows of such. It is usually our lot to abide in our localities in order to extend ourselves as ‘the servant of the Lord’ to our surroundings. I heard that Oswald Chambers died after giving up his bed to another during an epidemic. Dare we presume to assess the mind of the Lord whose way is perfect with each of His children (Ps 138:8; Ro 8:28).

Until we die or the Lord returns, we are to be Christians, just Christians, reflecting the Light that is in us to the dark world around us. As Paul said, “whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” This world is not our home; here we have no continual dwelling place. We are the people of the tent.

But it does matter greatly what nations do with Israel. Particularly when Israel in its awkward circumstance becomes even more of a scandal in the proud and condemning eyes of the nations, Israel will be a divinely ordained test of the heart. It is already a sign that judgment has progressed to a very advanced stage when a nation turns against ‘the Jew in the midst.’ As for this world, and all the nations in it, there’s not much any believer can do that’s more important than to continually pray, “thy kingdom come,” all the while knowing that the kingdom comes in clouds of suffering and judgment.

The old adage must have known something about the nature of apocalyptic when it said, “it’s always the darkest just before the dawn.” Many a time, when our dear Jewish counterparts were in terrific circumstances, they would think that Messiah must be near. Thus the famous phrase, “the footsteps of the Messiah.” If only more of them had known the Light of Israel who would have brightened even the worst circumstance by a liberating power that does not depend on the outward circumstance for its effectual working. Even when not outwardly vindicated, Christ’s salvation is a secret sealed in the believer’s heart that cannot be shaken, because it is not the believer but God that sustains it. Such faith, ‘the faith of God’s elect,’ is a gift of sovereign grace and mercy. It is a transcendent kind of knowing. John said, “He has given us an understanding.” It is hidden place that the believer knows with the Lord. “The righteous run in and are safe.” His Spirit is faithful to quicken us afresh in crisis, most especially and precisely when all other strength is gone. So the believer ‘should be’ one that knows that come what may, however great the darkness, “joy comes in the morning.”

“Come quickly Lord Jesus!”

But even before His final return at the end of the tribulation, we may take heart that He is free in His sovereignty to come in so many wonderful ways to those who look for Him in even the little things, since in joy or sorrow, in little or much, in life or in death, Jesus is Lord of all.

Further input on this important subject welcomed. Reggie

The post The Remnant Tasting the Bitterness of the Nations appeared first on Mystery of Israel.